Enclothed Clothing will present their collection on Saturday June 16 at The Show program at SAM-Decorfabriek. You get get you your tickets online: here.
Q&A
Mark: I am a Barbadian interdisciplinary visual artist. My work encompasses photography, installation, textile surface design and public art. I am inspired chiefly by behavioural psychology, technology and neuroscience. My artwork investigates the individual’s relationship with the built environment through pattern and the coding of an ever-evolving visual lexicon. My main interest rests in how we can learn more about our surroundings and in-turn leverage this knowledge for a better navigated life.
Bregje: I am a fashion designer and my specialization is within merging new and old ideas as well as using collaboration with other fields as a tool for advancing.
What made you realize that you wanted to work in (fashion) design?
Mark: I seriously began considering working in fashion after starting the project with Bregje back in 2015. I fell in love with the process!
Bregje: Fashion has a mystique that appealed to me. You can literally create worlds.
Why did you choose fashion?
Mark: I’ve always had an interest in fashion, especially fashion photography and surface design. During university friends would ask me to customize their t-shirts and jeans because I was the artist in the group. I even did a capsule collection in my second year. It was many years between then and when I returned to surface design in my artwork. Bregje’s encouragement and support motivated me to develop my surface design further. In short, Bregje inspired me to choose fashion.
Bregje: Fashion to me is a medium with which I can translate the emotion that I want to bring to an audience.
What would you say are your main achievements in your career?
Mark: My forthcoming public art commission in London, England (September 2018) & launching my photography book, “Plastic” at The Newsstand pop-up bookstore in Brooklyn, New York in July, 2013.
Bregje: A career in fashion is something that takes hard work, my greatest achievement is not a particular event but the fact that I managed to carve out my own design aesthetics.
What are your sources of inspiration?
Mark: Podcasts, YouTube videos and books on science and sociology mostly.
Bregje: I find inspiration in the tech and science world as well as the art world and in the psychology of the human mind. For my clothes I find inspiration in ethnic clothes as well as in military pieces and workwear which I love for their functionality.
Why did you decide to participate in FASHIONCLASH 2018? What are your expectations?
M + B: FASHIONCLASH has always been a platform for connecting different disciplines. This project is interdisciplinary in nature so for us it is the perfect fit. Instead of creating a desire we wanted to create an experience, an emotion. We expect our involvement to be one piece in our research for a new method to connect audiences and fashion professionals to our work.
What do you love most about (fashion) design? What are the biggest struggles faced by young designers?
Mark: It’s such a rewarding process to go from an idea to wearing a finished garment. It’s akin to magic in my eyes. At this point the biggest struggle is capital investment.
Bregje: I love how fashion is linked to identity. For young designers the system that is in place is the hardest part to beat. That is not a bad thing, the system needs to change and designers need to accept that the biggest challenge in fashion will be in downsizing events and collections and labels. This could be an interesting challenge. We just need to see it as an opportunity.
How would you define fashion?
Bregje: Fashion to me is anything and everything that helps you explore and communicate your identity.
What do you think are the most important issues in fashion today?
M+B: Fashion is the second biggest polluter, so we need to start doing a fashion fast as Bruno Pieters calls it.
How do you think fashion contributes to society, can it contribute to a better world?
Mark: Fashion has the potential to help us make better sense of our world.
Bregje: Fashion contributes in that it helps people to find their place in the world. I don’t think it can contribute to a better world. Not in the way it exists right now.
What challenges do you face in the design process? What are your favorite parts of the process?
Mark: a big challenge is the distance between us. I’m in Barbados and Bregje is in Brussels. Collaboration is my favorite part of the process; pulling the best out of each other to create something that wouldn’t have existed if we had attempted it alone.
Bregje: The distance is definitely difficult but we wanted to make a statement about the importance of inclusivity and the power of collaboration. All parts are equally interesting but the moment that these ideas actually come into existence remains a moment of pure power.
Bregje: Future
Mark: Generative
How would you describe the concept behind your project (for FASHIONCLASH)?
M+B: Enclothed Cognition is a collaborative fashion project from Bregje Cox of clothing brand Noir Near Future and visual artist Mark King. The collection is inspired by the theory of Enclothed Cognition. Particularly, how a garment’s symbolic meaning paired with the physical experience of wearing the garment combines to impact the wearer’s performance in everyday tasks. Enclothed Cognition is a collaboration which blurs the line between conceptual art and fashion commerce.
What inspired you?
M+B: Behavioural psychology, Enclothed Cognition theory, cognitive mapping, workwear, traditional Japanese garments, color, functionality
How would you describe your project in three words?
M+B: Psychology Inspired Garments
What projects are you involved in at the moment? What are your next steps?
Mark: I am developing artwork for an upcoming public art commission in London and creating studio artwork.
Bregje: I would like to see this collection thrive in both the fashion and the art world. Besides that i am always developing new pieces and images.
What are your thoughts regarding fashion and religion?
Mark: Both are often taken too seriously.
What does your day look like during the design process?
M+B: We stay in touch throughout the day and the process has been very intuitive. We work on one step at a time and both do what we are good at. Then we communicate our progress and advance from there.
Who is your favorite artist?
Mark: Right now Olafur Eliasson is a big inspiration but I don’t have a favourite. David Hockney was an early inspiration.
Bregje: Catharina van Eetvelde, she keeps on amazing me.
Who is your favorite designer?
Mark: Raf Simons
Bregje: Alexander McQueen
More information: www.enclothedcognition.info
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