Fea: Design Ideas

The Fea project developed out of wanting to explore two ideas. The first was based on seeing an image of Animal X’s costume, “Holocaust“. I thought the idea of having faces integrated into a garment was fascinating. Unlike Animal X’s costume though, I wanted to explore making the faces more a part of the garment, like an overall texture.

To find more visual inspiration, I searched the internet for images that had the integrated texture I was wanting. Inge Stahl’s work titled “Medea” and Kalenisis’ photo “Sister of Earth two” were two images that I liked the merging of natural elements onto the female form. A second inspiration was Michelle Wyn-de-Bank and her use of felting to create “Hairy Face” and “Hairy Faces”. I had been exploring the idea of using wool to sculpt the faces and her projects helped to confirm that it would be possible. With these images in mind I made some design sketches to work out what Fea’s gown would look like.

The second idea in the overall development of the project came from wanting to combine storytelling with costume making. The process needed to begin with the story. I knew the character I was creating was going to be a mythological being that gathered souls and integrated the spirits into her garment. The story building then began with searching for a mythology already established. Influenced by the intricate weaving of Celtic knot work, I eventually settled on the Irish mythology of the Tuatha De Danann. As I researched the history of the Tuatha De I found a series of tales that had pieces missing; leaving a perfect opening for me to fit a character within the mythology. Out of the story I’ve described, Neit did have three wives (or a wife with three incarnations). These women were also considered the three incarnations of The Morrigu, a goddess that represented Fate, War and Death. Tuatha De mythology does link The Morrigu’s help in Battle of Mag Tuired and while there was information about Neamin and Badb’s participation, there was nearly nothing about Fea. The void became an open invitation to create a new mythology for this character and that is where I injected my fiction into the actual myths.

With a time period determined and a general idea of how the gown was going to look, I also wanted to do some research on period clothing that could have been worn by the Tuatha De. Using the euhemerist idea that the legends of the Tuatha De were based on actual people, there were several dates that estimated when the Tuatha De inhabited Ireland. Scholars placed the approximate time period at 1870 to 1830 BC, during the Bronze Age. There was not a lot of evidence available to explain what the people may have been wearing, but theories suggest that Northern European people wore clothing cut closer to the body than the flowing garments of warmer climates. Though the Vikings didn't come to the area until much later, research suggested that the clothing worn in Ireland was similar in shape and function.

Early Irish Dress

Viking Tunic Construction