Exclusive: Meet the designer behind Lisa’s reptilian Coachella look

CNN
 — 

Wrapped in a large black puffer regardless of the blistering Californian solar, Blackpink member Lisa stepped out onto Coachella’s predominant stage on Friday for her first solo efficiency on the pageant. Inside minutes, the large coat was whisked away — revealing a reptilian bodysuit coated in head-to-toe scales. “She’s the reptilian villain,” stated the look’s designer, Asher Levine, in a video name from his studio in Los Angeles. “It’s very creature couture.”

Levine, who has created otherworldly stage-wear for Woman Gaga, Grace Jones, Doja Cat, Christina Aguilera and Grimes, received the decision to create each of Lisa’s technologically superior Coachella appears to be like lower than a month earlier than her efficiency date. “We’ve been going for a week and a half, day and night,” he informed CNN within the days main as much as the occasion. “I went to bed early last night for this interview.”

For her customized 3D reptile go well with, Levine first took a physique scan of the Okay-pop star to seize her exact measurements, which he then uploaded to a digital tailoring system which permits him to drape and alter textiles on Lisa’s digital avatar earlier than the outfit goes into manufacturing. Subsequent, he designed a novel geometric scale print utilizing AI, after which handed the two-dimensional textile design onto his studio’s sculpture division to handcraft every particular person scute — mimicking a lizard’s interlocking scales. The designer, who calls himself a “leather industry disruptor,” hopes to in the future create cruelty-free variations of leather-based items and unique skins similar to crocodiles and alligators.

“We don’t have to kill animals anymore,” he stated. “We can evolve beyond that.”

Even with assistance from digital instruments, the reptilian costume took meticulous work over a handful of days, with the smallest particulars, such because the translucent scales and horns that sat on Lisa’s shoulders, every taking between 50 and 60 hours to make.

For Lisa’s second efficiency look — an ethereal sheer catsuit full with glowing 3-D- printed blue and pink tendrils — Levine seemed to a different space of nature for inspiration.

“A lot of the references were bioluminescent insects (and) translucent fungi with illuminated veins running through the petals,” stated Levine. “People have been putting nature on themselves for thousands of years: flowers, animal prints. But now (I’m thinking) what’s exotic 2.0?”

For Levine, that strategy meant fusing prehistoric creatures with futuristic know-how — one thing he’s performed earlier than along with his Terrelli clutch bag, which was impressed by the 300-million-year-old extinct fish Dunkleosteus Terrelli.

“What I like to do with my designs is create chimeric organisms (and build) a new, evolved, exotic extension of this character,” he defined.

Every of the 20-something luminescent tendrils worn by Lisa featured a fiber optic mild that created an extra-terrestrial glow.

“We started experimenting with embedded illumination in 2011,” stated Levine, recalling a challenge a decade earlier with the Grammy-winning artist Will.i.am. “He was like, ‘Can you embed lights in clothes?’ And me being very enthusiastic said, ‘Yeah, let’s figure it out.’”

Since then, he’s hooked Gaga, Aguilera and Grimes as much as featherweight lights for quite a lot of reveals, and has perfected his use of versatile, glass-like supplies for built-in luminosity. For her Coachella efficiency, Lisa wore a sequence of clear petals throughout her chest that “looked like glass but bent like leather,” stated Levine, holding a petal as much as the digital camera and manipulating it along with his arms to display. “This is the future that Blade Runner predicted.”

One of many greatest challenges for Levine is producing a technologically superior outfit that enables high-octane artists to maneuver freely. In any case, these are usually not static appears to be like, similar to people who would possibly characteristic in {a magazine} editorial. “Building these pieces for a performance is literally like building for a sports athlete,” he defined.

Nevertheless, Levine acknowledges {that a} second-skin scaly bodysuit could solely attraction to particular entertainers, however to date, he’s discovered likeminded purchasers who search to push boundaries not solely with their work but additionally of their type.

“These are the kinds of people that I’ve been focused on evolving,” he continued. “That’s who my customer is. You’re the other, you’re avant-garde. Asher Levine isn’t for everyone.”