Rakastaja / Lover *

Eemil Halme’s and Eetu Saarentausta’s method of working thrives in a state of tediousness. A selection of found garments act as a guide, a starting point to a research procedure that ends up in them seeing garments rather as systems than as pieces of clothing. A practice that is obsessively monitoring garments state of being, trying to find the points to poke at but also letting go of the control as much as possible. The end result celebrates the mundane in all its glory.

– I like to compare this way of almost overanalyzing a piece of clothing to an act of repeating a word until it either loses all its meaning or the meaning kind of twists. I feel like thats what we do: let the garment distort itself while we watch and press pause at some point, Halme explains.

Materials vary from visibly elegant to trashy, but they all share the same, coincidental nature. Dumpster dived textiles are raised from their cheap and abandoned state to a spotlight. What was in a way insufficient and waste, is now something that actually sets the terms.

The collection is a riddle and contrasts within it create characters that are at the same time recognisable, relatable but ultimately absurd: half-dressed looks, awkwardly fitting attire and accessories that don’t necessarily make sense.

– Collaboration is a key factor in our work. Lines between different fields of work have been blurred, everything has been a collaborative effort. I think thats essential. The kind of trust our working method draws from is peculiar: for us it’s obvious and seamless but its nature is tricky to put in words, Saarentausta summarises thei pair’s work process.

*The word “Bachelor’s thesis” was ran through a manual machinery using Google-translator as a tool. After being repeatedly translated from one language to another, the machine transformed the word from academic dryness to something universally warm and simple: “Rakastaja / Lover”.

Contact information:

Eemil Halme

eemil.halme@aalto.fi

+358 449999939

@71w33

Eetu Saarentausta

eetu.saarentausta@aalto.fi

+358 404163833

@eee.tu