The Wear of Needs is a collection of shirts. It seems to me an art exhibit in progress, for the pieces in it were composed as aesthetic responses to the countries that the designer had visited. In the past decade, Mae Aguinaldo—the artist, my sister—had gone to Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore for the purpose of imbibing the specificities of their cultures, the byways of their craft. Of the series, she has this to say: “The T-shirt is both an object of desire and practicality, a duality that is constantly at play in the series. It is the canvas for The Wear of Needs. It is common and familiar, and anyone can wear it.”
I wish to discuss the particular shirt Mae had sewn in response to the Philippines, the one she named “seasons change,” for the following reasons:
a) she said it was “inspired by the resiliency of Filipinos”b) it systematically approaches home with external (or externalized) lenses, andc) the family helped launch the shirt at the Freedom Park, one drizzling Saturday morning, with red yarn and 67 balloons.
*
*
Continued below, courtesy of Center for Art and Thought:
