Pleun van Dijk - FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017

Pleun van Dijk is a young multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Rotterdam. She graduated from The Design Academy Eindhoven and The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. By observing and analyzing moments of transition within society she tries to create new thoughts and show a different perspective on a topic. By taking new ideas out of the abstract and giving shape to a possible outcome she wants to give the viewer the possibility to anticipate on the new developments before they sneak up on us.

Pleun doesn't call her work „fashion” in the traditional meaning of the word. Most of her work is about the relations between human body and fashion in the sense of sculpting our body in itself.
Her biggest personal achievement so far has been her graduation project called “Reborn” and the follow up project “Transcience”. Exhibition wise she would say the Graduation show during the Dutch Design week, the For Play exhibition at MU and recently the DAE #tvclerici expo during Salone del Mobile in Milano  were the highlights of her career. At the moment she’s working on some freelance jobs and she is busy finishing her Artist in Residency at Springhouse (Amsterdam), where she started a new research on the future of human procreation. One of the most inspiring and challenging projects Pleun recently did is helping her brother/filmmaker Bram van Dijk with the production of his graduation movie which will be released this summer.
Pleun's biggest struggle as a young designer/artist is to find ways to produce new work. After graduation she realized how hard it is to find the time and focus to dive into a new topic, do a proper research and transform this into a new project. The reality of having a side job and working as a freelancer gives her often the feeling of loosing time and running around between all different projects.
The thing she loves most about her profession, if she had to choose only one thing, would be having the opportunity to give the viewer a new perspective on a certain topic, and make them speculate about certain things by triggering their imagination on possible future scenarios.

SENSES AND FASHION - INSPIRATION

“Fashion is about bodies; it is produced, promoted and worn by bodies. It is the body that fashion speaks to and it is the body that must be addressed in almost all social encounters”  (Entwistle, 2000).

·         “With aging, sensations may be reduced or changed. These changes can occur because of decreased blood flow to the nerve endings or to the spinal cord or brain. The spinal cord transmits nerve signals and the brain interprets these signals.” Pen State Hershey

 “Sensation is fundamental to our experience of the world. Shaped by culture, gender, and class, the senses mediate between mind and the body, idea and object, self and environment.” - The Senses and Society

         "Fashion in the context of art makes sense as an evolving form which offers ongoing exploration in understanding the self and in helping me to create connections with others through shared experience." – Jo Cope

        "The senses are one of the things that make us more sensitive as human beings, connecting us to experiences in an intimate way. The sense of the self and the relationship and development of the inner being and how that might be projected outwardly is explored in some of my work." – Jo Cope

        "Does fashion make sense if the quality of the products is low, the labor conditions are poor and it harms the environment terribly? The psychology behind fashion has become less about quality or durability and more about being fast, cheap and easy to replace." – SHI[R]T.

·         "It is inevitable to think of the human body, in any aspect of fashion, without the relation to the senses. They are meant to be provoked, teased and challenged to a game that will result in pure pleasure." – LUDUS

·         "Clothing is in a close relation to the human body because of its tangibility. Body feels the fabric and decides whether it will accept it or not. When they match, they become one. Clothing and fabrics shape the body reacting differently on each person. Clothing serves the body's appearance and also helps a person to express themselves." – NIKA TOM

·       “Clothing, as an extension of the skin, can be seen both as a heat-control mechanism and a means of defining the self socially.” - Marshall McLuhan

Sensewear - FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017

Sensewear is an Italian designer duo consisting of Ema and Ivan, both graduates of Polythecnic in Milan . Ema is specialized in furniture and textiles design, but worked in several fields as a trend researcher, strategist, interior designer, and educator. Her expertise encouraged further exploration at the intersection between product design and fashion and gave birth to the sensewear project. Ivan is an industrial designer with a multifaceted experience in product, interior design, furniture, branding, interaction, generative design, and digital fabrication. He is an expert in modular structures and patterns that are used to generate innovative open source products and enhance material performances. We first met in China, where we used to work for the same firm and we have been together in work and life since then. Almost ten years ago we landed in the Arab Emirates where in 2012 we founded Caravan, a design collective with a multidisciplinary approach, whose members share common interests in cultural, material and social aspects of a globalized community, trying to re-establish a balance among being, having and doing. Blending digital-fabrication and artisanal expertise Caravan’s projects aim at creating awareness of heritage to face contemporary challenges. Each work is infused with pragmatic materialism smoothed by subtle metaphors, inspiring its audience reaction alongside empathic participation. Their approach is characterised by strong multidisciplinary and crossbreed process that connects diverse industries towards new unexpected opportunities. Ema and Ivan currently teach design at Ajman University, one of the oldest higher education institution in the United Arabs Emirates.

