Shirt c. 1937

Curator: This is Virginia Berge's "Shirt," created around 1937, rendered in pencil. What strikes you first? Editor: Well, the sheer simplicity. The delicate lines barely there on the page, it's almost ghostly. There's a precision, but a vulnerability too, like it could disappear at any moment. Curator: It’s fascinating how she elevates such a mundane object. Think about the social and economic context—the Great Depression. Clothing represented labor, identity, but also lack and aspiration. What statements might Berge have been trying to make here? Editor: I think the artist might be focused on the work—the pattern making, the stitching—the physical making, maybe also the gendered dimensions of production. It calls attention to the labor typically done by women to maintain a presentable self for participation in society. Curator: I see that and I agree that it references how marginalized peoples are impacted by production economies, but it also strikes me that it critiques how such a humble thing has immense bearing on gender and class. How many expectations are stitched into a simple shirt? How has the symbolism of what we wear shifted across the last nearly 100 years? Editor: Definitely, and there's an element of deconstruction here, too. It's just an outline, the essential form. Where are the laboriously harvested or spun materials? Where are the factory or home and community laborers that stitched it into being? We are made to acknowledge this history, it gives it a different feeling from fast-fashion sketches from that era, Curator: Precisely. There is an undeniable dialogue here between the social meaning of labor, materiality, and even how dress can make identity into performance. It's a prompt to think more deeply about ourselves, what our bodies do in our clothing. Editor: The way Berge used her skill with just pencil is what is important here. She's drawing attention to both how it's made, from raw materials to a tangible item, and the people behind that production. Curator: And also perhaps what the final piece symbolizes, to a more powerful group. To have nothing to wear signals something of your potential. What happens to you, then? How will you be valued? Editor: Exactly. It's quite sobering. It definitely pushes this image far past simple sartorial interests!