Take my breath away

On Wednesday I went to the ICA in Boston to see the Exhibit with Dr. Lakra, an artist and tattooist from Oaxaca, Mexico. His name can be translated to something like Dr. Delinquent. I have a thing for tattoos and old school, kinda 50's style art, and Dr. Lakra uses both in his art besides from mixing a whole lot of symbols from cultures worldwide.

Picture from the visual art guide Art Splash

Little did I know that another exhibit there, would blow me away completely.

Do you know the feeling when your heart starts to beat faster, and you feel kinda out of breath. Similar to being in love, the moment he sends you a smile, or maybe a text, or he invites you out.. 

Well, that's how I felt walking around looking at these incredible art pieces. Of course it's because of what I do. I sew. I embroider. I'm nerdy about it. I love it. And I appreciate the difficulties and how much work it is.

I am talking about the artist Charles LeDray and his work.

He makes everything himself. Only three found objects. No assistants. His mom taught him to sew and embroider from he was four years old and he is so talented!

His exhibit called workworkworkworkwork at the ICA contains a number of smaller or miniature sized suits and outfits, alot of them connected with even smaller ones. A tiny suit made of and attached to a small suit. A small jacket with an unknown number of clothes inside. A blanket of little garments. Jackets and suits with embroidered labels on.
 

First LeDray picture from the Telegraph. Other pictures are from the website Sperone Westwater.

Read more about the exhibit here.

If this catches you, read also this blog post from The Layers Of Meaning.

Like I said, I was blown away. And feeling like this looking at his work, 

I know I am in the right place.

Wedding Dress >> Christening Gown

In December I got an assignment to redesign and transform a wedding dress into a christening gown. The parents thought it was a shame to keep the dress packed away. "But you're not gonna wear it again - you don't want just anyone to wear it - you can't expect that your daughter would want to wear it at her possible future wedding". So they decided it should become the christening gown for their little daughter.

The cut is inspired by the cut of the wedding dress so its origin is recognizable.

 And the finished gown.

 This last picture is taken by my brother, photographer T. Kaare Smith.

The Jacket

Recently we had a big project in school, where we made a jacket. There was certain demands; the inspiration should come from one or more secondhand products made from wool, leather or fur. This detail should in some way be incorporated in the design of the jacket. The jacket should be made of wool, have lining and a collar or hood.

Many thougths and ideas emerged but were thrown away again. We talked about different possibilities in my class and when the conversation hit gloves I knew what to use. I already had a few pairs of vintage gloves at home that I wanted to use somehow but didn't know in wich way. I made some designs for the jacket with the gloves used in different ways and found pictures for inspiration.

After many expressions and designs with a glove on the back or the side or used as decoration on a pocket I decided to put the gloves on the shoulders. 

 

 

The shape of the jacket, with the collar and the diagonal zipper, is inspired from the classic biker jacket. But it still has a sharp look like a military jacket wich is emphasized by the gloves, though the dangling fingers creates a contrast to this sharp look. 

I played with the look of the sleeves wich is divided into two parts and with another colored fabric I put in a box pleat. The color of this box pleat matches the lining wich is black with little blue/green squares. To match the sharp look I made jetted pockets and the lining peep from the opening.

With the design of jacket I hope to challenges the general conception of clothin and things original purpose.