STRETCHING FORMALITIES

The collection of Yorkshire-born multidisciplinary artist-designer Venetia Williams explores the disruption of hegemonic masculinity within tailoring through both soft and hard delicate gestures manifest in silk georgette, resin-drenched wool, chainmail, pewter, and spot-welded aluminium. The collection was inspired by William’s conflicted ancestry of eccentric artists and utilitarian-military. Williams juxtaposes her maternal artists' identities with the formality of her father’s military heritage, specifically the formal aesthetics championed by her Great-Great Uncle, founder of the Scouts Movement. Williams is at once in awe of the technicalities displayed in the clothing and aesthetics of power that he symbolises, yet also disgusted by the politics of domination that this represents. Upon this rife ancestry, Williams combines these divided worlds within a collection that stretches formalism and rigidity to disrupt the aesthetics of power through ornament.