what is it with Lisa's obsession with
cats? "it's true how many cases of fancy
feast did you have to buy before they
gave you that dress?" Lisa loves cats.
I have known Lisa Hammer for longer than
is reasonable- uh I'm not sure how long
reasonable is- I want to say seven inches?
[Maybe Sunshine!] Because there was a band called
Requiem in White that I was seeing in
the 80s - am I delusional? Am I crazy?
In the 80s I was in a band called Requiem
in White and I would say we were a cross
with you know - Black Sabbath with an
opera singer - we were very heavy heavy
heavy death rock - which then was the
phrase - goth was coined from - which we never
really thought we were goth but
apparently we were. Requiem in White was
sort of lightning in a bottle I don't
know- it was the right place right time-
we moved to New York- people kind of
started going crazy- at that point
everyone was doing the spiky black hair-
kind of Siouxsie or The Cure- but we were
doing medieval kind of look I had the
long red hair with the red velvet dress
that Karen from Arkivestry made for me.
"hi I'm Karen Fleisch"
Karen Fleisch is an
incredible designer and she with her
partner Robi Diana in the 80s were in
a company called Accomplice- they were
designing- I believe they designed the
first real Gothic clothing for the scene-
so- the frilly shirts, the frock coats, the
long dresses, like all the Victorian wear-
mainly in my life I'm a designer I
have had a line called Arkivestry for a
very long time in which my design
partner and I just designed for all
sorts of musicians and performers-
Howard Stern, Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Jones, Cher,
Olivia Newton-John, Al Jorgensen's hat-
(from Ministry), Mick Jagger- and they
started designing custom dresses for
me for Requiem in White that- and I
would say "listen I want- look at this
Pre-Raphaelite painting this Waterhouse
painting and make me the dress in the
painting"- this beautiful long brocade
dress with blah blah blah- and my hair
would be long and
wavy and they would just come back with
this gorgeous dress that had a train
behind it and long sleeves and the
brocade and the lace up- oh my god.
I used
to dress Lisa in corseted tiny little
Renaissance dresses and and things that
laced up and showed off her 21 inch waist.
people started dressing like us- it
turned into a phenomena- there was a red
dress that they made for me that was
dubbed somehow by fans as the Requiem
red dress- it was this huge show - that was with Type O-Negative, right?
and we just
wanted at least we just how to do
something over the top and fabulous
for Lisa, and um, we designed a red and
black and silver like metal brocade
borders and these great Renaissance
sleeves and corseted overdress- the skirt
that was underneath it- and then she had
her red hair down to her waist- she just
looked like something out of one of the
Romantic paintings it was just it was extraordinary.
Karen is now doing her own
line and she's a really good friend of
mine and I asked her if she could be
involved in the show we didn't really
have a budget for her so I'm hoping with
when we do get a budget I'd like to hire
her because she's a genius her work is
gorgeous a lot of what I do now has a
bit of sophistication to it style-wise
I'd like to incorporate all kinds of
interesting ideas from vintage clothing
to very current clothing and um make so
much personality come out.
You know Lisa and I are about the same age and yeah-
and so we face a lot of the same
struggles and that we're both still
musicians we're both still out there
playing shows we're both still living
the dream or trying to...
well older women
compared to 18 and 20 year olds bodies
completely different- there's subtle
little things that happen that if you
dress right you don't really notice it-
but when you are dressing and when you
are designing or doing something
custom-made for someone you have a lot
more to take into
context so---
"I'm not pregnant- you're not
pregnant you just fat?"
obviously was
something like this it's a show and
she's trying to look like a current rock
singer she wants she wants to look
current without making herself look aged---
[Maybe Sunshine]
The costume for DJ dark
appeared from Karen Fleisch's - bountiful
wardrobe - she brought in several pieces
because I'm DJ dark and I do not have
the same tastes in clothing, so Karen was
able to pull a couple of choice pieces I
think we're looking at like elf punk
maybe for our next season for my
wardrobe and I'm hoping she'll just do
me head to toe because as soon as she
Styles me I look amazing she styled me
for the for the spiNYC show with the
black dress and the pink tie- Karen Fleisch
has been styling me probably since 1991-
it's got to be that about that that long
ago we- they did a couple of like
magazine spreads with myself dressed in
their clothing and my ex-husband dressed
in their clothing and we did fashion
shows at the Limelight with them and of
course they dressed they pretty much dressed
all of us that the men and the band as
well
I
