Jeanne Vicérial

The French couturier Madame Grès and the Belgian designers such as [Martin] Margiela in the 1980s-1990s. The exhibition, ‘La Mécanique des dessous’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 2013, which explored the tricks used to enhance people’s silhouettes from the fourteenth century until today, also made an impression on me.

After my studies in couture and fashion, I started to think about the absence of our bodies during the clothes-making process. I became interested in textiles with muscles and in making clothing based around the anatomy. This led me to create my [robotic] ready-to-measure machine.

I applied for the one-year residency at Villa Medici so that I could return to a daily practice [after theoretical research]. I was lucky to be accepted but then Covid happened so I was stuck there. I really wanted to study masculine sculpture and make clothing for it. But the men in the sculptures were very muscular, sometimes wearing armour. Yet women were represented like the Venus of Milo and straight away I wanted to make armament for them. So one day I found myself on scaffolding working on a huge sculpture and asked myself why don’t I make sculptures with my techniques to explore what I’d written about in my thesis about fashion. It was like a breaking point. I stopped making clothing to focus on textile sculptures.

It depends on the project. I don’t define myself much but I’m fine with being seen as a sculptor because one can sculpt anything one wants.

During [the] Covid [pandemic], I was stuck in this magnificent park with flowers everywhere. The gardeners had left the Villa Medici but allowed me to pick the flowers which would have been impossible normally. So I decided to make a piece of clothing with these flowers every day. It was like a spring/summer collection under lockdown. As I couldn’t work on other people’s bodies due to social distancing, I made self-portraits. The only record [of this project] is the photos taken by Leslie Moquin. Ever since then, I’ve always worked with flowers which bring colour into my work.

I met Daniel Templon in Rome at my first exhibition at the Villa Medici and again at my exhibition at the Magasins Généraux in Pantin. After that, we prepared my previous exhibition at Templon Brussels in 2022, then ‘Armors’ in Paris.

The starting point was anatomical drawing studies of reclining women. Then I started questioning how men view women’s bodies which made me want to discover the necropolis at the Basilica of Saint-Denis where patriarchy is very present in the history of the church. I wanted to see what stories the recumbent statues could tell.

For me, it relates to [the notion of] unveiling and to feelings. Everybody knows how relationships can hurt. These sculptures were made just with threads which makes them extremely fragile. When one looks at them, one doesn’t know if one’s inside or outside them. It’s as if one’s peering inside, almost looking at portable X-rays. 

They’re warriors but they’re not fighting anything. They’ve just raised their heads and are armed to be better prepared for the future. But perhaps they’re protecting their story of femininity. For me, the recumbent pieces are asleep whereas the vertical pieces have already woken up.

I begin by making drawings but the ensuing pieces don’t resemble them at all. I never envisage exactly how the piece will turn out, it’s something really instinctive. Working on each piece takes a long time and one almost enters a semi-conscious state, letting oneself be guided by the threads. The first piece that I made was 150 kilometres in length. The large pieces necessitate something like 200 hours of work. The small pieces are more precise as one’s working on a smaller scale. There are several of us in the studio but I make the smaller ones virtually on my own.

The robot has been part of my work since 2015. All the works are made by hand but sometimes I pass the baton to the robot to finish the piece. I included the robot because this exhibition also talks about how sewing techniques can have their place in the art world.

It enables me to play a lot with the nuances of light and the way it’s reflected. The white pieces increasingly resemble bestiaries that are hybridising with insects. They’re in a state of mutation and haven’t completely finished living.

I’ve been working with the perfumer Nicolas Beaulieu for a few years. We’ve created two fragrances together and are making a third. For the pieces without flowers, we reflected upon skin and textiles to develop a scent evocative of linen and cleansing the body with soap. For the pieces with flowers, we opted for a strong note of mimosa, from budding until wilting, [like an allegory for] the life of a woman. There are  always pieces with sound in my work and once I also collaborated with Fanny Herpin, the chef of the Camondo restaurant in Paris, on a “artwork-dish”. The five senses are really important in my work.