Kati Dean
Grasping at Threads by Kati Dean
Traditional clothing is one of the most recognizable forms of visual culture, and a very specialized signifier of the culture one belongs to. Specific folk costumes can identify the wearer’s native region, or even specific village, as well as communicate the wearer’s age or marital status, and even more. These outfits, crafted with rich materials and decorated with intricate embroidery, were worn on special occasions. Nowadays, they are powerful symbols of cultural pride, and symbolize community and shared history. In America, these cultural ties have been severed for many people. Knowledge and traditions have been diluted over several generations, until all that’s left are a few cultural rituals on holidays that you don’t understand the significance of. I exist in a different form than my ancestors. I come from a mix of several European cultures, but have been raised apart from them. When I visited Poland for the first time last year, it was deeply painful to walk among people who I felt I should have a connection with, but I could not speak with them nor understand them—a culture bonds its people together through language, folklore, and the visual arts, and nothing hurts more than to realize you don’t have a connection like that and never did. Because of historical events and societal conventions that I had no control over, I can’t grasp the cultures of my ancestors in the same way that they did, as badly as I want to. In the absence of any concrete connections, I must make my own connections, and I want to do it through my fascination with traditional clothing.
“Grasping at Threads” is a series of modern jackets I have embroidered with patterns and motifs inspired by my research on the folk costumes of my ancestral cultures. The first piece is a maroon jacket that I have decorated with pink and yellow stitches and herringbone detailing along the edges of the sleeves, hood, and zipper. The zipper is also lined with a leaf-patterned border. On the front of the jacket are multicolored embroidered flowers mirrored on each side. The second piece is a pink jacket that I have adorned with hand-embroidered floral motifs, tassels, beads, and sequins in shades of blue and white. The central zipper is lined with patterned stitches, sequins, and beads, and there are white embroidery floss tassels parallel to the zipper on either side. There is a hand-embroidered floral design mirrored on each side. Displayed here are photos of the jackets hanging on a hanger and of myself wearing the jackets.
This series of embroidered jackets is my way of grasping for my family’s long-lost cultural ties. They are inspired by the traditional embroidery and folk costumes of Poland. The maroon jacket is not inspired by any specific costume, but draws inspiration from many different sources of traditional Polish embroidery. The pink jacket is based off of Kraków folk vests, but is not meant to be a replica of one. The colors are also of my own invention and do not reflect authentic costumes—unlike the first jacket, whose colors are authentic, the colors of this jacket’s decorations are entirely shades of a single color. I chose to embroider on jackets because jackets are such an ordinary fixture of my everyday American life, but with the embroidery I transform them and imbue them with cultural significance. It would feel disingenuous to recreate a folk costume exactly, because I am experiencing this culture secondhand through my research and filtered through my own life experience as an American. These pieces represent my cultural research and exploration of my heritage, grafted onto my life raised without that culture. I can’t experience my ancestors’ culture the way they did, but I can still search for my own connections and integrate them into my life in meaningful ways.