Dressed the History of Fashion is a production of I Heart Radio. With over seven billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed. Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. I am Abril Callaghan and my regular co host Cassidy Zachary and I are fashion historians. If you are up to date on our most recent episodes, you already know that cast is currently on maternity leave, but I fear not she will be back with us on the show later this summer, and in the meantime you might hear a few re airings of older episodes, which we have deemed Dressed Classics as they are some of our favorites, as well as some of the newer things that I have been working on. And one of those things is today's episode. And this episode is actually now a few years in the making, believe it or not, because in Dress listener and contemporary artist Nicole Cook reached out to us about an exceptionally unique project that she had been working on that involved musical compositions executed by way of a sewing machine. And it goes to say that I was most intrigued by this, and she went ahead and shared some of her work with us, and we corresponded back and forth for a bit about it, and the rest of that story is fashion history now because today she joins us on the show to discuss her newest incarnations of her performance work with the sewing machine as a musical instrument, as well as her other work which takes place under this umbrella of a project entitled series Archive. Clothing, Fashion, Textiles, Performance, Jenner and quote unquote women's work all lay at the core of each work within this series Archive, and we can't wait to explore it all undressed. So let's do it. Nicole, welcome to Dressed Finally. And I say finally because you and I have been in conversation for some time about your work and we are so pleased that we get to discuss it with you today. Me too, Thank you so much for having me. Yes, of course, So before we get to discussing your artwork, would you tell us a little bit about your background and also your path to becoming an artist. Yes. So, I am born and raised in Los Angeles, born in Venice, Venetian, born to borrow that, and I was born into a family. Both my parents are artists. My brother was an artist, so from a young age, basically everyone in my point of reference was an artist. So I learned from my mom. She's a painter and then also taught fashion design and pattern making and draping specifically for close to twenty years, So from a young age I learned clothing construction and sewing from her. And my dad is an actor and a pianist, so I kind of learned from him the more performative elements of my practice. So already I was kind of like from birth, I feel like in becoming an artist, but I began to sort of search for my own language for my work, and a lot of that was built during the time that I went to u C l A. And I was in there Design Media Arts undergrad program, which was primarily for me a tool of learning graphic design and bookmaking, which I've later applied to my art practice. But during that time, I've always kind of enjoyed having some friction. I'm a little rebellious in the sense that being in the program, I also wanted to be out of the program. So I was taking the classes and I was, you know, very dutifully doing my work. But during that time was when I started to create Series Archive, and so my priority in my heart of hearts was beginning to create a language for the kind of performances and clothing that I was making and performing outside of U c l A. You describe your project Series Archive as a quote performance art project developing over a lifetime, utilizing clothing design as its primary medium end quote. And I think we will touch on each series of the work in this overarching archive, but I'm hoping that we can start with series three, which is entitled Orchestrations at Needle Point. What was the concept for this series? So this series um was born and out of my creation of a sewing machine outfitted into musical instrument, and the way that it's outfitted is it's connected to different effects pedals through contact mikes. And since this idea came into fruition, I've already made developments and hope too as I continue to work with the instrument, it's kind of become my primary focus for the time being. I'd like to get into the hardware of the sewing machine and like maybe work with an engineer or I don't know something, Oh, that's super exciting. Yes. So the first piece in the series is the first debut recital of the sewing Machine is Instrument, and throughout the series is me sort of in real time developing the machine in different ways. The sewing machine performance as you do, Nicole, are so captivating. Can you describe the very first one, which is entitled recital for our audience and don't or address listeners. We will put a link to this on YouTube so you can check it out for yourself. Yeah. So this was as I said, the debut performance of the sewing machine is instrument. So I performed it in sort of this eighteen century masculine but feminine sort of with coattails, long satin coattails that were detachable, a Books Brothers shirt that I'd split in the back so it was both pink and white, and I performed a pre rehearsed composition via sewing a scarf that kind of looks like a receipt almost and hand painted. Was my cues for the sewing machine notation that I've developed for and continued to develop for the sewing Machine as Instrument, which is a notation that I called pg Y for pink, green, yellow, um and each color coincides with a specific pedal that I use, So the scarf for lack of better word, but really it kind of looked more like a receipt silk satin receipt, but it has sort of hand drawn in