This week we spotlight fashion designer, producer, and architecture student, Devang Shah.  Devang recently launched his self-titled fashion line, built and designed a solar powered table with designer Mike Low (profiled in the New York Times) and has worked closely with Cassettes Won’t Listen’s Jason Drake and singer Thimali Kodikara on their music collaboration, Eka.

He’s currently attending Parsons School of Design where he’s finishing their Architecture Masters program. He recently worked on a house for the Solar Decathlon alongside a handful of other students and in conjunction with Parsons, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Habitat for Humanity DC.  The students designed and built a net-zero, affordable, and easy to construct single family home for the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington. It won first place in the affordability category.

www.empowerhouse-dc.org

We caught up with him while he focuses on finding a thesis location in Ahmedabad, Gujarat India.

What are you currently working on?
Some new unisex leather bags, new architectural designs, and a new apt in Brooklyn.

Tell us about your process from inspiration to execution.
It depends on the project, but with physical things I need to work with my hands.  So that means physical prototyping, feeling it with my fingers.  Thats the only way I can discover whats going to work. On a screen it is impossible to tell…. I jump back and forth between prototypes and programs constantly though.

With music, its like, “OK, I’m in a certain mood right now, I’m going to capture this,” and I go.
With both I don’t really have a conceived notion of what its going to sound or look like until I finish.   Its a live thing, so it changes as my thoughts evolve.
GLIDE WITH ME by DEVANG.

What have you been listening to lately?
Beach House & Kid Cudi.

If your work had a soundtrack what would it be?
Fellinni.  Classical.  Enya.  All the above.  Or I’d make the music…either way its something sparse, elegant, beautiful.

What do you want people to take away from your work when they see it?
I’m after beauty.  Luxury doesn’t mean anything any more – we all eat and wear clothes and watch the same videos.  So lets be beautiful again – actions, voice, mannerisms, design, music…

What does the future hold for you, where can we find you?
I basically live at the Parsons Architecture dept….but find me in my studio, making things, and in lots more stores in the next year hopefully.

Devangshah.net