No More Useless Beauty

'No More Useless Beauty' is a womenswear collection presented at London Fashion Week, designed to explore legibility and the expression of ethics in the context of contemporary fashion. This collection of ‘not-for-sale’ luxury garments asserted alternative twenty-first century currencies in the context of an industrial culture driven by profit, image and exploitation. The mutinous action, of denying the garments to international buyers who attended, subverted the event and forced the media/industry to engage with the main themes of the collection.

Utility-styled garments generated from sketches, via paper pattern and toile, were assembled by specialist skilled suppliers, using fabric from UK sources complemented with unique constructed textiles. Digital prints, embroideries and embellishment executed to haute couture level, expressed overt political slogans about the origin and authenticity of the garments. For example over-scale embroideries stating 'Made in Wales not in Taipan' on the leg of a trouser and Woven in Scotland embroidered across the back of a tailored jacket.

British heraldic motifs from coins were employed oversized in prints, crystal embellishment, acetate ‘giant sequins’. Embroidery techniques used to manufacture badges for school blazers were enlarged to an unprecedented scale beyond the capacity of a machine, celebrating artisan skills and craftsmanship.

Dai Rees

Research Interests

Craftsmanship, Fashion, Fine Art, Media

Current Research

The research project 'Patronage, Artisan, Media and Audience, A Model for Twenty First Century Craftsmanship', is focussed around an installation of abstract, figurative, structural casings created from inlayed leather-hide.
Conceived to expose the level and range of skills, techniques and time required to design, assemble and decorate objects that exhibit crafts excellence, the central installation is a collection of suspended sculptural skins that extends our awareness of garment construction and embellishment, and heightens our sensitivity to the significance of craftsmanship.

Researching marquetry, illumination and the Intaglio process of acid etching from the sixteenth century, the work identifies links between historical and contemporary techniques. Inlayed materials transform the surface of the leather hide, complementing the developed techniques for the moulding, manipulation and construction of the pieces which combine the technical skills from different craft and manufacturing fields to create new aesthetic qualities.

The work produced during the AHRC Fellowship will form part of a national and international touring exhibition from October 2005 supported with a lecture, seminar and discussions.