Bristol Fashion

 

Denim, Dutch wax; whipping twine 200h. x 100w. x 10d. cm

 

Works like Sathnam Sanghera’s book Empireworld and Yinka Shonibare’s exhibition Suspended States are driving an important and positive conversation about the true legacy of British imperialism, essential to future global harmony and mutual understanding. The subject produces angry defensiveness in some white British people who prefer a more partisan ‘island story’ history where Britons are always enlightened and noble – preconceptions which Bristol Fashion questions by engaging with the issues that Shonibare and Sanghera raise. It is made from denim (indigo and cotton: two of the main commodities of the slave economy) and whipping twine which is representative of the sail technology of British shipping. The stitched seams trace the shipping routes of transatlantic slaving ships. They disrupt the surface of the denim to create a wave-like form. The movement of enslaved Africans if represented by swatches of Dutch wax fabric. Pleats created by seams suggest the luxury fashions and goods available to British people as products of the slave economy: “Bristol Fashion” is an ironic play on the expression “ship shape and Bristol fashion” which embodies the way some British people prefer to think about their maritime past: tough, efficient and heroic.