Saturday 8 November 2014

Ideas incorporated: une robe environ un film que sera jamais realisé

I made this dress today from some grey cotton jersey i got second hand - it's been heat pressed on one side with some sort of flimsy imitation leather, so it sort of feels like a tent. I might dye it with onion skins or black beans - it can't get hot that's the only thing, otherwise the leathery stuff will melt off. But either way - i'm going to treat it like a shelter/a tent/a retreat: like a portable and wearable Swagstation - the dress will be printed/adorned with imagery and colour and texture that will convey a few of the scenes I keep picking up on when i'm daydreaming about fantasy lands and adventures:
1. Outdoors outback cinema - a screen in the desert, run by a cowgirl. (this is about ideologies we see in films, and in the experience of watching a film - and indeed of creating one - but this is kind of about a film that's never been made.... which links into the idea of idealising something from afar: being a fan) Also sort of relates to Robyn Davidson trekking across the outback with her four camels.

2. a Kangaroo on the run to see the Springsteen show with his ghetto blaster playing Lana del Rey (again - the reassuring eternal excitement of admiring something from afar. And of course all those virtues and mental habits that Springsteen's music teaches, and that del Rey's music questions)

3. Monkeys bathing in a whirlpool/on rocks in shallow water -this is just a funny image i got in my head when in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris!?!? not sure why, perhaps something to do with the claustrophobia I feel in cities in the summer, but also because monkeys would put a smile on even the most dastardly robber's face. I'm going down a Laure Provost route here - just magnetising towards a few scenarios that appeal simply because they are mad and escapist and succulent and sensual, and offer respite from the effort/hard work this whole practice is asking for. the made up moments kind of keep your head in the game for working hard.








The way Native North Americans decorated their tipis to enhance and entice spirits/events/luck is part of this whole idea. It'll be a sort of dress of ideas. And i'll probably make a tent afterwards. Also - now i've learned to weld, my major project is to weld a huge metal kangaroo shaped frame, that i can sit inside, and then i'll cover it with amazing hand-dyed and printed textiles that i've made - it'll be a Fan Club Hut for everything i love, like where i'll listen to my music uninterrupted, and write, and make things, and have friends over. And ask The Gaslight Anthem, Springsteen and Jimmy Eat World if they'll come and play me a gig in there.

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Below are some scans from playing around with colours/textures/imagery with which to adorn the dress: which is called: une robe environ un film que sera jamais realisé
It's in french, because a spent my early years on a mountainside in rural southern France, and I also find it very calming to think in French. It's sort of a grab for part of my idealised world that was once a reality.


Amazing photo I found in the Metro



Three of the dresses i've made, in my window. And Grandma's blue silk scarf.

And a black bean-dyed top I made. It's covered in blemishes from the dye bath and originally i thought it was a total mess, but now i love it.

And yesterday evening Dom and I had a super fun night in, and then we decided it's such a shame that nights out aren't as good as they should be now, because the music is crap and it's all indoors. So this is what we would've wanted to do!

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