Andrea Loest

Doormat
fabric dress, felt, lace, t-shirt transfers
18 x 36 in.

Have you ever felt like a doormat? Have you participated in a relationship where you let your needs be subverted to someone else’s? Most of us have been in this place at one point in our lives and this dress speaks to that feeling of being unappreciated, unseen, unheard and unloved. I wanted “Doormat” to look like 1950’s Donna Reed housedress to embody a busy housewife’s single minded devotion to her husband. To support this idea, I found imagery in comic book drawings form the woman crying to another woman wearing the dunce cap. Doormat despite its seemingly pathetic persona is actually one of my favorite dresses of the collection because it represents a role that most of us play at one time in our lives.

Office Bitch
fabric, lace, felt, t-shirt transfers
18 x 42 in.

Like “Doormat”, “Office Bitch” is meant to describe a woman who is submissive, but this character is found in the workplace. “Office Bitch” is meant to illustrate the time in a young woman’s life where she has dreams and aspirations, but has to work for others to pay the bills instead of spending time focusing on these ambitions. Classically, she allows her hatred for her boss and her job to build to the point where she explodes.

The story of a dear friend inspired this dress. She is an art historian who moved to New York to be immersed in its art scene. She got a job at a prestigious foundation where she worked for the man in charge of distributing the grant funding. The way he underestimated her intelligence every day nearly killed her spirit and she evolved into this office bitch, inspiring the material for the dress. She would call me and say, “Andrea, this is not why I moved to New York. I didn’t get my degree to be an office bitch.”

© Andrea Loest