TARZA & JANE at Düsseldorf's K21
At Düsseldorf’s iconic K21 Museum, the 2023 Strike-a-Pose festival presented an innovative dialogue between fashion and art, pairing creatives to collaboratively challenge conventions. Fabian, founder of our latex fashion brand TARZA & JANE, teamed up with artist Franca Scholz to delve into themes of gender roles and societal expectations. Franca, known for her explorations of gender roles through recognizable textiles, incorporated cutouts of letters and words from latex sheets into her layered art pieces, questioning the rigid role constructs often associated with traditional gender attire.
Fabian’s contribution was equally subversive. His creation, the "Impossible Maid Dress," reimagined the classic maid outfit in fetishistic latex: a black dress layered with a white apron, overlaid with a transparent skirt that rendered the garment impractical, challenging the purpose of the maid archetype itself.
Our model Hani resolutely walking off the set with a bottle of champagne dangling from her right hand. All of this in our TARZA & JANE impossible latex maid dress. A conservative black kneelength dress with a white latex maids apron under a transparent flared mini skirt. Very impractical. She seems to have better plans.
Their collaboration extended to a series of transparent latex bags, modeled on the now-banned German plastic bag. Fabian sent Franca Scholz a sheet of latex on which she painted her art; he then cut this into pieces to ten small, semi-transparent, art-infused fashion bags.
The result was an eye-catching blend of commentary and craft, as Fabian and Franca used textile and latex’s unconventional appeal to rethink clothing’s role in identity and tradition. This province-of-North-Rhine-Westfalia sponsored exhibit stood out for its artistic depth and daring innovation.