Sensewear will present their work during the FASHION MAKES SENSE LAB, on June 30 – July 2 at SAM-decorfabriek (free entrance).

Where are you from? Where are you based at this moment?

We are both Italians coming from Lombardy, the region that makes our country worldwide renowned for its vibrant design philosophy and high end industrial manufacturing; although not the typical idyllic postcard of rural golden wheat hills you are used to. We have been based in the United Arab Emirates for 9 years now.

When did you realise you wanted to work in a field of (fashion) design?

In our work we are quite experimental, we try not to get trapped into compartmental definitions, working on the edge of several disciplines. The only constant in our work is the narrative we based our collective on. Caravan is a trip across diverse cultures and media, where the process takes control over the outcome. Whenever we start a project, we don’t know what is going to be in the end, with sensewear it happened to be the same, our objective was to involve sensory therapies in people’s daily activities and a garment collection came up as the most natural solution among several other possibilities. We embraced the challenge with enthusiasm and even though we are not fashion designers, we share the same tools and methodology. We teamed up with professionals working under our direction and in the end we are quite satisfied by the results of the collection and now we are pushing it through an injection of technology to make it responsive.

What are so far your main achievements in your career?

Our collection won several prizes: the Lexus Design Award 2015, the Wearable Technologies Competition at the Venice Design Week 2016, the AXAPPP Health Tech Future Award. We exhibited in Milan, Tokyo, Moscow, Dubai, London and now we are going to be in the Netherland. It’s a great satisfaction although we are aware that there is still a long way to go!

 In what projects are you involved at this moment?

We are mainly working in developing and promoting the sensewear, wearables are becoming the next big thing, but we are also on some collaborative projects with experimental theater performers and we are active in social design, working with disadvantaged communities, a quite mature thematic in Europe, but still underestimated territory of exploration in the Middle East.

What are your biggest struggles as a young designer/artist?

Ehm…young? Trying to escape conventional labels that constrain your work into boundaries of a tiny specific field sometimes makes people diffident about how much focused you are, even because we also renounced to a recognizable signature style it is difficult to grow an organic audience. Still we believe the worst struggle is to find financial support for experimental non for profit projects.

What do you love the most about your profession?

Our profession is our passion and our life. We strongly believe underestimated design’s potential could make a big change in everyone life rather than being just a luxurious patina on the top of ordinary products. Design give us the possibility to satisfy our curiosity, to explore everyday new environments, new techniques, new materials, new media, new places and new people that in the end are the real objective of our projects.

 

How would you define fashion?

Fashion is the real foundation of popular culture since it is the most immediate way to communicate and express yourself. In some regions homologation makes it a standardized status statement that sometime becomes vulgar exhibitionism, expression of wealth without culture. Luckily the fashion system as we know it, basing its success on such extravagances, started to show its limits and other more grounded experiences are becoming sensibly prominent on scene, Fashion Clash is one of them.

What fascinates/inspires you and why?

People, nature, math and chemistry, all the biggest contradiction in life are really a great source of inspiration that help us understanding the complexity we are living in. Dubai and the Emirates are full of such contradictions, the tallest buildings in the worlds are towering on narrow traditional alleys were deliveries comes on hand pushed carts; sometimes you might start your trip on a 7 lanes motorway that narrows down to an unpaved rural road with cows and camels crossing your way; sometimes you could feel being in a Swiss financial district and in a matter of minutes you could find yourself transported in Calcutta.

 

Finding your own distinctive voice can be difficult, where and how do you find your personal creativity (before you start designing/during the design process)?

Design as a drawing activity is the last resource, narration, discussion, storytelling, scouting, researching, documenting. Empathy, when you establish that contact than you know you have the right motivation to do a great job.

What challenges did you face during the design process?

People they don’t want to embrace challenge sometimes and they talk to designer with already something in their mind; they just need someone to visualize it. To makes them confident and reassure about your competence it is important to get out of any misunderstanding.

