The Recorder, August 6, 2009
By ARN ALBERTINI
Recorder Staff

When some people see a pile of vinyl records, they see a relic of a music era gone by, a pile of junk that’s been replaced by more convenient music delivery forms.

For Nina Rossi and Yoshi Kogo, a pile of records was a creative solution to a fashion design problem.

Records, after a few trials and tribulations to develop the proper technique, proved to be prefect for creating plates for a suit of samurai armor that they’ll be showing off during Fabrication, a fashion show that takes place Saturday, Aug. 8.

Part of the third annual Block Party in Turners Falls, the fashion show features clothing made from junk, old clothes and any other material that would normally get thrown away. Rossi, who lives in Turners Falls and Kogo, who lives in Montague Center, work together at Eddie’s Wheels, a company in Shelburne that makes wheeled carts for handicapped pets. When Rossi and Kogo heard about Fabrication, they wanted in.

Entering the show was a way to meld Rossi’s experience using industrial materials in her art and Kogo’s background in fashion, they said.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Kogo worked in the New York City fashion industry, where she set up a design, manufacture and retail business, which featured hand-painted silk scarves and hand-dyed garments. A former arts columnist for The Recorder when her last name was Bander, Rossi is an established local artist who creates two- and three-dimensional works in a wide array of materials.

First, Rossi and Kogo started talking about what type of materials they
wanted to use.

“Yoshi and I were interested in using alternative kind of materials,” said Rossi. And they wanted to find a way to combine and contrast soft and hard materials, she said.

“Yoshi had this idea for plates,” Rossi said.

Eventually, their discussion developed into the idea of making a samurai suit, she said.

“We thought that would be so different and it could easily incorporate soft and hard materials.”

Both said they were fascinated by creating a piece of clothing that was both protective and flexible.

Sexy samurai
“It’s a very ornamental look and yet it’s kind of functional,” Kogo said of the samurai suit. She said she’s especially impressed with the way the armor sways around. “It’s very sexy.”

They poured through books Kogo had with pictures of samurai suits and they took a visit to the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in Springfield, where a suit was on display.

At first, Rossi said she was thinking of using CDs to make the plating. “We experimented a little bit with CDs, but they broke.”

Then, they tried records, imposing on friends to purge the less desirable pieces of their album collections so they could gather enough raw materials to create the armor plates of the samurai suit.

Rossi lost a few records figuring out the best way to cut them into sections and how big to make the holes in them. “They go from extremely soft to brittle in a very short amount of time,” she said.

Once Rossi perfected the technique for making the plating for the armor, Kogo tapped into her fashion background to figure out how to fasten the plates together.

Kogo settled on kumihimo, a Japanese method of weaving she uses to make bracelets and necklaces. In the case of the samurai suit, it was a way to lock the plates together.

“It’s almost like an armadillo,” said Kogo. “It’s an armor, but it bends and breathes.”

“It’s aesthetically pleasing. It has a function as well.”

The plates are tied together with cord they bought for $1 at a used goods store. Kogo dyed the cord red to contrast with the records and to give it an older look.

The project was a way to make “something out of nothing,” said Rossi. “To give it form, shape and function. Bring it to life.”

Kogo added, “We trained ourselves how to craft and conserve all these different pieces of material.”

And the lessons they learned may find there way into other art projects, she said.

Saturday’s Block Party
Turners Falls River Culture is hosting Saturday’s Block Party. Avenue A will be blocked off between Third and Fifth streets, from 2 to 8 p.m., to make way for fashion, music, food (including Puerto Rican cuisine made by a local resident), art vendors, games and activities for children (including a back-to-school event organized by the Brick House Community Resource Center). WRSI The River’s Monte Belmonte will MC the festivities.

The block party kicks off with a parade.

The fashion show, which takes place along the middle of Avenue A, starts around 6 p.m.

The musical line up, which will be playing on a stage set up in front of Spinner Park, includes Watcher, Naia Kete, AfterGlo, Houserhythm and Seven Mile Line.

The state Department of Conservation and Recreation will have a special van to showcase various environmental education materials and Southworth Paper Co. will have a papermaking demonstration set up.

