Fashion freedom fest 2021:
an interactive art project
This project was a development of the previous year’s Men in Skirts. This event aimed to engage with everyone and their clothing, and to provoke these norms through an interactive art exhibit. It did so by blurring the lines between the binary perception of gender, and in blurring the lines between the audience and the exhibition which took place on Friday the 13th of August 2021.
Prior to the event, participants were asked “how would you dress if no one was judging you?” This though experiment was perhaps the most important aspect of the artwork. At the exhibition, participants engaged in spontaneous interactions with one another, including discussing their chosen wardrobe and thought process behind it. In this way, the participants were the exhibit. After the event, participants may continue to reflect on their wardrobe choices - and if they are taking full advantage of their fashion freedom.
Event photos
The installation
The installation took place at the showroom in Det Blå Kvarter (“The Blue Quarter”) in the Odense harbor :
Byens Ø, Estlandskaj, 5000 Odense C
Special thanks to the following people and organizations for supporting this project:
Det Blå Kvarter (“The Blue Quarter”) - https://www.facebook.com/DetBlaaKvarter
Steffen Nielsen - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErP7OvN0bGKP4b595420kw/featured
Tabitha Andersen
Jussi Hermansen
About the artist
Dylan Cawthorne is an engineer and associate professor. "I work at the University of Southern Denmark; I occasionally wear skirts to work and to hang out with my friends. I think skirts are cool from a fashion standpoint, because they give a new shape that men do not usually wear in real life (only in fashion shows). I think that many men could be afraid to wear a skirt because it would call into question their masculinity. But I think that being secure in yourself and trying new things is a healthy form of masculinity. My personal belief is that a gender binary is much too simplistic to capture the complexity of real people, and I am not scared to be associated with the "feminine". So far, I have had a lot of looks, but also a lot of positive experiences from wearing a skirt."