Connections
The link between a person and a garment can never be planned for, but has lasting impact when a garment becomes a life-long companion. It reveals the potential for change in each individual and often marks that in the associations with a piece, for single, small actions can have big effects.
Double value
"This shawl was my grandmother’s. My grandmother, she was French, and looking inside of this, it’s incredible, it is double-sided embroidered. Look at the work on the inside. You can’t tell [which side is which], I mean, look at it. How clever is that? It is astonishing, isn’t it? And she bought this in Germany, in 1930s I think. So my grandma, Margarete Frisel, was her name and she was a tailoress in Paris in the late 1920s, and I think she was quite a catch. She talks about her love relationships, and I can see her flirting around Paris. She always had a cigarette holder and there was always a cigarette hanging out the end. You know she was stirring the custard and it would drop in and she would just stir it on in. She was such a character… So it is a big square shape… I just kind of throw it over my head, and it looks nice with anything but it is such a piece on its own. And you know I do like mixing my prints and my colours and I often don’t get much time outside… I get the smells of the outside even when I’m wearing those."
Wellington, New Zealand - March 2013
Photograph by
Aliscia Young
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