The Tricotissage and the “Prêt-à-mesure”
The profession of Jeanne Vicérial cannot be defined with a single word; she is a visual artist, a stylist, an innovative seamstress, a researcher, and a creator.
She exploited all these aspects of her to solve an issue apparently simple but more than ever important and relevant in this decade: “How to improve clothes’ production processes to avoid waste and, at the same time, overcome the bipolarity between sur-mesure (‘tailored’) and prêt-à-porter (‘ready to wear’) fashion”?
The solution, obtained collaborating with the mechatronics1 department of MINES ParisTech, was the invention of tricotissage technique and of a machine that could reproduce it in an automated way.
This technique is inspired by human muscle fibers to create a weaving (in French, precisely tissage) able of enveloping the body like a second skin.
Moreover, thanks to this “prêt-à-mesure” method, the waste of fabric has been eliminated since the clothes are made with a single kilometer-long thread.
Jeanne Vicérial,
From the left:
Présence 2, 2021, Textile, knitted thread and craft string technique, 280 × 200 × 200 cm — 110 2/8 × 78 6/8 × 78 6/8 in
Gardienne / Madone (detail), 2020, Textile, knitted thread and craft string technique, 1200 hours of handcraft work, 210 x 100 cm
Armor n°4, 2020, Textiles, yarns, cords, knitting, 180 × 55 × 45 cm — 70 7/8 × 21 5/8 × 17 6/8 in
The Show
Jeanne Vicérial’s creations can be admired until April 23 in her personal exhibition Présences, currently ongoing at Galerie Templon’s spaces in Brussels.
In the first room, the ‘presences’ represent mysterious, almost mystical beings, reminiscent of veiled madonnas but also of armed warriors or millennial guardians.
The second room, instead, was conceived in a more sacred way, as a reliquary or a crypt. In this environment there are still ‘presences’; here, however, they show the viscera and the anatomical parts that inspired the tricotissage technique.
©Courtesy Isabelle Arthuis
Exposition views, Brussels, Galerie Templon
The inside of these thread exoskeletons is filled with dried flowers from Villa Medici in Rome where the artist resided in 2020.
Perhaps, the choice of using flowers precisely wants to allude to body’s fleeting and this is also reproposed in the show through a perfume designed to fade after a while.
Vicérial’s clothes are shown in environments pervaded by essences and music specifically created for the occasion to involve visitors; unfortunately, I can only describe you all of this, so I recommend you to visit the exhibition.
You have time until April 23rd!
Here’s the exhibition’s video presentation:
Useful links: Jeanne Vicérial’s Instagram page
Galerie Templon’s website
1 It is the interaction between mechanics, electronics and information technology
Cover image: ©Courtesy Templon, Paris – Brussels
JEANNE VICERIAL, Vénus ouverte #2, 2020, Textile, knitted yarns (proprietary technique), dried flowers from the Villa Medici, 180 × 90 × 75 cm — 70 7/8 × 35 3/7 × 29 1/2 in.