)open((clothed) is a dialogue between opposing forces. These dualities include: protection vs. vulnerability, childlike make believe vs. mature rationalism, ephemeral structure vs. stable forms and fine art vs. craft.
—Diana Lang, )open((clothed)
What are the functions of clothing? It protects (which you learned the hard way when you didn’t wear your mittens in sub-zero weather). It conceals…parts of the body at a level society deems appropriate (we display ankles now). It comforts, whether cooling white cotton lawn in the summer or cozy cashmere in the winter. It enhances the appearance (when it does its job well). And it can be a creative statement on the part of both the maker and the wearer.
Fashion frequently ignores the more practical functions of clothing (e.g. protection: strapless gown in the winter! and comfort: 3-inch heels year-round). But what if fashion was more overtly conscious of a garment’s true (and non-aesthetic) functions: to protect the body from the elements, to conceal parts of the body at a level society deems appropriate (we display ankles now). And what if it overtly addressed the sculpture that a garment can be. These are some of the imperatives behind )open((clothed), a new line of clothing by Diana Lang. She will tell you that she’s building clothing for comfort and freedom. Most of her friends are dancers and musicians. People who need to move. But there’s more: these are people highly conscious of their bodies, highly conscious of the garment in which the body is housed as it moves through a performance.
Lang has costumed the dance/performance group Woolly Mammoth Comes To Dinner. “They incorporate contact improv, are loose and humorous. My garments are not as blank as a bodysuit, they are something to interact with. You are wearing a form that you have to respond to.”
Another Lang imperative is a play with sculptural form rare in American apparel design. “I make geometric forms into wearable clothing. I’m interested in breaking down what a shirt or dress is. So the globe dress is a globe of fabric, you can see the seams. I take the globe and then shift its axis. The black hole pockets are on the north and south poles. For me, making sculpture is directly related to this.”
Diana Lang studied sculpture and printmaking at the Massachussetts College of Art in Boston. “My sculpture was very process-based with unusual materials, addressing form, space.”
This program is continued in her adventures with apparel design. She begins the process with fabric. “I collect fabrics. Then I see how they connect.” She sketches, “a little, a shape,” but mostly composes a design by handling the fabric. She does a lot of machine quilting. “I enjoy doing it, and it helps along the feeling of being protected/comforted by my clothing, not exposed.”
At the same time, she talks about yoked babydoll dresses she made for dancer Katie Arrants…about being able to see the “parachuting of the material,” when Arrants moved in performance. “It stayed with me. I’ve continued to use that silhouette, a shape that references a child’s jumper with its lack of formality in the torso. It uses the body as armature for a geometric form. I’ve done sculpture and I know that your interaction with a piece of sculpture is limited. So now I can make sculpture that is very interactive. ”
As a designer and seamstress, she’s untrained. “I’ve made many attempts to be the tailor that I wasn’t. I admire it. I went to the Adam Arnold show and his stuff is amazing. But I’ve released myself from attempting that. I’m not going to make a 3-piece suit.”
She started sewing to make things for herself. “Then I did a couple of wedding dresses,” she says. Wedding dresses?! “For friends, they basically wanted something different and let me do whatever I wanted.” And she found that she enjoyed it. “When I make other art, its very heavy for me. Very serious. With clothing, I can have more fun, inject humor and lightness. But I can still do clothing in a process-based way like other art. That’s what’s compelling to me.”
Diana Lang will show )open((clothed) at the Mercury Fashion Show on April 22 at the Wonder Ballroom.
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