There's something I'd like to get off my chest. Sometimes - just sometimes - I miss Perth. I miss those big blue West Coast skies, I miss Perth's safe, easy to use, comparatively clean rail system. I miss the Rosemount's beer garden, I miss the Hydey, I even miss the slutty boys at Amplifier. I miss my cat, dammit. Mostly, I just miss the awesome people who live there (hi, mum!), like today's interviewee, Judith (that's her in the picture, ain't she a looker?). Judith's a former fashion student and now artist who specialises mostly in the macabre, Being Amazing and dressing like some kind of Galliano-inspired exotic bird without looking silly.
In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that Judith's been my best bud since I was old enough to say, "Hey, I love your outfit." We grew up together in the cultural black hole that is Perth's wealthy outer suburbs. She was the fancy, fashionable artistic type; I was the scruffy, street urchin "I-just-wanna-put-my-jeans-on-and-go-skating" type. We made it work though and in a place where a gumnut with eyes glued on it was standard fare at the monthly "Art Show", Judith somehow got inspired and grew into someone pretty out there. So I guess that (us being friends from way back) explains why this interview is more full of 'Hey, remember that time when...'s and discussions about eating/smoking found objects than fashion, which is what the topic was supposed to be. And I wasn't trying to be all intellectual/LISTEN HERE GRINGO, I'M ASKING A SERIOUS QUESTION like I am in some of the other interviews.
Anyway, check out some of Judith's shit(click to enlarge):
These are all taken from Judith's 'Inside Out' collection.
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J: Hello, dictaphone!
CS: Do you think fashion is underrated as an art form?
J: Um, I think that people tend to overlook it as an art form. But in my opinion, I think it definitely is a form of art and expression. When you look at designers like John Galliano, the late Alexander McQueen and definitely Comme Des Garรงons and other artists, the catwalk, it is performance art.
CS: Do you have a certain type of person in mind when you're creating art? In particular, wearable art? Like, in terms of fashion?
J: In terms of fashion? I don't really... When I make a piece of wearable art I don't really think about it in terms of who's going to wear it because I don't think that the pieces I make are particularly wearable. I look at them in terms of... more like art pieces if you know what I mean. I don't think that anyone would want to wear my pieces. I think that, especially in the last collection that I did... I don't think that people would necessarily look at them and think, 'Someone's going to wear that?', I think they'd look at it in terms of art and form an opinion about it. I just found another pistachio nut.
CS: Are you gonna eat it?
J: No, it was kind of wedged in my bum.
CS: Do you remember that one time you found that Minty on the street outside my house, and you ate it?
J: Did I eat that?
CS: Yes!
J: Didn't I spit it out?
CS: No, you ate it. 'Cause it was still in its wrapper.
J: It was in a wrapper, that's okay. I was walking to the bus stop after uni the other day and there was a piece of chewing gum on the ground and I kind of kicked it and stuff and it was all wrapped up and there was chewing gum inside, and I was all, 'Awww... Should I eat it?' but people were looking so I didn't.
CS: But you would've eaten it if nobody had been around?
J: Probably.
CS: I once smoked a cigarette that I found on the street. But it was like a whole cigarette, it wasn't just a stub. It was an untouched cigarette, just lying on the road.
J: That's fair enough, I don't think anybody would've put their germs on it. Except the road... The other day, I was at the movies and they had this new ad campaign in the cinema saying, 'This movie is two hours long so you're not gonna be able to have a cigarette for two hours.' And I know that was supposed to be like, 'You have to quit.' But I was just thinking, 'Oh, shit!'
CS: That's dumb, because people are just gonna go, 'Well, fuck that. I'll just go out and have a cigarette before it starts.' I always wonder about people who are addicted to smoking and go on a big overseas flight for fourteen hours or so. How do they cope? The flight that I'm getting to London is ridiculous, thirty hours or so.
J: Yea, but you usually have a stop over in Singapore.
CS: I've got a stop over in Los Angeles, I'm going the long way around.
J: Fucking hell! You're going to L.A, and then you're going to the U.K?
CS: Yea.
J: All the times I've been to the U.K I've a had a stop over in Singapore and it's been really cool because Singapore Airport is...
CS: Changi Airport is crazy, it's like a little city.
J: It is a city, you have to get buses around to different places. But the shopping is amazing.
