At Dossier, we’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Elle Muliarchyk a number of times on fashion editorials. Each time, the result has been a complex and highly saturated tale—both in color and character. So when Elle wrote me with news of her latest project, “Escapes from Paradise,” with a subject line reading: My most special project ever!!! I was intrigued, by both her passion and her subsequent description of the project as a multimedia interactive online gallery/blog/diary.
Elle, a model/photographer and much more than those words signify, has never been easy to place in a box; it made sense that this personal project would be equally enigmatic. But multimedia understates its innovation. “Escapes From Paradise” is a sensorial experience (comprising artwork, photographs, GIFS and original music compositions). It is lacking only aroma, which is easily appended if viewers immerse themselves deeply enough into the project and their own subconscious to conjure elapsed memories of starry nights and surreal moments, and the associated scents of these recollections. For Elle, “Escapes” served as a creative cleanse that enabled her to reset her internal compass. For viewers, it serves as a reminder that in order to develop we need to dream, and do. We have included a short preview of stills here, but to sponge advice from the artist herself: We highly recommend that you visit the site, make it full screen and use headphones.
Erin Dixon: What was the catalyst for the trip?
Elle Muliarchyk: I had been visiting Chadwick Bell’s studio while he was working on his Spring ’13 collection. I was inspired by the woman he imagined. I saw her as a romantic ideal of myself: a 2013 Georgia O’Keeffe—a city girl, an artist, escaping into the desert to find clarity and reinvent herself. I hadn’t really left the city for at least six years, and I thought it was perfect timing to become the fantasy woman Chadwick had invented. I thought of the trip as a fashion experiment and a performance, but it turned into something more intimate.
Erin: How did you decide upon the route?
Elle: Chadwick was inspired by the 1920s photography of the serene, vast desert, so I started in Arizona and Utah. From then on, my journey was nearly as spontaneous as Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. I traveled the West and East Coasts seeking magical, yet understated landscapes.
Erin: How did the contrast of tailored clothing and nature activate your creativity or inform the character?
Elle: The fashion industry thrives on characters. It manufactures a plethora of fictional personages that we happily inhabit. We are so seduced and over stimulated by them that we never think of discovering and creating a character of our own. Having been a model and a photographer in New York City, I’d accumulated so many masks that my creativity became diluted. I wanted to strip off those masks and create something new. That is why I am unidentifiable in the photographs. I want anyone be able to invent his or her own character or story while they’re on the website. I don’t want them to see “Elle Muliarchyk in a black wig.”
Erin: How did the collection influence the shots?
Elle: I wanted to be an observer blending into the environment. For example: In the image with the big cactus, I’m wearing a dress with similar vertical ridges. I’m wearing a snow-white jumpsuit next to a snow-white adobe church.
Erin: Did the words come before, after or during the trip?
Elle: It happened simultaneously. I had never kept a diary until this trip. Every few days, I’d send a new entry to the writer Anne B Kelly. She would then weave it into a single fiction story and send her progress back to me. Her words inspired me for the images to follow.
Erin: What was the most challenging medium in which to work?
Elle: It was the layout. I worked with my team to recreate individual elements that evoked my experiences from the trip, be we needed to put them back together! I guess it’s like synthesizing various scents and combining them artfully into a perfume. It would have never happened without Jacob Wildschiødtz’s art direction.
Erin: Is there any part of the experience not featured in the project?
Elle: Time! I wish I could make the website feel like you’re on a several months’ journey, while keeping the reader captivated. Even Marcel Proust hardly succeeded at it. Our attention span is so short—but that’s the side effect of our age… My hope is that people will linger on the website and actually take time to read the story. Take time for magic in your life!
Erin: How did the project help you evolve as an artist?
Elle: On one hand, I absolutely thrive on collaboration and believe that you can create greater things working together. On another hand, with collaboration there is always feedback that taints your creative instincts. Often the final creation is just a sum of compromises. Even when you work alone (let’s say photographing a friend to feature on a blog), you’re always creating a “product” for a particular audience. The “feedback” is always in the back of your mind. However, they say the true “geniuses” are “selfish.” They are ignorant of external opinions and don’t bother to “please” anyone but themselves. For “Escapes,” I decided to suspend the approval/feedback-seeking desire and just create images I loved. In fact, I wasn’t planning to share and publish them until halfway into the journey.
I would recommend this exercise to every creative person. It’s like a reset button. I feel like I rediscovered and reinvented myself creatively on this journey. I have more faith in my visual language and message.
Erin: Did you learn any fundamental truths about humanity or human nature? What was the most surprising thing you learned about yourself?
Elle: I think we’ve become cyborgs. Even when we get together with friends, our conversation mirrors the technology. We either “reblog” (recycle old information or gossip) or “Instagram” (report the events from our lives, tinting them with our favorite “filters”). I discovered the magic of fashion for the first time in my life seven years ago, when I secretly took self-portraits in hundreds of changing rooms. I didn’t try on those expensive garments in order to post the photos on my blog—there were no fashion blogs then! I was captivated by the transformative power of fashion. I discovered that my mission now is to inspire women to discover and experience the magic of fashion on their own terms. Dress for yourself, try to not think whether what you wear would be snapped or snubbed by a street-style photographer.
Erin: What place were you most affected by and why? What is your favorite shot from the trip and why?
Elle: Perhaps it was in the middle of the night, on the rocky beach on the East Coast (the shot with white umbrella). There was a tiny harbor with sailboats chiming in the wind. It sounded like a hundred little churches were ringing their bells. It actually happens when the lines lightly bump against the mast. I’d never heard this sound before and it was magical. [See here]
Erin: Where will you go next?
Elle: I’m preparing for a similar collaboration with another designer and model I love. I want to continue creating these little “fashion wormholes” through which you can transport yourself into a fairytale—or you can crawl in bed with it as with your favorite book.
Photography by Elle Muliarchyk. Art Direction by Jacob Wildschiødtz. Story by Anne B Kelly. Music by Superflux. Covers artwork by Tarik Mikou . Website design: Plume.net.
