Overview
This salvaged silk fringe neckpiece began as a stack of worn-out 1980s blouses. The kind of garments that had lived a little too full of a life and were one wash cycle away from the textile graveyard. I unpicked the seams, stripped the fabric into narrow strands, and twined them into a fringe neckpiece that feels both unruly and intentional.
Working With Salvaged Silk
There is a particular satisfaction in giving older silk a second storyline. It behaves differently than new yardage: softer, more temperamental, and undeniably experienced.
Twining it into reasonably uniform strands required patience, and the fringe density needed ongoing adjustments until the movement felt balanced rather than bulky. With salvaged materials, there is always a bit of negotiation between what I want the piece to do and what the fabric is actually willing to do.
Movement Study for the Fringe Neckpiece
Before calling the piece complete, I recorded a simple 15 second motion test in my studio. Watching the silk swing and settle over layered garments helped me see how it sits on the body, where the volume collapses, and where future refinement is needed.
These small tests are less about performance and more about observation. They give me a chance to treat the neckpiece as a moving object, not just a still photo on the table.
A Quick Note on IFW Vancouver
I wore this piece to Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week this week, which felt like an appropriate place to share a small example of the brïz wearable textile. It was not about a grand entrance, more about quietly placing this salvaged silk experiment in a space where textile, culture, and contemporary fashion are in active conversation.
Why This Piece Matters In My Practice
Even though brïz exists as a smaller branch of my overall studio practice, pieces like this silk fringe neckpiece are important research. They help me study how textiles behave in the real world: around shoulders, against different fabrics, under changing light.
These experiments act as a bridge between wearables and wall pieces. The questions stay the same, only the application shifts. How does the material move, how does it age, how does it respond to tension, gravity, and repeat use.
Letting the work travel across contexts, from studio table to runway audience to everyday wardrobe, reveals things I could never learn from a static textile wall piece alone. That back and forth between body and wall is where a lot of my curiosity sits.
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