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THE INFLUENCE OF ART ONfashion becomes a reality, it produces special and extremely significant effects. Proof of this is the convergence between the activities of the Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck and those of the French 'plastician'(') Orlan that has resulted in 'morphoacsthetics', a new type of 3D make-up, like a contemporary form of scarification, that is in the process of becoming the new cult talking point with regard to make-up. With his spectacular seasonal innovations Walter Van Beirendonck is not trying to pull the wool over people's eyes but quite simply to get things moving. Inspired for more than ten years now by his famous slogan Kiss the Future!, Van Beirendonck has always tried to anticipate, through his very particular idea of fashion: W.&L.T. (Wild and Lethal Trash), those alternative trends that will dictate our future attitudes. Going in search of tomorrow's make-up, he drew inspiration for his Winter '98-'99 collection from Orlan's face with its startling bumps grafted on with implants. Orlan is the inventor of 'Camal Art' and uses aesthetic surgery as an artistic technique by which her own flesh is her raw material. This shortcircuiting of fashion and art has made designer and artist accomplices. United by the same determination to combat the stereotypes of conventional beauty, each in their own way offers us a vision of how we will adorn our bodies in the next millennium. A visionary interview, two voices without rouge or sequins. What were you trying to say, Walter, with your Winter '98-'99 show that began with children and ended with mutant adolescents with facial bumps? WaIter: It's the idea of making advances in time. I wanted to translate evolution via the maturing of the ages but also progressively via a transposition into the future. At the level of make-up I wanted to find an alternative to colour. I think the use of colour in make-up is definitely pass~. it's been totally exploited and made banal by the magazines! I wanted something innovatory but also something that was real. I looked everywhere but couldn't find anything convincing. One day I came across a portrait of Orlan with the bumps on her temples; it was a total revelation. Having said that, it's not my aim to create monsters or mutants but to come up with forms of make-up that are beautiful but quite different from all those endless eyeliners, nail varnish and lipstick. Some journalists thought I was going to commercialize these facial implants in the form of cosmetic kits. |
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it have been Utopian to commercialize them? WaIter: No, but it's a question of means. Adjusting this make-up took two months. To achieve it, I called in the ,make-up artist' Geoff Portass, who has specialized in special effects in films. It was a genuine made-to-measure job. All the metamorphoses of faces were first worked out on the computer. Then we made the latex implants in such a way that on the day of the show all we had to do was stick them on the models and cover them with foundation for the effect to be as natural as possible. 0rIan: The astonishing thing is that before meeting Walter, I also had the idea of making stick on bumps. As the 'doyenne of cyberculture'- that's the nickname they gave me! - I like the idea of people who enjoyed my work being able to collect these components and stick them on. I've always hated fixed and final identities. These accessories would allow young people to play at metamorphosis, to transform themselves physically and quote me at the same time. We ought to launch these fake attachments together, Walter! It would seal our alliance. Walter: Yes, but first we'd have to find an industrialist who'd believe in it and who'd exploit it in a qualitative fashion so as to make it credible. Too often people treat me as an oddball because I use humour in presenting my clothes and because I use shocking colours. But the basic work is profoundly serious. It's thirty years now, Orlan, since you started making performances out of your own body and eight years since you launched your series of operation performances. How do you explain this sudden enthusiasm for your work? Is it because genetic manipulations and cloning have become the number one topic right now? 0rIan: My activity consists in denouncing the social pressures exerted on the body. And particularly on the female body. At the dawn of genetic manipulations, I believe it's urgent to respond. If not we'll all be heading straight for models of bodies that will all be stereotypes. I was happy to learn that they have finally altered the morphology of Barbie. Apparently they're beginning to get wise to things. |
