After listening to Bianca Saunders, I went down the Seine and was inspired to fire up “Upsetter Dub 14 Blackboard Jungle” on my headphones , enjoy the full sound of Mind Floss. Lee “Scratch” Perry, easily among the greatest musicians of the
century, has sadly passed away ; his work Essential to the development of reggae and dub (not to mention drum bass, jungle music, etc.). Perry is also an accomplished visual artist, as Bianca Saunders discovered when she visited an exhibition in London earlier this year. Like his music, he mixes forms and bends materials to create new landscapes.
After consulting with the Swiss estate of Perry, Saunders selected themes from his Ark archives and then began to incorporate them into her clothing designs. Her attitude isn’t too different from Perry’s ethos, and she adds obvious found materials like tape and straps to change the construction of her garments. There are also some graphic references.
She continues her collaboration with Farah, a brand with a fascinating and ever-changing history in the workwear pantheon. She also focused on soft hopsack fabrics, rather than the stiff cotton the company is famous for, and used topstitching to expose the pieces’ functional anatomy. She also teamed up with At Kollektive for a new shoe design, featuring softly rounded chiseled-toe boots and folded uppers, perfectly paired with taped detailing above. The innovative and questioning use of draping to remove symmetry and create unconventionalism is still there and right. It works especially well on a blue plaid shirt dress that wraps around the body and straps through an indigo denim shirt.
