THE MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSE OF MAREUNROL'S
Arterritory.com comes out with a book on the fashion designer duo MAREUNROL'S
05/12/2019
The art and culture publishing house Arterritory.com has published a sizable volume dedicated to MAREUNROL'S (Mārīte Mastiņa-Pēterkopa and Rolands Pēterkops), the Latvian cultural scene’s most extraordinary fashion artist duo.
It’s difficult to categorise the book within a standardized system because much like everything MAREUNROL'S do, with this new 616-page project they challenge stereotypes and the usual conventions. ‘They create a “new reality”, i.e. they open the door to something that already exists but that we do not notice in our daily lives and therefore we think that it does not exist. They are researchers, thinkers and artists at the same time,’ Una Meistere writes in the book’s introduction. This book is not just a representation of the collections created by Pēterkopa and Pēterkops. It’s more of a documentary record of their mindset, revealed through an infinite number of details: thoughts that came to mind at moments when there was nothing to write them down with; images of people who have influenced them; and visualisations of the spaces that MAREUNROL'S use – multilayered and usually overfilled. Alongside paintings, clothing sketches, music, politics, economics, sculptures, dreams and nightmares there is also everyday life. In addition to their fashion lines, an equal amount of attention has been given to the costuming that MAREUNROL'S have created for opera and theatrical performances (14 in all!) both in Latvia and abroad, as well as for films, group art projects, exhibition designs, and so on.
Of course, the book also provides insight into their fashion collections beginning with 2005, when they presented their very first co-produced collection Only For Adults / Untitled, all the way up to their upcoming Spring/Summer 2020 collection Unexpected Sources 6, which is a sarcastic farewell...to shopping bags. MAREUNROL'S latest collection is a striking testimony to the extent that they have integrated with the times in which they live, staying on the cusp of current events. To them, fashion is more than clothing – it is a universal and precisely targeted language of signs. The book is a comprehensive summary of the essence of each of the seventeen collections created by MAREUNROL'S – from the first sketch to the final image and the environment that it inhabits.
‘With every collection, the whole universe that MAREUNROL'S present is immaculately researched and thought through. The styling and photographs or installations create an extra dimension that makes you feel as if you're part of the story,’ says the couple behind the well-respected Belgian fashion house A.F. Vandevorst. For her part, the renowned French/American fashion critic Diane Pernet was quoted in the British style publication Another Magazine as saying about MAREUNROL’S: ‘They are more like artists than designers’. The book MAREUNROL'S is indeed vivid testimony to the veracity of these words, revealing the duo’s multimedia universe in which fashion has expanded well beyond its initial borders, transforming from a mindlessly addictive activity like popping candy or pills to an almost philosophical plane where the designers ‘write down’ their thoughts on the era, current events, and their place within it all. ‘I think it's very important to strictly hold on to your identity. Even though it may sometimes be misunderstood, or seem strange, or be at odds. That's what gives us strength.’ MAREUNROL’S’ essence is expressed on every single page of this new book.
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A prominent element in the graphic design of the book is the tailor’s pin; pins have also been worked into the design of the book’s cover. In the arsenal of the fashion designer, the pin is the symbolic umbilical cord that captures thoughts; and lest we forget, it is also an integral part of the birth process of a garment. In a sense, fashion is a pin: it pricks, draws attention to what is happening in the world, and makes one act – think, express an opinion, and not be indifferent.
The book was designed by Krišs Salmanis (in cooperation with MAREUNROL’S), and the text was written by Una Meistere. The included essay on Rolands Pēterkops’ radio programme Tīrkultūra was written by Sergej Timofejev.
The book’s main supporter is Alfor; additional supporters are Putti Art Gallery, KRASSKY, the Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, and “Valmiermuiža”. Special thanks to Latvian Museum of Decorative Arts and Design and it's director Inese Baranovska.
