Faux Shop
Artwork Factory“Faux Shop” is a sculptural installation and at the same time a shop window for a fashion collection. The shop window mimics a women's clothing store. Lucy McKenzie painted the marbled parts of the installation herself in an illusionistic manner. Like moving ghosts, the clothes were either pinned to the walls, placed in the display, or suspended dynamically from wires. The clothes are from Atelier E.B, a collaborative fashion label and research studio that Lucy McKenzie runs with designer Beca Lipscombe.
Lucy McKenzie is a jack of all trades. She has been a gallery owner and a bar owner, founded a music label, studied painting and architectural drawing, and worked with crime novels and comics. She tries things out and seeks connections between different creative professions. In 2007 Lucy founded the design collective Atelier E.B with the designer Beca Lipscombe. Their clothes, “Jasperwear,” are presented in the display windows of the faux shop.
"Through fashion, you have all these things that relate to the body, to women, to representation. It is so fertile, and it can be like a Rubik’s cube. You can just kind of re-jig it in all these different ways to test your ideas."
Lucy McKenzie
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Source
In fashion, past trends often inspire new styles. The everyday garments of Lucy’s and Beca’s “Jasperwear” clothing also make reference to historical eras and fashion trends. But something is missing in this shop: the mannequins! Lucy McKenzie and Beca Lipscombe deliberately work with invisible constructions instead of human bodies.
Look closely
The store is more a deceptively real stage set than a real sales area. What exactly is bring presented here?
Look closely
Which motifs, patterns and styles do you recognize? Are they all the rage, long outdated or timelessly chic?
Get creative
DISCUSS
Can the boundaries between art, craft, and design be clearly discerned in the works of Lucy McKenzie? Or are these three areas not separable at all? What does this mean for the understanding of art production?
