The main bench in one of the rooms of the British Pavilion at the 55th Venice Art Biennale, featuring work created specifically for this event by artist Jeremy Deller, is made with a crushed car.
Sculptures made with crumpled cars are definitely not a new idea: the venerable sculptor John Chamberlain is indeed a master in constructing sculptures using discarded automobile body parts and other assorted industrial detritus.
His passion for assembling disparate mechanical elements by crushing, crumpling, bending and twisting them is the main inspiration behind Lisa Clayton's graduate collection.
The young designer opened the Westminster University graduate show that took place at the end of May with a series of creations that aggregated different materials and colours together. Clayton reproduced Chamberlain's monumental collaged and wrinkled sculptures in a wearable form, pleating and ammassing fabrics with different characteristics and sewing them together trying to recreate the effects made with large sheet metal crushers in Chamberlain's auto-part sculptures.
Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?
Lisa Clayton: I was born in Dover in 1983 and moved to London around 8 years ago. I only decided to pursue a career in fashion design after a year travelling and after completing my degree at the University of Westminster. I haven’t looked back since. I currently live in central London.
Can you take us through the creative process behind your graduate collection?
Lisa Clayton: I started taking an interest in the artist John Chamberlain’s crushed car sculptures quite early on in the research process and very quickly became obsessed with him. I loved his unorthodox approach to sculpture and the idea of molding structure in a forced and unnatural way, almost against the will of the material. I adopted this method and started developing my own fabrications and techniques in order to create garments that ‘crush’ into against themselves.
And what about the themes behind your designs?
Lisa Clayton: After experiencing several long nights on a concrete bed in a meditation camp somewhere in Asia, the true meaning of minimalism has deeply manifested itself into my psyche and it was this that eventually led my interest to Chamberlain’s work.
What kind of materials did you employ to recreate the rigid shapes and silhouettes?
Lisa Clayton: My research always involves a determined pursuit of seeking out the perfect fabrications for each garment. This is my favourite part of the process. To name just a few, I used wools that were foiled several times to create the desired quality, I backed neoprene’s with silks and plastics to bring structure and allow the distinctive forms to be created and bonded velvet to jersey to add texture. The modern composition of the fabrications allowed them to be cut with a raw edge enabling both faces of the fabric to be used in the design of the garment, which emphasised the folding and crushing technic.
Which was the most challenging aspect in creating this collection?
Lisa Clayton: The construction of each garment was a labor of love.
You borrowed arty inspirations from John Chamberlain's metal sculptures, but also referenced in your lookbook Joseph Beuys's felt suit? To which extent does art inform this collection?
Lisa Clayton: It’s absolutely fundamental. It’s difficult to know how my final collection would have turned out but what I can say is, without Chamberlain’s influence the collection would have taken a very different path.
Is there an artist you particularly like?
Lisa Clayton: Can I say John Chamberlain!
Were you excited of presenting the collection during a proper catwalk show and how was it?
Lisa Clayton: It was so exciting and even more exciting to have been asked to open the show. What a privilege!
What's the best lesson you were taught at the various placements and internships you did so far?
Lisa Clayton: Abandon your social calendar!
What are your future plans?
Lisa Clayton: The future is an exciting prospect. The show has generated so much interest in the work of all graduates which is amazing. It’s a busy time at the moment and I’m pursuing a number of opportunities, I’ll keep you posted!
Image credits.
Image 1. Ooh-oo-hoo ah-ha ha yeah, installation view, British Pavilion 2013, 55th International Arts Exhibition. Image courtesy of the British Council. Photograph Cristiano Corte.
Images 3 - 9 Lisa Clayton collection. Photographs by Simon Armstrong.
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