Velvet designs and makes fashion artefacts in a playful approach to challenge how the body is viewed. She combines recycled materials and everyday objects in incongruous ways to enhance or distort the appearance of the wearer.
Velvet’s work is performative in the way it masks and transforms the body, stemming from her research into the carnivalesque. She gathers visual inspiration from her British/Irish heritage; craft and folkloric traditions such as the Wren boys and Mummers; and the DIY aesthetic from the 1980s and 90s club scenes in London. Furthermore, Velvet gathers inspiration from other artists and designers who also explore the themes of identity and queerness through fashion. This is then translated in her work with materials such as synthetic hair, beads and scrap materials.
Velvet uses hand embroidery and embellishment techniques such as beading directly onto fabric or on a bead loom, as well as metal work and resin casting. In combining these techniques Velvet creates bespoke sculptural textile pieces to adorn the body.