pink, green and yellow paint. My notation and my cues for myself for performing this pre rehearse composition, and how would you describe the compositions and sounds that you make with the machine? On one hand, which I love, it is noisy, it is chaotic, it is industrial, and I love that for especially I'm working on a domestic singer sewing machine from the fifties, so I love the idea that something that you know was made for the home to be done kind of in private, women's work, big in quotes, you know that's kind of done in private, is suddenly put on stage and made loud. So that's part of the sort of sonics of it. But the sonics that I'm most inspired by are the more kind of spiritual sounding elements. When I pull the strings, which is my favorite part of that performance, they're kind of like these sounds that emerge that sound like uh, singing voices, and that's amplified by the pedal, of course, so that those are the sounds that now as I continue to work with the machine, I'm more interested in highlighting, because I feel like that's maybe the less expected sonics that are happening. The compositions are really beautiful and they have almost the sort of techy melodic mixture to them at certain points. But I also I really like a little bits where things like changing the knob on the machine creates a click. They are very, very fun. And speaking of fun, just last week in l A, you added onto this series with a brand new piece. Can you tell us a little bit about your most recent performance, because it was only just a few days ago. Yeah, it was great. It was at Murmurs Gallery UM in Los Angeles, and it was entitled Recital to My Brother, and so it's my second recital and this piece is wildly personal because I lost my brother unexpectedly um at the end of So this performance was actually a conversation between the machine that I primarily use, which was the first machine that I debuted it with, and then also the sort of brother it's not a brother machine is also a singer, but it to me when I bought it, it looked like sort of the more masculine versions to my more feminine looking machine, and my brother up until his passing, had been borrowing that machine and using it because he was a great artist in his own right. So he's really the last person to ever use the machine. So this performance was basically the school of blue thread that I sewed a twenty four ft long scarf with twenty four ft for twenty four years of his life, was linked from across the stage into an empty school on the top of my machine and then went through obviously threaded through my machine, and so the soundscape that we were working with was sort of my more percussive kind of heartbeat of you know, me sewing actively, and then the sonics that were coming from my brother's machine or the machine and my brother was using was the sound of the school being pulled. So his sounds, as exaggerated by the two pedals that we used with his, were you know, very ethereal and sound, so it kind of created this really meditative It was described to me also as hypnotic soundscape. Yeah, I totally agree, also quite hypnotic, but very different as another piece within this series called Chaotic Culture. Duchess of Satin, Will you tell us about that. Yes, So I spent some time in twenty nineteen working at attiliate Carco in Paris, Um and I apprenticed there for three months. So this piece is sort of born out of my findings there um and kind of seeing like couldtour up close and interacting with the industry, the larger fashion industry at large. So this character that I created, named Chaotic Couture is a seamstress by day but an aspiring kind of pop star by night. And the song that she sings is a song that I wrote that's you know, directed at the fashion industry and sort of in response to seeing and working under these incredible tutorier's who do the laborious and beautiful, meticulous work on these pieces that go down the runway and you know, are never highlighted like personally for their efforts and putting kits board on that way. She sings over sewing machine samples from my sewing machine instrument, and there are two beats that we layered it with. I worked with a producer in Avery Tucker of girl Pool, and he added these two beats underneath to kind of like make it poppy. But yeah, she's a little rebel pop girl um kind of pop punk it. I mean, it's it's almost like a music video. It's totally a music video. Yeah, it's like a music video art performance. But yes, definitely, Rea. I don't think that you have actually released that to the public yet, have you. I mean, maybe you will share it with us very soon. I have not released that yet, and I am looking to do that soon, So yes, please do. I mean, I've seen it, but I think everyone else needs to see it too. Okay, So we have covered series three of your work, but I'm hoping we can also touch on some of your earlier series. In series two, you have another piece that is kind of related to Series three. It's called to Sonata machine, so not a machine, I will be the maestro of my own fate. Can you tell us about this and also how it's related to the other works that we have just discussed. Yeah, it's interesting because I kind of came up with the idea for the song machine instrument at the out of series too, so, and Series two was very focused on gender clear it was very focused on sort of my relationship to my gender, the role clothing plays and gender performance. So at that time that piece actually was supposed to be the view performance of the stewing machiners instrument, and at that time I had conceptualized performing it as this sort of classical like pianists type and mail. And then I actually got hit by a car and I was fine, but it was a very