Flexible slate in the fashion industry – Sisa Holla and her “Balance” Collection

The '80 marks the beginning of a new direction in interior design: flexible slate. An innovative product that would dramatically change the perception on natural stone. If until then, stone was regarded as natural raw material, hard, yet not flexible, at that point, it destroyed any barriers, creating some new features, with the most important being its flexibility. Flexible slate becomes the ideal solution for curved, atypical surfaces.

Because it is an innovative material, applications for flexible slate are not limited to furniture parts or interior design, but also can be used in the fashion industry. It may seem incredible, but natural stone – flexible slate can be transformed into a dress, blouse, purse, shoes, etc. Now it begins a new era, in which natural stone is rediscovered.

Sisa (Silvia) Holla is a young fashion designer from Slovakia who used this resource in a unique way. Her collection bears a predermined name – Balance – and is a visual and sensory testimony of the majesty of flexible slate. Her garments expose the natural balance between beauty and stone and the connection between nature and fashion. Sisa Holla adopts an original vision of a sensitive and natural world, managing to convey emotion with her designs. Just like one, the beauty of women was replicated by stone sculpture and placed on a pedestal, now the woman is dress up, only this time her beauty is exhibited by natural stone.

Such a natural way of adapting flexible SKIN slate for her concept, but also on the clothing, demonstrates once again the versatility of natural stone and its authentic beauty that could not be replaced by any other textile material. The "Balance" collection of young Sisa Holla becomes a statement of a modern society, in a constant search for a new, innovative design.

A project, incidentally, very daring in which the young woman chose to work with the materials offered by nature and together with the technology developed by the German company Slate Lite, they managed to transfer flexible slate onto the fabric. To achieve such an incredible result, to transpose a raw material like natural stone into a piece of clothing, an ultra-thin material needed to be imagined.

Nanostone® is the thinnest sheet obtained from slate, with a thickness of 50-100 μ (microns), approximately 0.05 – 0.1 mm. Despite the fact that it is ultra-thin, the structure of the surface remains intact and continues to amaze by its unparalleled texture. A totally revolutionary product which opens up new horizons and new uses due to such unique features. Nanostone is like a canvas with the surface of natural stone, lightweight as a feather and very flexible, which can be used for vertical cladding, interiors and clothing items.

The technology developed over the years allowed the processing of stone blocks into thin sheets, then in authentic pieces of a special finesse. The result obtained is a symbiosis between a rustic, raw material and a modern design.

The direction in which this flexible slate is heading will certainly influence more and more industries. Each year, the trends will go towards raw materials, to be adapted with the help of technology, to our current needs. The world of nature is an intelligent world beyond the capacity of human understanding, yet its beauty speaks to us through every texture, color and shape.