Francesca Goodwin talks to Fine Artist Hormazd Narielwalla for her second instalment of a series investigating new perspectives on traditional practices within the arts.

I first met Hormazd Narielwalla in 2010 when both of us were tentatively feeling our way in our respective fields of fine art and curation. I had come across his work in the context of a collaboration with the Paul Smith store on Abermale Street– a suitably debonair venue for his first solo show.

Then, as now, I was captivated by the exquisite collages, which this visual storyteller weaves from his forages amidst the archives of tailor’s patterns that hang, awaiting their reincarnation, on his studio walls.

From the bespoke tailoring patterns which, first lured him through the doors of Dege and Skinner of the renowned Savile row in London, to his recent body of work using the ‘do it yourself’ patterns from the 1890s lifestyle magazine  ‘Le Petit Echo de la Monde’, Hormazd breathes new life into what would be otherwise discarded remnants.

The resultant creations, showcased throughout several international exhibitions and publications, are as innovative as fashion itself– ranging from his limited edition artist book ‘Dead Man’s Patterns’ through to sculptural skulls and cubist collages. Though eclectic, the work is united by the scent of sophistication and glamour that drifts amidst the simultaneously fragile yet re-energised forms.

Hormazd may be becoming something of a fashionable name yet, it is the places where the stitches unravel– exposing a trace of the personality behind the inanimate material– that catches his eye as, it draws a more poetic template of identity.

Francesca: For someone who works with patterns it doesn’t seem incongruous that you cut a pretty dapper figure yourself, where did your interest in fashion originate?

Hormazd: Thank you for your kind compliments – you are sweet. I think dressing up is as much a part of the performance – in a way that it is my opinion that my work is stylized and considered in respect to graphic compositions. Therefore, it comes naturally to me to wear matching socks with my ‘shower’ handkerchief. I don’t have a huge wardrobe – so I try and experiment with accessories.

My work is linked to fashion in more ways than just utilising tailoring patterns – a fundamental tool in making garments, but also in respect to colour, texture and the bizarreness of what it offers. I looked at Parisian couture and created an image library when working on the Le Petit Echo de la Mode series. This informed the colours and compositions of the work.

My interests in fashion began when I was 16 when I enrolled in a vocational course in fashion back in India and thereafter working as a stylist for some publications and newspapers. I think ‘fashion’ is a very fun way of expressing oneself – you only have to look at artists like Gilbert & George, Matisse, Picasso, Kusama, Bourgeois, and Dali who all had and have a distinctive personal style under the umbrella of fashion.

F: Your work, although it has been exhibited alongside fashion collections, doesn’t seem to be specifically related to the fashion industry. When did the shift occur into fine art and what differentiations/connections do you make in that respect?

H: No my work is not about a response to the fashion industry. I’m using tailoring patterns divorced from its origination and begin to view as an abstracted shape that can be used in a conceptual way to narrate stories around the ‘body’; whether in a morbid Memento Mori sort of way or the final outcome –whimsical illustrations.

The shift occurred when I started to think of what I could do with this artefact – the pattern. How I could ‘play’ with it, and my response to it as a drawing and, to break the traditional thinking that it is a technical tool to create clothing. I am not interested in making clothes but making objects and works, which are devoid from fashion principles such as trends, forecasts, and the general cycle of creating clothing collections. I am not going to defend or argue whether designers are artists or whether artists can be designers?

Though, saying that, Warhol began his career as a fashion illustrator, and Picasso famously designed costumes for Diaghilev’s productions, not to mention Dali collaborated with designers. My research at the National Art Library also led me to Dress Designs– a book published in 1913 by English painter Talbot Hughes who drew illustrations of his personal collection of period costume and, included hand drawn patterns to benefit artists and dressmakers. The work was first of its kind in respect to ‘object-based’ archival study in the context of fashion, and quite extraordinary that an artist led the way.

I like to think we are in a community, which nurtures ‘hybrids’ – why define boundaries when we have the luxury to be in whatever contexts we feel comfortable to be in. I’m more interested in creating work.

F: Is it therefore significant that the patterns are bespoke?

H: No, because I have used hat patterns, women’s industrial over coat patterns, women’s lingerie patterns and lastly French domestic patterns to create the Le Petit Echo de la Mode series. I guess people label my work with bespoke patterns, as my practice began with tailors Dege & Skinner, Savile row and I did use their bespoke patterns to create my first artist book Dead Man’s Patterns, which left it’s mark.

There is, however, a joy in using bespoke patterns because suddenly there is a realisation linked to an individual person and his/her body. Their imprint can tell a very different kind of story; however I’m not saying that I like using them over the industrial patterns – it’s just different.

