For her 2008 graduation from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Marie Ilse Bourlanges (FR) created the project ‘Decay’ to explore how traces of time and use can be embedded in textile.

The patterns of Bourlanges’ carefully crafted pieces were determined by deep research into the natural motions of the body. Donning a carbon fibre suit over a white blouse, Bourlanges captured the gestures of the body bending, stretching, scratching and rubbing. The transfer imprint on the blouse was then translated into a pattern, resulting in intricate collections of lines that ebb and flower across the textile.

The resulting collection of sweaters reveal complex relationships of time, the body and materiality, enriched by Bourlanges' deep and mindful processes of research, design development, materials experimentation, and production.

Bourlanges provides a beautiful example of Slowness as a process of designing, while the end product demonstrates the Slow Design principle of 'reflective consumption.' By anticipating potential expressions of the body and linking those to the eventual decay of the textile, Bourlanges' project challenges perceptions of material existence, revealing some of the most intimate (and ephemeral) movements of daily life.

more about Marie Ilse >