Author | Christiane Nickel
Photographer credits:
Ben Ross Davis – Beauty by Association collection
Tommy Kha – Ultra Vires collection
Replete with a violent mash up of photo prints and recycled advertising slogans, LACTIC Incorporated defies normative gender binary conventions and existing power structures through their sculpturally provocative silhouettes. Avant-garde wouldn’t even begin to describe this brand since they actively seek success in their creations and performances outside the fashion system. As intellectually heady and visually cryptic as they may seem, many of the pieces can be seamlessly styled as covetable RTW separates. But, it’s the post apocalyptic, beachy landscape which feels nascent and vulnerable while culling ideas of a romantic disparity which drew my attention. I had the opportunity to talk with designer Randi Shandroski about the collection. See for yourself and enjoy.
“Two alien water goddesses emerge from their sleep to journey through a consumerist wasteland and serve beauty for the WORLD” – Randi Shandroski
Please explain your latest Beauty by Association collection and how did it come about?
Meaning is created through the build-up of associations. You create meanings for things by arranging and organizing them in relation to other things. I had been thinking about the phrase “Guilty by Association”; my background was very laden with a guilt complex that I have been trying to eliminate from my life and thinking. Beauty was wrapped up in vanity – something to feel shameful and guilty about. So this collection is its counterpart – it is the positive reinforcement and embrace of the complexity and arrangement that IS beauty.
This shoot took place at Dead Horse Bay – a place off the coast of New York that used to house all of these factories as well as a huge landfill dating back to the 1920s. This has taken quite a toll on the bay as sand and coal are eroding into the ocean and washing up on shore. The feeling there is very post-apocalyptic. The chaos, decline, and accumulation of trash and weird / dead objects is unbelievable. This inspired the plot: “Two alien water goddesses emerge from their sleep to journey through a consumerist wasteland and serve beauty for the WORLD~”
What is next for Lactic?
I collaborated with Leon Finley to make a series of bags to raise money for his top surgery as he is transitioning. At the end of February, Lactic will be doing a runway show and party at MoMA PS1 Printshop to celebrate all the people that contributed to making Leon’s new body happen. Lactic is also sponsoring Mylinh Trieu of #TOTALBODYWORKOUT with a collaborative line of bikini suits for her figure competitions. I also have a show I’m collaborating on with Stephen Decker at Julius Caesar gallery opening April 24th, 2015, which will be an immersive environment installation.
Check out the hilarious video on the Lactic X Leon Finley collaboration below:
Are there any stylists, designers and artists would you compare your work to?
I’ll leave comparisons for other people to make.
Tell us more about the textiles used, what was the inspiration and the techniques used. Ultimately, what is the direction of some of the textile designs in the future?
The clothes were all designed mostly out of recycled advertising banners – my method involves cutting up fire retardant advertising banners and collaging them together using embroidery as the “glue,” so each piece is unique. The tanks are reversible and lined with mesh. The pieces are very structural and can maintain their shape in a way that is not so dependent on the form of the body. I am really into using these very heavy fabrics that assert themselves, because they lend themselves well to creating forms independent of an ingrained, curve-abiding, anatomy-based, gender binary that is inscribed into the history of clothing in Western culture.
Advertising is all around us, overwhelming, and delocalizing. I decode the space presented by the material through cutting and arranging. My collaging is almost free association – I will see similarities in backgrounds, interesting shapes that can line up (a balding man’s hair line with the curve of folding fabric….) I am studying how advertising is visually assembled in this very hands on way. I am interested in deconstructing the coded colours, language, and imagery in corporate advertising to reconfigure into an affirmative enforcement of values, an embrace of humor, critique, and questioning.
In the future: more layers, more questions, more experimentation + integration of other materials.
From the Ultra Vires 2014 Collection:
