The Dissenting Debutantes series began as an autonomous textile project and has since expanded into a series of social practice public artworks. Iterations include embroidery, dance, and photography workshops. To learn more about the upcoming workshops visit the “When the Gloves Come Off” page and to reverse your spot fill out the form attached.
Dissenting Debutantes Dress, Vote, 2019, Hand-quilted dress made from donated fabric scraps, a Vote Doug Jones T-shirt, previously worn Carhartt pants, and Pomegranate printed upholstery fabric, digital photograph from “Curtsy Lunge” video performance
Dissenting Debutantes Dress 2, Resist Fragility, Due the Right Thing, The Right Way, at the Right Time, 2020, Hand-made Rod Steel Coat Hanger, Hand-quilted Dress made from Donated Fabric Scraps, Vote Doug Jones T-Shirt, Nasty Woman T-Shirt, Stained White Jeans, Pomegranate Upholstery Fabric, Doing the Right Things The Right Way At The Right Time T-Shirt, White Satin Fabric with Pearl Embellishment, Knitted Scraps, Pillow Cases, Embroidered Table Cloth, and Betty Grisham fabric, digital photograph from “Curtsy Lunge” video performance
Dissenting Debutantes Dress 3, Black Lives Matter, Mask Up, 2020, Digital Photographs, Hand-quilted Dress made from Donated Blue Fabric Scraps, Handprinted Batik Fabrik, Bandana, American Flag, Sections of an unfinished quilt made by my Great-Grandmother, Donated Jean jacket, and Betty Grisham Fabric, digital photograph on the set of “State of Verbama, Votin’ Blue” video performance.
Dissenting Debutantes Dress 4, Vote Blue, 2020, Digital Photographs and Dance by Thalia Berard, Hand-quilted garment made from Donated Red Fabric Scraps, Especially Red Ties, Bandana, American Flag, Overalls inspired by aesthetic of “State of Verbama, Votin’ Blue” video performance.
Dissenting Debutantes Dress 5, Environmental Racism is A Kin to Colonialism, 2021-2022, Hand-quilted Dress made from Donated Green Fabric Scraps, tablecloth, botanical fabric, corsetted back, and Prarie-inspired Silhouette
Curtsy Lunge, 2020, video performance, Dissenting Debutantes Dresses 1 and 2, Betty Grisham fabric, protest banners, white evening gloves, and location of annual Huntsville, AL Debutante Ball
These Dissenting Debutantes Dresses are part of an ongoing series of 26 garments designed to visualize an aesthetic of multiplicity as opposed to coloniality within the tradition of the Debutante Ball. The patchwork quilting of the dress is indicative of the same aesthetic used in the Protest Banner Series and in this way the dress produces a garment of resistance that infiltrates one's wardrobe. Some elements of the dress are inspired by my own Debutante gown but are subverted by the eccentricity of the patterning, the informality of many of the materials, and its overall tailoring to my current body type. In this way, the size of the dress reflects a present consciousness and contemporary critique applied to a tradition I once participated in and the significance of 26 is a reference to the size of my 2012 Huntsville, AL Debutante cohort. While a handmade, sleeved full-length gown, this dress would be deemed inappropriate to wear at a Debutante Ball, and in this way, the work imagines an intervention in that space through its unacceptability. The dress instead establishes new visual vocabularies and imagines an amendment to the Debutante tradition in which inclusivity above all else is prioritized.
In the performance Curtsy Lunge, I conflate the choreography of the Debutante Ball with a simple workout regiment. I alternate curtsy lunges while both facing towards and facing away from the location of the annual Huntsville, AL Debutante Ball, and I do so while wearing the Dissenting Debutantes Dresses and Protect People Not Traditions Banners tethered to long white evening gloves.