What do you want to communicate with your work in general?

Design is for all! …and fashion too!

Can you tell us something about the project you will present at the FASHIONCLASH Festival?

Sensewear is a collection of clothes and accessories that emphasize the use of senses. Their primary purpose is to stimulate and improve awareness of our senses, while training us to better use them all. Some Sensewear items are designed to mute physical sensations, some to sharpen them. The collection is inspired by therapies applied to Sensory Processing Disorders and developed with the technical support of therapists assisting people affected with autism. Anxiety, stress, panic attack are most typical autism’s symptoms but more and more people suffers them, therefore the collection is not addressed only to people with disabilities but it is aiming at enhancing everyone hectic urban life. The aim of the project is to design an inclusive collection that could be attractive and wearable by anyone and does not stigmatize a person affected by a disorder. 

Why have you decided to participate at FASHIONCLASH Festival? 

Because our design will definitely seem out of place at any conventional fashion show, as much as at a regular healthcare business fair. Since contamination, not to be confused with weirdness, is our playground we found ourselves perfectly in line with FASHIONCLASH mission.

FASHIONCLASH is already working on future themes. What are the topics you find interesting?

Inclusive design, design for all, wearables, contamination among fashion and furniture, multipurpose, habitable garments, transformable, magnetic, performing costumes, cross cultures, cross-religions, emergency, hi-tech nomadism.

What are your thoughts regarding ‘religion and fashion’?

Very interesting question! We are living in Dubai, a place where 200 nationalities are co-existing, and among them a lot of different religions! I believe fashion has no boundaries even though, sometimes fashion and religion can really challenge each other.

             Does fashion makes sense to you?  

Recently fashion in general is a big mess and I’m looking for some sense in the product I buy and design. Unfortunately fashion is one of the most polluted industries and I hope new generations can make a difference!

What are your thoughts on making ‘fashion’ more environmentally-friendly?

Ah! That’s what I’ve meant! It’s a real emergency!

What are your thoughts on the senses in relation to the human body?

Well sensewear express fully this answer!

Do you think that fashion can contribute to a better world / better well-being, and what do you do to make a difference?

We design products that can improve people’s life.

What senses are engaged in your creation process?

We try to include all of them, but I believe the most important is touch.

How does technology change your creation process?

Technology is a very important source of inspiration. Ideas can come from technological innovations, new production teschnologies, new materials. We like to be experimental and we usually try to link new technologies to old craft.

 What’s a standard day for you?

Up by 7, breakfast, late to Viola’s school by 8 (Viola is our daughter), late to work by 9, late lunch by 2, we are constantly living on an average 15 minute late, will catch up on Sunday! Insha’allah!

Vegan, vegetarian, healthy diet or any food will do?

We tried gluten, diary, eggs free, but what a sacrifice and what to do with our last compulsive grocery?

What’s your favourite song at the moment?

OK GO – the one moment. The video clip is amazing as all their previous ones. (ivan)

Best Tv-show/movie at the moment?

Black Mirror

What is your bad habit?

Ivan smokes! Ema hates the smell of cigarettes!

Are you a people's person or a loner?

We love to have guests and cook for them.

Do you have a pet?

Better not to, since we are living in the desert. We enjoy camels in our backyard!

Your favourite quote?

Imagination is more important than knowledge – Albert Einstein

What’s your favourite city?

Every time we visit a new one we fall in love with it…this summer we’ll find our next crash

What/Who do you miss the most when you are not at home?

Food!

If you could move anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

I’m not lying if I say The Netherlands!! I feel it’s a good place to live. Amsterdam gives me the idea that it is a human scale city where you can live well either single or as a family

What do you enjoy the most in life?

Exploring the culinary landscape of every country and how it relates to culture and language

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Chocolate!

Who is your biggest example/idol?

Yves Behar, Victor Papanek, Buckminster Fuller, Madonna, Dolce & Gabbana.

Favourite magazine?

Frame, Monocle… Unfortunately, we lack independent magazines in UAE.

Your favourite hashtags #?

#

You favorite social media app?

Instagram, zomato

Instagram account you think deserves more attention?

Jahnk0y very inspiring work!

