⌘Untitled Document
From left to right, designer Meredith Alex, model Alex
Shaffer and designer Max Alex
Belfast’s Designing Woman
— by Georgeanne Davis
When she rolls out of bed at 3 a.m. to work on her
latest design project, Meredith Alex doesn’t have far to travel: her
studio — a wildly colorful jumble of fabrics and works in
progress — is just steps away across the room. In fact, design
projects have taken over the whole house. In the kitchen, a dress made from
a plastic shower curtain is draped on its mannequin, awaiting a final
fitting with its model. In the living room, a wedding veil adorns a
mannequin head that perches atop a four-tiered stand meant to evoke a
wedding cake, while a dressmaker’s dummy stands in a corner wrapped
in dried vines, and a grape-bedecked table-cum-dress sits in an opposite
corner. Fortunately for Alex, who juggles a full-time job as program
director at Waterfall Arts and a career as a clothing designer and
installation artist with the responsibilities of being a mom, her whole
family — Max, age 21 and a co-designer and model for her
mother’s business, MADgirl Designs, and teens Alex and Rio Greeley
— are highly supportive of their creative parent’s
projects. As Alex explains, “Part of who I am as a designer
comes from my kids; they give me advice. Adults think too much, but kids
tell you straight out.”
“Straight out” also describes how Alex was
running early last Friday. The kitchen table was covered with giant
“sequins” — three-inch rounds of clear plastic
sandwiching photographs of models and celebrities, snatches of text and the
words Art, Earth and Life. They still needed to be sewn to the shower
curtain dress that was part of a fashion challenge held in conjunction with
the UMaine Museum of Art’s exhibition “Celebrities and
Socialites:Photographs by Andy Warhol.” The challenge referred
to the restrictions all 15 designers that took part in the event worked
under: the dresses had to be made only from materials that came from a
hardware or drugstore. Alex’s design materials list included Vogue
magazines, the shower curtain, nail polish, bolts, nuts, washers, safety
pins, two sizes of chrome chain, a faucet handle and a flexible chrome
shower hose, used as a fetching necklace. All the materials came from
Belfast’s Rite Aid and EBS Building Supply.
In addition to putting the finishing touches on the
dress, Alex was putting together outfits for herself and daughter Max,
co-designer on the project, to wear to the show. Max’s outfit
incorporated a Waterfall Arts T-shirt, while Alex’s was a
1960s-pattern jumpsuit made from old dress shirts previously owned by
Waterfall Arts cofounder Alan Crichton, put together patchwork fashion with
appliqued polka dots. No doubt Alex will accessorize the outfit with
selections from her collection of scarves and shoes. Both outfits are a tip
of the hat to Alex’s sponsor in the fashion challenge, Waterfall
Arts.
As Alex stood next to the red and black harlequin-print
shower-curtain dress, it became apparent that her head reached only as high
as the garment’s waist. At five feet, one inch in height, Alex is a
foot shorter than the dress’s model, Alex Shaffer, a six-foot,
one-inch 16-year-old Belfast Area High School student who is also
represented by 1 model management new york. By the time Shaffer straps on
platform shoes and sweeps her hair into a beehive do, she’ll tower
over the petite Alex.
Although Alex has roots in Maine, spending summers with
her family at their farm in Liberty and describing herself as
“country-raised and city-educated,” she received a BFA from the
California Institute of Arts and remained in California after graduation,
working as an assistant artistic director with ABC Studios, doing set
dressing work for the TV shows “Alf” and “Mr.
Belvedere.” As a young single mother in Los Angeles she created baby
clothes from recycled thrift-store clothing and sold them at baby
boutiques, calling them “What the Wild Things Wear.” After
returning to Maine she worked in research and development at
Belfast’s Moss, Inc., designers and fabricators of tensioned fabric
exhibits.
Alex’s designs are seen all over the country. For last year’s SoReFa
(Socially Responsible Fashion) fashion show, part of GreenFest Philly in Philadelphia, her prettily ruffled Birch Bark Dress was featured on the festival Web site and also on the show’s banner. Other dresses for that show featured used T-shirts, recycled pompoms, and an outfit constructed solely of paint-chip samples. Ruffles and bows, recycled fabrics and polka dots everywhere are hallmarks of MADgirl designs. But in keeping with Alex’s ideas of making statements through her fashion that go beyond eye-pleasing or funny, in 2005 in a show at The Kitchen, an avant garde New York City venue,
Alex featured a Safe Sex Dress made from condoms.
