ALEKSANDRA LALIC

The collection entitled Hair _Dress consists of clothes made of felt from human hair. My intention was to demonstrate how one segment of the fashion world functions. In aestheticising the human body, some of its parts (hair, nails, mole, ribs ...) are removed as undesirable waste - trash. Having designed clothes from recycled bio-waste, I brought it back on the human body and, moreover, I made it desirable again in a theatrical situation of a fashion show.
I tried to bring out the clear forms that are based on the shapes of the female body. The shapes do not follow the body but discreetly transform it. The result is a differently shaped body than the desired one, the one which is presented in public space as the only accepted form of the body.
Producing the fabric out of human hair was a project of the Serbian artist Zoran Todorovic who represented Serbia at the Venice Biennale with his work `Warmth` in 2009. The work represents an installation from 1200 m2 felt made of human hair. From one part of that felt I made a dress in 2011. I experimented with the material which is inappropriate for making clothes focusing on converting its disadvantages into advantages, e.g. besides tailoring, because of its strength I shaped it with hands, like a sculpture.
The main challenge was testing possibilities to transform the ugly, amorphous, thick, stodgy, carpetlike fabric into a beautiful dress, which is the process of changing connotations.