KARMIC CLOTHING 05/27/08

Words :: Suzanne Boyd // Images :: Robin Gartner, Jonathan Lee

What happens to the creative energy an artist puts into a project? Does it dissipate into thin air? Could there be a kinetic transfer of energy from art maker to art owner? This wasn’t something Katherine Soucie, an emerging Vancouver-based artist, had spent a lot of time pondering. That was until cards, letters and e?mails started arriving thanking her for newfound confidence and personal validation. Katherine Soucie makes wearable art. More specifically, she is a clothing and textile artist/designer, and many who wear her clothes reportedly feel a sense of reawakening and renewal. Although this was never the young designer’s intention, she does muse about the possibility of an emotional transfer of energy via an artistic medium. Soucie grew up in a southern Ontario town known more for its industrial exports than those aesthetic. “Neither of my parents are particularly artistic,” says Katherine, “but what I did learn from them both was how to be resourceful.” She reminisces about the eighties, when the recycling movement came on strong. “My family was extremely routinized when it came to using, reusing and eventually disposing of something – but only when its usefulness was completely exhausted.”
Her thirst for learning and experimentation in fabric and design led her first to George Brown College in Toronto and then to Capilano College in Vancouver, where she completed a four-year degree in textile arts. “Although the techniques were traditional,” says Soucie, “the school was a wonderful incubator for my creative pursuits.” It was while she was studying at Capilano College that the concept for Sans Soucie, Katherine’s now-successful clothing line, was born.
Katherine’s focus was always to develop custom fabrics that were practical, functional and unlike any others. “It became apparent to me that there was an overabundance of non-functional, mass-produced garments and textiles that perhaps had a functional future.” say Soucie.
It was this interest in working with disposable, rather than biodegradable, materials that led to Soucie’s obsession with women’s nylon pantyhose. Hosiery is a textile product that is considered not only a raw material, but also a finished garment. This unique material is not manufactured or made available by any other traditional textile production methods.

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