Anonymous Woman - Grace Wroblewski - MFA Fashion Design and the Arts '25

The inspiration for this project began after seeing Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece”. While a very iconic work of performance art, it was always one that moved me. It was a piece that spoke to me as a woman, the metaphor of society taking what it wants from women leaving them exposed, endangered, shamed, and vulnerable at times but still expecting them to be stoic and accepting of their fates. My interpretation of Ono’s work inspired me to create my own art centered around the manipulation of clothing with women being the focal point. “Anonymous Women” is a series that focuses on six white men’s shirts, each one representing a woman and her experiences in life and within the fashion industry. I decided to keep these interviews anonymous, aside from their ages being written on each shirt, to make sure the women felt comfortable being honest with their answers but also to highlight that most women have common experiences and to allow the viewer to almost identify with each shirt. A man’s shirt was specifically chosen as the base of these pieces for two reasons: it is a classic staple item that most men own and because of that, it represents women not only “living in a man’s world” but dismantling that narrative and making the world their own. Excerpts from the interviews were then written onto the shirts, sometimes accompanied by symbols and imagery relating to what was said. From there, based on recurring themes or messages within each interview, a textile manipulation was selected to