The first garment I actually touched that was entirely made of hair was a cropped top with thick braids creating a sort of twisted motif on the front and around the sleeves from Sandra Backlund’s “Body, Skin and Hair” (2004) collection. I saw it over a year ago and at the time it was slightly damaged as it was just back from a photo shoot. Sandra was reverentially touching it, smoothing the damaged quiff-like collar, trying to give it back its original shape.
The Swedish designer told me that she had learnt to master the art of making hair garments from a woman she knew and I remember that, though at the time I had previously seen garments entirely made of hair on some fashion books, I had actually never touched them. In fact, I always considered things made with human hair as slightly creepy.
At the recent Paris Fashion Week catwalks hair seemed to be one of the main materials used by quite a few designers: as you might remember some of Martin Margiela’s jackets seemed to be entirely made of hair that matched with the models' wigs, a trick that the maison replicated in its tribute design for Sonia Rykiel’s 40th anniversary.
I have already mentioned how Jean-Charles de Castelbajac played with the more surrealist side of hair design, a trick he used like Margiela for his own personal tribute to Sonia Rykiel.
But there is an artist I particularly like that has so far produced extraordinary works of art with both artificial and real hair. I’m talking about Shoplifter, AKA Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir.
The New York-based Iceland-born artist was inspired in her art by a Victorian memory flower that she found in a shop when she was a teenager. Traditionally, in Victorian times, hair flowers were arranged in wreaths sometimes as memorials to a deceased or as memories of families. This form of art was completely reinvented by Hrafnhildur as the images produced for Björk’s album "Medúlla", with the singer sporting intricate hair sculptures by Shoplifter, prove.
Educated at the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts and at New York’s School of Visual Arts, Hrafnhildur explored in depth throughout the years the possibilities of hair sculptures: a few years ago, in her installation "Left Brain, Right Brain", the artist created a sort of hair tapestry that somehow symbolised the essence of a human being through an imagined pattern of thoughts, a sort of labyrinthine vision of the mind's maze.
This theme came back in the "Harmonic Hairdoo" digital prints that I find absolutely perfect for wallpaper (to be possibly used on just one wall...) with their ornate swirls and patterns of braided hair. Shoplifter’s latest project - a collaboration with artists Eli Sudbrack and Christoph Hamaide Pierson from Brazilian artist collective Assume Vivid Astro Focus entitled "aimez vous avec ferveur" – is absolutely amazing.
The installation can currently be viewed in the large windows of The Modern, the restaurant in New York’s MoMA (it will be there through December). The art project was especially commissioned for this location and features neon tubes arranged in front of masses of coloured artificial hair. There’s a sense of overloaded colours as the pleated, braided and twisted groups of artificial hair used by Hrafnhildur clash and contrast one with the other.
The mix of colours immediately manages to make you happy, oozing a strangely contagious optimism. Hrafnhildur used on purpose low-quality and extremely colourful hair to give an idea of excess and fun, but also as a reference to abstract expressionist paintings, pop culture and fashion.
Shoplifter has successfully managed to make me forget about any potentially creepy connotations that hair imply. I'm now curious to see where she will take her hairy art in future.
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