For the previous a number of years, the only-in-Santa-Cruz vogue present and performance-art showcase generally known as Pivot: The Artwork of Trend has been — ever true to its title — pivoting throughout city.
An offshoot of Angelo Grova’s splashy FashionART present that made the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium its dwelling again within the ’00s, Pivot has created its magic at, amongst others, the Rio Theatre, the Wrigley Constructing on the Westside and, in a pivot necessitated by a worldwide pandemic, on a film display at a makeshift drive-in on the Seaside Boardwalk. Like a well-cultivated wardrobe, Pivot has made a advantage of adaptability.
With 2021 comes one more pivot for Pivot, this time to an outside house on the Tannery Arts Middle. On Saturday, Oct. 23, Pivot returns for its first live event since the pandemic, that includes a runway present and different reside performances, all in an artistically idiosyncratic tribute to adorning the human physique.
Although it has been one thing of a vagabond in the case of venues, Pivot has remained constant in its format, presenting a vogue present that leans way more to California artistic than New York stylish. The Pivot method is to combine collectively formidable and visionary vogue designers who create particular traces of attire and extra eccentric artist varieties creating bedazzling however wildly impractical “wearable artwork.”
The present’s two-sided orientation is a mirrored image of its two creators and administrators, vogue skilled Tina Brown and celebrated and sometimes outlandish artist Rose Sellery. Collectively, Brown and Sellery — each veterans of the outdated FashionART present — have cultivated a various roster of designers and artists who largely current on the present yearly.
Among the many most high-profile of those is African-born designer I.B. Bayo, whose distinctive outerwear and eveningwear are as coveted as any Santa Cruz designer, and Charlotte Kruk, the artist recognized for making interval attire and robes out of sweet wrappers, amongst different kitschy supplies. Each Bayo and Kruk are aboard for 2021, amongst 37 artists and designers on this 12 months’s program.
“We’ve received plenty of surprises developing,” stated Sellery. “We’ve artists and designers coming from all around the nation, a number of from Hawaii, who don’t even know one another, Michigan, Iowa, a complete group from the Sierra Nevada foothills, the Haute Trash collective. They’re very enjoyable and quirky and so they do some nice items, so we’re very excited to have them.”
Santa Cruz-based startup Lil Jax recycles grownup clothes into kids’s vogue.
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Haute Trash, based mostly in Nevada Metropolis, California, is a gaggle of vogue designers who make garments out of supplies scavenged from rubbish. Very similar to a roller-derby crew, the designers typically go by punny stage names like Redusa D’Trash and Lotta Garbage. Their rebelliously conservationist aesthetic couldn’t be extra consistent with Pivot’s personal philosophy.
Whereas attracting creators from all factors past, Pivot can be that includes artists from close by, extraordinarily close by. Amongst Pivot contributors who work and reside on the Tannery grounds is designer Sonia Le, who’s repurposing Indian silk saris into skirts and swimsuit cover-ups.
This type of “upcycling” has been a central tenet at Pivot for years. Typical is the Santa Cruz-based designer Asha Tobing, whose line Lil Jax makes use of recycled grownup clothes to refashion into kids’s clothes.
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On the artists’ aspect, Sellery is once more main the parade, as she’s performed in years previous with one-of-a-kind artwork items which might be as humorously intelligent as they’re provocative. This 12 months, Sellery is upping her recreation with three separate outfits.
“My items this 12 months are primarily centered on the pandemic,” stated Sellery. “However there’s plenty of playfulness in them.” One is titled “The Occasion’s Over,” utilizing deflated balloons to touch upon a pre-COVID world. One other, “Drained,” makes use of supplies from outdated tires. Dag Weiser, one other high-profile Santa Cruz artist — well-known for his dazzling cardboard artwork — additionally will dive into vogue along with his personal piece.
Pivot will probably be presenting its signature present as soon as once more in a brand new venue. Brown and Sellery’s expertise at adaptation was certainly examined in 2020, when an in-person vogue present was out of the query. They responding by producing a movie, “Pivot within the Pandemic,” which they offered in an upbeat the-show-must-go-on spirit onscreen on the Boardwalk’s riverside parking zone to audiences confined to their automobiles. Even with the problem of creating a brand new venue, with the Boardwalk expertise within the rearview, the upcoming present on the Tannery looks like a deliverance.
“I simply hold specializing in how all people’s going to be so excited to be collectively vogue that it’s not going to actually matter, all these particulars that I often stress over,” stated Brown. “We simply must hold altering and roll with it. However I feel the Tannery goes to be good for us. The Tannery is worked up to have us.”
The work of visionary Santa Cruz designer and textile artist I.B. Bayo ranks among the many most fascinating attire within the native vogue ecosystem.
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The occasion will happen within the open house between the Colligan Theater and the Radius Gallery, with a reception on the Radius. A gaggle from the Tannery World Dance & Cultural Middle will add a component of efficiency. Audiences will probably be requested to put on face masks.
One other large change is this system comes with its music. Pivot has all the time used recorded music for its runway present, and Brown and Sellery have proven beautiful style of their collection of music. This 12 months, nonetheless, the Pivot present opts for reside music from the Bay Space band Los Improviders, who carried out this 12 months on the downtown gallery Curated By the Sea.
“Not solely are they nice,” stated Brown, “however they’ll simply form of change with circulate of the segments of no matter occurs to be on the runway. It additionally helps us in that after we do livestreaming, or put the video on-line, we gained’t have copyright points. Plus, they’re all tremendous good guys and we actually like their music. However it’s completely new for us, so it’s somewhat scary.”
“Pivot: The Art of Fashion” takes place Saturday, Oct. 23, on the Tannery Arts Middle in Santa Cruz. Runway present is at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 common seating; $75 VIP tickets, which features a pre-show reception at 5:30 p.m.
