(DE-)ORNAMENT – FRAGMENTED PASSAGES OF GENDER & ORNAMENT is an independent, testimonial zine that presents Tjerre Lucas Bijker’s research into the lived experience of fashion and gender. Through a combination of explanatory text and imagery, drawn from a series of performance pieces, this publication delves into the complexities of the gender binary and its relation to fashion ornaments.
(DE-)ORNAMENT includes an extractable mini publication, offering additional textual works in the form of a critical study that delves deeper into the relationship between gender and fashion, ultimately presenting binary codes as a system of ornamentation.
Introduction | To manifest – The method
Clothing is one of the most immediate and effective examples of the way in which bodies are gendered, made ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine.’1
- Joanne Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress & Modern Sociaal Theory, Second Edition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015)
When it comes to garments, it becomes quite clear how gender is everywhere. As a society we are focused on segregating clothing into binary-gendered boxes: choices that are made seemingly unconsciously. It is clear for almost every garment if it is meant to be worn by either men or women. This differentiation is made visual in the way our garments are decorated and ornamented. These decorations can be seen as signals that refer to a specific binary gender. However, these signals form the case of codes and constructs that remain invisible for most people, because we have been trained to look over them. The goal of (De-)Ornament is to unravel a visual culture consisting of these labels, signals and codes related to the gender binary and make them readable and visible.
I use my Male to Female Dress practice, a research method I established 2019. Through experimenting with placing my own body and consciousness in processes of ornamenting and de-ornamenting garments, I try to create understanding and meaning in the way garments are gendered through ornamentation. These awareness practices aim to circumvent our existing relationship with gendered fashion, starting with personal conversations about gender, fashion and the discoursed struggle that stands between the two.
By using this method of research I liberate the process from the product. The resulting garments don’t carry all of meaning I try to convey within my work. Thus, I decided that that the process — performative embodied research processes — can take the shape of a product. The process is a presence within my work that creates and forms meaning. This publication aims to function as an aid to take you (the spectator) by the hand and guide you through my performative work.
This publication also includes a mini-zine consisting of additional textual works in the form of an essay that describes the relationship between gender and ornamentation more profoundly.
Collaborative Photography | Embodied studies (un)dressing ornament
Some of the performances that emerged from (De-)Ornament were photographed in collaboration with photographer Luna Brouwers. These performances included explorations of the (gendered) identity of textiles as well as studies of the gendered (nude) body.
This performance questioned the naked body as the supposed outcome of complete de-ornamentation, critically examining the assumption that stripping away all gendered signifiers reveals a neutral, universal form. Instead, it highlighted how the naked body itself remains inherently gendered, challenging the notion of nudity as a neutral or objective state.
This performance explored so-called ‘abstract’ textiles and interrogated their underlying connections to binary gender connotations.
Vicisitudo | Rhythm
In this film, I revisited an earlier performance, RHYTHM, in which I invited participants to remove all visible ornaments of gender from my body at that moment. By relinquishing control and positioning myself as an object for gender de-ornamentation, I asked them to engage directly with the act of stripping away gendered signifiers—raising questions about agency, perception, and the possibility of a de-gendered body.
Videograpy: Pasqual Amade
Choreography: frontrowbackstage
Sound Design: Timo Vermeer
Participants: Ellen Bloo & Luna