F: The title of one of your books Dead Man’s Patterns evokes a sense that through your recycling of the patterns, somehow the individual is brought to life. How far is your practice about the interaction between fabric and the human form or do you see the patterns in a more structural sense as objects in themselves? Can the two be linked?

H: Dead Man’s Patterns is an exploration of the human form where the physical body is absent. The pattern not only carries with it the measurements of an individual’s garment but also the imprint of his body. The tailoring pattern is the hidden link between the body and clothing. So the ‘body’ and ‘clothing’ cannot be separated with the other.

For Le Petit Echo de la Mode I am looking at the patterns (in this case layered on top of each other) as intersections that shatter the female form into many facets, and as an artist I want to leave the composition as a whole and explore the body by colouring in the intersections. And, yes they are objects in themselves that inspire me, and most definitely interlinked.

F: How do the disciplines of drawing and fashion illustration influence your work?

H: Fashion illustration is a wonderful form of communication – I respect illustrators such as David Downtown, Piet Paris and Tanya Ling. They are all so different in that Downtown creates realistic figurative works and Paris takes a more geometrical stance and Ling’s work is soft and flowing. Some of my own work can be viewed as fashion illustration, not all of it.

In respect to drawing I am interested in Stephen Farthing’s approach of acknowledging drawing outside the boundaries of fine art where street markings, food stains, natural marks all come under the classification of drawing. The boundaries are being pushed – in that sense I claim that patterns are beautiful insightful and inspiring drawings in themselves. The tailor’s strong, confident mark is graphic and alluring that entices me to further respond to it.

F: Do you see yourself as something of an artistic historian?

H: In the context of fashion history – in a way, yes I do. For my PhD thesis, I analyzed 57 uniforms of the British Raj (1850-1947) by documenting them as working drawings and located historical patterns that would have been used to make the garments.

Together with a tailoring expert I derived a considered and detailed dress narrative of these uniforms to suggest patterns are historical documents, another paradigm to the most fundamental proposition that they are beautiful drawings in themselves. The tailoring narrative ultimately triggered a response to take the military patterns into an artistic journey.

F: Do you have a set working method or does the subject matter inform your approach?

H: I always start with the physical patterns, which tell me what to do. Always, the pattern is the central focus and the tailors actual imprint of lines, chalk marks, scribbles, measurements and notes become a vital part of the image. I work better with a hands-on approach and, through that process, develop my artworks.

It is also important for me to have a story (one that already exists or something I’ve made up), sometimes a tailoring reference, or a lot of times a feeling. So for instance, I revisited death when I acquired a considerable amount of deceased customer patterns having rummaged through the tailors archive and decided to explore Memento Mori by making 3-Dimensional skulls or abstract representation of female anatomy made from women’s lingerie patterns.

I also have a golden rule for myself that no part of the pattern gets discarded – every bit of it is used in my work. So the leftovers from the skull imprint were mounted around a projection of my skull to explore their outlines in the negative.

F: Your subject matter has shifted somewhat since the military uniforms, how have your recent collaborations, muses and sources come about?

H: Like Alice In Wonderland – with curiosity and a bit of luck, but above all a hunger to uncover and discover.

F: When we first met you were working on your Lady Garden series. Having never actually seen a real life vagina, your sculptural ‘gardens’ in particular seem to have a traditional idea of the female body linked to nature. How does your approach to the female form differ from that to the male?

H: Women are beautiful creatures, as are men, but I guess I succumb to the history of the male gaze on the female form and the depiction of women in the history of art. The female form is far more gentle and soft, and is also depicted this way in my work.

However, I must point out I am not sexually attracted to women so I guess I might be exploring the inner female within me. I am also attracted to women’s personalities as strong characters – the women in my family are leaders.

Best of all I like depicting androgynous characters – this is something I would like to work on more. The Anansi character in my first solo show launched at Paul Smith’s store was drawn with an intention of giving the viewer the option of seeing male or female.

F: Just as fashion’s change your work is constantly evolving. How do you see your practice developing in the immediate future?

H: I guess that will depend on the different kinds of patterns I find. I have been digging and uncovering wonderful shapes that are constantly inspiring me. I think scale is a major factor in my work and I want to be ambitious by going bigger. Also I am interested in the book form – although static whilst resting is such a wonderful form of communication when being used – like tailoring.

A selection of work from Hormazd’s series 'Le Petit Echo de la Mode' will be exhibited as part of the Fabelist group show ‘Connect’ at A-Side B-Side Gallery 21^st-25^th November. For event details RSVP here

For further information on the artist see Hormazd’s website

Image: Hormazd Narielwalla by Denis Laner