Fashion Work - by Jeppe Ugelvig (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An exhilarating scrapbook of the 1990s fashion-art scene in New York and Paris, with Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, BLESS and DIS

In this unprecedented volume, the New York- and London-based critic and curator Jeppe Ugelvig recounts a little-explored history of art/fashion hybridity through the genre-defying practices of Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, BLESS and DIS, exploring their experimental approaches to fashion production between the art and fashion worlds in a time of radical societal change.

Through a rich selection of rare and previously unseen photographs and ephemera, the book depicts fashion work in all its exhilarating complexity, tracing it from the atelier of the garment-maker to the post-production editing suite of the fashion photographer. Ugelvig's comprehensive account connects a mythological 1990s generation of collaborative, DIY fashion producers in New York, Paris and Berlin to the digital and increasingly corporate systems of fashion of the 2010s, where aesthetic activities such as styling and creative directing have become ubiquitous.

From the dystopian brand-hacking of Bernadette Corporation to the museum pop-up stores and early sneaker collaborations of BLESS, the book shows how artists not only manage to repeatedly subvert fashion's frenzied systems, but also to prototype new forms of aesthetic entrepreneurship.

Jeppe Ugelvig (born 1993) is a critic and curator based in New York and London. His writing appears regularly in Frieze, i-D, ArtReview, AnOther, Flash Art International, PIN-UP, Spike and LEAP, among many others. He has staged exhibitions and projects in London, Berlin, Copenhagen, New York, Turin and Ramallah.

Review Quotes

Orbits the twenty-five-year chunk of myth where experimental entities like Bernadette Corporation, BLESS and DIS threw lines between art and fashion, roiling the increasingly corporate infrastructures that undergird both worlds with new models for creative and cultural assembly. Ugelvig's writing is confident, meticulous and playful. He submits the genre-defying brands who trafficked in transitory interventions to an academic rigor that, unlike so much of the art historical work done today, doesn't seal off the excitement of the era, but teases it out to make it newly accessible.-- "Cultured"

Through the work of Bernadette Corporation, Susan Cianciolo, BLESS and DIS, [Ugelvig] traces the course of rapid change in an increasingly commercialised creative labour landscape, from the early 90s to the present day, hinting at the paths that these ongoing developments could take.--Mahoro Seward "i-D"

Danish-born curator and critic Jeppe Ugelvig offers a refreshing take: that this question should not be framed in terms of aesthetic categories, but, instead, by social and material systems of production--that is to say, by work. The volume traces twenty-five years of hybrid fashion forms--and labor--through an impressive array of archival material, including backstage photos, notebook sketches, show invitations, and more.--Emily Wells "Bookforum"

Fashion Work: 25 Years of Art in Fashion (Damiani), certainly seasons our understanding of the subcultures that grew up around the genre-blending practices...To Ugelvig, the distinction between the two fields--an endless topic of conversation--should not be focused on "aesthetic categories" but rather "systems of labor," i.e., how things are made.--Laird Borelli-Persson "Vogue"