Community of Compassion
We worked with the artist Julia Sherman to create a wardrobe for a small order of Anglican sisters, called the Community of Compassion.
Julia uses various research and
production methods to generate mixed visual media including photography, video
and sculpture. This apparel design project is the latest installment of her
investigation into the dress and practices of self-sufficient all-female spiritual
communities. For six months we worked with Mother Mary Magdalene to design and manufacture vestments to outfit Mother Mary and her bold new order
of nuns. We created a functional daily uniform that adheres to traditional
religious vernacular, adapted for a contemporary context to be more practical,
comfortable, expressive and playful.
The women’s wear created by Sherman is conceptual fashion,
but the layered meaning and historical references never eclipse wearability. What
might be a single fashion statement for a New York customer must also function
as everyday apparel for Mother Mary and her order. Lightweight undergarments
for the sisters may be worn as casual pants and a camisole. A separate hood for
a woolen cape drapes perfectly over the wimple (the intricate starched white
headpiece) or folds around the neck.
On several garments, a digital
“hair-shirt” pattern has been printed on the silk lining, adding a luxurious
nod to those medieval garments of penitence. The nuns will wear a broad collar
intricately beaded with the pattern of a Celtic Labyrinth on occasions when a homemade
cotton version won’t suffice—and these same collars work equally well worn over
one of the habit-inspired gowns in the collection. Luckily, Mother Mary does
not find beauty, elegance and comfort contradictory to her vows of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. As she says, “The life of a 21st-century
nun is hard enough without self-imposed physical hardship.”