strange experience naming a work. I will be the maestro of my own fate, only too discover that at times you're not the estro of your own hate. They had different plans for you that day. They did have other plans, yes, So it took me a while to recover from that. And during that time I realized that too, to view the performance, you know, under this sort of like male figure was really wrong to me, considering the legacy of you know, sewing being primarily women's work, Like it just felt like kind of an eraser to that. So by the time that I did finally do you the performance, that's why there is still this kind of like gender duality that I performed it with in the first recital, but it is I feel like, much more appropriate to the legacy of of it being women's work. Again in big quotes. This discussion of gender is something that plays in with another piece in Series two, which is called I'm off to work and I'm a very busy man. And this is sort of a more photographic exploration and it provides commentary on more than a few topics, not only gender. Would you tell us about that piece or the series of pieces? Yeah, Derek Keys, this is another alter ego of mine. His name is Derek Keys because the briefcase that he carries around I found at an estate sale and I miss read a little envelope with the key to the briefcase. It said Desk Keys, but I read it as Derrek Keys. Um. So this sort of triggered this, like this character. And so he is the accountant for Series Archive, my performance art project, and that's funny to me because Series Archive has no money, um, and it there's this sort of like he's searching for belonging. And the photographed it I call it sort of like a it's like a rogue live performance or like live character study. No one obviously in the plaza knew what I was doing, but we went to a creative agency and during the I like scow out it to check when break times were and like lunch break and when people arrived for work. And so he was photographed at different times during those like windows when there was the most sort of influx of people going to work at the creative agency. So it's called suited up fitting in, and the fitting is I mean both he's attempting to fit in as well as he's outfitted to try to fit in. But the suit that he wears again, I kind of have these slashed Brooks Brothers dress shirts that I up cycled from Frost stores around l A. And then his suit is made of both of fine like very light but very fine wool a silk lining, and then the pants were made with dickies, and then pieces of the dickies were used in the construction of the suit jacket as well. So there's also in my work consistently this, yeah, the friction between classes and um growing up working class, but then also having this like very heightened awareness of like frying craftsmanship and like the art of life, which are the things we make and the things we adorn our bodies with. And I like the high and low in my work always because I do feel like I create myself to be in luxury pieces, but I was not born into it per se, right, I mean, it's basically a character for you, yeah, which is something you first started approaching with your first series, which is actually called characterization. And this series provides the most diverse range of mediums in terms of the output that the artwork takes. So would you tell us a little bit more about series one? So Series one is when I started series Archive, even years ago. So characterization, as the title of the first series, really applies to me discovering who, like what the project was as a character. And at that time, I was beginning to make clothes and the first piece that I ever did studies on how to be the only concept for that piece was that I made these twelve dresses out of neo pream and I wanted them photographed with twelve girls sitting and just staring, sometimes winking, and that was sort of the piece, And questions arose afterwards whether it was to become a brand or you know, kind of what what I was doing with it, and I was resolute that I didn't want this to be a brand, and I was still figuring out than what it was. So the next piece and arrangement in stages, I feel like, is when I began to get better grounding within myself and what I was doing um and that piece is a fairytale that I wrote about a hypochondriac widow and she is in three stages of grief, which is really incredible to see because now having gone through and going through the Greece that I now know, it's interesting to see how my perception of it has changed and then in some ways has kind of stayed consistent. So there were three acts and they were performed by three dancers choreographed by Alexi Duran's and then there was a narrator who read the story, and there was a songstress who sung like this beautiful ballad, Dominique Madelson. The performance was linked together by these three huge flower arrangements that I had um done three weeks before the show, two weeks before the show, and then the day of the show, and it's the exact same floral arrangement in these huge like fish fowl containers. So it's quite heavy, and so time was kept by the sort of like laborious moving of these flower arrangements into different acts. So there's this relationship to grief that's nonlinear, that there are these different stages of decay, but they're appearing, you know, kind of out of order and I feel like even then I knew that um grief was nonlinear and to say stages is kind of wrong for people who know grief because it's it's ever changing. Yeah, and I think you constructed the dancers ensembles for that piece as well. Correct. Yeah, So to um backtrack a little bit, that piece felt more formally like what the identity of Series Archive was, which was