Marina Hoermanseder SS 2015
For Berlin Fashion Week, we’ve asked some of our favorite Berlin musicians, chefs, artists and more to put together a creative project that interprets and comments on the work of a particular designer. We’ll be releasing these exclusively on Sleek-Mag.com, so check back for more as-inspired-by snippets.
Marina Hoermanseder is known for her use of leather, with bondage-inspired restraints and detailing pervading the Viennese designer’s work. So, it made perfect sense to ask fiction writer Redfern Jon Barrett, a polyamorous pagan giant with a Ph.D. in queer literature whose fiction has been published internationally, to create a Project Random creation inspired by Hoermanseder’s SS15 collection.
Here, he has created an exclusive short story for Sleek-mag.com for Berlin Fashion Week SS15, inspired by the themes of restraint and airiness in the collection.
Airbound by Redfern Jon Barrett
My mother skits and hops over the gap in the kitchen floor, her thighs wound together. I tell her to bring the bowl; she pretends she cannot hear over the rush of baked air. She places the tip of a fork in my mouth.
I chew slowly; she turns and makes her way back to the stove, making a brittle old-lady jump over a five kilometre drop. Each time my heart stops: I can’t help it. The two-step gap in her kitchen floor is dizzying – one misstep and she’ll plummet.
She has not misstepped yet, but my heart has stopped many times.
This time she brings the bowl, antique and endless-chipped, skewering balls of warm food and feeding me. I nod my thanks – arms ever-bound to my sides, I make most gestures with a swing of my neck. She grins; she is pleased. It has been that way since I was born, since my harness was placed.
She is leg-bound; I am arm-bound.
It has been that way forever.
But the straps which wrap her legs are tighter than the ones over my shoulders;
over my arms.
When I was small we had walked across the rickety gangways and up the calamity stairwell. She had fed crisp notes to the vendor, securing me three millimetres movement. She had given note after note after note, but I was grateful – those three millimetres would last the rest of my life.
As I grew, as the organic stretch of the harness grew, the minuscule wiggle-room remained.
I never saw so many notes again.
A bellow of hot-warm air rocks the bowl – I look helplessly; she steadies it with her hand. I feel the wind buffet through the thick tangle of my hair, ever-dry. I feel the breezes weave and ripple through the weaves and ripples of my harness. The wind flows where it pleases: the kitchen has no real walls, no more than a few haphazard boards.
From my seat I see our neighbour, his dwelling dangling from another branch of Structure, like ripe fruit ready to fall
(I have seen such fruit in the high orchards, once, far above our home).
Between he and we there is only air.
He nods; I nod.
He is also arm-bound.
My mother bird-hops over the gap again; my heart stops.
She returns the bowl to the stove, to prepare more food.
She cooks bowl-by-bowl on the little stove,
moving with grace – we all do down here. When I was small and on my way for the loosening I could see the higher branches, the thick-safe walkways and secure walls; the unbound people. They lumber like clumsy giants, arms and legs a-flail – down here they would fall for sure. Down here we have light footsteps and bodies stern against the never-end wind. Up there the only straps are decoration; clasping bags and boots. Up there the clasps are a game.
Down here the straps are permanent.
Arm-bound and leg-bound.
A lottery.
I stand and nod to the distant neighbour once more. I make three small steps, I reach the gap in the kitchen floor.
Below,
branches of other floors,
weaving and winding
ever-downward.
The dim haze of sky beneath.
I hold my breath and step over. I do not need to bird-hop, but one stumble and I’ll plummet, arms-to-my-sides.
I have not stumbled yet, but I’ve seen others.
When I and my harness were small, right before the loosening. I was sitting at this very kitchen table, legs swinging to and fro, my mother at the stove.
A flash of colour –
a blue harness –
grey sarong.
It was the next day, or the day after, she’d taken those mysterious notes and we’d wound our way up the spiralling calamity stairwell: the unbound up above with their orchards and their handrails and gapless floors; the arm-bound and leg-bound and rickety walks down below. The notes and the face-bound man with his loosening tools,
a little wiggle-room,
a little better balance.
Three more millimetres the rest of my life.
She notices me by her side, she tuts and tells me to return to the table: the new food is almost ready. I hold my breath and step over the gap. Someday I will find a board. Someday I will cover the perilous gap. Before she missteps.
From my seat I see the neighbour is leaving, making his way over loose planks to his sleeping quarters – only clear air and heavy gusts between he and we. We have never spoken; he is too far away. His harness is the same colour as mine.
The stove hisses and wheezes as it winds to a stop. My mother turns; a return to the table.
Steaming bowl in one hand,
the other steady against the wind,
the tight straps of her skirt tensed,
she braces for the jump five kilometres high.
My heart stops.
See the whole Marina Hoermanseder SS15 collection below
Read more Berlin Fashion Week coverage
See more Project Random creations
Read our interview with Marina Hoermanseder