Perhaps more so than any other art form, wearable art is the place where the decorative becomes most dissident. Costume amplifies the inherently expressive nature of the clothes we choose (or are forced) to wear; it is a powerful and accessible medium to tell stories about who we are, who we want to be, and the nature of our relationship to the society we live in.
… Issue Thirteen: Wearable Art
A blazer and a skirt flutter in the wind at Pett Level beach in Hastings. On it are pictures of a man and a woman, across time, sown into the fabric and glazed with glue. Words travel through the garment in embroidery and the pink tulle skirt reads: my own darling (image right). As an image, it presents a ghostly figure, embodied by the movement in the wind and the stories woven into the textile.
… Stitching over history, memory and collective joy – Stephanie Francis-Shanahan’s living sculptures
Ýrúrarí’s mostly knit-based practice see fragments of humour, body movements and the everyday meet in wool based, wearable objects.
… Monster Sweaters: in conversation with Ýrúrarí
The iconoclastic and ultra-provocative costumes of the avant-garde visual artist, electrifying poet, model performer, and dramatically titled Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874 – 1927) were Greenwich Village legend.
… ‘Like an Empress from Another Planet’: Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s couture d’ordures
BREAKING THE FALL
Breaking the Fall is a collaboration with my mother, Cherrie Beaney. It is an exploration of our practices of care, attending to how illness (in this case, epilepsy) impacts my mother, and how I, in turn am affected. Specifically, the concept of ‘control’ within care arose as a subject with affective resonances for each of us.
… Breaking the Fall, Emily Beaney
Artist and art historian Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie in conversation with artist Ben Caro.
… Ben Caro on performative masculinity, activating objects, and excavating history
Finding out more about New’s series Aliens of Manila (2014-), a multi-disciplinary work that explores the experience of immigration and cultural displacement through costume, performance and installation.
… Dressing the Aliens of Manila: Elisabetta Garletti in Conversation with Leeroy New
More gems on the theme of Wearable Art to read / listen / watch in the next few months….
… Recommended
The messages and images embroidered in these aprons are associated with the urgent need to make the high levels of gender-based violence visible and question and contest our society’s patriarchal structure and severe social inequalities.
… ‘La trato como reina [I treat her like a queen]’, Daniela Lara-Espinoza
Elevating everyday materials such as glass, brass and copper, Smith’s designs revelled in the handmade aspects of jewellery making as he hammered and soldered offcuts and shaped metal into new, biomorphic forms.
… Art Smith’s Modernist Jewellery
Draped closely over its wearer, Elsa Schiaparelli’s Tears Dress is the quintessence of couture. The bias-cut gown, now an off-white, was originally pale blue and clings to the body like a second, otherworldly, skin.
… Schiaparelli, Surrealism and the Society Woman
Although Scottish artist, designer and teacher Jessie M. King (1875-1949) is probably most celebrated for her delicate and often whimsical illustrative work, this short article will focus on her clothing designs and dissemination of knowledge via her how-to-publication How Cinderella went to the Ball (1924).
… Wrapped up in a fairy tale: Jessie M. King and the production of wearable designs
Personal essay centred on a piece by British textile artist Freddie Robins, called Craft Kills (2002) – a life-size self-portrait, knitted out of grey wool.
… Needle, Laura Grace Simpkins
Multidisciplinary artist Ceyda Oskay draws on textiles and clothing to explore notions of place and human relationships. Keying into traditions of ritual costume and performance, her wearable art work often explores the way garments mediate between us and the world, playing a central role in the rituals and embodied practices central to the human experience.
… Healing Garments, Ceyda Oskay
Anne von Freyburg recycles wearable materials to refashion 17th century Dutch paintings. Her mantra is “I paint with materials” and she deftly manipulates fabrics into images by embroidering onto canvas. Celebrating embellishment as a tool of self-expression, these ‘paintings’ use the visual cues of fashion to suggest art is more than just a decorative object.
