Stacey Grant - Zero

This here is part 3 of our followings of Stacey Grant's fantastical MA adventures at Kingston University. Today we'll take a look at a project entitled 'Zero', in which Stacey and her fellow colleagues had to set their minds to the year 2025...

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Zero, as a brief and project, focuses on ethical and sustainable clothing, and is set in 2025. We were asked to think about resources and sustainability in a future setting. For me, ethical clothing is a complex issue involving world politics, climate debate, and media. I always work from a personal narrative and emotional link in my work. I read alot about 2025, the year that the scenario was set in for us, and came across "the perfect storm" - a scientific theory regarding the "turbulent teenage year of this century". 

All of my work starts by musing about the self and my family. A compilation of desk research set in the future and looking at scientific forecasting enabled me to create a narrative surrounding the Grant family and, from there, characters with traits reflected in garments.





Using a found tailored jacket, I explored and investigated, documenting the process and maintaing the life of the garment by re-working and draping it to compile a look. 

I began to set this idea up in the familiarity of a home place and the characters who live there, my parents and siblings for example. Thinking about my dad's disability and history tied in with the icons of his tailoring roots, I pondered the adaptation of his pre-created jackets. If these were all that was left of the family skills, how could I tell our story?

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If you haven't already, make sure to read about Stacey's DPBS project, in which she uses fragrance within clothing to study memory, and also about her use of digital draping, a method unique to Kingston University. 

What garment of yours or of someone in your family would be the most telling of your history 20 years from now?


(Bottom photos by Paul Postle)