                   Find more about Ema and Ivan's work here: sensewear

Fashion Talks at FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017

sensewear
photo Eddy Adlan

Fashion Talks at FASHIONCLASH Festival 
Sunday 2nd of July, at SAM-decorfabriek 
Meerssenerweg 215, free entrance 

(Does) Fashion Makes Sense? 
Come and join the dialogue on July 2. 

Through ‘Fashion Makes Sense’ FASHIONCLASH this year focuses on senses and making sense in relation to fashion. Focused around these two topics the Fashion Talks provide an interactive dialogue with the designers, the audience and the fashion industry.

Moderated by Saskia van Stein, artistic director at Bureau Europa, a stage will be given to a several festival participants and professionals to engage in a discussion about the topic. In addition, this is an opportunity to get to know the designers and discover their vision on the future of fashion.
A space will be given to a few designers to talk about the two subjects and make personal contact with other designers, the audience and the fashion industry.

Files Motwary at the Fashion Talk at FCF 2016

So, Does Fashion Make Sense?

We live in a rapidly changing world where progress is accompanied by environmental pollution and ethical issues. The fashion world is a mighty billion industry, and like no other is able to create an illusion and seduce us humans and excite our senses. Today's fashion industry is a reflection of society with a strong focus on aesthetics. Our society approaches fashion as a purely visual phenomenon and doesn’t always see the nature of the interaction with the body (of the wearer), despite the fact that fashion is the most intimate form of art, as it is literally worn “on the body”! As a second skin, clothing also enables us to express ourselves and helps us make sense of the world.

The Fashion Talks are part of the Fashion Makes Sense LAB Sunday program at the SAM-decorfabriek during FASHIONCLASH Festival.

PROGRAM
13:15 – 14:15 Fashion & Senses
- Lecture performance: Olle Lundin x Floriane Misslin
- Talk panel: Sensewear (Emanuela Corti & Ivan Parati), Sepideh Ahadi and Carolyn Mair (Course leader for MA Psychology for Fashion Professionals and MSc Applied Psychology in the Fashion Business School at LCF).

14:30 – 15:30 (Does) Fashion Make Sense? 
- Talk panel: SHI[R]T (Eva Wagensveld & Jeffrey Heiligers) Lucia Chain (CHAIN) and Roosmarie Ruigrok (Clean & Unique).

MEET THE SPEAKERS

Floriane Misslin is a native French creative researcher born in 1992. Her central focus is on portraying non-binary identities in the mainstream media. She followed an education in applied arts near Strasbourg and moved to Paris shortly after, to learn more about fashion design. Feeling too limited by the educational system she left the school in Paris, and moved to Eindhoven to attend the design academy. The wide approach to design brought her back to a more theoretical and critical perspective. She is currently developing her project ‘Uni-Sex’ and works as a freelancer on the side.

Sensewear is a collection of clothes and accessories that emphasize the use of senses. Sensewear consists of two designers, Emanuela Corti and Ivan Parati. Their primary purpose is to stimulate and improve awareness of our senses, while training us to better use them all. Some Sensewear items are designed to mute physical sensations, some to sharpen them. The collection is inspired by therapies applied to Sensory Processing Disorders and developed with the technical support of therapists assisting people affected with autism. Anxiety, stress, panic attack are most typical autism’s symptoms but more and more people suffers them, therefore the collection is not addressed only to people with disabilities but it is aiming at enhancing everyone busy urban life.

menswear, photo Eddy Adlan

All garments are produced using 3d knitted fabrics Gaetano Rossini and Alcantara. Textile sensors and actuators are produced and developed by Comftech our technical partner. Sensewear has won three health and design related award (Lexus Design Award 2015, Wearable Technology at Venice Design Week 2016, AXAPPP Health Tech & You Future Award 2017).

Sepideh Ahadi, as a multicultural brand, is bridging the gap between her pure Middle Eastern background and European life experience. In her work Sepideh embraces the simplicity of the traditional techniques used in Iran, her home place with the elegance found in Italy where she finished her M.A in fashion design and the practical aesthetic of German lifestyle, where she lives and work now. The brand is dedicated to slow fashion and sustainable practices, in that the designer creates her collections through a considered and experimental process.







The collections mostly reflect social issues in the modern lifestyle where the designer challenges herself to find an artistic way to contribute to making a difference. As a designer, Sepideh feels the responsibility to invite her audience to think about fashion in a different and more interactive way through her designs.

