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A sfour, Donhauser, and Gil met in the '90s through what can only be de- scribed as serendipity. At age 15, Gil and her family moved from their home country of Israel to Germany. It was there that she met Donhauser, a girl with whom she had an instant and in- explicable connection. The pair became fast friends and, after finishing their schooling, moved to New York together. "We started styling as a team and we came out with a small line of clothing together before we met Gaby," Gil said. Asfour (Gaby) had recently moved to New York from the war- torn city of Beirut. Having witnessed an incredible amount of cultural and religious intolerance in Lebanon, he came to New York in search of peace and cultural coexistence. "We were always attracted to the idea of doing things that are impossible. For a Russian and a German, or a German and a Hebrew to work together, was an example of the impossible," Asfour said. This desire for cultural harmony would go on to become a theme that runs through all of threeASFOUR's work. "We are from different places that are of conflict, so naturally we are here to represent the opposite. We are the solution and the example of how things could be," Gil said. Today their designs reside in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée de la Mode et du Costume in Paris. The collective has collaborated with some major names, including Björk, Yoko Ono, and, most recently, Solange Knowles, who appeared on the cover of Bust Magazine declaring her "proud black feminist" status and wearing a threeASFOUR original. When asked about their impressive resume of collaborations, the members of threeASFOUR simply say, "We are lucky." It's no surprise that threeASFOUR's designs have been worn by some of the most unique artists of our time. They are, after all, the go-to designers for innovative and mind-expanding fashion. In 2016 the trio collaborated with Stratasys and Travis Fitch to design 3D-printed garments. What emerged, as a part of their Biomimicry collection, was two striking dresses—the Harmonograph and the Pangolin. The Harmonograph has three spirals that circle the body, following the geometry of a sound wave and creating the illusion of an actual harmonograph. The dress itself is made of a rubber mesh that can easily stretch and contract, giving the dress a lifelike motion as the wearer moves. The Pangolin, named after the only mammal on earth that is covered in scales, took 500 hours to make with 10 printers running simultaneously. The design uses a three-dimensional interlocking weave to achieve its scaly outer body. It appears VUE ON LIFESTYLE V U E N J . C O M 38

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