Upcycled

The collection of recycled shirts is a source of great pleasure to me. I enjoy designing around stains and holes but especially around my own mistakes. Because I did not study fashion in an academic framework, I have more space and freedom to fail, and it is often this element of surprise that generates the design. I respond intuitively to the limitations and unexpected outcomes of the medium as they naturally arise, adapting myself to the challenge.

By using collars and preserving the buttons and cuffs, I maintain the shirt’s original elements, which are primarily "masculine" and belong to the formal world of office work. Preserving this framework creates new creative constraints, within which I redesign the outer structure in the shape of the female body. I am particularly drawn to corsets because they remind me of gift wrapping. Every gift has a different shape, objects that have been carefully wrapped to conceal their contents, yet, because the wrapping is tight, it is never difficult to guess what lies inside. In gift wrapping, the folded corners and strips of tape become aesthetic elements in themselves. They remind me of the way I close my corsets a kind of delicate locking.

With upcycling you inherit both a garment and its history, enforcing both technical and conceptual limitations. Technical limitations because of the limited fabric at hand, that come with often times holes, stains or weirdly shaped pieces, and the conceptual limitations because of the garments I choose carry a symbolic value, associated with gender, age, period in time. This creates a conceptual challenge that forces me to innovate within what already exists.

Instead of continuing the kitsch I decide to expand it, disrupt it - keep some original elements while making the design my own. I take an object that was invented long ago, half beautiful and half ugly and emphasize its beautiful elements while allowing the ugliness to dictate the design. In doing so, I create a third entity, that carries an entirely new set of associations, subtly referencing the garment’s history in its small details while remaining distinctly new.