Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Necktie label

I recently added a label called 'neckties' and realized that I don't have a good image of the Necktie Ballgown on this blog. So here it is:



I constructed the Necktie Ballgown by draping, sculpting and stitching together approximately 60 men's neckties into this kimono-like dress and then wore this extremely heavy costume (about 10 pounds) during the performance below.






I recorded this performance at Gaviota Beach near Santa Barbara, CA a few months after completing my MFA at CalArts. The action was a personal commentary on femininity and professionalization and was the second in a less specific ongoing series of Landscape Actions. The piece is called Climbing Rocks in Necktie Ballgown.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you ever wear neckties, standard issue, singly and as convention dictates? I believe, from time to time, the female fashion world has adopted a neck-tie-ish piece, if not quite a generic (e.g. man's) necktie. And of course, I believe the Annie Hall look included a regular (e.g. man's) necktie (?)

Just thinkin' here...

Jana said...

I used to sometimes wear the skinny ones in high school with a men's jacket for a kind of punkish look. And then some years later I developed a preacher character that I performed who wore the fat polyester ties. But other than that, I haven't put on too many ties in the more traditional around-the-neck application.