MakeShift is an art and research project that examines the relationships between ‘making’, ‘clothing’ and ‘living’. The basic premise for the project is that for a period of one year starting on September 1st, 2009, I will only wear things that I have made myself. Initially this may seem like a reasonable task, but it will include all of my clothes, socks, shoes, underwear, coats, jackets, hats, bathing suits, accessories and anything else I might need to protect my body from the elements while trying to lead a fulfilling life.

VIEW MakeShift blog

Andi Strand is the founder and editor in chief of Antler Magazine which “…focuses on composing a collection of beautiful, inspiring ideas and designs from all aspects of life.” With contributors from Canada, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, Antler is an online magazine with a fashion focus that casts a broad net encompassing aspects of art design, literature and culture.

Strand is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art + Design in Calgary Alberta and designs bags from recycled materials at HOAKON/HELGA

This exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of Hussein Chalayan’s work in the UK and runs until May 17.

submitted by Lesley Bricknell

Hopeless… Romantic: Nancy Price at Stride Gallery
January 9 to February 14, 2009

With these works that traverse the boundaries of art, couture and craft, Price considers what is implied with the notion of “fitting” or its alternative, to not “fit.” Her conjunction of meticulous crafting and attention to varieties of detail are revealed in a work such as “Go On…” (2008). She has incorporated a series of expressionistic phrases or slogans appropriately spelled in the fabric by burning out letters from the dress’s material. The imperatives she proposes (living, loving, dying) are all processes of dispersal, of ways in which a self is fractured, multiplied, lost, or displaced. These are Nancy Price’s alternatives when faced with the constraints of “fitting.” At the same time, she uses processes and techniques that recollect aspects of tradition. Thinking through making and thinking in materiality, Price reshapes the body and its capacities such as movement and gesture, while crossing from moments of comic absurdity to expressions of genuine reverence, between the materials and forms of popular or folk culture and high modernist couture.

(excerpt from catalogue essay by Stephen Horne)

Palace of Illusions, 2008

When a Woman Smiles Her Dress Should Smille with Her, 2008