to create these performance works that incorporated the clothing objects as I call them, that sort of acted as aids to the performance or honestly even like characters in the performance. Well, Nicole, we cannot wait to see what you do next. And if people want to see images or even some video of your work, where can they find you? So Series dash archive dot com. And I'm also on Instagram and i am seem stress with an e D. So I'm seem stressed but seems in the seam in your clothing with eleven underscores. Afterwards, it's a very net Yeah, I know, because apparently that's what it takes to get the Instagram handle that you want these days. Right, Cool, this was lovely. We have been chatting back and forth for two years now about your work, So congratulations on your most recent piece, which debuted just a few days ago, and we can't wait to see what's up next. Thank you so much. And I wonder if I could read the poem that I wrote that coincided with my most recent performance recital to my brother. Of course, please okay, cool um, here goes. I've been getting good at putting other people's houses back together. You who used to live down the hall we used to be together, down a different hallway. Now I'm trying to piece it all together, hanging by a thread. Let me try to thread this back together. Let this blue thread be the letter all that was supremely special. Thank you so much, Thank you, Thank you again Nicole for joining us. And please do let us know about any further work you do with other scientists or collaborators on further adaptations of the machines. I mean, I have this whole imaginary vision in my head right now of this entire sewing machine orchestra, which I think is amazingly charming. Maybe one day, perhaps dress listeners, we are guessing that many of you are also intrigued by Nicole's sonic adaptation of sewing machines and her performances of them. We have placed a YouTube link in the show notes for this episode so you can check out her very first performance recital. And of course we will be posting images on our Instagram this week as well. That doesert press this week. Dress listeners, may you consider if sewing makes your heart sing next time you get dressed. Remember, we do love hearing from you, so if you like to write to us, you can do so at Dress at iHeart media dot com. You can also dm us on Instagram at Dress Underscore podcast, where we have posed images to accompany each week's episode. If you would like to take the time to rate and review us on your podcast listening platform of choice, we always appreciate it, and always appreciated our producers Casey Pegram, Holly Fry, and everyone else at I Heart Radio that makes the show possible each week. We will catch you soon dressed. The History of Fashion is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or where else you'll get your favorite shows.

Dressed the History of Fashion is a production of I Heart Radio. With over seven billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed. Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. I am Abril Callaghan and my regular co host Cassidy Zachary and I are fashion historians. If you are up to date on our most recent episodes, you already know that cast is currently on maternity leave, but I fear not she will be back with us on the show later this summer, and in the meantime you might hear a few re airings of older episodes, which we have deemed Dressed Classics as they are some of our favorites, as well as some of the newer things that I have been working on. And one of those things is today's episode. And this episode is actually now a few years in the making, believe it or not, because in Dress listener and contemporary artist Nicole Cook reached out to us about an exceptionally unique project that she had been working on that involved musical compositions executed by way of a sewing machine. And it goes to say that I was most intrigued by this, and she went ahead and shared some of her work with us, and we corresponded back and forth for a bit about it, and the rest of that story is fashion history now because today she joins us on the show to discuss her newest incarnations of her performance work with the sewing machine as a musical instrument, as well as her other work which takes place under this umbrella of a project entitled series Archive. Clothing, Fashion, Textiles, Performance, Jenner and quote unquote women's work all lay at the core of each work within this series Archive, and we can't wait to explore it all undressed. So let's do it. Nicole, welcome to Dressed Finally. And I say finally because you and I have been in conversation for some time about your work and we are so pleased that we get to discuss it with you today. Me too, Thank you so much for having me. Yes, of course, So before we get to discussing your artwork, would you tell us a little bit about your background and also your path to becoming an artist. Yes. So, I am born and raised in Los Angeles, born in Venice, Venetian, born to borrow that, and I was born into a family. Both my parents are artists. My brother was an artist, so from a young age, basically everyone in my point of reference was an artist. So I learned from my mom. She's a painter and then also taught fashion design and pattern making and draping specifically for close to twenty years, So from a young age I learned clothing construction and sewing from her. And my dad is an actor and a pianist, so I kind of learned from him the more performative elements of my practice. So already I was kind of like from birth, I feel like in becoming an artist, but I began to sort of search for my own language for my work, and a lot of that was built during the time that I went to u C l