Alternate Endings | Project Proposal
Milan Public Design Festival | April 2009

Two sewing machines and a large roll of brightly colored fabric will be set up in the project space with two tailors. A different colored fabric will be chosen for each day of the festival. The tailors will replicate the clothes worn by visitors to the space using the fabric provided for the day, copying exactly the cut and style. Once these replicas are finished, they will be given to the visitors as gifts to wear. Participants are invited to return to the streets of Milan wearing their new monochromatic costumes or stay in the space and socialize with each other.

Each new garment is identical to the original in every detail besides color and material, giving its wearer an arbitrary new identity but at the same time preserving some traces of individuality. On the last day of the festival, everyone who has participated in the project are invited to turn up for a party around the project space in their new costume. They can play games, dance, read or picnic, all the while being subtly regulated by the color they are wearing. Through the way the costumes alter and extend the participants’ relationship to the outside world and each other, Alternate Endings seeks to explore the process through which group and individual identities are constructed. The project also borrows from the idea of art as a gift, and is designed to facilitate social exchange.