INFO
JB_ Well Its of the Mayerling incident in Austria in the 1800s, Marie Vetsera falls in love with Prince Rudolph while already married to someone else. Rudolph was known for his love of the ladies but dropped all that for Marie who he truly loved. Maries husband senses something between them so he sends her away for six months hoping the pair will cease affections. The affair only starts right back up again as soon as she’s back...The pair flee to a hunting lodge in Mayerling mountains where they are both later found dead. Nobody knows if it was a suicide pact or murder, there are so many theories...But my jacket depicts Marie Vetseras body being scooped up by the already dead hand of her love Prince Rudolph to his silver cloud leaving Mayerling behind...Make of it what you like....
MH. I always want everything that Jo makes……….each one is better than the last and I love them all. I especially wanted Mayerling because it fit me like a glove and I loved the photos she took of me in it, the starface ones. The metallic green leather shoulder scales are just too good to be true and i know how special the story is to her! I eventually bought it from her so she could buy some satins and velvets to make more……she never wants to sell anything really………but in the end she has to, so she ends up with nothing to wear….
JB: Each one I make I love the most………and I think I’m gonna keep it for myself but really once the process of making the piece is over i kind of feel like I’m done with it, its left the system. I design and make on my own so sometimes by the end of it, I’m ready for it to go. its my best friend while im making it but when its finished i need a new one! The first pieces are definitely more untidy and not so well thought out but i can really see my technique has grown. I’m way more patient nowadays and i want everything to be better than the last.…….each piece has been such a big lesson...i’m warming up for the big stuff! Sometimes i feel sad that i may not see certain pieces again but I’m quite lucky that most of my things have been sold to collectors or people i know somehow...i like to imagine them in good places.
MH. My mother just bought Jo’s Queen Of Hearts Cape………! She’s 73! And she lives in North Yorkshire on the wild and windy moors of nowhere!
JB She’ll scare all the sheep.
DT: Tell me about your heroes and heroines and the inspiration behind your work.
JB; Well we’re always finding new people to obsess about, it would take me forever to mention who and what……..usually the ones that have been dead for centuries…….I made a series of satin and velvet embroidered portraits of some of the people that I love………..Casati, The Comtesse de Castiglione, John Waters, Billy Bowers………but I love so many others. I used to be mad about the Ballet Russes and their costumes, I love Kaisik Wong and Fong Leng………..Mathilde Willink, King Ludwig of Bavaria………the Commedia del Arte……….the incredible Cockettes….Im always on something...
DT: You made a coat about Barnum and his merman……….?
JB: There’s no great story behind that one, i guess really its about how something severely ugly like a half Salmon and a half chimp sandwiched together can be made to look really beautiful...that’s it really.
MH: Yeah we always believe that flawed beauty is the best….you have to have the opposites to make it whole………sometimes in our photo shoots something might be looking a bit too nice so we have to fix it to make it look not quite right.
JB: Just like the stuff we wear…….always a bit holey and worn.. I love the idea that the old garment has had some adventures that it’ll never reveal. But you can kind of find the clues in the fag burns and the seam rips……..
MH. In the past, when jo has used old fabrics to make things, she’s never bothered about covering up the little holes or the age stains………somehow for us it makes it all nicer like that.. Our dream model for CDB would be a really old kind of ex ballet Madame…….someone who has all the life experiences etched on her face, and of course who still powders and paints up to the nines and still wears the remnants of all her old fineries………..we’re always looking for her!
DT: So what’s next on the sewing machine?
JB: A secret....