Carolyn Mair is a Chartered Psychologist and Chartered Scientist with a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. She developed the MA Psychology for Fashion Professionals and MSc Applied Psychology in Fashion at LCF. In the beginning of her career, Carlyn was a graphic designer and visual merchandiser, she worked for department stores, where she designed and installed store window displays, in-store installations and advertising materials. She was interested in fashion, this led to her designing clothes for herself and friends.

SHI[R]T is an online platform/webshop for designers that offer fair or sustainable products. Not the dull goatysocks kind we all know. But one supporting [young] designers with their own vision. No mass production but small and local production. As a brand being transparent is key, know what you buy. The two people behind this brand are Dutch designers Jeffrey Heiligers and Eva Wagensveld. The psychology behind fashion has become less about quality or durabilty and more about being fast, cheap and easy to replace. Does fashion make sense if the quality of the products is high, labour conditions are good and the environmental impact is minimal? In other words: Do you want to buy a shit-shirt, or rather invest in something fair?

CHAIN is an emerging fashion label based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Their work has been shown several times at Buenos Aires Fashion Week, Fashion Edition Buenos Aires and International Fashion Showcase – London Fashion week. Committed to the environment, the designs are made by hand with eco, and sustainable fabrics, all natural plant based fibers and uncycled plant based dyes. Zero waste patterns, a-gender fits and sustainable production are important methods of their work and make the clothing to test time.

By extracting postures and re-contextualizing them Olle Lundin hopes to denaturalize the body-language of high fashion. By doing this he has the intention to show the norms, ideals and invisible expectations that are inherent in the visual language discourse of high fashion advertising today!

photo Ayaan Haanewald

Starting as a textile buyer, Roosmarie Ruigrok discovered her passion in fair supply chains. After selling her own company, Promax Corporate Fashion, she worked at Amnesty International, Fair Wear Foundation and as CSR consultance at Elsewear Foundation, known by “Green is the new black and as International cotton manager for Fairtrade. In 2007 Roosmarie founded Clean & Unique. A foundation that help brands and starters in fashion to learn more about sustainability. Today Clean & Unique transformed into an agent for change to create more knowledge and awareness about sustainability in fashion, workwear & textiles by giving advises, training, workshops, inspiration sessions and organizing events. Roosmarie is an International speaker for 15 years and spoke during Premier Vision Paris, Mare di Moda in Cannes but also in Berlin, Rome, London and in the Netherlands. Last March Clean&Unique celebrated it’s 10th anniversary.

NOUS AVONS - FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017

NOUS AVONS is a platform for highly creative Dutch emerging designers and established brands in fashion and accessories. The collective was founded in 2016 by Fenny Faber, Heidi Long, Manon Boertien and Renske Versluijs and is based in Utrecht, The Netherlands. 

Their aim is to support their artistic and branding enterprises, from global commercial sales to fashion events and communication services, in the development of their professional capacities and by building long-term relations. Their goal is to solve the struggle between creativity and commerce that young designers encounter while expanding their labels in a sustainable manner.

NOUS AVONS style is eclectic, ranging from rough to classic and colorful to pitch-black. The materials vary from silk, wool, organic cotton, leather to porcelain and self-developed fabrics.

NOUS AVONS designs can be seen at FASHIONCLASH Festival during the Fashion Makes Sense LAB on June 30 - July 2 at SAMdecorfabriek.

Read more about NOUS AVONS: https://www.facebook.com/platformnousavons/ and its designers: www.renskeversluis.com, www.manonboertien.nl, www.fennyfaber.com, www.heidilong.nl 

FLORIANE MISSLIN - FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017

Floriane Misslin is a French designer based in Eindhoven. After having pursued classical and technical fashion studies at The Duperré School of Applied Arts in Paris she became interested in analyzing the fashion body from a sociological perspective. She graduated from The Design Academy Eindhoven in 2016.

She is currently working to develop Uni—Sex, a visual analysis that observes how the male and female bodies are represented in an idealized context of gender neutrality.

She is passionate about creative and critical thinking, media imagery, represqentations of the body and their cultural meaning.

Floriane Misslin's work can be seen at FASHIONCLASH
Festival during the Fashion Makes Sense LAB  on June 30 - July 2 at SAMdecorfabriek. On sunday (July 2th) Misslin will join the panel at the Fashion Makes Sense TALKS.

