artist talk
Lisa D.
Berlin-based, Austrian fashion designer Lisa D engages with high fashion couture alongside a level of performative, artistic mode of fashion. By working in this interdisciplinary mode of creation, D expands the ways in which fashion could be used for influential effect on consumer and audience culture. The field school visited her studio where D holds her current label Lisa D Fashion that specializes in repairing and redesigning garments in Berlin. We were fortunate enough to visit her studio as one of the last guests before its indefinite closure. The students had a tour of the space and engaged in an insightful conversation with D. She recounted her experience in the fashion industry and provided videos of previous performative, provocative, and thought-provoking fashion shows. Her more recent topics of interest focus on the sustainability of clothes and the greenwashing that occurs in bigger companies.
One ongoing project called Become Aware critiques the fast fashion industry and capitalism in fashion that has taken over, putting smaller businesses that follow more ethical approaches to design and fashion making out of business. She continues to use her fashion forward activism for crucial change. D attempts to tell stories through fashion and use her fashion-based practices as a form of art, performance and critique on crises happening in the contemporary world. Her book Lisa D. Klääsch (1984 - 1994) showcases curated documents of her early works and the convergence of art and fashion and literature. She often collaborates with other contemporary artists across disciplines including: Olga Neuwirth, Swetlana Heger, Fiona Bennett, Wolfgang Mitterer, and Eran Schaerf, and Otto Sander. For more information, visit her website Lisa D.