The Walker Shop always has unique and interesting merchandise, and often has special items related to current exhibitions. For Worlds Away, Walker shop Director Nancy Gross came across some clothing that makes use of Tyvek, a common building wrapping material. Since the exhibition deals with sprawl and construction, and the same time there is a focus on re-use and green design these days, the work is an obvious fit. I asked the designer, Marian Schoettle (a.k.a. mau) to write a bit about the Tyvek jacket and Tyvek bag:
My name is Marian Schoettle and my work has recently been included in the store – clothing and bags out of Yyvek a featherweight non-woven material with the label post industrial folk wear by mau. It looks like paper but it’s not so perishable. The material is made by Dupont and it is known primarily as a house insulating material and the material of post office envelopes. (tough, right?) It is comprised of 25%recycled HDPE 2 and is recyclable.
This work is part of a twofold project. The work at the Walker consists of modern featherweight clothing and bags (none weighing more that 500 grams) that challenge some of our ideas about suitability’. The Walker has white jackets, coats and bags that are made with hard structure tyvek. They also have jackets that are actually made from house insulating tyvek (with the advertising writing all cut up). Ironically the house insulating material is not as abrasion resistant as the hard structure tyvek, I guess because it’s supposed to be covered over with vinyl siding!
The other part of post industrial folk wear is a global psycho-geography project in which volunteers create interactive scenarios while walking around cities, wearing my jackets (drawing or writing on them). Under the auspices of Chashama and the New York Foundation for the Arts this project will occur in NYC May 18 – 24, 2008.
In the past I’ve collaborated with the weather to create storm dresses, devised sound and image installations in abandoned monasteries in Eastern Europe, built tepee space modules in the National Building Museum in Washington, designed performance clothing and art wear, as well as taught in art and design academies in Western Europe.
This collection is sewn in the New York City garment district, the tyvek material is made in the USA, and the surplus materials are gathered from local computer, snowboard and automotive industries. All cutting room scraps are recycled via DuPont’s in-house recycling.
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