Editor’s Picks
Worn On This Day
Every garment in Worn on This Day has two histories: its provenance—how it came to be—and what it came to mean. Each one takes us beyond the who, where and when of fashion history to the elusive how and why.
APRIL 19, 1956: Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco in a gown created by the MGM Studios costume department.
Volume 46, No. 1
Table of Contents
Features
Vervet Noir
The Secret Song of the Heart
Fashioning Wonder
Cabinets of Curiosities
The Benson Tuareg Collection.
An Archive of Crafting and Culture
Ezra Satok-Wolman.
Interconnectivity, Modular and Moral
Carter Smith
Stirring the Soul
Departments
Collector’s Legacy.
Eddie Basha Family Collection
Ezra Satok-Wolman Showcase.
Vervet Noir Showcase.
Subtle Dialogue.
J Diamond.
Sexy Hearts, Messy Hair
BENSON TUAREG COLLECTION
Robert K. Liu examines this unique and large collection of Tuareg jewelry and craft, gathered over a twenty-year period by a Tuareg jeweler, covering all areas where these nomadic artists have lived and worked.
CARTER SMITH MEMORIAL
We revisit an article by the late Carolyn L.E. Benesh in honor of Carter Smith, who was a dear friend to the Benesh-Liu family. A leader in the art-to-wear movement, and a master shibori artist, here Benesh lets Smith’s own words teach us a lesson or two on love.
J DIAMOND
J Taran Diamond’s jewelry seeks to communicate thoughts and ideas with minimal materials that hold deep connotations, and create conversations around race and gender.
The Process of Becoming
We Share with You the Jewelry Collection of the late Ornament Coeditor, Carolyn L.E. Benesh, who forged strong and intimate bonds with many of the artists whose work she purchased.
Articles, Past and Present
The Expression of the Handmade Makes Itself Felt through Genuineness.
What was Made Took a Combination of Skill and Ingenuity, Birthed From That Mysterious Dark Place of Imagination.
Wearable Art
It came about as a nexus in the 60s and 70s, referencing a freeform fusion of heretofore two-dimensional art and applying it to the canvas of the human being. These clothes as costume and costume as clothes birthed off a movement that still has its adherents even now, in the contemporary age.
Jewelry has had to find itself in the Modernist age, transcending the fine jewelry of wealth at the turn of the century, and reaching mid-century the abstracted explorations of material, composition, and storytelling that would yield to the contemporary art jewelry movement. Today, contemporary art jewelry remains a creatively vibrant field, a cross-disciplinary cooperation that branches off into academic work and that sold at craft shows.
We bring you the broad spectrum of human self-expression in wearable art, from the ancient and the ethnic, to the contemporary. Both here in the United States, and abroad.
Here are a few of the jewelers and clothing makers in the wearable art community for your enjoyment. We will continue to rotate this selection each month, so you will always find superlative new work to explore.
AMY NGUYEN, SHIBORI DYED CLOTHING
KEN LOEBER & DONA LOOK, JEWELRY
BIBA SCHUTZ, JEWELRY
JANICE KISSINGER, HAND-DYED FELTED CLOTHING
K. RILEY, HANDMADE BLOCK-PRINT CLOTHING
JUDITH KINGHORN, JEWELRY
Intelligent Reading.
Enter a world where experience and skill cooperate with imagination and materials to create astounding objects. The spectrum of human adornment extends from tribal and folk cultures around the globe, to the rarefied heights of the fashion industry, to contemporary art jewelry and craft which seeks to explore new boundaries.
J Taran Diamond’s jewelry seeks to communicate thoughts and ideas with minimal materials that hold deep connotations, and create conversations around race and gender.