Susan Avila
Susan Avila
History of Fashion, 2026
Shredded paper, cotton fabric and thread 54" H x 60" W x .5" D
While clearing my office of twenty years I uncovered reams of paper including old History of Fashion exams and student Scantrons. These documents required shredding and the resulting materials inspired this piece. I frequently repurpose waste from the fashion industry into new textiles and decided, in this case, to repurpose this paper waste about the fashion industry into an overview of the history of fashion. To create the work, I sandwiched the shredded exams between two layers of dissolvable PVA and then stitched them together with a computerized embroidery machine. I digitized a drawing of entangled threads within a circle, along with words, to create the stitched discs allowing the loose paper to form a fringe around the circumference. I sought to capture both the frilly and frivolous quality of fashion and intertwined complexity that belies the complicated and disconcerting past and present of politics, power, wealth and, of course, human labor. The topics are organized the way I taught my class with text in various colors at the top of the piece proclaiming why we wear clothes and then words stitched in red denoting some of the relevant terminology in a non-linear and thematic mode.
Susan Avila
History of Fashion (detail), 2026
shredded paper, cotton thread and fabric 54" H x 60" W x .5" D
While clearing my office of twenty years I uncovered reams of paper including old History of Fashion exams and student Scantrons. These documents required shredding and the resulting materials inspired this piece. I frequently repurpose waste from the fashion industry into new textiles and decided, in this case, to repurpose this paper waste about the fashion industry into an overview of the history of fashion. To create the work, I sandwiched the shredded exams between two layers of dissolvable PVA and then stitched them together with a computerized embroidery machine. I digitized a drawing of entangled threads within a circle, along with words, to create the stitched discs allowing the loose paper to form a fringe around the circumference. I sought to capture both the frilly and frivolous quality of fashion and intertwined complexity that belies the complicated and disconcerting past and present of politics, power, wealth and, of course, human labor. The topics are organized the way I taught my class with text in various colors at the top of the piece proclaiming why we wear clothes and then words stitched in red denoting some of the relevant terminology in a non-linear and thematic mode.
Susan Avila
History of Fashion (side view), 2026
shredded paper, cotton thread and fabric 54" H x 60" W x .5" D
While clearing my office of twenty years I uncovered reams of paper including old History of Fashion exams and student Scantrons. These documents required shredding and the resulting materials inspired this piece. I frequently repurpose waste from the fashion industry into new textiles and decided, in this case, to repurpose this paper waste about the fashion industry into an overview of the history of fashion. To create the work, I sandwiched the shredded exams between two layers of dissolvable PVA and then stitched them together with a computerized embroidery machine. I digitized a drawing of entangled threads within a circle, along with words, to create the stitched discs allowing the loose paper to form a fringe around the circumference. I sought to capture both the frilly and frivolous quality of fashion and intertwined complexity that belies the complicated and disconcerting past and present of politics, power, wealth and, of course, human labor. The topics are organized the way I taught my class with text in various colors at the top of the piece proclaiming why we wear clothes and then words stitched in red denoting some of the relevant terminology in a non-linear and thematic mode.
