RHS12
©2009-2010 Craig Ashby
5” x 6”
Collage

Finally, RHS12 is the end of the Restless Hand Syndrome Series or RHS Series. Number 12 features mostly monochromatic double purple Kate Moss. Models, my crutch.

I think when I first started to use them in pieces it was out of adoration. Styling them like saints. Aspirational icons.

Oddly the older I get the more I see the horrible influence religion of any kind has on society. By the time I was creating these pieces I had enough backstage time at Fashion Week to see the same downfall in fashion.

Working on the upper east side was my first taste at disillusionment with fashion. Seeing women layering so many of the labels I had coveted I became aware how much this was armor to them. Economic armor. A show of force that warned people of their wealth.

Not a love for the artistic beauty of fashion. To them fashion is much like America’s flaunting of nuclear power and weapons. It shows the world who is in control.

These are great lessons to learn. I just wish I didn’t feel so hardened by them. I still feel wonder and excitement when I see great fashion it’s just tempered by the hardness of my current reality.