Lauren DreierArt and design

Garments

Explorations in computer-aided couture

“Strands” was an event held in conjunction with New York Fashion Week that featured a collection of garments, striped paintings, and the premiere performance of “In seconds, then beats: for string quartet”, composed by Morgan Gerstmar and performed by Gerstmar, Molly Germer, Thea Mesirow and myself.

The project comes together around the stripe, strand, or string as a formal device. The stripe can be easily modulated, cast over planes or sent freewheeling around curves to create and describe volume. A stripe is a line that is given surface, material, color, and ultimately a vibration. The strand is also instrumental in circumventing (and also initiating) some more challenging patternmaking issues.

I think of garment design as culminating in an object that is inevitably material, geometric and human-occupied. While the general lack of criticism and fast-paced extravagance of the fashion industry is often problematic — at times devastatingly so, I have also found the boundlessness of fashion to be a refreshing alternative to a culture of making that is often stifled by analysis, where its practitioners seem more interested in advancing existing trends than in taking bona fide leaps.

Searching for a medium and ultimately a platform to give form, space, and time to my various creative workings, “Strands” was an attempt at such a leap.

Look 1 Look 1 detail

Above:Look 1, “Strands”. A maple veneer and leather harness holds a network of strung organza tubes.

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Above:Look 2. A leather structure is clad with strips of translucent PET.

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Above:Look 3. A maple veneer and leather harness holds organza tubes that undulate in, out and around the body.

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Above:Look 4, “Thou shalt not spline”. Curving leather spines are spanned by strips of PTFE.

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Above:Look 5. A leather structure is spanned by strips of white oak veneer.

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Above:Look 6, “Interpolate this”. Continuous lines are drawn up and around the body in leather, supported by nearly invisible PET straps.

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Above:A leather structured skirt and bra is clad with impossibly thin, flexible strips of natural stone.

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Above:Look 8, “Pant”. Organza tubes and translucent PET draw vertical lines up the body to form a bustier-top pant, worn with a sculptural necklace of plywood and acrylic.

The performance

“Strands” performance of “In seconds, then beats”
“Strands” performance of “In seconds, then beats” “Strands” performance of “In seconds, then beats”

Above:Performance of “In seconds, then beats” by Morgan Gerstmar at the “Strands” show. All photos by David Hans Cooke.

Above:Video of performance by Tim Romero.

Credits

I would like to thank all of the people I was fortunate to collaborate with on Strands, as so much of this was completely new to me: styling, makeup, hair, casting, pants, exposed breasts, public relations, experimental composition (and the surprisingly complex performance of these compositions), motor drivers, studio assistants, and more—all as agents of expression and control. I am deeply grateful to the talented individuals who believed in the project, stayed up late, and helped make it come to life. I’m also grateful to those who were able to come out to the show, to listen, and to see.

Next project: Paintings