PRESSETEXT / PRESS RELEASE
Eröffnung / Opening: 26. 4. 2016, 7pm
Ausstellungsdauer / Duration: 27.4. – 2.6. 2016
Atelier E.B (Edinburgh Bruxelles) is the company name under which the designer
Beca Lipscombe and the artist Lucy McKenzie sign their collaborative projects. The
group was formed in 2007 and since 2011 the pair have operated as a fashion label.
This spring, they present for the first time in Vienna with their third collection, IOTII,
for sale direct to the public from a custom-built boutique installation at Galerie Meyer
Kainer.
Art’s fascination with fashion rarely penetrates beneath its surface, content to
perpetuate its contradictions without critical analysis. Atelier E.B place art and design
on an equal footing, and apply methodologies from both spheres to explore their
potential for independent expression. Their designs are produced, sold and promoted
ethically, yet are too stylistically hacked to be easily marketed as an ‘eco brand’.
Conversely they are too inconsistent in price and material to be niche luxury; they
defy categorisation. Atelier E.B consider clothing a sophisticated tool for
empowerment, agency and pleasure. By taking advantage of networks within the
contemporary art scene, the label circumvents mediating power brokers such as
stylists, buyers and magazines to bring wearable clothes straight to the local
consumer at the best possible price.
Sportswear has been acting as a modernizing influence on fashion since the
nineteenth century, and continues to be at the forefront of how people express their
cultural allegiances. In 2014, with the referendum to leave the United Kingdom,
Scotland was asked to reflect on its identity, and Atelier E.B combine these issues in
IOTII. In the collection can be found exquisitely woven and knitted cashmeres, handmade
Belgian lingerie and neo-classical nylon ‘cosplay’ tracksuits. The hand intarsia
football tops in cashmere and merino have nationalist logos appropriately pixilated.
They also present wool mix school-skirts, silk and lace football shorts, oversized polo
shirts, the perfect artschool-girl coat and fictitious sponsorship from the Clydesdale
Bank. Accessories include a football hooligan’s paisley scarf, ‘Mockintosh’ jewellery,
a trompe-l'oeil zip brooch, Ivan Lendl picnic blanket, and Slovak ‘Civicky’ gym shoes.
An accompanying catalogue of The Inventors of Tradition II, will be published this
spring by Walter Koenig Verlag.
