FINAL PROJECT: RESEARCH: TOMASZ OSSOLIŃSKI

Tomasz Ossoliński

Tomasz Ossoliński

Tomasz Ossoliński is one of the most known and appreciated Polish fashion designers. 

He was born in 1977 in Katowice, Poland. From a young age, he knew what he wants to do in the future. His grandmother taught him how to sew and at the age of 6 or 7 he sewed his first trousers.

He specialises especially in men's fashion and suits. However, his career started from making a corset. Which he presented during the competition organised by "Burda" magazine. That day, he finally met Jerzy Antkowiak, the idol of the designer. 

At the age of 16, he presented his first collection. And at the age of 17, he won his first award - the Fahrenheit button (Guzik Fahrenheita). At the age of 18, he became the main designer of the Bytom clothing brand. He honed his tailoring skills there and discovered his passion - a suit. 

Olga Tokarczuk

In 2005, the designer founded the brand -Tomasz Ossoliński. Since then, he dressed many famous personalities. Several times he dressed Polish actors and directors for film festivals organized in Cannes, Berlin and Venice. He sewed costumes for the Oscar gala five times. He is also an author of costumes for over 30 theatre performances, films and operas. 

An example is that in 2019 he made an outfit for the Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, who appeared in it at the royal banquet at the Stockholm Palace.

Ossoliński's talent was appreciated by, among others "Twój Styl" magazine, awarding him the best designer of the year 2019, and earlier the same title was awarded by "Elle".

Tomasz Ossoliński also appeared in other fields - he was the curator and producer of the famous exhibition "Jerzy Antkowiak - Polish Fashion" at the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź. He has twice hosted television programs: "Project Runway" and "Stylowy Projekt" on TVN. He also designed the interior of one of the Skoda Superb cars.

For the 20th anniversary of the designer's work, a film was made, or rather a document, “Tomasz Ossoliński. Before The Show ”. It was the first Polish film about a Polish designer.

An interesting fact about Ossoliński is that corsets are his trademark, but where did they come from? - From poverty. Creating his first collection, he did not have a lot of money. So, he came up with something that did not require large financial outlays. He modelled himself on the engravings of old corsets and consulted a doctor so that his clothes would not hurt women. 

What I like the most about Ossoliński is how he waded to his goal. Moreover, when I was thinking about my studies a few years ago, I met with his words: 

“If someone is still young and wants to study in different schools, I have always repeated and keep repeating - leave Poland. Go to one of the good design schools in New York, London or Milan (there are many of these schools) and learn the workshop there." (Ossoliński, n.d.)

These were the words that additionally motivated me to move abroad and follow my dreams.

I researched Ossoliński because of his story with corsets. They became his signature and I want to take an example from him and also face the corset in this design. I think corsets are really time-consuming and demand a lot of preciseness. I want to test my possibilities and see if I will achieve the result that I want.

Reference:

Łukasz (2020) Tomasz Ossoliński. [Online] Zyciorysy.info. Available from: https://zyciorysy.info/tomasz-ossolinski/ [Accessed 04/20/21].

Ossoliński (n.d.) Tomasz Ossoliński. [Online] Ossolinski.com. Available from: https://ossolinski.com/about/ [Accessed 04/20/21].

RedPor (2001) Wyborcza.pl. [Online] Wyborcza.pl. Available from: https://katowice.wyborcza.pl/katowice/1,35055,620532.html?disableRedirects=true [Accessed 04/20/21].