Saturday, November 4, 2017

Can Menstruation Inspire Fashion?

Our Unveiled Series

"We menstruate, we give birth, we breast feed and we go through meno-pause. We are taxed, we are sold, we are brutalized and oppressed. The natural things our bodies do to create life are 'gross', 'vile', 'disgusting' and 'nasty'. We are good when we are submissive, quiet, and dolled-up. And we are nasty when we are independent, stubborn and when we stand up for the right to not be abused by the system. We are unveiled. We don't hide. We are gross and we bleed and give birth and we grow body hair. And best of all, we are proud." - in the words of head designer and CEO of MXN

The reason that we chose to do a wedding dress for this piece, is because a woman in a wedding, in western culture, always represented purity. They were virgins that were, in crude terms, sold to their husbands from a young age through familial contractual agreements. So a man would unveil his gift on their wedding day, as she was "given away" to him from her "previous owner". In our art piece for the we chose to do menstruation to symbolize that she wears her womanhood on her sleeve. She doesn't hide who she is. She doesn't need to be unveiled. She is purely herself.