A. And I was in there Design Media Arts undergrad program, which was primarily for me a tool of learning graphic design and bookmaking, which I've later applied to my art practice. But during that time, I've always kind of enjoyed having some friction. I'm a little rebellious in the sense that being in the program, I also wanted to be out of the program. So I was taking the classes and I was, you know, very dutifully doing my work. But during that time was when I started to create Series Archive, and so my priority in my heart of hearts was beginning to create a language for the kind of performances and clothing that I was making and performing outside of U c l A. You describe your project Series Archive as a quote performance art project developing over a lifetime, utilizing clothing design as its primary medium end quote. And I think we will touch on each series of the work in this overarching archive, but I'm hoping that we can start with series three, which is entitled Orchestrations at Needle Point. What was the concept for this series? So this series um was born and out of my creation of a sewing machine outfitted into musical instrument, and the way that it's outfitted is it's connected to different effects pedals through contact mikes. And since this idea came into fruition, I've already made developments and hope too as I continue to work with the instrument, it's kind of become my primary focus for the time being. I'd like to get into the hardware of the sewing machine and like maybe work with an engineer or I don't know something, Oh, that's super exciting. Yes. So the first piece in the series is the first debut recital of the sewing Machine is Instrument, and throughout the series is me sort of in real time developing the machine in different ways. The sewing machine performance as you do, Nicole, are so captivating. Can you describe the very first one, which is entitled recital for our audience and don't or address listeners. We will put a link to this on YouTube so you can check it out for yourself. Yeah. So this was as I said, the debut performance of the sewing machine is instrument. So I performed it in sort of this eighteen century masculine but feminine sort of with coattails, long satin coattails that were detachable, a Books Brothers shirt that I'd split in the back so it was both pink and white, and I performed a pre rehearsed composition via sewing a scarf that kind of looks like a receipt almost and hand painted. Was my cues for the sewing machine notation that I've developed for and continued to develop for the sewing Machine as Instrument, which is a notation that I called pg Y for pink, green, yellow, um and each color coincides with a specific pedal that I use, So the scarf for lack of better word, but really it kind of looked more like a receipt silk satin receipt, but it has sort of hand drawn in pink, green and yellow paint. My notation and my cues for myself for performing this pre rehearse composition, and how would you describe the compositions and sounds that you make with the machine? On one hand, which I love, it is noisy, it is chaotic, it is industrial, and I love that for especially I'm working on a domestic singer sewing machine from the fifties, so I love the idea that something that you know was made for the home to be done kind of in private, women's work, big in quotes, you know that's kind of done in private, is suddenly put on stage and made loud. So that's part of the sort of sonics of it. But the sonics that I'm most inspired by are the more kind of spiritual sounding elements. When I pull the strings, which is my favorite part of that performance, they're kind of like these sounds that emerge that sound like uh, singing voices, and that's amplified by the pedal, of course, so that those are the sounds that now as I continue to work with the machine, I'm more interested in highlighting, because I feel like that's maybe the less expected sonics that are happening. The compositions are really beautiful and they have almost the sort of techy melodic mixture to them at certain points. But I also I really like a little bits where things like changing the knob on the machine creates a click. They are very, very fun. And speaking of fun, just last week in l A, you added onto this series with a brand new piece. Can you tell us a little bit about your most recent performance, because it was only just a few days ago. Yeah, it was great. It was at Murmurs Gallery UM in Los Angeles, and it was entitled Recital to My Brother, and so it's my second recital and this piece is wildly personal because I lost my brother unexpectedly um at the end of So this performance was actually a conversation between the machine that I primarily use, which was the first machine that I debuted it with, and then also the sort of brother it's not a brother machine is also a singer, but it to me when I bought it, it looked like sort of the more masculine versions to my more feminine looking machine, and my brother up until his passing, had been borrowing that machine and using it because he was a great artist in his own right. So he's really the last person to ever use the machine. So this performance was basically the school of blue thread that I sewed a twenty four ft long scarf with twenty four ft for twenty four years of his life, was linked from across the stage into an empty school on the top of my machine and then went through obviously threaded through my machine, and so the soundscape that we were working with was sort of my more percussive kind of heartbeat of you know, me sewing actively, and then the sonics that were coming from my brother's machine or the machine and my brother was using was the sound of the school being