Monday 23 February 2009

Paper dresses

I have been seeing paper dresses everywhere I go this week! At the Rebecca Hossack Gallery I saw some of Peter Clark's wonderful collages. I really liked the dresses crafted from bags and love this one, called '1000 island dressing'! Rebbecca Hossack has changing exhibitions at the Charlotte Street and Conway Street galleries and these are among my favourite in London.

And I loved the simplicity of Hussein Chalayan's airmail dress. It all folds up into an envelope.

This Design Museum exhibition shows his work from the last decade, much of which explores migration and identity. One of his other artworks, Afterwords, exploring the experience of being forced to leave home during war, transformed furniture into clothes. We went after seeing his Memory Dress at the Demin Exhibition at The Hub, Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford.

These paper dresses made me think of the brightly coloured packages in Chinese supermarkets that contain paper clothes. I wasn't sure what they were for, but found it hard to resist the packaging so ended up buying one to see what was inside! I've since discovered that they are meant to be burnt as offerings to ancestors to enjoy in the afterlife.

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