Martina Cox’s upcyled garments subvert the feminine tradition of arts and crafts

“I feel like I make each piece individually, like a stream of thought,” says 23-year-old New York-based fashion designer Martina Cox, who specialises in made-to-order and upcycled garments. Her approach to fashion is particular and personal. Having studied fine art at The Cooper Union in New York, working predominantly in abstract painting, her transition to fashion design was inspired by a year abroad in Berlin in 2016 (her alma mater had an exchange programme with Universität der Künste). Drawn to the city’s sprawling and hedonistic nightlife, Cox says she made “a bunch of friends” who introduced her to the idea of getting dressed to go out. “I realised ‘Oh my God, I can make my own clothes to go to the club’.”

Cox describes her pieces as “sculptural garments” that are always “in conversation with the body, specifically the femme body”. Each piece is lovingly constructed, treading a thin line between fashion and wearable art. Previously, for example, she designed a pair of casual trousers featuring hand-printed panels with scenes from Hieronymous Bosch’s early 1500s triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Cox says that a piece like this takes “a very long time” to make. “I bought a piece of plain white cotton and cut it into even rectangles, spray mounted each one onto a sheet of paper and ran the squares through an inkjet printer. This is where it becomes very art school. I printed 70 squares or something, it took about a month to make.”

Central to Cox’s practice is the concept of reclaiming the visual language of homemaking and domesticity, making it empowering rather than harmful for women. Her designs frequently feature the sort of ornamental and pretty flourishes associated with a traditionally feminine approach to home decorating and crafts: tassels, elaborate chintzy textiles, curtains neatly tied back, dainty buttons and ruffles. Her interest in this sort of cutesy, homely aesthetic was largely on account of her grandparents, particularly her maternal Italian grandmother. “My grandmother was such a hard worker and had such a beautiful approach to home making. I was fascinated at how different my lifestyle was to hers – the way she approached getting up really early, that sort of work ethic.” This led Cox to reflect upon her practice, especially in an art school environment that pitted art and craft against each other. “Seeing my grandmother approach [sewing] so beautifully, it makes me feel like there is something lost there,” reflects Cox. Not only that, but Cox feels that the opposition between art and craft was due to the patriarchal conventions of the traditionally male-dominated art school structure. “You can’t really talk about work and techniques without critiquing the history behind it. That was something that I wanted to address more by approaching my work with craft – embroidery, sewing and using really lacy, ugly florals, things like that.”

For Cox, these lacy, flower-festooned patterns carry a ‘baggage’ associated with traditional femininity which she flips on its head, often through playful, even titillating means such as transparent windows and bawdy details. As an example of this, Cox highlights a particular pattern she designed, inspired by a rose-printed fabric her grandmother worked with a lot, in which she swapped the dainty blossoms for phallic shapes. “I wanted to capture that baggage for maybe someone like me as a young adult in New York City, who is not forced into a domestic environment and make it dark but humorous.”

Beyond her desire to subvert gendered tropes, Cox’s practice is motivated by a rejection of fast fashion and a life-long interest in thrifting – she once ran a vintage shop out of her house. “It’s just part of who I am,” she says of her obsession. As a self-taught seamstress, it made sense to upcycle elements from vintage clothing bought for very little. “I love using clothing from a time period that maybe I feel connected to in my work.”

In the future, Cox wants to see her clothes on people in real life. Right now, she is selling some of her pieces at Café Forgot, a New York concept store, and her buyers still remain some- thing of a mystery to her. Counting as inspirations radical and boundary-pushing figures like performance artist Leigh Bowery, feminist conceptualist Valie Export and contemporary fashion designer and artist Susan Cianciolo, Cox visualises her clothing in new and experimental spaces. “I feel like wearing my clothes in different settings would create these different scenarios of confrontation. I’m curious to see what they would be and how empowerment, or lack of, would operate for both the viewer and the wearer. Maybe it would be through performance or through film, but I haven’t thought that far yet, except that I want movement, I want bodies.”