ALA (ALA TIANAN)™Streetwear concept, It’s the playful, critical experiment on clothes’ fabrication, cost, and function – inspired by the controversial issues of value and affordability in fashion. It was started by Tianan Ding who graduated from Royal College of Art during the pandemic.
“Revalue” stands for the de-capitalised fashion & taste, the mentality of reversing norms, and the no-waste ideology.
Most pieces are designed as the metaphor, and made from disposable materials, for examples: the kitchen towel & toilet paper & expired band-aid, laminated by bio-degradable material, finished and treated with the outdoor-wear waterproof techniques. The cheap, disposable materials, therefore, have been reborn with the leather looking and texture.
They embody ALA’s intention to dissolve value, to make nothing into something, or take nothing and make something of it. Through elevating the disposable materials' “value”, to rethink the value system—what’s affordable but cool? This isn’t the exclusive 500 pounds hoodie or T-shirt, streetwear is not for serving the elite, the privileged to “cosplay”. We start by looking back to “where we from”, and speaking from our own community and making voices for minorities.
”Streetwear is not the marketing tool of luxury fashion houses, and not the rich kids’ disposable fashion either.”