UNLICENSED investigates contemporary culture’s obsession with bootlegging by turning to designers and artists who exploit this phenomenon in their practices. Read more.
As part of our series on creative bootlegging, we interview BLESS, lead by partners Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag. Since 1995 BLESS has succeeded in consistently being inconsistent, seamlessly moving between areas of fashion, home goods, product design, performance, installation, and contemporary art... often thriving in the blurry boundaries of each.
"We started wondering: what’s left if you take away the fashion from a fashion magazine?" Continuing UNLICENSED, our series on design and bootlegging, graphic designer Line Arngaard and fashion researcher Sonia Oet discuss A March Issue, their 372-page, spread-for-spread remake of an issue of British Vogue—with all models wearing a "default" wardrobe of blue jeans and a white T-shirt.
The printed and collaged garments of Elisa van Joolen represent a new form of "open bootlegging" where the companies involved are not only aware but included in the making of a piece. In her working process, conversation plays a an integral role in each step of production, causing participants to reconsider ideas about value, ownership, and labor. Continuing the UNLICENSED series, Ben Schwartz speaks with van Joolen about her projects 11x17 and One-to-One, along with the implications of bootlegging in the name of kindness.
