‘The socially-conscious aesthete has a lot to carry around – and she needs a good bag.’
A panel discussion between three handbags, a newspaper-clad 1930s chorine, the dark history of purple dye, and the dying art of handmade lace come together in Luxury Items.
Luxury Items celebrates beauty without apology. Playing between the intimacy and artifice of performance, the work juxtaposes formal dance and academic lecture, interactive video, puppetry, drag and historical re-enactment. It concerns itself with history, fashion, ephemerality, consumerism, and decadence, arguing that while our persistent desire for status might ruin us, our equally persistent desire for beauty – even through war, economic hardship and environmental uncertainty – sustains us.