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HUMAN PHARMAThe Unwearable Collection™:
The Unwearable Collection™:
A fashion line no one would dare choose
Fashion collections have a specific purpose: they are designed for people to buy and to wear. This isn’t the case with Dutch designer Bart Hess’s The Unwearable Collection™. The four-piece collection visualizes the painful experience of people living with generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP), a rare skin disease.
No one would choose to wear it. But people with generalized pustular psoriasis (GPP) have no other choice. Itching, sharp pain and a burning sensation on their skin are constant companions when experiencing a flare.
The four sculpted pieces in the Unwearable Collection™, which Bart Hess created in partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim, are by design a visceral challenge to behold. In garbing four fashion mannequins, Mr. Hess incorporated materials such as glass shards, sharp paper cutouts and knife blades to draw attention to the physical and social impact of the disease. The work was inspired by interviews with three people living with GPP — Christine, Brandon and Dale — who vividly described the pain and the impact when the disease flares up.
Physical and emotional pain
GPP is a rare, life-long skin disease, characterized by sudden flare-ups which produce painful, pus-filled blisters all over the body. The condition can also cause fever, headaches, joint pain, extreme fatigue and a burning sensation on the skin. People affected by GPP must also cope with an impaired social life, low energy levels and constant anxiety about when the next outbreak will come.
The symptoms can be alleviated through treatment. But too often, GPP goes undiagnosed. And extreme outbreaks can be life-threatening.
“If you want to really understand how much of an impact this disorder has on people’s lives, it’s not enough to simply listen to the people affected by it,” Mr. Hess says. “Art is a very suitable medium to interpret their suffering.”
Each design represents a core experience in the life of people affected by GPP: physical pain, the psychological pain of isolation, the life-threatening nature of the illness and the intensity of a flare-up.
The purpose of the collection is to raise awareness of this rare disease among people with skin diseases, dermatologists and the general public so that misdiagnoses and delayed diagnoses become a thing of the past.
About the Artist
Internationally renowned Dutch artist and designer Bart Hess studied at the Design Academy Eindhoven (The Netherlands). He is known for his innovative designs that combine the human body with unusual materials. Mr. Hess uses surreal combinations of material studies, animation and photography to tell real-world stories through his art.
