Stephanie Syjuco
challenges
crochet buffs
to bootleg
designer
handbags.
B Y GARTH JOHNSON
Crafting has become a force to be reck- As an only child of Filipino immigrants, Syjuco oned with. Crafters around the world have grew up using craft as an outlet for her imagination, created a market for their own brand of creating new looks and identities for her dolls. As fashion-forward, handcrafted goods through Etsy she started to explore the art world as an adult, and independent craft fairs. In addition to the craft became a natural medium for the exploration prerequisite skull-and-crossbones iPod cozies and of her own multicultural identity. felted brooches, there are untold numbers of craft- Craft is the thread that connects all of Syjuco’s ers obsessed with the world of high fashion. The full work, which is impeccably made from humble spectrum of the fashion world is reflected in hand- materials, ranging from fabric and thread to foam crafted clothing and accessories — from minimalist core and wood-patterned contact paper. Boot-treatments with clean lines to an all-out sensory legging and black market economies are also overload of rickrack and pom-poms. a recurring theme. Most of the people who manu-
A love of shopping and consumption coupled with facture luxury items in sweatshops cannot afford an awareness of sweatshop economics permeates the objects they produce — instead, underground the craft world at the moment, and lines between economies trafficking in ersatz luxury goods craft and couture have been blurred beyond flourish in their own shadowy netherworld. recognition. San Francisco-based artist Stephanie The Counterfeit Crochet Project is a natural Syjuco exploits this blurry line with her own art outgrowth of these obsessions, combining a love and craft. Syjuco is incredibly prolific, with dozens of fashion, collaboration, craft, and, of course … of museum and gallery shows under her belt, as well as designing and running her own clothing line
( anti-factory.com), and teaching art at Stanford Stephanie Syjuco flaunts her fabulous faux Chanel on the streets University and the California College of the Arts. of San Francisco.
References:
Archives