Coffee Break Story #3

Together with our partner Coffeelovers we will be sharing a Coffee Break Story almost every Sunday as of the 4th of June! 5 Local designers who are part of FabricAge will be sharing their “Cup of Inspiration” and “What tickles their fashion senses”.

Our third Coffee Break is with:
Verena Klein | verenaklein.tumblr.com 

Verena Klein studied fashion design at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts and Design and launched her label one year ago. She loves Maastricht and the people so much that she decided to stay. “In a restless world it is scarce to find a place where creativity pulsates, and you can find serenity and tranquillity at the same time”, she thinks. Verena combines two passions in her work: handcrafted garments made out of pure natural textiles and contemporary dance. It is important for her that the medium of presentation and the goods complement each other. Connecting these two disciplines enables her to tell her subtle but emotional stories. Verena is one of the designers involved in the FabricAge project. She will also present her collection as part of the Peace Stones Studios collective at the Designer Market during FASHIONCLASH Festival.

Jo Cope - FASHIONCLASH Festival 2017

Jo Cope is a conceptual fashion designer based in Leicester, United Kingdom. She graduated in 2017 from a Master’s in Fashion Artefacts at The London College of Fashion. She is a founding member of DAP, a London-based design and performance lab. She has been commissioned to design an Aerodynamic Dress for the British Grand Prix by Silverstone Race track and has been funded by the Arts Council to create a solo installation for the Leicester Museum. She exhibits in the National Centre for Crafts, creating concept shoes for the Shoe Museum’s permanent collection.

She is currently working with curator Liza Snook from the Virtual Shoe Museum NL and is about to embark on a collaboration which will culminate in a fashion performance at Sadler’s Wells Theatre London in November 2017.

Jo Cope's work can be seen at FASHIONCLASH Festival during the Fashion Makes Sense LAB on June 30 - July 2 at SAMdecorfabriek.

How would you define fashion?

In literal terms: clothing is a social conditioning and a superficial body covering that allows us to play with our identity. For me it is a wonderful canvas, a projector of the inner self, an evolving interpreter of the world, the outer human layer.

What fascinates/inspires you and why?

Human beings, the cycle of life, repetitive shared behaviors, love, relationships, everything we experience whilst on the earth, abstraction of the literal, symbolic interpretation, conceptual art.

Because art is a great means of expressing, learning and communicating ideas that are the closest to me. I am fascinated by taking something known such as a shoe and leading it into new version of itself by analyzing the deeper aspect of what it really is through its conceptualization.

Abstracting, conceptualizing and creating metaphors is what interests me.

Finding your own distinctive voice can be difficult, where and how do you find your personal creativity (before you start designing/during the design process)?

I am driven by strong convictions about materializing visions that manifest in my mind’s eye. The craft methodology and material evolution is something I have continued to evolve in response to the forms that I wish to create.

What challenges did you face during the design process?

The making is the most challenging, when I start with a mental image it is rarely going to be straight forward in the making process, however this is the part I find interesting, continually experimenting with different making methods and materials to get closer and closer to realizing my dream in 3D. A most recent example was pushing to the limits a traditional shoe making craft process; hand stretching a meter long shoe over hand sculpted wooden forms. It took 2 people to last and many months of prototyping to figure out a way of making the shoes completely hollow yet fully stable in form.

What do you want to communicate with your work in general?

I want to use a known object of fashion that we have a physical connection with to express deeper emotional life experiences. I also want to challenge our visual preconceptions of fashion asking questions like ‘What is a bag?’ and readdressing how they could be reconstructed from a conceptual perspective.

Can you tell us something about the project you will present at the FASHIONCLASH Festival?

 The project is called The Language of Feet in the Walk of Life. The inspiration is life, things personally experienced or observed; the relationship with the self, relationships with others, concepts which include: self-loss, self-abandonment, co-dependency, self-discovery, experiences with the internal self through imagination.

The research included the act of walking, and how we can become our own action and body language where I focused on reading the feet in social situations. The feet are an interesting part of the body because we are often very unaware of their subtle but powerful projection. In the situation of desire the feet point directly towards the object of interest, in the opposite situation the body may continue to point politely forwards but at least one of the feet will be pointing towards the exit. I am materialising the negative or unseen spaces in situations that relate to human cognition, foot and shoe. 

What do you try to communicate with your project?

