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Started by making these sketches for a line up. It's a typical technique for me - using a cut out body template which is laid over images, drawings, objects etc, but on this occasion there was more thought with the initial placement; the first outfit is determined by placing the tattooed face where a real face would be.
The rest of the pattern falls onto the shoulders and torso.
The next and subsequent outfits are enlargements of the face and it's placement moves around the wearer's body.
The idea is that as the image grows, so will the textile treatment.
For starters, a fine-line screen print, then other techniques exploring different qualities of line.
Modelling clay applique (although it looks very much like cake icing). Liked this technique a lot - worked the clay into 'snakes' and then manipulated it into the shapes. It was a lot like drawing but quite difficult to translate the original layout of the line exactly. So the 'hand' is quite evident in all of this, like it is in the original.
Appliqué - fabric cut up into strips, then torn in half, giving one cut edge, one torn edge to each. The process of stitching took 3 weeks, on and off.
A really enjoyable process, again like drawing with a 3D line. It was also nice that there was a definitive end point. The challenges and satisfaction came in controlling the line when turning a corner.
As well as a different treatment, the garments construction grew in complexity. The drawing itself dictated the shapes within each outfit, so the neck falling below the hips became pockets. The face also took on different forms as it was abstracted. Above a detail of the carved wooden mask/necklace.
Layers of towelling used as edging. Again, the shape of the outfit is determined by the drawing;this being the nose area translated as an open jacket piece with layered top underneath.
The final garment in the series needs a bit of revision, so will post it when I've had a re-think and a re-make.
This book is brilliant. Are Clothes Modern? An essay on contemporary apparel, published in 1947 has become a constant source of inspiration. Written by critic, architect and designer Bernard Rudofsky the name of the book was first used as the name of the exhibition he curated and designed at MoMA in 1944.
It feels very contemporary - the design, critique underlined in sarcastic tones, range of reference and links built between them ...Typical of the content is a study by the author of how a woman's body would have been shaped if it had literally fitted the clothes of four periods in fashion: bustled silhouette of 1875 forms a lady-centaur, the 'mono-bosom' of 1904, the vase-like figure of 1913 which would result in one leg under the tight-fitting skirt and the 1920's concave flapper.
In another study of what informs what and the absurdity of the adopted norm, Rudofsky says this:
"The ultimate triumph of contemporary clothing is the symmetrical shoe, our deepest regret is our inability to develop a symmetrical foot. With infinite patience we try all our lives to reshape our feet to an ideal established by shoe manufacturers in the form of the "last". If the human foot were shaped like the shoe designed for it today, it would have the big toe in the middle."
To get back on topic, the book also has this image of a sketch for a tattoo made by a native of Easter Island.
It's the starting point for my exhibition Drawn Thread Work at Detroit Stockholm as part of Modevandring.
Recently, I was invited by Fashionplay to take part in Stockholm's Modevandring 2010.
Translated as Fashion Walk, the event is a platform for "creators who work in the borderlands between fashion and art".
More images and explanation of work produced for it soon, but first a note about the context in which this event exists.
Fashionplay's agenda is to create and actively promote some kind of visible presence and seek critical discourse for fashion in Sweden. This was the main aim of the seminar Fashion Art New Roads, where I was invited as a guest speaker along with Helle Mardahl, Lars Holmberg and Ingrid Giertz Mårtenson.
Some really interesting discussion came out of the talks and as a newcomer to Stockholm, it gave me a good insight into how people feel about the limitations of labels, lack of knowledge or understanding in the press, the academic theory that's missing at education level and very little financial support or initiatives for practitioners who work in a much broader framework than within what is understood to be 'fashion' at this time. (The exhibition Swedish Fashion: Exploring a New Identity dealt with all of this too but I'll save that for another time).
