The Empowering Reality of Fashion

Pascale Gatzen

Fig. 1 Questioning the Concept of a Uniform / 2014 Image: Yurie Nagashima

How do we create actions and activities that are of benefit to others? How do we engage the transformative power of fashion to empower ourselves, and our communities? How can we shape our (material) fashion practices to become catalysts for social, economic, ecological and cultural change?

These questions are at the core of the new curriculum for the Master of Arts in Fashion Design programme, “Fashion held in Common” at ArtEZ, University of the Arts, Arnhem, in the Netherlands, that I am currently creating and, that I am in the process of implementing. “Fashion held in Common” seeks to actively engage fashion's potential for compassion, in order to meet our common needs for connection, belonging, exchange, mutuality, and wellbeing.

This programme has been informed by many experiences I have had, and projects that I have developed, over the last few years.

One of the most exciting and beautiful projects has been "Questioning the Concept of a Uniform" in 2014 in Mito, Japan, as part of the exhibition “You reach out – right now –for something: Questioning the Concept of Fashion” at Art Tower Mito and at the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (MIMOCA), Marugame, Japan. This project has shown me a glimpse of the absolute transformative power of fashion.

Two weeks before the opening of the show I worked with 8 of the 32 female guards of the museum, teaching them how to construct and sew their own uniforms (Fig. 1). Most of the women had never sewn before and I had to teach them from the beginning. For example, we did a five-hour workshop on how to set in a sleeve. I engaged with the women in collective decision-making processes to decide on the shape of, and the inspiration for, their uniforms. We decided on a fairly simple dress, with a distinctive collar shape, as the base upon which they could elaborate their own designs. By the evening of the opening, all eight women had successfully created their own uniforms. They were extremely proud and some were very emotional. For the first time in their

Fig. 2 Questioning the Concept of a Uniform / 2014 Image: Yurie Nagashima

careers, they had been approached by, and had spoken with, visitors as an essential part of an exhibition.

The exhibition ran for 3 months. We had agreed that the 8 women that I worked with would teach the remaining 24 guards how to make their own uniforms. The museum had set up a workspace in which the women could teach, learn, and make their uniforms. At the end of the three months all 32 women had each made their own uniform (Fig. 2). Each one was unique. Each had the distinctive “handwriting”, or personal craftsmanship, of the individual guard who had created it, as well as the “handwriting” of the other guards with whom they had exchanged skills and gifts. The women had all included fabrics that they had a personal emotional connection to. They had exchanged handsewing and embroidery skills, fabrics, as well as small hand-sewn gifts that were to be attached to the uniforms (Fig. 3).

As museum guards, they had been working in each other’s presence during those three months, performing their everyday duties whilst wearing and developing their own uniforms. Their uniforms were, in effect, in a constant state of becoming. Beyond my wildest expectations, the women had, on their own, developed and created a distinctive visual language that brought about a uniformity that was yet so alive, so abundant and so incredibly potent.

This project showed in a subliminal way what fashion is, and what fashion does, devoid of the conditions of competition and the notion of scarcity. The uniforms were created because the women created them, and cared for each other: they shared excitement, inspiration, respect, love, and appreciation – all through the material reality of their self-made uniforms.

Before this project the women didn't know each other very well, but through it, they became a tightly knit community, beaming with love. Today, three and a half years later, the women are still working together, they have organised themselves, they give workshops, and they sell small hand-made items.

Another project is one I initiated in 2015 − an economic activity with the intention of sustaining a worker-owned business. I had come to understand the notion of worker cooperatives as a hybrid model through which we can start to explore and practice active citizenship again. By organising our work and economic activities within a worker cooperative structure, we take ownership over the way we shape the work itself, and allocate profits.

Worker cooperatives can still function within a capitalist economy, but the workers are no longer purely in the service of capital. In worker owned businesses, capital serves to meet the social, cultural and economic needs of the members of the cooperative.

With a group of friends, we founded Friends of Light. Friends of Light are an organisation that develops and produces jackets woven to form.

We construct our own looms to create pattern pieces that have complete woven edges (selvages), and therefore do not need to be cut (Fig. 4). The final design emerges from both the materials used, and the methods developed, to weave two-dimensional cloth fabric into three-dimensional form (Fig. 5).

Building and sustaining relationships, human relationships, is at the core of our identity as a cooperative. Every aspect of our value chain is a human relationship of mutuality and exchange.

