‘Fusing utility and irony’: Fashion designer Sarah Wondrack questions consumer culture through wearable art

Brooklyn-based artist Sarah Wondrack is a true recycler. The designer gives atypical materials — like bread clips, safety ribbons and old denim — a new lease on life, transforming them into wearable art that pushes the boundaries of fashion.

Wondrack’s approach to clothing design may seem unconventional — she selects the material she wants to use before designing the piece. 

“I usually approach fashion by thinking about materiality and collecting recycled materials,” Wondrack, who has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fiber, said. She then determines “how I can put them together and apply a pattern and make and drape to that.”

Though a lifelong artist, Wondrack’s career in fashion design only began to bloom in 2018. 

“I always had an interest in sewing just from my family. My grandmother, my great grandmother, my mom were all seamstresses,” Wondrack said. “That was always something I was curious about.” 

Wondrack took pattern-making and design classes in New York City’s Koreatown before earning a Master of Fine Arts in Fiber at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. The artist considers her pieces wearable art that use the body as a form of communication instead of a brand or clothing line.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back to grad school for costume or fashion, but I figured I would go back for fibers since it is so interdisciplinary and it would give me this freedom to play and evolve,” Wondrack said. “Then I started really working more on the body and thinking about how to translate emotion and allow these experiences to unfold through making.”

One of Wondrack’s pieces is a dress fashioned entirely out of bread clips she found on the ground while walking her dogs. The dress is one of many of her designs that challenges consumer culture and draws attention to material excess. 

“I go through a lot of different phases with my work,” she said. “I will discover a material, either through my job working in fabrication or perhaps a sculpture class — for example, mold making. I was really into creating molds of body parts and then figuring out how to make them into a garment… it’s really just what I find attractive, what I find in abundance.”

Some of her recycled works will be featured at this year’s Carbondale Arts Fashion Show. The now sold-out show, titled “Camera Obscura”, runs from March 6-8. 

The collection that Wondrack will send down the runway is mainly created from recycled “utilitarian” materials like safety ribbon, denim and khaki, she said. 

 “These pieces were mostly donated, some of them were recycled, and I see it as this satirical take and critique on our obsession with modern convenience culture,” Wondrack said. “Some of the pieces have an abundance of pockets and I deconstruct these denim jeans into…new wearable works. I’m sort of fusing utility and irony.”

Wondrack’s personal favorite from the collection, aptly titled “Ease of Excess,” is “Pocket Jumpsuit,” which she created during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I was spending a lot of time in my studio then and I had listened to a podcast about how women’s clothing lacked pockets,” Wondrack said. “So I was thinking, how do I make something with an abundance of pockets to make up for lost pockets in our clothing?”

The Y2-K style jumpsuit was the first piece Wondrack made for the collection. She likens it to a quilt: the outfit is constructed from a multitude of cut-out pockets, all from donated or thrifted jeans, that are sewn together. 

“I’m thinking about how that baggage can weigh us down, but on the outside, it’s this beautiful piece,” Wondrack said. “I’m thinking about those dualities, as well as the piece being attractive on the outside, but then having these darker undertones.”

Another striking piece in the collection is made of safety ribbon. 

“I’ve always been really attracted to safety ribbon,” Wondrack said. “I like the metallic quality of it. I like how the sun reflects off the ribbon and really gives it life, but it’s just so mundane, but also ubiquitous.

“I find that sewing this together and transforming it into something new is something that I’m really drawn to,” she added.

All nine pieces Wondrack will showcase at “Camera Obscura” reflect the theme “conveniently inconvenient,” she said.

“I’m challenging consumers to reconsider the balance between necessity and excess in our lives,” Wondrack said. “So thinking about how, as a society, we inconvenience ourselves by making things convenient.”