Woolmark Company reveals finalists' collections via Joan Jonas link-up

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 27, 2023

Woolmark has unveiled the collections from the 2023 International Woolmark Prize (IWP) finalists and it has enlisted “creative game-changers” Joan Jonas, Taylour Paige and Loyle Carner to help.

This year’s collection reveal “creates an intergenerational dialogue between performance artist Joan Jonas and the next generation of leading design talent,” with looks from A Roege Hove, Bluemarble, Lagos Space Programme, Marco Rambaldi, MaxxiJ, Paolina Russo, Rhude and Robyn Lynch. 

The final event makes its return to Paris this year, taking place on 15 May at a live event with the winners selected by a judging panel.  

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The theme of the IWP this year is ‘dialogue’, described “as a key that unlocks the creative process, reflecting The Woolmark Company’s mission to establish dialogue between leading design talent and industry players”.

Core to the collection reveal is a film called Dialogue, “a contemporary re-staging of one of Joan Jonas’ most iconic performances, Delay Delay (1972)”. 

A cast of “young creative game-changers including actor Taylour Paige and musician Loyle Carner appear alongside Jonas with emblematic props to create unexpected rhythms of space and scale on the coast of Marseille”. 

It was creatively directed by Zak Kyes and brings together directors Partel Oliva and choreographer Josh Johnson. Guest appearances include writer Naomi Shimada, muse Sonia Ichti, ballet dancer Samuel Pereira and Marseille-based creatives Valentine Valero, Hanna-May Porlon and Luka Isaac. There’s also an original score composed by British electronic producer and musician Loraine James.

Woolmark said the IWP is continuing its “commitment to cross-cultural partnerships through this special collaboration with Joan Jonas [who’s] considered to be one of the most continuously influential figures of the past half century”. 

She was one of the first artists to combine video, performance and installation and will be the subject of a major retrospective at MoMA in 2024.

She said: “Years ago I would not have participated in a project like this. But I’ve since become very interested in how people interpret my work, how they might be influenced by it and how it might change the way they view their own work. Delay, Delay was performed outdoors in the Lower West Side of Manhattan in empty lots. Those places don’t exist any more in New York, in that way. The fact that Woolmark found a site near Marseille in France to re-stage parts of it, and that the work would be transformed by younger people — I find very interesting.”

And Taylour Paige added: “For me, fashion has always been an extension of storytelling, alchemy, the magic of ideas. It’s the celebration, fury, and beauty of the chaos and order people are capable of, when they reach to make something.”