REDACTED FASHION
what: hand-made mixed-media collage
for: me
exhibits: redacted fashion (Miami University, Cage Gallery)
Fashion models, frequently called "mannequins" in the profession, are women the audience is supposed to observe but not pay attention to—women who are there for the sole purpose of providing a three-dimensional frame upon which the clothing hangs. In the world of fashion, they are not actual "people." They are walls, and the clothing they wear are the masterpieces we should admire. These people officially have no identity other than that assigned by the fashions they wear in each show. So what happens if we remove those fashions? What does their identity become at that point?
redacted fashion is a collage series aimed at exploring how fashion, or the removal of it, can be used to define identity. Compositions are created using laser prints of fashion week runway photographs (usually from Vogue's catwalk pages), at a small, paper-doll scale. Clothing from each model is meticulously removed as if redacted from the image. Different images/models are then layered upon each other, three to ten layers deep, to create new designs. The results can appear to be new fashion designs from afar, but tend to reveal alignments of body parts more akin to Frankenstein's monster when viewed in more detail.
