Tamara, center, shown with models. Photo: Stephen Elliot
[FASHION 2014]
Tamara Leacock has showcased political wearable art since 2010. Now she will be presenting her sixth collection, “Fall 2014: Bricolage,” inspired by Afro Futurism specifically by the work of fellow artist Wangechi Mutu.
Interdisciplinary artist and designer, Tamara Leacock, will be presenting her collection of earth inspired fashions at Canvas To Couture, the fourth annual Gallatin Fashion Show presented at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study on Feb 28, 2014, from 7:00 PM-10:00 PM at the Jerry H. Labowitz Theatre for the Performing Arts.
As one of a handful designers selected to showcase, Tamara will be presenting a collection inspired broadly by Afro Futurism, and specifically, by the animation art of Wangechi Mutu, “The End of eating Everything.”
Tamara will be presenting her sixth collection, Bricolage, inspired by the artistic movement of Afro Futurism and by the work of Wangechi Mutu. This Contemporary Brooklyn-based artist, Mutu, created an animation where she asks the viewer to imagine the planet after “The End of eating Everything”; that point at which our planet would have absorbed every viable resource.
Tamara, in response, is proposing through her fashion collection that recycling and creating a bricolage lifestyle, a lifestyle collaged from repurposed and recycled materials, is the answer to avoid that formidable end.
The clothing and jewelry collection are created with recycled fabrics and fibers, and handmade digital prints, designed in amorphous and dramatic unisex silhouettes and architecturally constructed jewelry created to transform the body into a work of art that inspires change.
The collection will be shown at the fourth annual Gallatin Fashion Show, an event where students and alumni of New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, will debut their collections in a spectacular event, Canvas to Couture, which explores the connection between art and fashion. Embracing the interdisciplinary spirit of Gallatin, the designers investigated the crosspollination between art and fashion, from designs that reflect the opulence and romanticism of the Baroque to the strong angular architecture of Gaudi.
Artist and NYU Gallatin student, Tamara, will add the inspiring bricolage art form of Afro Futurism to the list of inspirations.
Tamara is an interdisciplinary artist who uses the vocabulary of fashion to create mixed media works of wearable art. Each piece is created with either recycled textiles, recycled materials, metals and paint. For 10 years, Tamara has staged these pieces in seasonal fashion week presentations, film and photography projects to speak to a particular social issue throughout New York City and internationally, beginning with various venues at Yale University, her baccalaureate alma mater.
Tamara creates all of the pieces herself and will do so until she can support fair trade wages, and utilized recycled, reclaimed textiles, and create textile art using natural dyes and ecofriendly digital printing. ReciclaGEM is her way of extending the conversation of “ethical fashion” to include social ethics as well. As a Gallatin graduate student, she is studying how how “ethical fashion” can include the ethics of society and culture as well.
She invites you to view this collection because she wants to converse with you and request your support in strategizing ways political and social ethics can find their way back on the runway and amongst the conversation pieces in our closet.
In order to continue to create these important political and social fashion show presentations, Tamara will be need to expand her team in a way that is ethical, fair and sustainable. Thus, this fashion show presentation will be the beginnings of a fundraising campaign to support the ethical development of her company so that she can bring these ethically manufactured, political conversation pieces to your closets.
ReciclaGEM, by Tamara Leacock, is a narrative of one of a kind conversation pieces. Named after the Portuguese word for “recycling,” ReciclaGEM utilizes recycled textiles, materials and is inspired by the concept of “social recycling,” recycling social events and reengaging them through fashion.
To attend the fashion show, please RSVP here
To support the ethical development of her company, please visit the ReciclaGEM facebook page, where the fundraising campaign will be launched: www.facebook.com/reciclagemny
NYFW is coming to a close. Let’s build a real fashion revolution together.
Business Contact Info: Tamara Leacock
(347) 470-5563
