My first go at a conceptual wearable-art streetwear piece, from when I started out in my sophomore year of high school. The idea was to make a piece that communicated the same ideals and values that my brand would embody in practice. One of the hoodie samples that ordered from my manufacturer at the time turned out to be defective. Sending it back to be discarded was out of the question for me, naturally, so I decided to make something valuable and unique out of it. In this I was inspired by the Japanese art of Kintsugi, in which broken pottery is repaired with golden lacquer to show that repair is a part of the history of an object to be celebrated, and the practice of patchwork mending in general. For this project, I used a mix of high and low materials - I sourced genuine, beautifully designed Cloth of Gold fabric from a historical vestment manufacturer in Europe that worked with clergy and royalty and woven metallic goldwork thread, and put those patches throughout the design and where the imperfection was, and an old referee shirt that I got from a thrift store, that reminded me of prison bars, which I had cut up and patched with my logo, and draped and torn across the shoulder of the hoodie. The hoodie itself is a heavyweight cotton French Terry hoodie, the first prototype of our heavyweight hoodie before I switched to our current model with higher quality fabric, organic cotton, and a less opaque supply chain, which I would learn is common when dealing with suppliers at that level.
1/1. wearable art piece made with genuine Cloth of Gold and gold thread, may 21 2023. made with defective hoodie sample, logo patches from thrifted secondhand shirt, and genuine goldwork cloth and thread.
