Alice Klouzková: Indigo
23. 3. – 11. 5. 2022
curator: Lenka Sýkorová
photo: Markéta Bendová
Leaving traditions passed down through generations is like giving up an identity. It is a process of losing historical consciousness. The politics of today's disposable world has shown us in recent years that if we stop caring about the world, we stop caring for ourselves because people who abandon their traditions remain empty - without roots. It is this privation that causes the growing need for certain changes to natural materials, craftsmanship, crafts, traditions and sustainability in the future - both in the fine arts and in design. The love for nature, crafts and cultural heritage is also significant for the Czech fashion designer Alice Klouzková, who is intensively involved in traditional textile techniques and their use in contemporary clothing design, a unique combination of Czech tradition and contemporary fashion. Alice Klouzková focuses on Indigo Print, the production of which is in cooperation with the Strážnice Indigo Print workshop (one of the last two workshops in our country). In this project for Altán Klamovka, she presents the latest part of postdoctoral research focusing on the sustainability of clothing production in the context of their dyeing, which normally represents an environmental burden. Alice Klouzková is looking for new possibilities for the innovation of traditional technology in the use of local natural resources, namely the use of indigo from dyer's woad (Isatis tinctoria) in dyeing. The author thus exchanged part of her work in the studio for a workshop, laboratory and field, thus finding a new meaning for her work. The presented project points to her work process are burdened with responsibility, thus creating a design with a story taught by history.
Alice Klouzková graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague, where after her studies she worked as an assistant in the Fashion Design studio of Josef Ťapťuch and later Pavel Ivančic. At the same time she deals with theoretical activities - dissertation at the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague with the title Reinterpretation of traditional textile techniques in the context of contemporary clothing design (book Heritage. Tradition, innovation, fashion). In 2005, together with Jana Jetelová, she founded the SISTERSCONSPIRACY studio. Since 2014, she is teaching at the Fashion Design Studio at the Scholastika, School of Contemporary Art. In 2017, she created a successful exhibition project Blue Innovations presenting current trends in Czech Indigo Print, which has already been presented in Vienna, London or Tokyo. She currently works as a teacher in the Fashion Design Studio at Faculty of Multimedia Communications of Tomas Baťa University in Zlín.
Lenka Sýkorová