It was spring 2007 when the BLIND ADAM
project started. I still remember the day when alsmost
like hypnotised I went to buy the wool yarn and then rushed
back home and started making it into knots.. But let's
start at the beginning.
I started working as a fashion editor in 1990. By ten
years time I hadmanaged to develop a successful career
in this field, working for the Greek editions of different
international magazines (Vogue Hellas, L'Officiel, Votre
Beaute, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, In Style) as a
freelancer and established a good reputation. It was obvious
by now though that my eyesight problem called retinitis
pigmentosa (a genetic disease of the retina) was deteriorating
and that was starting to become frustrating. The reasons
were that aside from having to deal with working as a
fashion editor who doesn't see very well I also had to
deal with people's reaction to that. It was a crucial
period and I had to go through a lot of thinking about
my future in fashion. Restless as I am, I decided to continue.
Seven years later I had developed some new skills in
order to enable myself to continue working in fashion.
By then, it was easy for me to understand all about a
garment mostly by touching it. So I was intrigued once
more because my involvement with fashion always raised
issues about its' ephemeral mode,its' essence and its'
effect to society vs fundamental matters that have been
always puzzling mankind.
So, all of a sudden, it struck me and BLIND ADAM was
born.
I decided I would start this project where I would use
all my experience in fashion and also my studies on history
of art.
It was going to be a mixture of elements from my favorite
artists: Jean Cocteau's drawings, Giaccometti's sculptures
, DaVinci's studies on anatomy, Pollock's and Magritte's
paintings, Dali's surrealist ambiance, together with the
fairytale "the emperor's new clothes", the christian
myth of the first born and the Braille writing system
for the blind. All these influences crystallized into
the "invisible clothes".
These constructions that represent garments stripped to
their bare structure have a strong imposing presence which
in the same time can also look almost ghostly. Another
characteristic is that they look like manuscripts with
visible corrections on them and that they have a trompe
l' aeil 3dimensional effect.
BLIND ADAM represents a very personal part of me, a metaphorical
story telling presented in acts, like a theater play.
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