Profile: Gidi Littman – Real Leather Design Competitions

Gidi Littman

Shenkar College of Engineering, Design and Art

My name is Gidi Littman, and I am a third-year fashion design student at Shenkar College. I was born and raised on a kibbutz in northern Israel, surrounded by vast nature, agriculture, and community life: elements that continue to shape who I am today as both a designer and a person. Nature holds a central place in my work, where it appears in various forms and representations, from plants and animals to aesthetic principles and design inspirations. Fashion and clothing have accompanied me since childhood, and they are also reflected in my design practice as both a childhood memory and a future aspiration. I focus on menswear that moves along the line between conservatism and tradition, and individualism and self-expression. My design work emphasizes natural materials such as leather, wool, and cotton, stemming from my love for natural materials and for the qualities and meanings they embody. Through the combination of inspiration, material, and color, I explore questions of masculinity, aesthetics, and nature.

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Riders

Category: Apparel

Competitions: International

My project focuses on the sport of polo. Polo is a team sport played on horseback, in which a small ball is driven through the opposing team’s goal. At its core, the game is athletic, yet it also embodies a complex aesthetic and serves as a broad source of visual inspiration. Beyond the rules of the game, there are clear codes and conventions regarding the appearance of the players, their uniforms, and the various visual aspects of the sport. Due to the history of polo and the way it entered Western culture, along with the meanings embedded in the practice of the sport and its distinct visual characteristics, the game has become a status symbol associated with class and masculinity. The aesthetics of polo, together with its social and cultural connotations, resonated with me both as a person and as a designer. They served as a starting point for designing new systems of dress that contain tensions related to status, masculinity, sport, and leisure, while focusing on the visual elements of the polo rider. The project draws inspiration from the world of polo, and specifically from the image of the polo rider: traditional uniforms, the horse, riding equipment, and the playing environment. Through manipulations of material, cuts, colors, and the fusion of inspirations, polo is translated into a new collection that offers a fresh interpretation. Riding trousers become cut-out shorts, the green field becomes the focal point of the look, and the stripes on the shirt are transformed into a planned quilt. Leather allows for the creation of a look that moves between rigid and soft, between leisure and sport, and between traditional masculinity and a new form of masculinity.