TIW: Previously, you said that your first attempt with fashion was more emotionally “forgiving,” compared to your original work with painting. As you’ve progressed with fashion, do you continue to relish in this same freedom, or have you found the expectations on yourself increasing?
Meg: Making clothes feels so intimate to our daily lives. It’s something I connect with so naturally, and it doesn’t feel so abstract in the way painting sometimes would. I still enjoy painting. I think it just comes down to a different way of communicating. Maybe one new constraining factor is trying to create pieces at a certain pace and keep up a production schedule.
TIW: How much of your experience as a 2D artist comes into play when making garments?
Meg: The images I would collect to inform my paintings definitely factor into design elements of my garments. I’m using similar color palettes and thinking about images' relationship to the body. It’s almost an extension of how I’d approach painting.
I was one credit short of minoring in Art History, and I think all the research and time I put into studying the High Renaissance is pretty influential. The clothing in those paintings was incredible.
TIW: “Fantasy” is a major theme in your work. How do you conceptualize fantasy? And how does fantasy translate into a garment?
Meg: Fantasy for me is part escapism, part creating a more optimistic reality, and part nostalgia for the types of make-believe I enjoyed earlier in life. I want my pieces to look and feel ethereal to the wearer - grounded in things that are beautiful about reality, but elevated from the everyday.
TIW: Do you think there are any limitations that come with creating designs with intense characteristics? And, oppositely, are there any advantages?
Meg: There may be some limitations in wearability, depending on your personal style and comfort with attention! I think the strength of my work is in its intensity and vision.
TIW: Going off of that, what are your thoughts on wearability? By whom and for what occasions do you envision your garments being worn?
Meg: When I’m making my garments, wearability isn’t necessarily at the forefront of my mind. I’m concerned with trying to make clothing that’s exciting and interesting to me, and it’s up to the wearer to determine where those pieces make sense. I think the context in which they’re worn is very up to you! However, I realize some pieces may be a bit dramatic for everyday wear.
I’m really excited by the idea of collaborating with performance artists and musicians, and can see my garments being used in many different artistic capacities. I think there’s a big potential for clothing to aid in storytelling and amplifying emotional resonance.
Meg Beck
Image courtesy of Emma Cheshire
Meg’s studioImage courtesy of Meg Beck
TIW: The special makeup that accompanies so many of your looks is captivating. What role does makeup place in your presentations?
Meg: Makeup can often function as an extension of the garments I create - I think it is communicating something fundamentally similar. Aesthetics and colors that I love find their way into both. In principle they’re similar too. I’m not trying to achieve an archetype or a prescribed type of beauty with either. A lot of makeup and clothing trends are about taking a shape or style and applying that uniformly, which is something I’m not interested in. I want the makeup and clothing to work with the wearer.
TIW: Flowers, greenery, and other elements of nature are often juxtaposed alongside your designs. Is this intentional, and why?
Meg: More than this being intentional, it’s instinctive to me. I place my work in environments that compliment my pieces and that I find meaningful. I think where I grew up majorly informs this, it was semi-rural and I spent most of my time outside.
TIW: Why do you enjoy working with repurposed fabrics?
Meg: Such an inconceivably huge amount of textiles already exist in the world. The immensely complicated systems of production in fashion are responsible for so many labor rights violations and so much waste. With this in mind, I primarily work with materials that already exist and not newly manufactured fabrics. This isn’t to say that there are not newly created textiles being made ethically. But for each step in the labor chain to be compensated properly, I might not be able to afford those fabrics by the time they reach me! So it’s also a matter of affordability and resourcefulness. Sometimes when I’m feeling stuck I’ll go into my own closet, and anything I don’t get enough wear out of will be fabric for something I make. I try to source fabrics that would otherwise go to waste.
TIW: Your designs have distinctive, intricate details. What’s the longest you’ve spent working on one garment, and what motivates you to pour all of your heart, time, and effort into a single piece?
Meg: The longest I’ve ever spent on a single garment is around a month and a half. I make everything myself, so it’s not unusual for an intricate piece to take me weeks! Even though they’re pretty labor intensive, I don’t normally have trouble sticking with a piece once I’ve started - I’m motivated by my excitement to see it materialize. It would be really disappointing to spend weeks cutting out strips of fabric just for them to sit on my studio floor! It’s also a comfort to myself at this early stage that the next time, I can probably make it much faster because of what I’ve learned though making it this time.
Editor’s Note: At The Int’l Whisperer, we do our best to maintain the original integrity of our content. Interviews are edited for clarity only. While many of our subjects are interviewed outside of their native language or use their own local variant of a particular language, we recognize this as authenticity and refrain from “standardizing” their original expressions, syntax, or spelling.