WESLEY STUART HARTWELL

A self-reflective collection exploring various narrative subtexts into which diverse identities may project themselves; defying the imperialistic knowledge structures embedded in our wardrobes.

 

Focused on the spaces between the designer, fashion artefact, collection & communication; between familiar silhouettes and new ways of composing those garments, including poetic repetition, hand pleating informed by linguistic scansion analysis. Creating space within garments themselves, skinning, exploding, and contracting them, garments are worn 'inside' of their usual structures. Each process being re-drawn via archival bookbinding techniques creating a textural x textual symbiosis of partial articulation.

Referencing Hartwell's own wardrobe of the 1990s; oversized shirts and slogan tees tucked into high-waisted trousers, pinstriped suits, and loose boxer shorts, and the interplay between re-interpretation of his brother's clothes from the same time.

The aesthetic is FUTURE 90's

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A world like his own but not his own, or 'METAFASHION: autobiographical compositions partially articulated by Wesley Stuart Hartwell'