Corseted Little Black Dress
Medium: New Zealand and Australian jade stays,organza, tulle, ribbon, metal eyelets and cord. Mannequin; metal, enamel paint.
Dimensions:.
Year: 2013
Recently exhibited at Stone and Jewel/Unwearable Art exhibition at the Lightspace Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington.
Over the last decade I have been creating art in stone that deals with cross-culture and issues around cultural identity. My recent body of work, Unwearable Art is an exploration of what women wear to be attractive and socially acceptable.
The work was inspired by Unveiled: 200 years of wedding fashion at Te Papa, I was surprised to see the tiny waists and use of corsets for even the most recent dresses. I began to research the negative health effects of extreme fashion especially corsets and high heels. Tight-laced corsets in the Victorian era resulted in organs and rib cages compressed to the point where ribs punctured lungs and women died. Many suffered 'chicken breast', a condition where the ribcage was deformed to the point where the two floating ribs at the lower end of the rib cage actually met in the middle and were pushed down into the lower abdomen. The saddest aspect is that corsets where used to hide and terminate pregnancies in a time when abortions were forbidden especially for unmarried women. Because lung capacity was restricted -about 20% it was difficult for lower class women to wear corsets when working therefore wearing of corsets was an indicator of social ranking. The stays (the bone or steel strips sewn into the fabric) not only created wasp like waists but kept women in their place socially and sexually.
Corseted Little Black Dress combines the hard stone (jade) stays with transparent Organza and Tulle, a modern social commentary on dressing nakedly. The metal mannequin enhances the transparency of the dress.