winterSALON/2012: Painted Table Dress at Museum Van Loon

Painted Table Dress

In the spirit of Painted Series, where designs evolve with more than one pair of hands, Saskia van Drimmelen and Margreet Sweerts of Painted created a special concept for AIS SALON/ in Aruba last november 2011: the Painted Table Dress. It’s a dress annex table cloth in order of a special workshop: 16 people, varying from social workers, creative artists, local entrepreneurs and a fashion blogger, who get together to embroider on this table dress. 

The assignment of Painted to the volunteers was: embrace what you get, like it is a gift, and bring it a level further. In other words: your creations will be the starting point for someone else. Like a canon. And that's not easy, to let go your personal embroidery you have worked on!

During the workshop Saskia and Margreet explained a few basic embroidery techniques and created a visual dialogue with the colorful yarns between the mixture of people. All participants of the workshop made a fantasy fish, water waves, a fantasy bird and treads that leaded to the top of the cloth.

The end result

For Painted it was an emotional moment seeing their effort and creation get together so well on the day of the final presentation, when the dress was reveiled as part of a special performance by dancer Alydia Wever. It was exactly what they wished for when they created the idea of a table dress two years ago. "It felt really, really good, its a disclosure so perfect it moved me deeply", Margreet Sweerts said. Sakia van Drimmelen: "The idea was already there, but never the right moment. We were asked two years ago to create a table cloth, but just making a table cloth and present it in a shop felt unnatural and not 'painted' like. I knew all along this table cloth should be a made by more than one pair of hands. I saw people sitting around the table and embroider together, even when you never did that before. I am really happy with the result."

The project of the Painted Table dress is SALON/ pur sang. The Painted Table Dress can be admired in Museum Van Loon.

Video Table Speech 

In Museum van Loon the video of the Table Dress presentation in Aruba will be showed, made by Ken Wolff, called 'Table Speech'. Its a video that have captured how time stood still on the shores of Aruba the day of the presentation.  

Come and see this exclusive and breath taking concept of Painted at winterSALON/2012. Please, order your tickets at www.salon1.org/tickets or buy a ticket at the museum. 

Painted Table Dress, in cooperation with Painted Series, Alydia Wever (dance), Michael Lampe (music), Scol di Arte, UNOCA and SALON/.

  

About Painted

Led by Dutch designers Saskia van Drimmelen and Margreet Sweerts, Painted Series is a collective that blurs the lines between fashion and performance, and expands the idea of what a garment can be. 

For more information visit www.paintedseries.com