Gewand
I have cared about clothing for as long as I can remember. Even as a baby, I cherished my little pink dress with the white cotton lace. As a teenager, I began working with a local seamstress to bring my ideas to life, finding fabrics myself and seeing my visions turned into garments. Much later, in 2009, I approached a local designer I admired, asking if she would create some of my designs. Instead, she offered me an informal apprenticeship. For a year, I joined her in the studio one day a week, learning the fundamentals of design, sewing, and textile work while creating my own pieces. That experience reinforced my belief in my capacity to do it myself. Textiles are not just materials to me—they are storytellers and part of my identity. Style is not just how I dress—it’s how I live and how I express myself and communicate with others. Textiles, thread, and the processes of cutting and sewing are part of my practice. They are part of my world and art making, and not a costume.
Em’s Dress
Synthetic Textile (2019)
One point of departure for Em’s Dress is the performance Em’s Place. Another is a single tile from the bathroom of my childhood and youth — the space where, as a very young femme, I first created and owned sexual pleasure. The tile is printed in my life-size onto the fabric. The dress itself exists somewhere between an apron and a Superwoman cape.
Foto 1 (Tile): Vinko Nino Jaeger; Stills Video Documentation 2,3: Miae Son
Obelixanzug (2 Pieces)
Denim, Metal, Ribbon (2015)
Von Außen betrachtet, machen manche meiner Gewänder dick. Sie geben dem Körper Raum zum Drinnen sein. Especially under a regime that wants to police your body while gawking at it, I find this space can be very relaxing.
Fotos: Vinko Nino Jaeger
Prinzenanzug (2 Pieces)
Synthetic Fibre (2015)
Since 2015 the Prinzenanzug travels with me through all kinds of weathers and is a steadfast friend in daily life. Equal parts comfort and quiet regalityThe outer fabric of the padded Prinzenanzug I got from an elderly working-class woman who was recommended to me or rather I was recommended to her by her sister-in-law who I found on my search for textiles through an ad I placed in a local paper. Her rooms were filled with fabric, amassed when the textile company in this long-standing textile-producing region went bankrupt. Her husband had been a driver there.
Fotos: Em Schwarzwald
Drunk (Busskleid)
Wool, Cotton, Metal, Cooking Thread, Black Tea (2009)
Made from a single piece. Inscribed with the English translation of a poem by Xi Kang — one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove and the enfant terrible of his time — translated by Qiu Xiaolong.
Drunk
I whipped a
precious horse
I do not want
to weigh down
a beauty
with passion
The fabric was a gift from my favourite aunt, who acquired it when the textile shop where she worked in the 1980s went bankrupt.
Fotos: Vinko Nino Jaeger
Admiralkleid
Cotton Velvet, Metal (2009)
The dress can be worn with or without decorations. The epaulettes, however, came first. I found the shoulder ornaments in a second-hand shop on Neubaugasse; featuring an Aesculapian snake, they may carry medical or caregiving associations. The velvet is from Komolka on Mariahilfer Straße.
Fotos: Vinko Nino Jaeger
Ur-Wohnkleid
Viscose, Wool (2009)
It started with a generous length of comfortable, ugly-green fabric, insistent on being experimented with. A gift from my mother’s youngest sister — my favourite aunt, who acquired it when the textile shop where she worked in the 1980s went bankrupt.
This one is the Ur-Wohnkleid because versions have followed.
Fotos: Vinko Nino Jaeger
Blouse. Action Tailored
Cotton, Leather, Thread (2013)
This shirt is made from the exact remnants of a single piece of fabric and a sliver of the softest powdery pink leather. I worked only with what I had, and in one sitting it was finished — a friendly, strong piece. The fabric came from the collection of an elderly working-class woman in the Waldviertel. I found her and her trove of textiles through an ad I placed in a local paper. Her rooms were filled with fabric, amassed when the textile company in this long-standing textile-producing region went bankrupt. Her husband had been a driver there.
Foto: Vinko Nino Jaeger
One Eyed Cat
Wool (2008)
“One Eyed Cat” is double-layered, made from a caressing fabric. The cat is crocheted and stitched into being. The fabric came from a friend who got it from a friend who got it from her mother.
Fotos: Vinko Nino Jaeger
