Gaia uses memes as an archive for fashion

Before coming to ArtEZ, Gaia completed a Bachelor's degree in Fashion Design in Venice. Like many fashion students, she was presented with a clear idea of what a successful career should look like. "In many fashion schools, you're led to believe that working for a major fashion house is the ultimate goal. By the end of my bachelor's, I increasingly realised that wasn't the path for me." Looking for something different, she found the Master Critical Fashion Practices, without really knowing what to expect. "At first, I thought the programme would focus much more on sustainability. That's certainly part of it, but it's much broader than that. It wasn't until I started that I realised how much freedom there is to develop your own direction. It wasn't what I expected, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed."

Graduating with clothing as an archive of digital culture

For her graduation project, Gaia explores how clothing can function as an archive of digital culture. The project grows out of questions she has been asking herself for years. "I'm trying to create garments that communicate. Clothes that raise questions about how deeply our lives are intertwined with digital culture." Her fascination with memes plays an important role in this exploration."I've always found memes fascinating. They reveal a lot about how people think, communicate and create meaning. When I started here, I discovered that I could also use that interest as a critical subject. That felt incredibly liberating." She describes her work as speculative archives. "It's actually impossible to truly materialise digital culture. The moment you try, you're creating something new. That's why I call them speculative archives. The whole project is built around that impossibility." 

From 3 to 5 July, Gaia presented several works during Fray; Unpicking Fashion at Galla Studios in Amsterdam. Some pieces lean more towards art, while others are wearable. Together, they explore what happens when online culture takes on a physical form.

A place to experiment

"When I first started the master's, I realised I was still carrying many ideas from the commercial fashion world. There was always a voice in my head telling me everything had to be perfect. It had to look perfect. I've always been a perfectionist, but here I started thinking instead: let's see what happens. That was a huge shift for me. "At first, I mainly wanted to make cool things. After the first year, I became much more interested in the process itself. Now I'm less concerned with the final form and much more interested in the content and the relationship between the object and the story it tells."

What is Critical Fashion Practices?

According to Gaia, the programme resists any single definition. That openness is exactly what makes it so valuable. "It's about having the time and the space to investigate what you want to do. You develop your own critical fashion practice, but there are so many different ways to do that. I never imagined memes would become part of my fashion practice. But here I discovered that they absolutely could. You can explore what really matters to you and build a practice around it."

More questions than answers

After graduating, Gaia wants to continue researching, writing and making. "I have a lot of questions about the future, but I'm actually glad I have them. If I hadn't done this master's, I probably would have gone straight into working for a company without questioning much. Now I look very differently at fashion, at culture and at the kind of work I want to make. That's something I'll carry with me into whatever comes next."

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