The Block Party is sponsored by Massachusetts Cultural Council, the town, Western Massachusetts Electric Co. and Hillside Plastics and Greenfield Savings Bank.

New materials challenging
An innovative approach to fashion show isn’t a new concept for Turners Falls. For the past three years, during art walks, Suzee’s Laundry on Third Street has been hosting fashion created from clothes left at the laundromat.

Fabrication, however, broadens the scope of what can be used to create clothing, said organizer Rachel Teumim.

“The idea behind this is that (the pieces) can be made out of anything, not only fabric. I want people to be creative as possible. People can use anything.”

Fabrication will feature works from at least 15 designers, each of whom will be allowed to show one or two pieces, she said. At least 95 percent of each piece needs to be from recycled or reused material.

Teumim has been involved in several recycled fashion shows, including several at Suzee’s and another fashion show that is sometimes in Troy, N.Y. and sometimes in Albany, N.Y.

“Fastening is the main problem. It’s really hard to figure out how to combine things together.

“Every new material presents a new challenge.”

For Fabrication, Teumim will have a dress made of men’s ties, a flapper-style dress out of tape from video tapes and cheddar cheese labels, and a man’s shirt made out of playing cards.

Teumim said she’s always enjoyed fashion, but not the amount of money that gets poured into the conventional fashion business.

Fabrication is a way to get more people involved and to not have fashion be so exclusive, she said. “You can be more creative. You don’t have to have specific training as a fashion designer or textile artist.

“I hope (the fashion show) becomes a regular occurrence. I’d like to see it continue and see more people come forward in the future with different ideas.”

She said she hopes to have businesses donate unused materials that can be reworked into fashions.

Digging for old clothing

Another designer who will enter the show?? is Mahajoy Laufer, 26, of Florence, who spent two years in Taiwan teaching English and yoga. “It’s a hyper-consumer culture.” While there, she said she started to get into buying lots of things.

At the end of her two years, she took off for a two-week tour around Asia, living out of only a backpack.

“When I came home I realized I had so much stuff,” Laufer said. She realized didn’t need it all.

Instead of buying new clothes, she decided to dig into the pile of stuff in her basement and use what she had to create new clothes.

She started with a T-shirt she got in Cambodia. “I basically fashioned it to make it look more feminine,” Laufer said. She puffed up the sleeves and added a drawstring, with decorative buttons, to tighten up the waist, creating what she calls a peasant shirt.

Ever since, she’s been altering clothes she finds in her basement, by the side of road or by “sometimes dumpster diving,” Laufer said. “A lot of really nice stuff gets thrown away. Especially when college students go away.”

When she’s trying to create a new garment, Laufer said she looks for things that stand out.

“Every piece of clothing has something cool,” Laufer said.

One day, ruffles along the buttons of a dress shirt caught her eye. They became a design accent along the side of a new dress.

“Sometimes, I have an idea in my mind and the fabric will fit the idea. Or, the fabric has something I want and I’ll take it and put it on something else. Or, it’s a creative process and I’ll see (what happens).”

For Fabrication, she made one outfit that includes a top made from two shirts and a skirt made of sheets. She also made a dress from old National Geographic magazines, which she’ll be wearing with a pair of gladiator “can-can” shoes. She’ll also be carrying a handbag made of an old T-shirt.

In Roman times, gladiators wore leather sandals with straps that wrapped up their legs in a crisscross pattern, sometimes to just below the knees.

Instead of leather straps for the shoes, Laufer cut old soda and beer cans into strips and formed them into rings; hence, the name “can-can.” The rings are attached together in a crisscross pattern, fit around her legs and run knee high.

This metallic creation is attached to old flip-flops.

Eventually, Laufer said she hopes to make her own product line based on taking various clothes or pieces of clothes and converting them into something new.

“It’s fun. You get into this zone. It’s really meditative. You surprise yourself with things you make up. I like that playful creativity. I like honing my skills. I like figuring out how to make something into something else.”

Staff reporter Arn Albertini has worked at the Recorder since 1999. He covers Montague, Erving and Gill. He can be reached at aalberti@recorder.com or (413) 772-0261 Ext. 264.
Staff photographer Paul Franz has worked for The Recorder since 1988. He can be reached at pfranz@recorder.com or (413) 772-0261 |Ext. 266.