Untitled 1 and Untitled 3 from The Birthday Party series.Paris-based artist (via Australia) Vee Speers is no stranger to fashion - Kaiser Karl himself penned the forward to her first literary venture, Bordello. With her recent series, The Birthday Party, she similarly strikes a fashionable chord. Based on the idea of an imaginary party, these portraits of children in costumes evoke a variety of emotions, helping us, as the artist says, to retreat into fantasy.
The idea of allowing yourself to drift into a land of make believe sounds quite appealing to us all right now, constantly being made aware of dire current affairs all around. And there is really no better escape than fashion and art.
The Birthday Party series is described as something of a confrontation with our own childhoods, using costume as a way to not only entertain oneself and others but to depart from reality and be anything you want to be, anything the real world might not let you - a ballerina, an adventurer a movie star. And don't we all, to some extent, let fashion be our way to role play and explore, to express ourselves?
The result of Speers' expression is dreamy - sometimes eerie and a tad haunting, sometimes sweet. But somehow the aesthetic also seems very chic, very right now. Plaits, lace, velvet, Peter Pan collars, nautical, fishnets...so fall 2009. With of course some fantastical elements thrown in, of course: gas-masks, pig noses, wings and other props.
One should never give up on their childhood dreams...nor on the game of dress up, don't you think?
Untitled 16 and Untitled 37 from The Birthday Party series.
Photos courtesy of Artnet.
Untitled 16 and Untitled 37 from The Birthday Party series.Photos courtesy of Artnet.
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