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18.05.2012

Feature: Why So Red?: Romanian Fashion

http://whysored.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/romanian-fashion.html



Taylor Merkley about ´SacRED´:


              ´´I really like it.  It's so beautiful and anthropological.  While that's marinating in your head, give a gander to these photos, which do a phenomenal job of communicating those concepts in the clothes.  Reader, I am warning you that I will get pretty graphic in my descriptions of blood, so if that freaks you out, don't read the text.  I'm going to start with what I feel is conceptually the "beginning" of the collection.  As far as I know, there's no order, but here's how I make sense of it all.
           Notice the smooth texture of the leather and how it drapes over the crocheted skirt, which has an amazing texture to it.  I've dealt with a lot of blood in my lifetime, and this connective tissue (it is--look it up!) goes from liquid and slippery to clotted and tangled.  It almost seems like a life until itself.  It connects and forms new tangles and relationships.  If you look at the two pictures, you will see that the leather has texture to it as well, a texture that does not come into being until it reaches a clotted state.  It also mimics the visual of veins and arteries, representing the state of contained, living blood, which is liquid.
             The liquid state (the leather portion) slides over the clotted (crocheted) portion.  It looks like the skirt is revealed by the absence of the liquid, that there's a relationship between them. 
         Aha!  But there's more!  This dress, with its exaggerated  illium (hip) bones.  Considering these clothes are intended for a woman, the exaggeration of the hip bones is a reference to fertility and life.                              
           Human reproduction throughout all cultures has a spiritual element to it, something that ties us mere mortals with the gods above/around.  The pelvis is the fountain of life, where it springs forth to bring new blood and new cries.  When there is no life, we bleed, when there is life, the blood lives in the child.  The hip area of the dress is a combination of smooth and texture, which I see as that dual nature of the uterus.  The skirt coming from underneath is smooth ending is textured strings, which continues the idea of the pelvis as a fountain of life and blood and ties it with the idea of liquid vs clotted.

           Her collection also touches on the sacrifical aspect of blood.  You could also see these long skirts as symbolic of that ritualistic blood letting.
In this dress, we see that its wholly textured with the illium bones in a structured pattern, showing the organization of life, but in a clotted state (perhaps when it has exited the body? perhaps a symbol of injury?).  This dress is also added onto with the same skirt that begins smooth and ends textured, perhaps more clearly drawing parallels to the sacrificial importance of blood. 

             I noticed that the model always has her wrists turned out (an easy way to blood let) and is leaning back to show submissiveness.  This is not an accident since all the pictures have the same pose.  In many of them, the model's eyes are closed, which may signify the connection to death.  However, the dresses in conjunction with the skirt have a less passive (dead looking) model.  It seems that by releasing the blood, there has been life and power gained.

              I have no confirmation that I'm right on any of this, so this is a mere interpretation.  I'm doing some sort of art criticism on this blog, but I do not pretend to be any sort of expert crowned with a degree or a whole of experience; just an enthusiast who read a lot, thinks a lot, and thinks systematically at that.
               I think this collection is powerful and full of rich symbolism. ´´