The exploration of gender fluidity or genderless garments has come to the fore over the last few years in fashion. Launched in 2005 by designer Telfar Clemens, TELFAR has positioned itself as a foundational brand for black, avant-garde design with gender fluidity as its backbone.
During Milan’s Men’s Fashion Week in January, Kaleidoscope presented TELFAR’s project, Nude – a live installation of TELFAR’s work in collaboration with other artists. This project stretched fashion linguistics by sharing with audiences a fashion presentation without any garments.
The exhibition centres around a large nude image of designer Telfar Clemens by Rob Kulisek. Surrounding this were nude mannequins with gender signifiers removed. These were an updated version of the mannequins TELFAR presented at the 2016 Berlin Biennale, that were designed by American artist Frank Benso and manufactured by German mannequin factory Penther Formes. In addition to this, there was a film about Telfar’s apartment building in Queens, NY made by filmmaker Finn MacTaggart accompanied by musical composition by Aaron David Ross.
FAKA were invited by Telfar to bring a performative element to the show. Having been TELFAR fans for a number of years, they were pleasantly surprised to find out that Telfar has been keeping an eye on them too. After a few email exchanges, the collaboration was solidified. “We performed both our EP’s ‘Bottoms Revenge‘ and ‘Amaqhawe‘. Our performance tied into Nude through our known exploration of gender fluidity which Telfar’s work generally explores,” Desire explained. Their performance also gave audiences a sneak peek of TELFAR’s new looks. Working together made complete sense considering FAKA’s interrogation of gender identity, and their aim to celebrate, reimagine and liberate queer bodies. FAKA continue to push their positive agenda across the globe with collaborations such as this.
