Earlier this week, whilst preparing for the BFW Zeitgeist Show, conceptual artist/designer Jess Eaton was kind enough to let me and BFW photographer Gareth Gregg invade her Brighton shop/studio EatonNott for a chat about the social politics of feathers, leather, fur and meat.

Delia Chandler, BFW: Okay, so I’d like for you to take me through you creative process. Let’s start from the very beginning. Do you basically find something that inspires you to create or...

Jess Eaton, EatonNott: The material dictates the design, basically. I look at something that has been brought in or that we’ve found and I let it inspire me. So, I don’t have a design and then go out and find the materials. It doesn’t work like that. I find whatever it is and then think what can I make that into.

DC: So the muse is the material?

JE: Yes...

DC: I’m sure you’ve looked at tons of materials, what really sparks your creativity?

JE: At the moment, this project I’m working on now is animals and birds, things that have been alive, things from nature. I mean, I’ve worked with all sorts of materials in the past but this is where I am right now, and I can’t predict where I’ll be in the future because as an artist you always evolve, don’t you? But really, it’s things of natural beauty that you take for granted in normal life and showing them in a new light is what inspires me. Whether it be an ordinary garden snail or a chicken you eat and normally discard the plumage, I present them in a way that really emphasises their natural beauty and the wonder of nature.

DC: Okay, take me through your new collection (showcased at BFW Zeitgeist Show) without giving away too many secrets. What’s the story behind this one?

JE: Well, I’ve had to rely on things that I’ve found and have been brought in to me over the last year. Also, I didn’t want to repeat myself from last year. I want it to have a completely different feel. I have to use some of the same materials again, obviously, because that’s what’s available, but I want to do them in a different way. For instance, last year, the furs I used I did little vintage capes and stuff because I was inspired by the fact that in the olden days you were allowed to wear fur, so it felt natural to do them in a vintage way. This year I’ve done them in a very modern way, very wearable jackets and showing them in a fresh way. I’ve made some bomber jackets out of fur. Because normally furs are quite classic, and I’ve done them in a relaxed, quite trendy sort of way. That’s different this year. There’s a lot of wings this year, large birds. Geese. I’ve had a supply of geese so we’ve got some rather beautiful wings. I like to actually keep things quite pure, very simple because you don’t have to elaborate on them, they are so beautiful already. The Roadkill Couture collection was mostly accessories anyway. There were some garments but there were more accessories. This year I’ve tried to keep the silhouettes very clean, not too much fuss. Just keeping nature as it is.

Jess gestures to a set of wings hanging on her studio wall, which are the wings shown in the picture above.

JE: You see, those are real wings just as they are, spread out and dried. Because, really, you can’t do that better. It’s perfect already.

DC: Right, no need to elaborate on nature.

JE: No, no. I mean, there are some pieces where I’ve done some sprays on feathers, a similar trait to the first collection. I mean, I am a designer and obviously I do have a signature, so there are pieces that will resemble the first collection but I’ve tried to stay as fresh as I can, look at things from a different angle, you know? There’s no point in just repeating myself.

DC: So, you say you are an artist and you don’t know what the future will hold.

JE: I’m definitely a conceptual artist and not a designer. I’m a conceptual artist that uses design to express themselves. But, I do other pieces as well, I don’t just do clothes. Roadkill Couture is a conceptual art piece.

DC: Have you thought of translating your designs into a ready to wear collection?

JE: It should be food for thought as to our relation to animals, generally, across the board. Our relationship with pets, how we give value to animals. Some animals are not worth anything and we eat them, some animals we take into bed with us. And I’m sure those animals don’t feel more worthy or less worthy, a soul is a soul. You wear leather, but would you wear your pet’s fur? Because leather was skin, it had fur, every piece of leather had hair on it. There are only a couple of animals that are naked and that‘s humans, pigs (we eat pig skin), but everything else had hair on it. We put something in a solution [through the leather treating process] and the hair falls out and suddenly, we disassociate it with a animal, it’s just a material. That was fur, too. I make hats with wings on them and some people get upset and say “oh, that’s really macabre” but they’ll eat chicken wings... with barbeque sauce.

DC: You get this reaction from people who are not vegan or vegetarians?

JE: Sometime, sometimes. Yea, yea...

DC: You get meat eaters who are really offended by your work?

JE: Oh, yea! Vegetarians and vegans are actually for it. They see that I’m utilising every single part of the animal. I go to the butcher and I’ll buy a pheasant that’s had a natural life. I’ll use the plumage, I’ll use the skull, I’ll use every part of it. But these days we aren’t confronted with death. You go to the supermarket, it’s all wrapped in cellophane, none of the animals have faces, it’s just little pink squares. I’m sure half the children are not aware that that piece of ham was a pig. You don’t go to the old fashioned butcher’s anymore where the animals were hanging up, you could see what you’re eating. We don’t want to be confronted with death. I think that’s wrong. Our society is not well. I think that death is a natural part of life. And we aren’t doing ourselves any favours. I don’t think it’s a good direction to be going at all.

DC: I saw your video on YouTube and you were skinning a squirrel. I was looking at the squirrel lying there and he had this look on his face, I was probably personifying the squirrel...I could see something in his eyes, in his expression as he was lying there being skinned...

JE: He’s material...

"I’m definitely a conceptual artist and not a designer. I’m a conceptual artist that uses design to express themselves. But, I do other pieces as well, I don’t just do clothes. Roadkill Couture is a conceptual art piece."

DC: Do you ever see an animal you are about to process and it stops you and it make you think?

JE: I skinned Jon’s (Nott, her business partner) dog. And that was weird because I knew him personally. But I do believe that once the spark of life is gone, once the spirit has left the body, it’s just meat. It’s material. It’s the vessel that keep us on this plane, it’s the vehicle that holds our soul in this physical plane. Once the soul is gone, it’s just material... It takes practice, the longer you do it the easier it becomes. But I’ve never been squeamish anyway. I was brought up in the country and I saw it on a daily basis. Things are born, they die, they get eaten. The cycle of life. I was a vegetarian for 20 years, I’ve lived on both sides of the fence. But if you eat meat, you should honour the creature and actually own up to it and say yea, something died for me to have this sandwich. It’s all so convenient and hypocritical and so self serving, it really is.

JE: Well last year were given a lamb, and I made a little top (above) out of the skin...

Jess pulls the piece off the top of a pile of furs and skins

DC: Aw, now see, that’s very sweet...

JE: ...and some people were like “aw no!” but they have roast lamb at the weekend. Very hypocritical. You watch telly and you’ll see the adverts – I’m really aware of the language they use now- succulent, juicy, tender. You see someone cutting the meat and the blood juices are running out and that’s completely normal to us. That’s far more macabre to be chewing on a [hunk of meat] than to be processing the skins of what I’m doing. That’s part of the reason why I became a vegetarian. It seemed really brutal at the time. That’s the reason why I stopped eating meat. 20 years later I thought “do I still believe that?” and I thought no, I am a carnivorous person and I want to go back to eating meat. But we are so desensitised, we’ve got blinkers on. I think if most people went to the slaughterhouse, that would change everything. I’m just skinning a few things that are dead anyway. You go to that slaughterhouse and see how that lamb or that roast beef or whatever got to you table? Mmmm...

DC: I saw a music video of a guy slaughtering a sheep on his back patio using the halal method of slitting the throat and bleeding it out and it seemed more respectful than leading a stressed cow to a pin and she gets an air-propelled bolt to the forehead.

JE: Every single piece of meat had a life once. All Jon and I do here is pick up scraps of life. We salvage bits.

Back to Blogs & Copy