We partner with small-scale fibre producers to source our raw materials, and with spinners to develop our yarns. We develop and produce jackets woven to form for each individual client. Each jacket expresses the collective knowledge of all the people involved in its creation.

We have developed close and intimate relationships with the farmers and artisans that we collaborate with. All the fibre producers and spinners we work with have great integrity, and an endless passion for, and deep knowledge of their craft (Fig. 6). It has been an amazing journey of mutual growth, discovery, creativity, and development. They have become friends and partners in helping fulfill our mission: to grow economically vibrant ecosystems of small-scale fibre producers, textile artisans, and designers within different localities.

With our encouragement and coaching, Justin Squizzero, our linen spinner, has founded his own company, and is now producing handspun and hand woven linen, with great integrity. He is very interested in reviving small scale farming in his

Fig. 3 Questioning the Concept of a Uniform / 2014 Image: Yurie Nagashima

Fig. 4 Friends of Light-Woven Jackets 2015 Image: Daniel Costa

Fig. 5 Friends of Light-Woven Jackets / 2015 Image: Pascale Gatzen

Fig. 6 Friends of Light-Woven Jackets / 2015 Image: Pascale Gatzen

"Worker cooperatives can still function within a capitalist economy, but the workers are no longer purely in the service of capital. In worker owned businesses, capital serves to meet the social, cultural and economic needs of the members of the cooperative".

locality in Vermont, USA. Sara Healey, a farmer from Buckwheat Bridge Angoras in upstate New York, is now collaborating with many designers from New York City – and she has even started to make garments herself. She won the first prize at the local Country Fair in 2017 for her felted jacket. I supported her by helping her to create the jacket pattern.

Early on we decided not to offer our garments for sale in shops, but to work directly with clients. To a greater or lesser extent, we are in direct contact with our clients throughout the production process, and it is this personal relationship and interaction with our clients that has had a substantial impact on our experience of production.

As we produce a jacket, we actively engage with our customer and get to know their unique personalities and idiosyncrasies. A sense of each individual client emerges through the specific choices we make, and in the senses and skills we apply as we weave their garment. Since it takes us approximately 160 hours in total to weave one jacket, as time passes, unexpected variations are often woven into the garment − aesthetic and functional variations that reflect the customer, and that add to the intensity of the design. In one case, a client asked us to integrate inherited fabrics from her grandmother into the weaving.

From their own unique perspectives, knowledge, and contexts, our clients are attracted to ordering a jacket from us because they relate to the garment’s presence and to the values it represents. This creates a dimension of exchange and a mutual identification with a shared reality. All our clients have become our friends. The sense of kinship, trust and exchange, that we experience with our clients become sources of focus, attention, confidence, love, and care. These interactions, the promise of continued interactions, and the anticipation of the completed jacket finally entering the client’s world, resonate strongly, as we progress through production. The final jacket itself is more than a mere garment – it embodies a relationship (Fig. 7).

Our jackets sell at a high price. This could label us as exclusive, yet we see ourselves as highly inclusive. We are very aware of our immediate and larger community: we organise community events, we educate the public about worker cooperatives, we host cultural events, in order to contextualise our work within textiles, fashion, and art culture and history. We also facilitate workshops in which we teach people our weaving techniques and about the way we organise ourselves as a business. We are growing our business − which means growing the membership in our cooperative (Fig. 8).

I have never felt more of a sense of purpose in designing and creating a garment. It is no longer simply a matter of personal expression − it has become a matter of love and care for a growing community. The jackets have become a means to sustain a vision, a community, and a world that is rooted in mutuality, care, awareness, exchange, joy, autonomy and love.

(left) Fig. 7 Friends of Light-Woven Jackets / 2015 Image: Daniel Costa (right) Fig. 8 Friends of Light-Woven Jackets / 2015 Image: Shari Diamond

Pascale Gatzen

Artist, Head of the Fashion Design Master’s programme at ArtEZ University of the Arts, Netherlands

Pascale Gatzen is a Dutch-born artist and fashion designer and Head of Fashion Design Master’s programme of ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten based in New York and Arnhem. She is a graduate of the fashion department at ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Arnhem. Along with five other graduates, among whom Viktor & Rolf, she showed as Le Cri Neerlandais, the first Dutch fashion designers to have a runway show in Paris. Gatzen produces and facilitates large collaborative projects using clothing as her main medium. Embracing fashion as a mode of human togetherness, the focus of both her artistic practice and her teaching is on the relational aspects of fashion, advancing cooperative models of production and exchange. As Associate Professor of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, the New School, she has developed and implemented an alternative fashion curriculum with an emphasis on radical compassion. She is a founding member of “friends of light”, a worker cooperative for textile production in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley, New York.