CS: This is a good opportunity for me to segue back into fashion, 'cause last time I was at Changi Airport Singapore Fashion Week was on. And they had all of the models and stuff there.
J: That would've been awesome! Actually... It might have been depressing in a way.
CS: It was depressing, because I was getting off the plane and hadn't showered for ages. I was all gross, I don't think I had any pants on, just a tee shirt and a jacket, and I was walking around...
J: And you were just walking around with your fang dangle hanging out?
CS: No! It was a long tee shirt, it was practically a dress. So yea, there were all these models walking around and I felt really short and really fat next to them. And I don't usually think I'm short, I'm pretty tall by most standards.
J: Yea, but they're super giants.
CS: Do you think that's a bad side of fashion, how it makes people feel crappy about themselves?
J: Um... Not really. You know, I'm gonna be very politically incorrect and say I love models. There's been all that shit about the size zero models and what Victoria Beckham said and... Designers want to show their clothes in the best possible way and clothes look better on a thinner person, you want someone who's like a coat hanger to wear the clothes. I don't disagree with thin models. I know sometimes it can make you feel like shit but you've just got to look at it as...
CS: As an art form.
J: Yea, if you feel like shit when you look at a model then obviously you've got your own issues anyway. That's going to look really bad in your magazine.
CS: It's a fair point, people are always pointing at fashion magazines as a cause of eating disorders, but I think you'd have to be already vulnerable to that sort of mental illness to...
J: Well, it's not like looking at skinny models gives people eating disorders. Anorexic people who look to models for inspiration usually already have the disorder, not before.
CS: But I guess that's a way in which fashion is unique as an art form because it's something that people interact with every single day, as opposed to a painting on a wall where people can look at it and know that it's not reality but when it's clothes, the borders between fantasy and reality get taken down.
J: Yea, that's exactly it because there's a person there that they can kind of relate to. You can look at a painting and think, 'That's really really beautiful' but that doesn't get the same kind of hype as when you look at a model in a beautiful gown or something like that. It doesn't get looked at in the same way.
CS: Did you watch the Oscars?
J: Yea, I watched the Oscars. But I haven't seen all of the gowns yet, I really want to see all the gowns. But from what I saw, I was fairly disappointed.
CS: Yea, the clothes at the Oscars always kind of safe.
J: Like, ugly. Ugly ugly ugly ugly gowns. And I just fucking hate that Sandra Bullock won Best Actress. She's a shit actress! She did Miss Congeniality!
CS: She did Miss Congeniality 2, for that matter.
J: Yea, and that!
CS: But The Blind Side is totally racist. It's like Harry And the Hendersons except the monster is a black dude.
J: Really? Fuck that. I never saw it.
CS: But Carey Mulligan's dress was really cool. She was wearing this black dress that looked like it had a bunch of bead work at the front, but it was actually covered in tiny little kitchen utensils. Like, little scissors and spoons and knives and stuff.
J: That's so cute!
CS: I don't know who the designer was though, I can't remember.
J: Probably someone awesome.
CS: Probably. So... Anna said you've been doing a lot of photography lately.
J: Yea, I have been doing photography. I took a class. And I've been trying to get my skills up so I can document my work better.
CS: What are your thoughts about fashion photography? Do you think it's able to do justice to the clothes?
J: Well, I use photography as a way to document my pieces of art and I think it definitely adds something to the piece, like when you have a dress by itself it talks only of clothing. But when you photograph it, you can give it an entirely new perspective to the clothes.
CS: I think it's a good way to give it some context.
J: Yea, Exactly. Exactly. It puts it in context. When you do runway, some designers – especially for couture – change the runway, and make it completely different. Like Chanel last season, they did it in all this hay and had this big construction in the middle that they walked around...
CS: Yea, I saw that. Vivienne Westwood did the same thing didn't she? With the hay?
J: Yea.
CS: But... I didn't really like those clothes.
J: Me neither, I'm not really a fan of Chanel. But that was the best example I could think. Or, if you look at – I think it was 1999? - McQueen had that girl in the white dress?
CS: Oh, spinning around? That was Kate Moss, I think.
J: Mmmm... Was it Kate Moss?
CS: I think so. I watched the video again after I found out that he'd died.
J: Yea. Well, that just added an entirely new perspective like, you'd just had a chill breath before the walking down the runway. It's something soft and beautiful. Plus, it was a fucking awesome idea.
