EN / nl

Gronbach, Eva

Under cover of the public’s familiarity and comfort with the universe of fashion, Eva Gronbach brings her audience face to face with repressed or traumatic histories in order to foster a process of collective healing. Her German Jeans collection addressed the transformative historical and cultural processes of de-industrialisation in Europe, incorporating original coal miners’ uniforms into the flashy world of haute couture. Similarly, for WAS VERGEHT/ WAS BESTEHT/ WAS ENTSTEHT, Gronbach uses coal miners’ work clothes to amass a veritable slag heap, a symbol of their solidarity and collective strength. These garments serve as a vehicle for revisiting and unsettling the history of prêt-à-porter, as Gronbach toys with a contradiction inherent in the history of capitalism by counterpoising the use value of anonymous industrial commodities against the exchange value of aesthetic objects that carry an author’s signature. Miners’ work clothes are, after all, quintessentially industrial commodities, insofar as factory manufactured clothes were one of the original European industrial consumer goods, and miners are quintessential industrial labourers. With this installation, Gronbach revives this ostensibly lifeless utilitarian product, resurrecting it as useless object with an inflated value. The durability of her recycled materials stands as an open challenge to the economically mandated cycle of obsolescence of all fashion. CMF