SEALSON S-PLORATION SERIES -
Discovering hidden sceneries of Formosa.
PILOT: THE DUNES OF DING-TOU-É SANDBAR
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Reminiscent of the endlessly-stretching deserts on the planet on Arrakis, home to the desert-dwelling Fremen people in Frank Herbert’s Sci-fi novel epic Dune, it is rather astonishing to locate the desert-like Ding-Tou-é Sandbar on the subtropical island of Taiwan. Sitting on the westernmost front of Formosa, the Ding-Tou-é Sandbar is another fine collection to Taiwan’s rich variety of geological landscapes.
On a 3-hour drive away from our HQ in Taipei, we traveled south to Tainan to photograph this piloting Sealson S-ploration Series. Our Team was left in awe for the sight that had welcomed us: ever-stretching and shifting sand dunes perfectly resembling scenes from Denis Villeneuve’s latest movie iteration of the aforementioned book.
“Woah” was the first word our photographer John Kao (@kao1212_) uttered when he laid eyes on the view. Albeit incomparable to the malignant vastness of the Saharas on Arrakis, the sandbar was still a designated spectacle seeing that such geological formation poses a mind-boggling contrast to the fact that (sub)tropical wetlands and lagoons are barely miles away.
Taijiang National Park embeds a crucial part of Taiwanese history: the bay where General Koxinga marched and landed his fleet towards the eventual victory over the Dutch in 1662 is in fact the buzziest areas of Tainan City today, which is dozens of kilometers away from the current coastline.
This means that most of Taijiang National Park’s 5000 hectares were inexistent in the current location back when the Dutch were still governing Taiwan Fu (Taiwan’s political & economical centre in the 17th Century), and was formed little by little over 400 years with the help of rivers carrying sand and pebbles along their streams, eventually settling down on the expanding the coastline and growing into what we see today as the dunes of Ding-Tou-é Sandbar and the many lagoons and swamps of Taijiang national reserve.
Dressed up with capes, high fashion pieces and performance wear from Veilance, Prototyp Formula, Gyakusou, Rick Owens and Balenciaga, we tried to capture the silhouette of still suits used by the Fremen in Dune to enhance our focus on the technicality and style blend of Sealson’s SC22 backpack, a hybrid-use bag with sleek urban contours and outdoor utility essentials.
Unsurprisingly, we were exhausted to have our shoes & socks full of sand (so were our living room & bathing quarters) on our way home, but on a personal note, it was perfectly worthwhile to visit the Great Sahara of Formosa.
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Check out below for more editorial shots.
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