pulled. So his sounds, as exaggerated by the two pedals that we used with his, were you know, very ethereal and sound, so it kind of created this really meditative It was described to me also as hypnotic soundscape. Yeah, I totally agree, also quite hypnotic, but very different as another piece within this series called Chaotic Culture. Duchess of Satin, Will you tell us about that. Yes, So I spent some time in twenty nineteen working at attiliate Carco in Paris, Um and I apprenticed there for three months. So this piece is sort of born out of my findings there um and kind of seeing like couldtour up close and interacting with the industry, the larger fashion industry at large. So this character that I created, named Chaotic Couture is a seamstress by day but an aspiring kind of pop star by night. And the song that she sings is a song that I wrote that's you know, directed at the fashion industry and sort of in response to seeing and working under these incredible tutorier's who do the laborious and beautiful, meticulous work on these pieces that go down the runway and you know, are never highlighted like personally for their efforts and putting kits board on that way. She sings over sewing machine samples from my sewing machine instrument, and there are two beats that we layered it with. I worked with a producer in Avery Tucker of girl Pool, and he added these two beats underneath to kind of like make it poppy. But yeah, she's a little rebel pop girl um kind of pop punk it. I mean, it's it's almost like a music video. It's totally a music video. Yeah, it's like a music video art performance. But yes, definitely, Rea. I don't think that you have actually released that to the public yet, have you. I mean, maybe you will share it with us very soon. I have not released that yet, and I am looking to do that soon, So yes, please do. I mean, I've seen it, but I think everyone else needs to see it too. Okay, So we have covered series three of your work, but I'm hoping we can also touch on some of your earlier series. In series two, you have another piece that is kind of related to Series three. It's called to Sonata machine, so not a machine, I will be the maestro of my own fate. Can you tell us about this and also how it's related to the other works that we have just discussed. Yeah, it's interesting because I kind of came up with the idea for the song machine instrument at the out of series too, so, and Series two was very focused on gender clear it was very focused on sort of my relationship to my gender, the role clothing plays and gender performance. So at that time that piece actually was supposed to be the view performance of the stewing machiners instrument, and at that time I had conceptualized performing it as this sort of classical like pianists type and mail. And then I actually got hit by a car and I was fine, but it was a very strange experience naming a work. I will be the maestro of my own fate, only too discover that at times you're not the estro of your own hate. They had different plans for you that day. They did have other plans, yes, So it took me a while to recover from that. And during that time I realized that too, to view the performance, you know, under this sort of like male figure was really wrong to me, considering the legacy of you know, sewing being primarily women's work, Like it just felt like kind of an eraser to that. So by the time that I did finally do you the performance, that's why there is still this kind of like gender duality that I performed it with in the first recital, but it is I feel like, much more appropriate to the legacy of of it being women's work. Again in big quotes. This discussion of gender is something that plays in with another piece in Series two, which is called I'm off to work and I'm a very busy man. And this is sort of a more photographic exploration and it provides commentary on more than a few topics, not only gender. Would you tell us about that piece or the series of pieces? Yeah, Derek Keys, this is another alter ego of mine. His name is Derek Keys because the briefcase that he carries around I found at an estate sale and I miss read a little envelope with the key to the briefcase. It said Desk Keys, but I read it as Derrek Keys. Um. So this sort of triggered this, like this character. And so he is the accountant for Series Archive, my performance art project, and that's funny to me because Series Archive has no money, um, and it there's this sort of like he's searching for belonging. And the photographed it I call it sort of like a it's like a rogue live performance or like live character study. No one obviously in the plaza knew what I was doing, but we went to a creative agency and during the I like scow out it to check when break times were and like lunch break and when people arrived for work. And so he was photographed at different times during those like windows when there was the most sort of influx of people going to work at the creative agency. So it's called suited up fitting in, and the fitting is I mean both he's attempting to fit in as well as he's outfitted to try to fit in. But the suit that he wears again, I kind of have these slashed Brooks Brothers dress shirts that I up cycled from Frost stores around l A. And then his suit is made of both of fine like very light but very fine wool a silk lining, and then the pants were made with dickies, and then pieces of the dickies were used in the construction of the suit jacket as well. So there's also in my work consistently this, yeah, the friction between classes and um growing up working class, but then also having this like very heightened awareness of like frying craftsmanship and like the art of life, which are the things we make