Garments May Vary

Nadine Goepfert is a Berlinbased textile designer who studied at School of Arts Berlin Weissensee and Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam. Her work is based on "research and conceptual thinking and exploring the wide field of eventualities by creating open situations, which form the basis for textile designs and art installation". I'm always excited when designers say "research" in their blurb as I imagine fashionably dressed people going around with clipboards conducting chin stroking experiments, the results of which they make into frocks. 

Nadine does certainly work with some very strange materials in her latest work, 'The Garments May Vary' . With clearly an expliorng mind and keen interest in traditional textile techniques and craftsmanship, Nadine says she constantly experiments with "the diverse aspects of the materiality and structure of textiles". She goes on to headily explain that her "research on garments and fashion attempts to reveal unconscious/unapparent givens and prospects in terms of clothing habits, which are not only theoretically implemented but also constitute the origin for further material explorations". Yikes. I have no idea what that actually means, but I'm all for her taking fabrics such as memory foam and somehow subverting their meaning by removing them for their normal context. In one creation, the foam takes the form of a brain. In taking it out of it's normal environment, she now gives it a very literal meaning.

It's weird, slightly creepy yet beautifully crafted.

Other pieces in the collection are slightly less provocative but certianly no less crafted. Gel filled pockets are made into a beautiful coat and memory foam made into very structured skirts.

Feeling very inspired by this. I think a foam based DIY is calling my name...

Queen Michelle