帕絲卡.蓋茨恩

Fig. 1 Questioning the Concept of a Uniform / 2014 攝影: 長島有里枝

我們究竟如何創造行爲和活動才能使他人得益？如何利用時裝的變革力量令自己和社區增權自強？又如 何以（物質）時裝工業促成社會、經濟、生態和文化的改變？

我在荷蘭阿納姆的阿特爾兹藝術大學，開辦了「Fashion held in Common」時裝設計碩士課程，而以上 問題概為課程的核心。這個課程盡量發揮時裝愛的潛能，以迎合我們對聯繫、歸屬、交流、互惠、幸福 的共同需求。

我依據過去幾年累積的經驗和策劃項目去設計這個課程。

回想一個最令人興奮的精彩項目是「Questioning the Concept of a Uniform」，2014年先後展出於 日本水戶市水戶藝術館、丸龜市豬熊弦一郎現代美術館「You reach out–right now–for something: Questioning the Concept of Fashion」展覽。這個項目向我展示了時裝無庸置疑的變革力。

展覽開幕前的兩周，我與三十二位博物館女接待員其中八位合作，教導她們如何設計和縫製自己的制服。 由於她們大部份從未有縫製經驗，所以需要從頭學起，我們就曾一起進行了五小時的裝袖工作坊。我帶 領她們集體參與決策過程，從中啟發靈感並決定制服的樣式。最後我們以一條相當簡單的裙子配獨特的 領子，作為基本的設計，然後讓她們自由發揮。在展覽開幕的晚上，八位女職員均成功完成作品（Fig. 1）。 她們為此感到非常自豪，有的更有所感觸。這是她們職業生涯中，第一次獲參觀者主動接觸和交流，自 己並成爲展覽重要的部份。

「其實工人合作社仍在資本主義經濟體中運作，但工人不 再純粹為資本工作；相反在工人自資企業中，資本須滿足 合作社成員在社會、文化和經濟方面的需要。 」

該展覽持續了三個月。我們商定合作過的八位女 職員將會教導其他二十四位接待員如何自行製作 制服。博物館亦劃出一個工作空間，讓她們可以 教授、學習、製作制服。到三個月結束時，全部 三十二位女職員皆製作了自己的制服，每一件都 是獨一無二（Fig. 2）。每件制服不但有着創作 者獨特的標記，更載負與其他接待員分享技能及 成果的記憶。這些女性全部帶來滿有感情的布 料，互相交流手縫和刺繡的技巧、布料，以及釘 上制服的小手縫飾物。

這些女接待員三個月裏一起工作，履行日常職務 期間，並設計及穿著自己設計的制服，其間制服 外觀不斷轉變。出乎意料地，她們漸漸開創了一 種獨特的語言，而這語言更帶來活潑、豐富而有 力的團結一致。

這項目不為意地帶出時裝的角色和功能，而不涉 及任何競爭或乏匱的概念。女職員互相眷顧並創 作制服，從中得到物質收穫，繼而分享喜悅、靈 感、尊重、愛和欣賞。

其實女職員在項目開始前，彼此間並未太熟悉， 她們從此組成了一個充滿愛的羣體。項目完結距 今已三年半，那些女職員仍在一起工作，她們更 團結起來舉辦工作坊，並出售小型手工製品。

2015年我發起一個支持工人自資企業的經濟活 動。我領悟到工人合作社可作為一種混合模式， 以探索和實踐積極公民的概念。我們在工人合作 社體制內組織工作和經濟活動，自主工作形式、 利潤分配。其實工人合作社仍在資本主義經濟體 中運作，但工人不再純粹為資本工作；相反在工 人自資企業中，資本須滿足合作社成員在社會、 文化和經濟方面的需要。

我與朋友一起創辦「Friends of light」。 「Friends of light」致力開發和生產編織的外套。 我們自製織布機，造出不需切割卻有完整織邊的 布片（Fig. 3）。設計效果來自布料和平面變立 體的織法（Fig. 4）。

我們合作社的核心是建立和維繫人際關係，時刻 珍惜人際之間的關係和交流。我們與小型纖維生 產商合作採購材料，並與紡紗廠合作開發紗線。 我們為每位客戶研製編織的外套，每件作品都表 現出參與製作人士的集體知識。