The idea is that shoes can be deep autonomous objects that can visually communicate something other than the literal function or aesthetics. Each conceptual shoe represents and projects experiences that relate to the concept of ‘Self’. The relationship we have throughout life with our internal and external being and how relationships with others can impact, collide and overlap with our own state of being.

Why have you decided to participate at FASHIONCLASH Festival? 

Because Fashionclash is representing the boundaries being pushed in the progression of fashion as intelligent art object, it gives the opportunity and freedom to create an installation based presentation which is in line with the gallery environment which is where my work is created for.

FASHIONCLASH is already working on future themes. What are the topics you find interesting? 

Things relating to human experience or something very abstract and open.

What are your thoughts regarding ‘religion and fashion’?

I have created work that relates to religion in my own work previously in a more conceptually abstract sense, religion is a part of society and in that sense it creates an interesting dialog that can be explored through clothing.

Does fashion make sense to you? 

Fashion in the context of art makes sense as an evolving form which offers ongoing exploration in understanding the self and in helping me to create connections with others through shared experience.

What are your thoughts on making ‘fashion’ more environmentally-friendly?

Environmental conscience is obviously important in every aspect of life and fashion is part of this. For myself working with alternative fashion materials such as wood, I have to consider materials use in general and the impact I have. From cars to clothing more must be done to lower the impact on the environment, working on one off bespoke fashion art pieces I can often pick up discarded materials and recycle, I’ve been really impressed with the change in attitude in the common household where people have come back to the mentality of leaving things out in the street for others to re-use.

What are your thoughts on the senses in relation to the human body?

The senses are one of the things that make us more sensitive as human beings, connecting us to experiences in an intimate way. The sense of the self and the relationship and development of the inner being and how that might be projected outwardly is explored in some of my work.

Do you think that fashion can contribute to a better world / better well-being, and what do you do to make a difference?

Fashion is a universal object that we can all relate to and in that it can be used as a social, political and personal commentary and voice. When working as a lecturer and workshop leader I use fashion to build confidence in others and help them to understand that we can rid ourselves of preconceptions and operate in a way that is free and truthful to our own ways of seeing.

What senses are engaged in your creation process?

Touch primarily, in the sculpting phase I am using feel to sense the flow and contours of the object and also physical contact too see how the body connects and becomes one with the object. The senses help to create a mind and body connection which becomes the more spiritual experience of art. I am engaged with the mental instinct and the development of mental creativity through the development of the imagination. I am also engaged with the inner self and use the subconscious to process the internal being into metaphorical external objects that have their own humanistic character.

How does technology change your creation process?

Technology has acted as a tool to capture very hand created forms when prototyping and transport them into alternative materials without losing the artist hand, lasers scanners allowed me the freedom to change materials from less stable prototyping ones to more solid milled CNC or 3D printed.

Fun Facts

What’s a standard day for you?

Somewhere between the studio using my hands, prototyping, making, answering emails, and when lecturing in fashion energizing approx 60 students to create and think.

Vegan, vegetarian, healthy diet or any food will do?

Pescatarian and generally healthy.

What’s your favourite song at the moment?

So much music, too little time. Listening to music mainly on vinyl of all description, original 90’s rave is good to work to.

Best Tv-show/movie at the moment?

I’m interested in observing people in relation to love and relationships so things relating to ‘dating’. I watched an episode of Catfish today, tragic and sad in one sense and bizarre and funny in others, but essentially very real life and a product of our time. I have to contrast any trash with something artistic in film or documentary based.

Are you a people's person or a loner?

Goes with the territory, I love being on my own and having all of my head space in working and creating, but when I’m with people I like to have fun and I can be a bit of a joker. 

Do you have a pet?

I looked into it until I read the words ‘as much responsibility as a child’.

Your favorite quote?

'An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.' Charles Bukowski

What’s your favorite city?

I lost my heart in LA when I was 16 and I’ve been meaning to go back and claim it back ever since.

What do you enjoy the most in life?

Love and Art.

Instagram account you think deserves more attention?

In a social media rebellion I resisted having an instagram account for a long time. But now I have I am enjoying connecting with interesting people, so to help me catch up I would have to say @jocopeconceptualfashion. Also a great paper engineer I came across is @horstkiechle, he’s a supporter of my work and I would like to give him some love back. 

Read more about Jo Cope's work: http://www.jocope.com/