Karoline Kjeldtoft: 86 / 77 / 96
Karoline Kjeldtoft works with conceptual clothing. She represents a humanistic approach towards design; How are identity questions mirrored in our way of dressing? The themes of this research are later communicated in exhibitions.
Fashion project “86 / 77 / 96”
86 / 77 / 96 is a design project, which by using conceptual clothing, thematizes the beauty ideal of today. I have designed 9 elegant black dresses, which reveal and underline the signs of the ageing female body. The dresses have been exhibited on 80-year-old live models.
My experience with contemporary ideals of beauty during my time in the fashion industry has motivated me to work with clothes that shift this ideal. The project focuses on the ageing female body through conceptual clothing. The design of the dresses underlines the signs of ageing body; wrinkles and sagging skin, which we traditionally cover with our clothes, is framed and incorporated into the design.
During the working progress, the body was viewed as a piece of material and a three-dimensional shape, which was then dressed and incorporated into the design. 86 / 77 / 96 is the title of the project as well as the average measurements of 80-year-old women. Measurements that present a shift from the classic 95 / 65 / 95 of the fashion industry. In classic tailoring cuts are traditionally designed to render the body as young as possible. Here, the objective has been to accentuate the actual shape of the body.
I will speak about my working process and show dias from the casting, the creative process and from the exhibition.
“86/77/96”
The project will be exhibited by live models in Norsk Design- og Arkitektursenter in cooperation with the conference “Dressing Rooms” on the 15th of May 2007. The exhibition is also on show in Øksnehallen, Copenhagen as postersize photographs in May 2007. The first show was in Aarhus Kunstbygning in 2004. Please see www.karolinekjeldtoft.com for more information.