Browns’ Suit
Browns’ Suit is a one-off tailored three-piece suit comprising of a jacket, short pencil skirt and a pair of trousers. It hangs from a wooden clothes hanger on a coat hook, waiting to be worn again. In relation to Tailored, Browns’ Suit explores concepts around gender, self, embodiment and skill. Historically, as shown in the oil painting ‘The Tailor’ (1565-70), by Giovanni Battista Moroni, tailors were male and their suits were ordered, made for and worn by men. Originally made by Lucy for herself to wear, Browns’ Suit takes her-stance within this male dominated industry. Browns Suit has been worn by Lucy to her various art and life happenings, soaking up the living artists’ embodied experiences, while being formed by the artist’s body. Depending on the event and how Lucy was feeling at the time, she would either choose to wear the skirt or the trousers with the suit jacket.
Although having no formally taught tailoring or sewing skills, for Browns’ Suit, Lucy used Vogue Tailoring Advance Level dressmaking patterns. The woven herringbone wool cloth was bought in ‘Ditto’, an independent fabric shop in the north laines of Brighton. In contrary to Joseph Beuys’s artwork ‘Felt Suit’ (1970), Browns’ Suit is one-off and skilfully cut, fitted, constructed, sewn and worn by the artist herself.
