This collection is inspired by the book “The Devil’s Cloth”, written by Michel Pastoureau. Looking back on the history and the link between patterned, spotted, especially striped clothes and the idea of diversity in the Middle Ages, people in striped clothes were normally described as something impure, aggressive, immoral, or deceitful.
Striped clothes constitute the usual attribute of the traitor and they all disturb or pervert the established order. There is a huge gap between our contemporary sensibility – which turns “variety” into a positive value, connoting youth, cheerfulness, and an inquisitive mind, where the clothes become the privileged medium for bringing your personality – and the sensibility of people of the Middle Ages, who invested above all in that notion of pejorative values.
This is about re-interpreting and translating the history into modern garments and about people who choose clothes to designate their negative status. Through clothing the outward expression of their inner selves is being represented.
Info and images © Ichiro Suzuki
