ART???

[fuzzylizzie]

Sorry, but no photos; you'll have to use your imaginations for this one.

I was recently in an antique mall and came upon a booth that had some vintage clothing. I reached over to pick up a great 1930s hat from the top of the display, and it wouldn't come off! The owner of the booth had HOT GLUE GUNNED this hat to the top of a vintage store display (a torso on a stick). The torso was attired in a 1920s silk camisole, and glued to the top of it was a Victorian bodice. On the base of the stand was glued a pair of Edwardian shoes, in great, even wearable, condition, and a pair of beaded kid gloves. Over the top of all this was glued vintage ribbon and bits of lace, and 1920s rosettes.

I was in shock! I found the price tag which read, "Altered Clothing Art, $225"

I'm aware that altering is the latest craze in paper art. I do journaling and I have lots of books on the subject. So I got out a few to see what they have to say about this art form. I was again shocked! Some of these books advocate the use of vintage patterns as a good base material for art! Just glue the pieces onto whatever you are working on for a cool effect. Another book showed pictures being cut out of 1950s VOGUE magazines, photos glued onto the top of that and a vintage glove was pasted at the side.

Not that I think every old scrap of material and every old patterns is worthy of collecting or saving, but what's to prevent an uninformed crafter from gluing a pair of Hermes gloves to a pair of Perugia shoes, topped off with a Worth bodice and a Agnes hat?

I understand collage, really, I do. I appreciate the work of Joseph Cornell and Lenore Tawney and others, and I enjoy working assemblages myself. But shouldn't there be a connection somewhere between artist and work? Or is it "ART" because the maker says it's "ART"? To me, the point of the Altered Clothing ART was for the vendor to capitalize on a trend and make a few bucks.

Okay, rant over.

Lizzie

 

[crinolinegirl]

I am a great believer that there should be a law against certain people from handling antique/vintage clothing.

I once read an article about a girl who was an "artist" that had inherited her great grandmother's antique corset. She covered the stuff in glue or something sticky that hardens and hung it on her wall!!! Here I am wrapping my antique corsets in acid free paper and freezing them against pests and she's covering a family heirloom in crap!

Lei

 

[Vintagetrend]

Hmmmmmm bit of a pet peeve for me I suppose. I am always the one running around rescuing the vintage from the halloweeners and buying that silk Japanese robe with the shattered lining just because the work that went into it needs to be preserved and if not preserved then worn by someone who appreciates it...
I don't know, I suppose people can make art from whatever they please but if I have any say about it I will snatch it from their hands and run like the wind *smile*
Your Hermes gloves sentance made me cringe. I think it would be fantastic to have some sort of a label that says, no vintage was destroyed in the makeing of this piece of art... ie patterns without all the pieces, hat destroyed by a theatre company ect...

I agree with your rant, with most likely more rigor then you as I do not like that kind of "art" personally... to each his/her own of course

Michelle

 

[Beehive Vintage Goods]

Downright scary!! I do some collages and art stuff, but never, ever use anything authentic unless it is beyond repair. There is lots of great repro paper stuff out there to use these days too.

Your story makes me want to cry. Hide your magazines gals!!

 

[bartondoll]

I think in many cases it is a total ignorance and non-appreciation of the
vintage fashion item. Years ago before I became somewhat educated
about vintage clothing, I scoured thrifts and rummage sales for "old"
clothes. Finding a piece with antique lace, beading, gorgeous
fabrics, etc., made my day ...and I gleefully completed my day
by taking apart the clothing once I got home. I was very snobbish in that I only used antique/vintage materials on the figures I sculpt and I was also
delusional in that I figured I was "recycling". (give me a pat on the back! LOL).

An old Asian burn out velvet tunic was the turning point for me. I could not cut it up and then I started researching vintage clothing and fashion.

Fast forward a couple of years - I now only used totally trashed silks, lace pieces and
materials for my figures as I don't need a lot on any given piece. Looking through my stash of 'stuff' one day, I came across a lovely dress which I
had gleefully cut into pieces years before. Staring me in the eye was
a Ceil Chapman label still attached to a sad little piece. The wall was
dented in that room after I banged my head against it several times.

Anyway, I bet a lot of artists and craftspeople think the very same way
I did initially........and it is sad.

Sue

 

[Laura]

This topic came up earlier this year on a vintage pattern e-mail group I belong to. An artist posted something about using vintage patterns to create art...I don't remember what the purpose of her post was, but I do remember the horror it caused among some of the pattern collectors!

I think she said something like she only used not-so-rare patterns from the '50s, which mollified the group to an extent (or at least, the group didn't want to offend her with criticism).

Personally, I think that sort of thing is on par with using patterns (or Victorian "rags") to pack glass & other fragile items at auctions. It may be caused by ignorance, but it makes me sick to think about all the rare patterns/clothing that are lost as a result.

Laura

 

[hatfeathers]

Gads.
As one junk dealer once said to me "people destroy or toss out a mint's worth of old stuff every day".

Shoot, just look at that recent Lee jeans auction, the one with the fuzzy tag that got over $2K.
If people knew what this stuff was worth monetarily they wouldn't touch it...let alone what it's worth historically.

Jenn

 

[Patentleathershoes]

For me, there are so many ways to reproduce things these days.

Copiers and scanners are not grainy and horrrible like they used to be and one can scan "pieces" of a pattern and even make them mroe artistic with paper choice, and what you do after to it. There is really no excuse to be chopping things up.

I have no problem with things that are beyond repair. Not just beyond what you care to repair but things that truly are. But if you think about it, the earliest childhood school projects encourage children to cut pictures from magazines and paste them with like or unlike objects, so really the earliest things we do before we are deemed that our own drawings are recognizable enough is to disassemble.

My 5 year old nephew who is in prekindergarten came home with a letter "E" he made out of construction paper. Actually, they were "precut" he didnt cut it out, and then he pasted things that started with "E" onto it. But that wasnt even original because the preschool teaching assistant had already ripped pages out of magazines and found photos and other items that had things that started with "E" on it so they really didn't have much thinking to do, My sister in law was told that they dont have them draw freestyle because they might be embarrassed when people dont recognize what they draw!!!

Anyways...that was a tangent...