design: Gretchen Jones. photo: Pete Springer
The big cloud box topped with shaking white balloons intermitantly gave off a multi-voice wail and another model wearing one of Diana Lang’s (Open Clothed) designs emerged from it holding a white balloon, a bit of cloud on her head, to walk among the crowd at the Mercury’s Installations fashion event last night in the Wonder Ballroom.
Last year during The Collections fashion shows in Portland, designers Liza Rietz, Emily Ryan, and Anti Domestic put their models on pedestals at the Rake Gallery with the thought that the intricate details of the designs might be better communicated/appreciated than if the model wearing the garment were whizzing past on a runway. And, the Merc’s Marjorie Skinner pointed out in early conversations about last night’s event that installation was a better way to showcase jewelry and accessories. Agreed.
design Frocky Jack Morgan. photo: Pete Springer
The notion of making an installation was taken to with varying levels of gusto by the designers. Lang, a sculptor with connections to avant-garde performance in Portland, swung for the fence. Leanne Marshall (Leanimal) hung a single, complex dress (echoes of Marie Antoinette through a modern jersey lens with a gathered overskirt and suggestion of corseted bodice) beneath a ceiling of suspended muslin leaves. Gretchen Jones put three mannequins in her crisp cotton dresses evoking girl’s pinafores in a minimalist gold bird cage. Jewelry designer Amanda Horton (Allium), installed a woman in her jewelry-filled boudoir, big-link chains and hammered silver hoops, while Julia Barbee (Frocky Jack Morgan) constructed a dress for a giantess (or a girl on a ladder) out of raw, undyed fluffs of wool. Genevieve Dellinger’s model in those phenomenally cut jersey pants with angular insets and sack pockets sat beside a white t.v. running pink static. Donovan Skirvin punned with a shoe tree and its process-based look at his leather shoes in various stages of creation. And Hazel Cox had a Mayan thing going on with ground corn, two massive rocks, stinky incense (sorry, Hazel), and a beautiful man draped in her hammered copper jewelry, big wishbone shapes, riveted cuffs and a necklace backed with puff balls.
design: Genevieve Dellinger. photo: Pete Springer
This was our first chance to get a better look at Daniel McCall’s hommage pieces, wool jersey dresses after Kleibacker and Vionnet, a muslin take on a ’50s Dior ribboned skirt (incredible!), and a Comme des Garcons-esque t-shirt with “smocking for the new millennium.” He’s an incredible artist, a fact made very evident in the Dior skirt and an incredible silk kimono coat with pieced sleeves in varying earth shades. Among the pieces at the show that warranted being handled and closely inspected, McCall’s were top of list.
It was also our introduction to the talented Janeane McSpadden (In Love & Memory). Still a junior at the Art Institute (which we find hard to believe) McSpadden showed beautiful, well-made, simple little dresses with subtle details. “I like to strip almost everything away, then add something back in,” she said. Our favorite 3/4 sleeve tunic dress in a beige raw silk had an angled back yoke, almost an inside secret between the designer and wearer, so subtle the design element. McSpadden, who interned with Anna Cohen, showed some amazing concept boards as well that we’d like to see come into fruition. We’ll definitely be hearing much more about her.
design Leanne Marshall, Leanimal. photo: Pete Springer
Other notable work was Linea’s crisp cotton gathered-waist long vest (with white grosgrain straps in back) in camel over a white silk/cotton shift, the little gold dress Jones sent down the runway, Dellinger’s detached hood, and Marshall’s experiments with draping vs. structure. We’re looking forward to talking more with Cox about her money series: necklace links made of snake hide backed with dollar bill, giant hoop earrings strung with tiny gold snake vertebrae (”I get them from a coin dealer. They’re considered money in Nigeria.”).
Marshall won the prize of the evening, a spread in the Mercury, though we don’t know how judges Holly Stalder, Patricia No, Lisa Hough (in the most amazing dress of the evening, a short crisp tent of a dress with a dramatic collar that we could not stop eyeing by Elizabeth Dye), and Adam Arnold could possibly choose. Could Marshall, whom we understand does some graphic design for the Merc, end up designing her own spread? What a tiny, tiny world.
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