For the residency at Fashion Open Studio, Tom Van der Borght (T.VDB) has focused on the idea of self-care, self-love, self-acceptance and the collectivity in this. ‘Let’s care about it! Let’s care for ourselves, let’s learn how to accept and love ourselves. Let’s create collectivity and community. “Not fitting in” can feel like an isolating experience, but it also holds the opportunity to create an alternative, non-normative contemporary tribe, based on the concepts of caring for each other and carrying each other through life. Considering fashion as an embodied practice, as a communicative layer between the individual and society (in two directions), it has the potential to be transformative’.
For State of Fashion 2022 | Ways of Caring, T.VDB has developed a ‘procession walk’ in collaboration with the local community. During three open workshop days, Tom has worked together with a group of students, makers and visitors towards this collective procession walk, all items were made out of upcycled materials. Through the process of collective creation and the creation of powerful signs and tools of Self-love (totems, flags and masks) we will actively contribute in creating a self caring society.
