Bodydressed
Alva Johansson, 2015
The intention with this work is to investigate the act of wearing garments and to gain a greater understanding of the relationship between body and dress. Although dress is an embodied practice and the body has always been covered in some kind of clothing, there has been a lack of analysis of the relationship between them. Social structures control what garments we should wear and how to wear them. Even though Fashion trends are constantly changing, and the bodies visibility in the wearing exposes in new ways. As a designer it is important to have a profound understanding of how garments act on the body. It’s important to question indoctrinated frameworks of how a garment should be worn and created, since the design process today is mostly performed two- dimensionally and loses more and more contact with the bodily experience.
My opinion is that the boundary between garments and body is something intimate considering the fact that we express ourselves through dress and garments are the artefacts that we keep closest to our bodies. I believe that the act of wearing is the core of understanding between body and clothing, and that should be looked upon more closely. Through using my own body together with a bodystocking as a tool for draping I want to illustrate the intimate relationship between dress and body and by doing this I challenge the balance of how clothing traditionally is worn, disturbing garments fixed positions and anchor points.