Resident canine JJ poses with Haute for Hospice dress.
The next chance midcoast art lovers and fashionistas have to see Alex’s fashions will be Sunday, October 19, at “Haute for Hospice,” a fashion show benefit for Hospice Volunteers of Waldo County
hosted by Three Tides and taking
place on Belfast’s waterfront. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will precede a runway fashion show with furs by Greg Tinder of Tsarevich Couture; woven, knitted and felted scarves, sweaters, hanging textiles and rugs by Debbie Bergman of Purple Fleece in Stockton Springs; Maureen Stalla Jewelry, made from heritage stones
and beads from all over the world;
and 20 one-of-a-kind pieces
for both men and women by Alex.
“I’m passionate about doing things that
matter,” says Alex, and she’s happy to be supporting the work
of hospice, for which she’s presenting “Seeing Green,”
clothing that is green in color and also green as in environmentally sound,
using all vintage and recycled clothing. Dresses get new necklines or
necktie belts, or cloth flowers constructed from old shirt cuffs for the
hospice show, but Alex also does her recycling magic to create custom
wedding dresses, using clients’ old dresses and their family’s
vintage lace to make a one-of-a-kind dress that contains many layers of
memories.
Wedding dress designed by Alex
A wedding dress for a friend, Bucksport poet Pat Ranzoni, who will be part of the fourth
annual Belfast Poetry Festival, is also a
work-in-progress for Alex. Ranzoni, who is reading at the High Street
Gallery on Saturday, October 18, once told Alex that she never had a wedding dress. Even though Ranzoni has been married for over 40 years,
Alex decided to create a wedding dress and veil for her friend. On the veil, which contains Ranzoni’s vintage lace and beads from all over the world,
Alex has printed in blue the text from Ranzoni’s poem “Pine Hen.” The veil, on its wedding-cake-tiered stand,
is on display at the gallery to advertise the upcoming reading, and the dress, still on its mannequin, but nearing completion, will be worn by Ranzoni at the reading.
As if she weren’t already working almost
round-the-clock, Alex is in the middle of designing seven dresses as part
of an installation commissioned for CC21, a two-day international
conference hosted by the Climate Change Institute at the University of
Maine at Orono, October 23 and 24. For “SEVEN: A Fashion
Disaster,” models will appear in seven sculptural dresses
illustrating extreme weather patterns and natural disasters attributed to
global warming and climate change, such as heat wave, ice storm, drought,
glacier, tornado and wildfire. Tornado, for example, will be a tight grey
Spandex sheath with a whirling cloud of voile twined around it and a collar
held away from the body by wire. The model will undulate slowly in place to
give movement to the dress. For Hurricane, Alex envisions something
representing a post-Katrina image she remembers of curtains blowing through
the remains of a broken window. The dress will incorporate bits of broken
wood and curtain fabric that will be blown around by a hidden fan.
Alex’s paint-chip sample dress for
Philadelphia’s SoReFa show.
During the conference the sculptural dresses will
appear three or four times at different venues and events, displayed
“in vogue” on live models; when voguing, the models strike a
pose and hold it. Models will wear full makeup, and accessories such as
shoes, earrings, bangles, purses and hats will also reflect the theme of
each sculpture. The models will stand on pedestals, raising them up above
the crowd, for optimum viewing, while audience members will be able to
look, converse, and comment on the environment each dress brings to mind.
Each dress will have a correlating sound component playing softly,
utilizing sounds related to the weather or natural disaster, such as the
crackling of a fire or roar of a tornado, interspersed with facts related
to the dress themes.
Alex is using UMaine students as apprentices for her
installation work. The students will assist with audio and videography, one
will model and others assist with hair and makeup. After the Maine
conference appearance, “SEVEN” will be traveling throughout New
England, appearing in a gallery or venue in each state before being shown
in New York City in 2010. Alex said that at first scientists who are
speaking at CC21 were somewhat skeptical of the idea of a fashion-themed
installation being included. Alex, however, feels that her installation is
a perfect match for the serious subject matter because, as she points out,
“Art movements are often the leading catalyst for change.”
Tickets for the Haute for Hospice 2008 event are $40
and are available by calling 338-0628. Information about the Belfast Poetry
Festival can be found at www.illuminatedseapress.com/poetryfest08 and on
CC21 at www.umaine.edu/conferences
