… About Connection, Dismissed, Earth, and Identity.

Kyle Denman, Isabella Diorio, Korina Emmerich (Puyallup), Karen Glass, Alena Kalana, Ruree Lee, Maital Levitan, Abiola Onabulé, and Yun Qu, who define their work as art, construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct. They build unique sculptures in cloth, create and sculpt around the body, achieving three-dimensional objects of beauty. Countering a commodity-driven fashion system, their work is not about ‘cut and sew and sell’, instead, it is framed in storytelling, believing that fashion serves a deeper purpose along with the ecosystem that it represents.

“CLOTH, Construct, CULTURE: fashion builds a story” examines stories around topics about the loss of human connection, the dismissed: victimized and marginalized communities, protecting earth‘s resources, and identity. These themes manifest through their design.

Connection

Are we lost without human connection? A social (and scientific) debate about society’s screen-addictive habits is playing out in real time.

Lee’s collection Presence/Absence suggests that our lack of human contact, because we are tied to our phones, is fundamentally killing our well-being.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs” theory on humans need for belonging, along with other human conditions, is referenced in Denman’s “mul·ti·po·lar—ex·ist·ence”, which explores the interconnectivity and the multidimensionality of the human experience.

Bold and well-conceived abstract and representation design details define the looks in Lee and Denman’s collections.

Dismissed

Marginalized and victimized people and communities sit on the fringes of society; excluded, dismissed, and disempowered. Diorio, Emmerich, and Onabulé take on the narrative of those unheard voices and untold stories.

Troubled by the rising population in homeless female veterans and inspired by the courageous and bold acts of pioneering women in the military, Diorio created Female Engagement Team (F.E.T.). With nearly 2 million United States women veterans, F.E.T. represents the untold story of 12 women vets who served in the United States military, some going as far to disguise themselves as men when they could not legally serve.

Emmerich’s ensemble, Cascade, which was exhibited in In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 2021–September 2022 and made from Pendleton’s re-creation of a Hudson’s Bay Company Point Blanket, references HBC’s iconic blanket with all its brutal colonialist history with Emmerich’s ancestors, amplifying the significance of North American history still being reckoned with today.

From her Nigerian roots, Onabulé constructs Heirloom that taps into an historical account of women who acted as witches, healers, witch doctors, and priestesses. Cast aside, they found ways to overcome and survive through strength, creativity, and resilience.

Earth

Protecting the environment is consciously embedded in their design practice, not used as marketing hype for today’s sustainable narrative. Preservation, conservation, and regeneration are guiding principles, particularly when fashion is identified as the planet’s third largest polluter.

Inspired by the Tibetan culture and the nomadic ecological way of life, Kalana breathes a new life to deadstock materials, some typically used in home interiors, such as carpet grippers, richly textured upholstery, in her body of work titled, Tibetan Transplant.

Qu uses luxe biodegradable deadstock materials for her non-season-specific collection, Clair De Lune, opposing an industry that encourages seasonal collections.

Emmerich, a social and environmental justice advocate, whose work reflects her patrilineal Indigenous heritage stemming from the Pacific Northwest Coast Salish Territory, Puyallup tribe, where sustainability is central to Indigenous culture, is part of the slow fashion movement, that yields an ethical and ecological practice.

Identity

Individualism, identity, independence, gender neutrality – please, no labels!

Glass’s no bias: a double entendrè, deconstructs identity, expressing the movement from gender juxtaposition toward gender neutrality amidst the cultural movement of eco social values in fashion.

Levitan, of mixed heritage, conveys a message of mixed identity in her body of work Culture Osmosis, believing that we are all connected and part of a global tribe, but challenged in finding our own individuality and belonging.

Why Maital Levitan’s work is not shown in the exhibition:

Culture Osmosis is a story about identity in a multicultural world created by Maital Levitan that would have been exhibited here. Maital was born in Seattle, grew up and schooled in Israel, graduating from two of the world’s most prestigious fashion schools–Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Tel Aviv and a Masters in High Fashion Haute Couture from the Academy of Costume and Fashion in Rome. Levitan currently lives near Tel Aviv. Levitan served for five years in the Israel Defense Force achieving the rank of captain before finishing her advanced studies and degrees.

Her contribution to CLOTH, Construct, CULTURE was packed up and ready to ship from Israel when Hamas terrorists brutally attacked Israel initiating a war whose rockets quickly made Israel’s roads and skies unsafe for commercial transport.

As of the mounting of this show, Maital last reported: “My family is safe for now. Difficult times. Really unbelievable. A true horror movie.”

We would like to dedicate her space in this show in memory and respect of people of all cultures and identities being able to peacefully coexist on this planet without fear and to condemn all acts of genocide and violence against innocent people.

Exhibition Details

CLOTH, Construct, CULTURE: fashion builds a story, curated by Rhonda P. Hill, 24 October 2023–24 January 2024, Parallax Art Center, Portland, Oregon, USA