Mutilus

What does it mean to be gruesome?

What does it mean to be delicate?

In their collection, Nana Lybeck explores forms of radical body modification and the concept of artistic mutilation through wearable ensembles, sensations and atmosphere. Towing the lines of gruesome and delicate, violent and gentle, the collection highlights the sensitive nature of mutilative bodily practices essential to the subcultures of body modifications as well as the practices of fashion.

In line with the carnal and at times even gory subject matter, animalistic materials, suffocating silhouettes, and strenuous weight are utilized to communicate a sense of controlled violence, in which the wearer is an active participant.

The collection interacts with the body in a striking and macabre way while still maintaining a sort of peaceful, fragile sensibility; channeling the same nuanced, multifaceted beauty as radical body modification does.

– I address these subjects, clothes, as bodies in their own right, with discomfort and pain built into their forms, Lybeck explains.

Employing a somatic approach to design, the designer primarily develops articles of clothing not by patterning or sketching, but via their own sensory experiences with bodies and materials.

– The way I tend to work on garments is also, like my subject, very physical. Feeling out the weight of clothes and the directions of the tensions – which way do they pull and squeeze or which parts of the body they drag down or force up, and what you can do to them until they tear – or they tear you.

The design process has gone beyond mere designing, Lybeck says:

– It has turned into a meditative ritual between myself and the object at hand.

Contact information:

Nana Lybeck

Nana.lybeck@aalto.fi

+358 503777359

@nanarkia