Tuesday 17 September 2013

New clothing designs

Here are some of the clothes I've made recently.

A bit of background about how they came to be...in the last 12 years I've made 5 trips to the United States, spending most of my time in the south west states. I visited cities such as Houston, Dallas, Albuquerque, Miami (Florida) Lexington (Kentucky) and my most favourite place of all - the lovely and extraordinary city of Santa Fe, in New Mexico. In the southern states I encountered the Mexican traditional celebration known as Dios de los Muertas, or "Day of the Dead". American culture adopted the concept as "Halloween" - a sort of mashup from the ancient English celebration "All Hallows" and the spanish/mexican "Dios de los Muertas". Initially I felt quite confronted by the imagery of skulls and skeletons, it was so alien to the culture I've grown up in where we have virtually no acceptable symbology of death, except perhaps lilies and crosses. Growing more familiar with it over time I came to understand the folk traditions of the iconography.


Dios de los Muertas Frock, 100% ivory coloured cotton knit with stencilling and appliqued with sugar skulls

Dios de los Muertas Happy Coat, 100% cotton knit and voile, stencilled and appliqued




Dios de los Muertas Happy Coat shown full length over a jersey tee shirt dress