Project Review: Lace Armour Jewellery Mask.

My latest artwork, The Lace-Armour Jewellery Mask is an intricate piece of sterling-silver jewellery designed to be worn over a protective facemask during the pandemic. However, through this piece I am also exploring a speculative design approach, imagining what new outcomes could develop from our current masking practices and the lasting impacts on fashion accessory design. In this post I review the inspirations and research behind the project.

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During the Covid-19 pandemic, once the public grew accustomed the new requirements for face-coverings in public spaces, many people began to take this as an opportunity to adorn themselves with decorated and personalised masks. These masks express aspects of their personality, taste or even messages of political alliance and social justice, as well as serving to protect the wearer and those around them. The fashion accessories we previously used as platforms to express these aspects of ourselves could be supplemental, handbags, necklaces, scarfs and so on. But now, we have this widely compulsory and medically functional accessory which we use to meet both needs. This has created an interesting and evolving area to explore as a designer-maker.

 During a seminar I ran between the two lockdowns, I had the opportunity to speak to members of the public about their experiences of wearing masks. Aside from the understandable complaints of clamminess and discomfort, some of the participants said that they might miss the opportunity to mix and match this accessory with other items of their wardrobe, once the requirement to wear masks was over. Others expressed an enjoyment in the ability to partially hide during day to day activities, or when moving through public spaces. These participants emphasised the sense of relief that not being fully visible all of the time gave them.

 I found myself thinking for some time about the interesting points the participants at my seminar raised on the upsides of masking and the counter-intuitive mix it provided of a self-expressive platform giving rest bite from conspicuousness. I also considered how new requirements for masking may develop in the future. Rising air pollution levels have triggered the public to voluntarily adopt outdoor mask wearing in many major cities in pre-pandemic times. My response was to create a decorative piece on a spectacles style frame, meaning it could be worn with or without a protective mask. This piece works in our current context of medical protection but could also be used for a similar application in adorning pollution filtering masks if this were also to become widely required. In our current context, with the rollout of the vaccine commencing, I imagine this piece to be worn when events and gatherings are slowly beginning to be allowed with restrictions still in place. The mask is highly detailed in decorative lace-like patterns, creating an impactful design suitable for occasion-wear at fashionable and formal events.

“the mask as a fashion item could outlive its legal requirement for protection”

 However, the piece also exists in an imagined post-pandemic context, in which a new consumer trend is emerging from the learned masking practices the public has now internalised. The requirements for masking may be slowly withdrawn in the not too distant future, but this piece explores what could develop to cater for the persisting desire for partial anonymity and invisibility. This piece worn on its own, would fulfil the wish for self-expression through masking which we have already observed, while maintaining the desired shield from visibility. The concept this piece speculates over, is that the mask as a fashion item could outlive its legal requirement for protection, driven by the experiences and materialising preferences of current mask consumers. In producing a piece which feeds these specific consumer appetites, I am working logically towards an imagined outcome, to see what this world could really be like, to then ask if this is the future we want? My speculative approach is inspired by the likes of designer Leanie van der Vyver and her 2012 Scary Beautiful project.  Vyver created an extreme high heel, so tall it inverted the wearers gate. The project explored the limits of ever-changing beauty standards imposed on women. This approach of taking contemporary developments to their logical end led me to this conclusion; that the desire for continued masking would only be the symptom of other issues in our society. The omnipresence of social media, a 24/7 surveillance culture and the media induced pressures to be attractive to name a few. By creating work which draws our attention to this imagined result, we can better address the issues implicated within this outcome, today.

So many practices and artworks have faced re-valuation during the pandemic. This complex situation has created a new lens through which to read work, creating surprising ways in which pieces may gain or perhaps loose relevance. In my own practice I have considered how the varied ways in which I apply my chainmail-lace craft across scales, sculpture and jewellery could be re-interpreted in this context. These projects started as an exploration in materiality, examining how material properties are applied to express understandings of gender. I combine chainmail material and lace patterns to break boundaries between categories, manipulating the hard masculinity of metal chainmail, softening it, or conversely strengthening the feminine lace. These pieces express the true nuance, complexity and overlap between these invented and simplified categories of binary gender. I want the chainmail-lace to strike a balance between being attractive, with a slightly menacing air. The title Lace-Armour emerged to reflect the contrasting characteristics any one person can embody. In today’s context, I think this crossover has become more relatable for many people. The balance of characteristics this material represents is sympathetic to those many have had to embody to endure the pandemic. I have felt that a show of strength met with an equal acceptance of our vulnerabilities is the balance to aim for in navigating the changes required to escape our current restrictions.