Subtitle: Stories
of Women, Power, and Clothing Authors: Tiffany Ludwig and Renee Piechocki Subject:Women's
Studies / Art /
Fashion Cloth ISBN 978-0-8135-4184-6 Pages: 256 pages, 108 color and 40
b&w photographs Publication Date: November 2007
LISTEN TO AN
INTERVIEW with Tiffany Ludwig and Renee Piechocki
Praise for
Trappings
“These Two Girls are Working across the boundaries of art and
activism to provoke fresh thinking about women, clothes, and power.
Other people’s stories, seen through the medium of a feminist
collaboration, are fascinating . . . and mysteriously different from
one’s own. Reading this book is like going to a great party where all
the women are beautiful and powerful.”—Lucy R. Lippard, author of The Pink Glass Swan: Selected Feminist
Essays on Art
Description:
What do you wear that makes you feel powerful? How about the
woman next to you at the bank? In line with you at the store? Think
about your mother. What would she put on to reveal her power source to
the world? These are the questions that inspired Tiffany Ludwig and
Renee Piechocki to embark on an interview journey across the United
States. Over a period of six years, they talked with more than 500
women and girls, ages four through ninety-two, who ranged from office
workers to drag-kings, stay-at-home moms to attorneys, fashion industry
executives to elected officials, students to cowgirls.
It is these women’s sensitive, funny, and always revealing thoughts
that are at the heart of Trappings—a
book that although begins with a question about clothing is not about
fashion at all. Here, clothing is simply a vehicle to access a larger
dialogue about a diverse range of issues women face related to power
and identity, including what expectations and limitations are placed
upon them by their affiliation with a specific gender, culture, race,
class, or profession. A complex
spectrum of responses include discussions about the importance of
clothing’s
comfort and practicality, how clothing can facilitate women’s movement
through
class and social strata, how sex is used strategically in business and
social settings, and how clothing can be used to empower women by
connecting them with cultural or personal history.
Complimented by 148 color and black-and-white photographs,
the visual
and written portraits in this book reveal much more than the contents
of
women’s closets. Through the intimate lens of clothing, Ludwig and
Piechocki expose the very personal ways that power is sought,
experienced, and projected by women.
About the Authors:
Tiffany Ludwig is an artist and media consultant.
She received her BFA from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers
University and currently lives in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.
Renee Piechocki is an artist and public art consultant. She
received her BA from Hunter College of the City University of New York
and currently lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Together, they are
known as the artist group “Two Girls Working.”
