Recreating this incredible PVC two-piece suit.

It’s the final project of the final year at university! Not going to lie, its been hard with COVID hitting right in the middle, and I’m not sure how prepared I feel for the end of this year, but I must push forward all the same!

This unit is a self-directed project of your choosing. It took me AGES to decide, as I felt paralyzed by choice. There was just TOO MANY things that I loved that I wanted to build. In the end though, I settled on this suit. Not only because I absolutely adore this suit, but also because I wanted to practise more menswear before being released onto the world.

I have lots of photos saved over on a Pinterest board, but here’s a good taster image. There is some good footage online too, showing just how shiny and glossy the suit is. I also had some fantastic help from a friend in Japan, who was able to send me the above images from the book “Hide Closet Collection”. I would try obtain the book myself, but it is long out of print and goes for over £200+ online at the time of writing.

They also gave me Hide’s stylist’s name, as well as how to write it in Japanese. I still found it quite difficult to find information on her, however I am going to keep searching!

First step for me was fabric samples. This has been proving much more difficult than I originally thought, as in some photos the suit is lime green, in some it looks yellow, and in others it looks like it glows under UV lighting. Below are the samples I’ve received so far. I went for many different shades of PVC, but also a couple of different fabrics; Ripstop, Flo-Yellow Work Suit, and some generic-looking polyester. They both looked very shiny online, so I thought I’d take a chance on them.

Here are the fabric swatches under some different lighting. The poly at the bottom of the stack is of no use, but it could make a nice lining. The ripstop above looks amazing under the lighting and has that glowing quality, but it’s not particularly shiny. It also is textured with lots of little squares. The flo-yellow looks pretty nice, but it is definitely yellow and has no shine. The two PVC swatches have beautiful shine and texture, however, there is no glow to them at all. I’m going to keep searching for more samples, but I may just have to settle for something that’s not quite the same. I have a big chat with my tutor on Tuesday, so hopefully, between us we can figure out the best route to go. Who knew trying to find the same fabric from 1997 would be so difficult huh!