Ada Fung and Stephen Willats

Multiple Clothing

'Multiple Clothing' presented a selection of clothing-based works by British artist Stephen Willats' that spanned 40 years of practice.

About

Willats began his project 'Multiple Clothing' in 1965 as a strategy to engage directly with the fabric of society, exploring clothing as a very basic externalising of the self. Made up as kits, the clothing designs were created out of many small units that zipped (or later Velcroed) together in various formations to make multiple garment types - including simple shift dresses and jackets.

The self-determining nature of acquiring and assembling these kits to each wearers' specification was essentially an amplification of the notion of self-organisation, a key principle beginning to emerge in the politics, philosophy, science and art of this era. The modish, geometric primary-coloured panel designs of Willats' early costumes recall the geometric stylistics displayed in early avant-garde ballet and theatre designs in their clean, functional sense of modernity, as well as embodying a spirit of the Sixties with their use of contemporaneous synthetic fabrics.

A defining element of Willats wearable artworks was the 'thesaurus' of words that were available to be inserted into the clear plastic pockets, either by the wearer, or by other people that the wearer interacted with. The selection was chosen by the artist from words that described human thought, mood and behaviour. Over subsequent decades Willats has developed and transformed the look and nature of garment-based works into many alternative situations, including a key period in the early to middle Eighties when he made a series of collaborations with the subcultures of London's thriving club scene.

Performances that involved the works continued throughout the projects' lifetime, including influential stagings at the ICA, London, and Daniel Bucholtz Galerie, Cologne.

Credits / Contributors

Featured Artist: Stephen Willats

Film Credits

Film: Stephen Willats
Edit: Gordon Beswick
Models: Andrew Mottershead, Milicia Vucovic,  Lynne Wilson, Rob Sargeant
Soundtrack recorded at The Schlager Club, Soho, London 1983
Live Performance Credits
Photography: Jez Tozer, Christabel Stewart
Models: Maria Eisl, Ada Fung, Rhea Thierstein
Artist Assistant: Alun Davies

SHOWstudio Credits

Arts Editor: Christabel Stewart
Technical Development: Ross Phillips
Interactive: Will Gray
Studio Photography: Jez Tozer

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Multiple Clothing

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Stephen Willats interviewed by Christabel Stewart

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Stephen Willats interviewed by Christabel Stewart