Those who take a good look, can touch deeper than the first layer may reveal. Bindings, colours and patterns flirt with our perception and suggest shapes: a new fabric comes to life. Is there an opening in the play, a gap in the pattern?
I fold, pleat, wrap, transform and guide material through my hands: a search for movement without limits.
 

play . pleat . perform is the outcome of my master project in textile design: a profound research on pleats, which make a fabric come to life.
After experimenting with my first love, machine knitting, I was looking for a new and additional challenge. So I began creating pleats in polyester fabric with paper molds. When I started pleating in different directions, the fabric totally changed. Suddenly the polyester fabric became very versatile: with every movement or manipulation the fabric changed its appearance. At the same time I was drawing a lot in relation to my knitted pieces. I scanned my patterns, so I could print them on paper with transfer ink. These patterns were then fixated on the polyester fabric, before, after or in between the pleating process. To pleat the big pieces, I worked together with a handicraft company who still pleats fabrics with their old machines.
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And so a new fabric was born: a surprising and captivating textile, changing with every movement the body makes.
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Thanks to Lore Dekeyser, the dancer who made my textiles come to life, Simon Debbaut-L'Ecluse, who helped me with the photographs and Studio Skoop for the location.

 
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