Born in ice cold Russia and raised in steamy hot Tel Aviv, Robert Zlotnick is a self-taught designer, working now in Paris and Tel-Aviv. After learning from free experimentation and theoretical literature, Robert was spotted and mentored by Israeli industry leaders, such as former head of the Fashion Design Department at Shenkar College of Art and Design Tamara Yovel Jones, and fashion creator and curator, former head of the Fashion Department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Claudette Zorea.
Robert’s creative process is an ongoing research that traces the affinities between three aspects: consciousness, body and garment. He examines each of the three separately, as well as the reflection of each through the interconnections with the other aspects. This encounter between consciousness, the body and the garment, creates a three-part visual and sensory story: the appearance of the garment when it’s flattened on the hanger and when it is worn on the body. The story allows the garment to be what it is without a concrete definition, by blurring the definitions in its DNA. This flexibility allows one to experience the versatility of the garment and provides an opportunity for experimentation and self-expression for the one who wears it.
These abstract and material elements, which function as an aesthetic platform in the creative process of an intuitive, visual, theoretical and practical experiment, are placed on a “Petri dish”. Performing various manipulations, Robert tries to examine and to translate the findings into silhouettes, elements, details, atmosphere, and finally - the garment itself emerges from simplification and the pursuit of its essence.
Roberts aesthetics are influenced by art, philosophy, quantum science, spirituality, wabi-sabi, nature, ancient and modern architecture.
His inspiration comes from organic processes in nature such as mineral formations, birth and death, biodegradation, sacred geometry, alchemy, sound and vibrations, ancient civilizations, movement of the human body, human behaviour, dimensions, space and time.
His language contains a collection of silhouettes that merge with the body in different ways. Some of the items are oversized, some fitted, and others are combinations of the two, while emphasizing the shape of the body, and blurring it in some parts.
The amorphic and dynamic silhouettes combine with minimalistic and sculptural lines. This combination creates polar dimensions in each garment, such as symmetry and asymmetry, transparency and opacity, roughness and softness, exposure and concealment, freedom and imprisonment. The inverse quality maintains continual playfulness in the elements and proportions of the garment in terms of length, size and volume with fluid shapes and fabrics dictated by body movements, along with stiff and sculptural garments that dictate or conceal body movements.