Fig. 2 Questioning the Concept of a Uniform / 2014 攝影: 長島有里枝

（左）Fig. 3 Friends of Light——編織外套 / 2015 / 攝影: 帕絲卡.蓋茨恩 （右）Fig. 4 Friends of Light——編織外套 / 2015 / 攝影: Daniel Costa

Fig. 5 Friends of Light——編織外套 2015 攝影: 帕絲卡.蓋茨恩

我們與合作的農民和工匠建立了緊密的關係。曾合作 過的纖維生產商和紡紗廠都滿懷熱誠，他們對各自的 工藝有着無盡的熱情和深厚的知識（Fig. 5）。這是一 趟共同成長、探索、創造、發展的精彩旅程。他們成 為了履行我們使命的朋友和夥伴，共同為不同地區的 小型纖維生產商、紡織工匠與設計師發展出一個經濟 蓬勃的生態系統。

在我們的鼓勵和指導下，紡麻師 Justin Squizzero 創 辦了自己的公司，現正生產優質的手紡和手織麻布， 他志在於居住地美國佛蒙特州復興小規模農業。另一 位來自紐約州北部 Buckwheat Bridge Angoras 的農 夫 Sara Healey ，正與許多紐約設計師合作，開始自 己製作服裝。她的氈布外套曾於 2017 年的國家博覽 會上奪得第一名的殊榮。我並幫忙她設計外套的圖樣。

我們一開始就決定不在商店銷售製品，而是直接售予 客戶。我們或多或少，在生產過程中一直與客戶保持 聯繫，而這種與客戶之間的關係和互動，給予我們非 常深刻的製作經驗。

當我們生產外套時，會積極與客戶接洽並了解其特質， 這決定我們製作時的選材和織法。編織一件外套需要 160 小時，隨着時間，意想不到的變化會織到衣服上， 例如反映着顧客口味之美學和功能的變化，就會增加 設計的效果。曾經有顧客希望把祖母留下的布料結合 到我們的織布。

我們的客戶各有獨特的見解、知識和背景，他們訂購 外套是想擁有衣服和所代表的價值。這造就了一個與 服裝交流、彼此共享的空間。我們所有的客戶都成為 了朋友，相互之間的關係、信任與交流，更轉化成聚 焦、關注、信賴、愛和關懷的泉源。這些互動、持續 互動的承諾，以及期盼外套成為客戶生活的一部份， 都會隨着生產過程而深化；大家因製作外套而建立起 關係，最終產品已超越服裝的本義（Fig. 6）。 我們的外套以高價出售，這可能被標簽為高檔，但我 們則認為自己的製品並非遙不可及。我們放眼於自己 社區及廣大社群，藉着組織社區活動、推廣工人合作 社、舉辦文化活動，為製品加入紡織、時尚、藝術文 化和歷史等元素。我們並主辦工作坊教授編織技術和 經營業務之道。隨着業務不斷發展，合作社的成員亦 因應增加（Fig. 7）。

我從沒有在設計和創作服裝方面如此滿懷目標。這已 不限於個人表現，而是對一個成長中社區的愛護和關 懷。堅持互惠、關顧、體恤、交流、歡樂、自主和愛， 無論作為一個願景，抑或建立這樣的社區或世界，外 套就是達成目標的一種工具。

帕絲卡．蓋茨恩 藝術家、荷蘭ArtEZ 藝術學院時裝設計碩士課程主任

帕絲卡．蓋茨恩是荷蘭藝術家及時裝設計師，生活和工作 於紐約，同時也是荷蘭阿納姆 ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten 時裝設計碩士課程的主任。她早前於該時裝 學院畢業後，聯同 Viktor & Rolf 在內的五位畢業生，成 立了時裝設計團隊 Le Cri Neerlandais，並成為第一個在 巴黎參與時裝表演的荷蘭設計團體。蓋茨恩以衣服作為主 要媒介，製作和推動大型的合作項目，把時裝作為人類合 作的一種模式。她的藝術實踐和教學重點都側重於探討時 裝的相關範疇，思考推動生產和交流的先進合作模式。她 作為 Parsons School of Design 時裝系的副教授，開發 並實施了一種強調同理心、創意十足的時裝課程。她也是 紐約布魯克林和哈德遜河谷之紡織生產合作社「friends of light」的創始會員。

（左）Fig. 6 Friends of Light——編織外套 / 2015 / 攝影: Daniel Costa （右）Fig. 7 Friends of Light——編織外套 / 2015 /攝影: Shari Diamond