Edie Xu

Flipped inside and out of our bodies, the garment represents abject, void, horror, and tension. ‘Seeing my hole, I know my whole’ (Anne Carson, Eros the Bitter Sweet, 33). Initially developed from the idea of how pockets contains individual items that represent who you are. A void or a whole that represents our wholeness, a representation of the peculiar intimate to us, hidden from the public eye; in a sense abject and inside of us.

The tubular structures in my garment become an infinite pocket or passageway to the body. Also, a representation of tension, the tension between the self and the abject self, gapes hidden away from a sight that arouses a temptation and sacredness. ‘appearance as disappearance.’

‘Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes?’ (Roland Barthes, Pleasure of the Text, 10)

Mood Board

Garment Installation Doc

illustration Front Side Back

Illustrations pt 1

Illustrations pt 2

Fabric Manipulation Process

Organdy sample Front Side Back

xu_8

xu_9

Process of making;

Mimicking the texture, colors, and surface of the naturally decays of kombucha leather I have been working with, in relation to my concept of abject and inside out of our bodies, I dye bathed my fabrics achieving the rusty browns of natural dyes, silicon, and devored the surface of my fabrics. Devore a process of burning out the cellulose fiber of the fabric to achieve a transparent look.

The main fabrics that I used were cheesecloth and widely weaved linen that was then silicones and some left raw. I wanted the fabric to be somewhat transparent but also be able to be stiff and hold structure to enable to interior tubular structures of the garment to be seen.

I self foundry cast in aluminum sculpture piece that connects at the bottom of the garment, which gives the garment a natural drift of weight in tension, but the metal also reflects the industrial aspect of our lives, product of capitalism, the constant work cycle of achieving and goals, lastly a material that would decay and rust. No longer shiny.

The garment comes in three layers, a base to hold the structure, a tubular structure layer that separates the base from the third layer acting as a support system but also an expression of tension, the play on weight and fragility, and lastly, the third layer that is one whole pattern piece.

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