Abbie Stirrup probes expressive, performance wear as a fashion designer and performance artist. The nucleus of Stirrup’s expression is the mixture of movement, performance, and art. Stirrup is known for making use of her own body as a canvas and analyzing how the human body can be amplified.
By utilizing performance and spatial design as a student at the Royal College of Art (RCA), Stirrup contested the formal fashion process. Her design vision has been related to numerous disciplines, one of them being a second skin body suit for adidas. After her work with adidas, Stirrup was asked to attend the Creator Farm in Brooklyn, thereby aiming to influence and examine the unfolding of sportswear advancement.
The ideology of S T I R was created for Stirrup’s RCA graduating collection. S T I R can be described as a loud neon pallet that utilizes a visual language moving beyond society’s contemporary understanding of human body identification, into a world that is uniquely designed of expression and freedom.
Stirrup’s Masters consisted of a live artwork, ‘Goose Pimples Live Performance’. This piece looked at a second skin, tracing the route of human consciousness while valuing the energy that flows beneath the surface. Pigmented silicone is put on naked skin and replaces it. Molding without limit, the silicone skin that Stirrup applies is seamless and runs through the crevices of the human form. Tracing the energy of human bodies, the silicone indicates where our marma points are – points activating our inner pharmacy. Stirrup asks the following question in this performance; ‘can silicone skins be designed for nutritional consumption?’
“We don’t have to confine to existing systems. Live art has no boundaries of self. It is without rules. The smudge, the drip, the crumble. This is the intensity in which I see.”
Credits
Performers:
ThatGal Matsukii
Debbie Ruijter
Tara Al-wali
Ayesha McMahon
Makeup artist: Elinor Mcmahon lead by Alex Box
Hair design: Darcie Harvey
Digital projection mapping: Adam Joshua
Tentacle developer and show support: Annie Richardson
Choreography assistant: Saul Sébastian Aidan Ssan