Portfolio: Mau

by Lynn Woods and photographs by Nancy Donskoj, August 28, 2009

Mau (Marian Schoettle) makes conceptual clothing that incorporates the vicissitudes of the natural and urban environments. A dark, flowing dress is made of fabric that’s been exposed to the elements, resulting in a pattern of distressed splotches that resembles storm clouds and sprays of stars, while her white Tyvek “ruffled flak jacket”—fit for a female commando—has fasteners and pockets fashioned from industrial surplus packaging. Defiantly resistant to fashion trends, her garments, which she likens to “site-specific art,” feature stitching or layering effects that are metaphors for geologic or topographical phenomena. They are also imminently wearable, gracefully draping the body and allowing for free, spontaneous movement.

The artist, who works out of a large, skylit studio in Kingston’s Shirt Factory, has exhibited her pieces at galleries and museums in the US and Europe. She regularly shows at Julie: Artisan’s Gallery, on Madison Avenue, and her clothing is in the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Philadelphia Art Museum, and other noteworthy institutions. But Mau is not overly fond of art-world pedestals. She relishes the sociological aspects of her clothing art medium. She has participated in “psychogeography” projects in New York in which her jackets become a vehicle for recording the poignant and random social encounters in the city.