"Fashion Machine" is an art performance presented at the Dutch ambassador's house in Paris, in September 2016. Made of 2.000 fleece sweaters, each systematically cut in 14m stripes and knitted - on antic wooden knitting machines - into more special textile objects. This artistic installation was made for (took place initially at) Temporary Fashion Museum in Rotterdam.
Conny Groenewegen based her spatial intervention for the exhibition Fashion Data on a typical leftover product of the fast fashion industry: the fleece sweater. Originally made from another industrial relic, the PET bottle, the fleece sweater is certainly not the most adventurous fashion item that ends up in the collection bins for used clothing. However, it can be found there in massive amounts and the product is actually hardly suitable for re-sale in thrift stores or the markets of Eastern Europe, Africa and India.
For the installation 'Fashion Machine', countless fleece sweaters were cut up and the polyethylene yarn put on spools again. The exhibition space introduces a kind of sweatshop for the processing of these yarns, which are reworked into flags and mattresses. The installation makes the production mechanism and scale of the fast fashion industry tangible, while the banal material takes on a new shape and an almost activist expression on the spot.
www.http://tijdelijkmodemuseum.hetnieuweinstituut.nl
