The first artist who was asked to participate in the RIPPING ATOPOS project back in 2006, was the Greek Vasso Gavaisse (b. 1973). She had been experimenting and working with paper and some of her works resembled a kind of geometric paper lace. Gavaisse was given a duplicate long silver metallic dress from the Space Age trend in the fashion of the 1960s. The artist herself recalls that the first thing that came into her mind when she saw the dress was ‘Metallized Light’. Gavaisse also created a hat from a metallized piece of paper.

”The idea is that of ‘future past’, which is distinctive in my work. Το penetrate the sense of sanctity in this futuristic, cheap, ephemeral and ‘fun; dress. To ‘dress’ decorative bands, which correspond to the byzantine clavia and the qualities of the traditional and the precious’.”

Excerpts from a written interview to M. Pichou on the occasion of the article
“The ATOPOS RIPPING Project: a “new” life for dress objects ?” (COSTUME, volume 54, issue 2, 2020)