and the things we adorn our bodies with. And I like the high and low in my work always because I do feel like I create myself to be in luxury pieces, but I was not born into it per se, right, I mean, it's basically a character for you, yeah, which is something you first started approaching with your first series, which is actually called characterization. And this series provides the most diverse range of mediums in terms of the output that the artwork takes. So would you tell us a little bit more about series one? So Series one is when I started series Archive, even years ago. So characterization, as the title of the first series, really applies to me discovering who, like what the project was as a character. And at that time, I was beginning to make clothes and the first piece that I ever did studies on how to be the only concept for that piece was that I made these twelve dresses out of neo pream and I wanted them photographed with twelve girls sitting and just staring, sometimes winking, and that was sort of the piece, And questions arose afterwards whether it was to become a brand or you know, kind of what what I was doing with it, and I was resolute that I didn't want this to be a brand, and I was still figuring out than what it was. So the next piece and arrangement in stages, I feel like, is when I began to get better grounding within myself and what I was doing um and that piece is a fairytale that I wrote about a hypochondriac widow and she is in three stages of grief, which is really incredible to see because now having gone through and going through the Greece that I now know, it's interesting to see how my perception of it has changed and then in some ways has kind of stayed consistent. So there were three acts and they were performed by three dancers choreographed by Alexi Duran's and then there was a narrator who read the story, and there was a songstress who sung like this beautiful ballad, Dominique Madelson. The performance was linked together by these three huge flower arrangements that I had um done three weeks before the show, two weeks before the show, and then the day of the show, and it's the exact same floral arrangement in these huge like fish fowl containers. So it's quite heavy, and so time was kept by the sort of like laborious moving of these flower arrangements into different acts. So there's this relationship to grief that's nonlinear, that there are these different stages of decay, but they're appearing, you know, kind of out of order and I feel like even then I knew that um grief was nonlinear and to say stages is kind of wrong for people who know grief because it's it's ever changing. Yeah, and I think you constructed the dancers ensembles for that piece as well. Correct. Yeah, So to um backtrack a little bit, that piece felt more formally like what the identity of Series Archive was, which was to create these performance works that incorporated the clothing objects as I call them, that sort of acted as aids to the performance or honestly even like characters in the performance. Well, Nicole, we cannot wait to see what you do next. And if people want to see images or even some video of your work, where can they find you? So Series dash archive dot com. And I'm also on Instagram and i am seem stress with an e D. So I'm seem stressed but seems in the seam in your clothing with eleven underscores. Afterwards, it's a very net Yeah, I know, because apparently that's what it takes to get the Instagram handle that you want these days. Right, Cool, this was lovely. We have been chatting back and forth for two years now about your work, So congratulations on your most recent piece, which debuted just a few days ago, and we can't wait to see what's up next. Thank you so much. And I wonder if I could read the poem that I wrote that coincided with my most recent performance recital to my brother. Of course, please okay, cool um, here goes. I've been getting good at putting other people's houses back together. You who used to live down the hall we used to be together, down a different hallway. Now I'm trying to piece it all together, hanging by a thread. Let me try to thread this back together. Let this blue thread be the letter all that was supremely special. Thank you so much, Thank you, Thank you again Nicole for joining us. And please do let us know about any further work you do with other scientists or collaborators on further adaptations of the machines. I mean, I have this whole imaginary vision in my head right now of this entire sewing machine orchestra, which I think is amazingly charming. Maybe one day, perhaps dress listeners, we are guessing that many of you are also intrigued by Nicole's sonic adaptation of sewing machines and her performances of them. We have placed a YouTube link in the show notes for this episode so you can check out her very first performance recital. And of course we will be posting images on our Instagram this week as well. That doesert press this week. Dress listeners, may you consider if sewing makes your heart sing next time you get dressed. Remember, we do love hearing from you, so if you like to write to us, you can do so at Dress at iHeart media dot com. You can also dm us on Instagram at Dress Underscore podcast, where we have posed images to accompany each week's episode. If you would like to take the time to rate and review us on your podcast listening platform of choice, we always appreciate it, and always appreciated our producers Casey Pegram, Holly Fry, and everyone else at I Heart Radio that makes the show possible each week. We will catch you soon dressed. The History of Fashion is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or where else you'll get your favorite shows.