Image courtesy Et Derive Showroom.
This reporter likes when an underground creative project comes to fruition. New York, with its established fashion corps of clothing labels and glossy pubs, as well as attendant PR firms, advertising departments, and other satellite industries, can still sometimes produce an exciting new upstart even amid all that flash. When a group of like-minded creatives with extensive formal training but not much backing decide to launch an indie brand or open a small studio, they bring something fresh to the fashion world simply because they are determined to see it differently. Et Derive is one such collective. Headed and art directed by Sara Bridgman, Et Derive is the name of a space that serves as an inspiration showroom (storing and renting out vintage clothes to designers), a headquarters for an online fashion magazine (available by subscription), and a loose gallery exhibiting fashion-related art. It is, for all intents and purposes, a fashion think tank, a place where local aesthetes have gathered to spread the word about young artists and old clothes. This reporter was recently invited there to view their current art show on display, entitled "In Praise of Costume, The Garment as Sculpture," featuring work by young New York photographers and painters. All art exhibited there related, in some way, back to fashion.
The most striking aspect of Et Derive is how Samuel Jon Bridgman, fellow artist and husband of Sara, chose to curate some of the vintage clothes available for rental. A row of dresses hanging from the ceiling - Oscar de la Renta, Escada, Yves Saint Laurent caftans, Pierre Cardin two-pieces - created a laid-back atmosphere. The effect wasn't spooky - it actually made you want to try on clothes. The vintage pieces Et Derive loans out date from the turn of the century all the way up to 1995, which is referred to as "recent retro," which made this reporter feel very old.
On to the art. Having shot editorials for Nippon Vogue and Vanity Fair Italia, in addition to ad campaigns for Bloomingdale's, Ryan Michael Kelly is used to shooting clothes on young bodies in action. In this case, Kelly borrowed pieces from Et Derive's vintage archive and put them on some young bodies he knew. The result is a collection of photographs featuring artsy types climbing on each other, eating frogs, smoking, and gazing. The clothes looked as modern as they did twenty years ago.
Nadav Benjamin shot a similar editorial, with two models - a scruffy blonde and a pensive guy - as his primary subjects. They eat fruit, read by candlelight, and hunch; always looking a little mischievous. This series of photos reminded this reporter of a French new wave movie, where the characters have time to hang out all day and talk, and outside it's always cloudy.
Another photographer on display was Carissa Pelleteri. Her settings are primarily outdoors and rural, and her subjects are women and girls. The attitude is deadpan, or surrealist, depending on your point of view; with a mod brunette casually gliding by on a tire swing, or three little blonde-haired girls pausing at the root of a tree. Her photographs are casual but potent.
Cricket Alexander elected not to use live models in her paintings, but instead a collection of spindly, melancholy, well-dressed dolls. This was probably not only a practical measure (dolls don't have to eat, rest, or get paid), but more likely an artistic choice: Alexander arranges the dolls in vignettes where they hold hands, lounge, or strut, and then paints them in a loosely stylized way. Her work is moody but centered.
Peter Halasz is the one artist featured whose work does not revolve around fashion or, in fact, have much to do with it at all. He paints quiet moments in urban landscapes - an unlit streetlamp at dusk flanked by a glowing oak tree, or the New York skyline as seen from an East Village rooftop at night. Halasz is a master at the use of light and shadow in his paintings, which are muted but so realistically blurry that they look like photographs. Cinematic and serene.
The music playing during this exhibit was also vintage, and a mascot dog named Psycho roamed the gallery, making sure all patrons felt at home.
Comments