When an object is viewed in a collection the single element becomes greater as it has a narrative thread running through it, it adds meaning. The process of collecting can be considered a tool that has the potential to redefine the way we perceive, create, use and value the clothes we wear.
SWAPSHOP
SWAPSHOP is a temporary installation where you can exchange a pre-loved clothing item (and its story) for something new!
SWAPSHOP is a part of WORN_RELICS© and made in collaboration with Anne Stooker. The first edition was held during Amsterdam International Fashion Week in January 2009.
WORN_RELICS
www.wornrelics.com
WORN_RELICS© is a unique new space where the history and future of clothing can be collected and archived. It is based on the idea that clothing is a relic, something treasured for its past associations. Clothing actually acquires value through being worn.
WORN_RELICS© was created by Ruby Hoette and realised in collaboration with Hanno ten Hoor. Graphic Design: Lane Gry/Clare McNally.
Collection S/S 2008
Insides exposed.
A collection of polaroids.
Bed Clothes
A collection of secondhand woolen blankets.
She closes her eyes and lies still and simply between the sheets.
The weight of the blankets presses comfortingly against her body as she begins to drift somewhere secret, somewhere between dream and reality.
She feels at ease, vaguely confident and most certainly herself.
She starts to let go....
Photographs Peter Stigter
Worn Relics II
A collection of days of a lifetime form the lining of a dress, a lining which can also be worn on the outside.
Each day of our lives we collect memories and influences which we carry with us into the next. This abstract collection of the past is invisible baggage which forms our person. Sometimes it is heavy, weighing us down and other times we carry it with ease. Mostly it is hidden from the outside world but from time to time we turn ourselves inside out and 'wear our hearts on our sleeves'.
Photographs Choki Lindberg
A Collection of Short Stories
Fragments of stories I stumbled across...
The Coat
In a new place one collects contacts and familiarity and weaves a safety net, a protective layer. In doing so one becomes inextricably connected to the surroundings or context.
With the passing of time this layer inevitably becomes denser and heavier and no longer only protective but stifling.
Photographs Gina Zacharias
Un-dress
The movements while dressing or undressing reveal different layers of the clothing.
In Un-dress being covered or uncovered is not only a functional process, but one where the layers/stages become a physical and visual experience.
Cnidarian Body Plan
An immense coat constructed from a collection of found jackets which is worn by a moving/breathing mass. Fitting together like a puzzle they form a landscape which sprawls almost endlessly.
In collaboration with Choki Lindberg
The Red Dress
After exploring how a dress makes one feel, how it moves and how the dress itself changes identity with each different person inside of it, new red dresses were made specifically for each person.
The essence of each interaction between personality and prototype dress is captured in the design of the final dresses.
Berlin Windows
A collection of photographs of windows and doors provides glimpses into a secret world through an otherwise impenetrable surface.
Translated into clothing the body inside arouses ones curiosity, visible only barely through small openings in the layers.
Photographs Choki Lindberg
About
Ruby Hoette was born in Australia and moved to Amsterdam to study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She graduated in 2006 and currently lives and works in Amsterdam and London. She deals with fashion in an unconventional way, collecting clothing and textiles and exploring their origins, patterns of use and layers of value and meaning. These collections take the form of photography, publications, clothing designs and interactive projects. She works with the associations and rituals people attach to clothes. She believes that every piece of clothing carries a history, a story and great sentimental value.
Her collections consist of everything from days to stories, mattresses to memories...of the things we treasure but even of traces or the disposable. They can become a work in themselves or something to translate into another form. Collecting involves seeking, locating, acquiring, organising, cataloging, storing, maintaining and displaying whatever items/elements are of interest. Even in their raw form the collections are not random. They are a way of telling a story.