All Roads Lead to Sarabande in New York
Along with celebrating the work of two pioneering artists, Rosie Gibbens and Andrew Davis, Sarabande touted its partnership with The Standard Hotel at the outdoor event Tuesday night.
Chief executive officer Trino Verkade described New York City as a second home. “We love the whole community here. It has that very similar vibe to London, which has artists from all over the world. And they are artists who think very outside of the box with their designs, art, fashion and photography. It’s like a world tour. We love being here and the community that always turn up in support for the next generation. People really care that the next generation of artists and creatives are given the freedom to create. In New York, you have that commercial side and the equal pull of the other side that anything can happen. We are making sure that we’re still allowed to creatively step forward in ways that are not driven by commercialism but by vision and passion,” she said.
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“In New York, people really feel strongly about wanting to see something exciting and from the heart.”
Gibbens’ performance, which included using a drill-like tool to apply makeup, qualified. She explained that her work uses absurdities to consider how we perform gender and interact with qualities (as well as vanities.) “I see it as a strange perverse product demonstration” that can involve satirizing sexuality and using tools and everyday items to manufacture attention. Simultaneously, that undermines how they are expected to be used, while also raising questions of utility and function through the arts, she said.
Her highly physical performance can be jarring, but the artist finds the lead-up more draining than the execution. “During it, I feel quite powerful and in control even if I am doing something that is objectified or … sexualized. I always feel very much in my element in making yourself viewed in different ways and playing with identity through that,” Gibbens said.
Understandably excited to be in New York to support the Alexander McQueen-founded organization, Gibbens was also eager to check out shows at the Whitney, MoMA, Guggenheim, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and galleries in Queens and Manhattan. A visit to the Marion Boesky gallery was also on her checklist, to see Sarabande alum Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s “Some Future Time Will Think of Us” first solo exhibition in New York, which is on view through May 20. There are also U.K.-U.S. crossovers with various shows for the work of other artists like Richard Avedon, she said.
Sarabande’s goal is to create awareness in the U.S. about up-and-coming artists, board member Nancy Chilton said, and while the London outpost is a destination for many creatives, a Tottenham townhouse will come to the fore in July for designers who are ready to scale up slightly. The organization’s ethos is, once a Sarabande artist, always a Sarabande artist — and more than 150 artists from 37 countries have benefitted. Each year, 15 to 20 artists cycle through, and this summer’s opening is expected to double the annual base of participants.
The industriousness of artist Andrew Davis was on full display with mannequins adorned with futuristic-looking clothes that he made with tape while holed up in Colorado during the pandemic shutdown. Without any sewing machine or fabric, the 2023 Central Saint Martins graduate decided to make clothes by weaving yardage out of Scotch tape, despite not knowing if the undertaking would work or what the final outcome would be, Davis said. Each of the nine outfits took about two weeks to complete. “I don’t think it was strange. It just felt kind of natural and easy based on sewing it with a stapler, because it reminded me of fabric,” he said.
The translucent material wasn’t chosen to relay a message of concealment but to highlight the use of common materials. Gesturing towards the holey red felt shirt that he was wearing, Davis said incorporating items that can be found in a general store is integral to his work. (He also perforated the shirt he was wearing by shooting it.)
With a master’s degree in menswear, Davis is currently looking for stock to sell. “But everything will be very small. It’s a more artisanal track. I make everything myself.” he said. “It needs to be the right fit.”
Newly-minted CFDA member Stephen Mikhail of Atelier Cillion was having a homecoming of a different kind, having interned for McQueen years ago starting when he first founded the Sarabande foundation. “It was my third internship and my last job before I realized I had to start my own collection. I always said that if I worked for [John] Galliano or McQueen then I would be content working for other people. But if I wasn’t happy then I would have to do my own thing,” he said.
As for those high standards, he said, “Well, you only get one life so you might as well aim high. What’s the worst that can happen?” The designer said. “But tonight is very much a full circle because Thom Browne is part of my current life through the CFDA. To come here, see him and have gotten to chat with him here at an event for an organization that celebrates how I started in the industry is just a wild, reflective moment.”
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