Feeling Elegant, Feeling Generous, Feeling Thirsty (Moderately Desperate Version)
In 2021, for their presentation at that years Art Rotterdam Prospects, artist Caz Egelie invited me to design a suit for them to wear during the fair. Taking inspiration from Ursula LeGuin’s ‘The Left Hand of Darkness’ and the period of ‘kemmer’ that some of the novels gender neutral characters undergo, the suit is designed to undergo four different phases. The suit could be customised during the fair, to match the indecisive curators increasingly desperate mood. The curator, the artist, the galerist become one in order to sell, perform, thrive, host, present and represent. They pull out tricks from their sleeves, turn their pockets inside out and be become increasingly seductive and desperate at the same time. Parts of the suit were screen printed by Caz and the suit was constructed brilliantly by Maya Berkhof, who also helped with the design. Photographs taken by Roderick Laperdrix.
Each of the four stages of ‘Feeling Elegant, Feeling Generous, Feeling Thirsty’ comes with a panel that is attached to the back of the suit. From the neutral ‘Prologue’ to the fourth desperate and anxious ‘Stage III’, both the suit and Caz’s own behaviour would shift from elegant, confident, thirsty, flirty, to desperate, doubtful and tired. Each day of the art fair they would go through multiple cycles of these behaviours.
The individual stages of the suit also included special details, like printed inner pockets, a custom lining attached to one the trouser’s legs, and a seductive pocket sculpture made out of powder coated metal and fake eyelashes.
