I’m definitely not a fashion designer, but I enjoy making my own accessories whenever I can. Apart from being a fun hobby, it's also quite relaxing.
I usually start by piling up unusual materials that I scatter around my office and studio waiting for creativity to hit.
While friends and relatives give their contribution to my madness by giving me as presents things they may not need anymore or unusual stuff they find in shops or in their houses, I often buy such materials in bulk from the most bizarre places, from markets, second-hand shops and antiquarians to hardware and medical appliance shops.
A while back I visited an antiquarian shop in my hometown owned by a friend of mine. I was with my brother who was looking through a folder of assorted banknotes from different countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar/Burma, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Mongolia, Soviet Union, Suriname, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Zambia.
I liked the colours of the banknotes a lot: some of them had quite pleasant shades of aqua green and salmon that seemed to go well together, so I decided to buy a few of them.
As usual I left them lying on my desk, but, while waiting for creativity to hit, I got an email from Dr Joanne Turney from Bath Spa University. I met Jo during last October's "Fashion in Fiction" conference at Philadelphia's Drexel University.
If you’re a fashion fan, Joanne’s name probably rings a bell: apart from being senior lecturer at Bath Spa University where she is the course leader for the MA Investigating Fashion Design, she is also the author of The Culture of Knitting (Berg, 2009) and the co-author, with Rosemary Harden of Floral Frocks: The Floral Printed Dress from 1900 to Today (Antique Collector’s Club, 2007).
Jo got in touch to let me know about a three-day conference, workshop and discussion group focusing on the theme “Trans/National Clothing” that will be taking place at Bath Spa University in September.
I really love the theme of the conference since it implies discussions on transnational contaminations in contemporary fashion collections that mix garments, accessories or traditional costumes from different countries and times, representations of one culture in another and fusion fashion, but also debates on issues concerning human rights such as smuggling and sweatshop labour.
I promised to send an abstract as soon as possible and give my total support to the event, but then inspiration hit and thinking “Trans/National” and looking at the banknotes lying on my desk I decided to "convert" my currency into a hat that can be turned into a brooch and a foldable necklace that can be worn around your neck or as a belt around your waist.
I loved the fact that by pleating and glueing the banknotes all together identity is mixed and almost erased, yet, at the same time, it's still possible to spot where the banknotes came from.
The banknote on top of the hat (the one rolled up in imitation of a feather) is an Italian one and symbolises my identity, but it’s also a retro reference.
In 1939 Gilberto Mazzi sang the hit “Se potessi avere mille lire al mese” (If only I had one thousand liras a month) since at the time one thousand liras was a little fortune (a 1,000 liras bill corresponds nowadays to roughly €0,50…).
So the two pieces are inspired both by the “Trans/National” theme, but also by other references: the shape of the hat is directly taken from the fancy headdresses donned by Sylvia in George Cukor's The Women (1939) while the mille lire song could be the perfect hit also for the "precarious" generation I’m part of (though in our case the song should change title into "If only I had one thousand euros a month"...).
I feel a bit guilty now since I’ve just spent the weekend fashioning fancy accessories out of piles of old banknotes, but, Jo, this is all (more or less…) part of the background research for my abstract. You can't see me now, but I can assure you I'm going to lock myself into my office and do more serious researches in a minute. But first, if you don't mind, I'll put on my "thinking hat" (and necklace)...
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