Textiles inspired by a time and a place
- Dolorès feels textiles are 'tied to the nature of man'
- She lives in a region strongly linked to the textile industry
- She passes on her skills by giving lessons in sewing and cutting
Largely self-taught, Dolorès Gossye learned to make her textile creations through experimentation and observation. She built on her knowledge of fabrics by taking a costume design course, followed by an internship at the Antwerp Fashion Museum, and later a research fellowship at the Contemporary Textile Art Research Centre (Tamat) in Tournai, which enabled her to experiment and undertake research. “As a child I loved materials like leather, wood and wool, and was later drawn towards the craft of made-to-measure clothing,” she says. Interested in the symbolism of clothing, she was led to research its structure and its role as a medium of communication.
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INTERVIEW
I am essentially inspired by the observation of the time and place where I live. Doing my day to day shopping, seeing the food that gets wasted, like fish skins, shines a light on beauty and the fragility of nature.
I express tradition through my manual and ancestral knowledge of textiles. In contrast to global consumer trends, I use innovation to express the symbolic and sacred dimension of the material nature gives us.
The structure of textiles resembles the structure of the universe. For example, when you spin and weave the fleece of baby alpaca, you create a new structure of exceptional softness, which will become the second skin of man.
I believe it is work that results from observation and research and which, thanks to one’s expertise, is brought to life with harmony and coherence. A quality piece of work is more than a mere object, it has a spirituality that’s quite independent of the material it’s made from.
