Ensemble
Walter Van Beirendonck's first collection Bad Baby Boys combined codes from childhood uniforms with adult masculine S/M stereotypes (bad boys, daddies) in order to create a fairytale-like, tolerant vision of a world without fear or repression of transgressive sexuality. Fundamental to his artistic signature, is the use of cartoonish or childlike references belying the darker themes of sexuality, aggression, fear and darkness, which also characterize his work informed by rituals, myths, fairytales and science fiction.
Van Beirendonck connects innocence and experience in the sailor's uniform as a signifier of both children's costumes as well as a signifier of queer subculture and masculine desire, a signification which it had acquired during the interwar years and which was eternalized in Jean Genet's Querelle de Brest novel of 1947.
Van Beirendonck connects innocence and experience in the sailor's uniform as a signifier of both children's costumes as well as a signifier of queer subculture and masculine desire, a signification which it had acquired during the interwar years and which was eternalized in Jean Genet's Querelle de Brest novel of 1947.
Artwork Details
- Title: Ensemble
- Designer: Walter Van Beirendonck (Belgian, born 1957)
- Date: fall/winter 1986–87
- Culture: Belgian
- Medium: (a) wool, (b) wool, (c) wool, leather
- Credit Line: Purchase, Friends of The Costume Institute Gifts, 2020
- Object Number: 2020.42a–c
- Curatorial Department: The Costume Institute
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