Distressing Fashion: Artist Tenant of Culture Explores Fashion's Obsession With Deconstruction in New Exhibition

Artist projects come to fruition for a whole host of reasons. Whether it be due to an assigned brief or an inspiration, a fleeting idea or a blurry dream. Whatever the initial spark is that ignites creativity, the beginning of an artist's process can (and often does) look radically different from the end result.

For fashion practitioner and multimedia artist Tenant of Culture, the beginning doesn't start with a vision but, instead, the space her work sits within. Last week, the artist unveiled her new show Ladder at Soft Opening in Bethnal Green, an area of East London with roots in the weaving industry pre-industrial revolution, a history that hangs like a dark cloud of smoke over the exhibition, informing its concept from beginning to end. 'When it comes down to a starting point, I always look at the places I am showing work in. Especially in the UK because it's quite often the case that if you show anywhere in England, there is some kind of link to the industrial history of textiles', the artist - whose real name is Hendrickje Schimmel - told me over Zoom. 'Spitalfields, Bethnal Green and Cambridge Heath played quite a crucial role because they were the first industrial suburbs of London. All had a big weaving industry going on there.'

If you're thinking of The Luddites (the 19th-century textile workers who smashed machinery to stabilise wages but also against mechanisation and the disparent of skilled labour), Tenant of Culture is asking you to think deeper. 'I came across this fairly unknown history of The Cutters movement and the 'Cutters' Riots in Spitalfields, which came before The Luddites', noted Schimmel. Like The Luddites, The Cutters also rebelled with destruction, but their efforts are less well-known. 'They had this method of rioting by going to other workshops and cutting through the looms and the work on the looms of other textile workers', Schimmel says. Despite the somewhat malevolent gesture, the very action of cutting, slashing and destroying has consistently informed Schimmel's practice. 'Cutting through something as a means of protest I found quite interesting in relation to damaged clothing that we see today as a fashion trend'.

Ladder doesn't just hark back to events 300-plus years ago; it's also anchored in today's fashion waste problem - a notion that Schimmel has been endlessly fascinated by since she started developing her work as a practitioner over ten years ago. An example linking fashion's problem with waste and its ties with rebellion can be seen in the artist's series Haul included in the show, where sliced garments are stitched into packaging materials next to clothes that have also been reconfigured. The sealed plastic encasing the work represents damaged goods. At the same time, the repetitive method of slicing instead implies a carefully planned aesthetic act - just how it is with ripped jeans, off-the-shoulder tops, or, put simply, anything by a Fashion East scholar on the runway. In short, Haul serves as more of a literal commentary on today's not-so-circular commerce system, used by online retailers like Shein, Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing.

Interested in the artist's bold and clever attack on the fast fashion system, I decide to put Schimmel in the hot seat, asking her who she thinks is really to blame for the damaging e-retailer system that isn't only perpetuated by retailers but also its consumers, who - despite being aware of the damages their purchases are doing - are continuing to shop until they drop. 'It's dangerous to place responsibility on consumers only', she confidently states. 'On the other hand, it feeds into the demand vs supply chain, but ultimately, the only thing that can change is legislation. And there is too much money to be made to cause that change on such a micro level. Schimmel then makes a point that I'm sure not many would've pondered before. 'The reason fashion is so interesting is because it has the ability to co-opt its own critique in aesthetics', she elaborates. I asked her to explain. 'So, Gorp Core as a trend, the trend of using hiking gear to imply a kind of affinity with nature, has been going on for a long time. It's one of the most persistent and widely adopted trends ever. Yet all this tech clothing is mass-produced and made of polyester, an oil-based plastic which does not disintegrate. There is so much to explore within the individual desire and the realities of production, but it's not my expertise necessarily. I'm an artist looking at these themes and linking them to the industrial history of fashion, which is mainly my interest.'

Other historical references that have also influenced the recurring theme of deconstruction as an aesthetic in Ladder include an unknown mercenary army who 'wore silk undergarments beneath their uniforms', says Schimmel. 'So, when they came home after fighting, their tattered uniforms were decorated with these rich colours underneath'. This trend then spread across European courts like wildfire, influencing anyone who belonged to the aristocracy and encouraging them to adopt such a way of dressing (you only have to look at the Tudor paintings hanging in the National Portrait Gallery to know).

When you look at Schimmel's work through the lens of appropriating waste in fashion, suddenly, the artist's historical references align to reveal something much more modern. 'I think the appropriation of tattered clothing in contemporary fashion reads as something very contemporary, but it actually really isn't. It is as old as fashion is', Schimmel informs. 'Today's fashion landscape is obviously very different, especially with mass production and fast fashion. So I do try to locate it within the realities of production today'.

The exhibition is accompanied by a long-format essay by design historian Eilidh Duffy, who succinctly unravels the metaphorical threads that connect Ladder. Through words, material textures collide with their attached historical references, making us face the reality that distressed clothing as a 'trend' is as old as time itself. Schimmel's work doesn't laugh in the face of consumerism; it forces us to confront our complacency in a system that cares for no one. If you have yet to question your relationship with fashion commerce, Ladder may help you change your mind, and even better, your habits.

Ladder at Soft Opening, E2 9EH will be open to the public until 21 October.