Designed by
Manuel Raeder, this fully illustrated book features for the first time the wide range of Bless' activity and documents a unique mode of cultural production.
Bless came to fame in the winter of ‘97/‘98, when the models of a Martin Margiela fashion show wore Bless wigs made out of fur. Heralded as one of fashion's most innovative designers, the Paris and Berlin-based duo (Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag) quickly refused to capitalize on one milieu. Constantly investigating the boundaries of style, Bless slides from fashion to beauty, interior decoration to art exhibition, collaboration with other brands to stylized advertising. Their production, which sits on the fine line between art object and design, high function and high fashion, is always unique and marked by the recycling and adaptation of unexpected items put to use in a totally new way. Objects such as customizable footwear, disposable T-shirts, chair covers, table mobiles, cable jewellery, and wallpapers, but also an “extended hotel service” range among the many products that have resulted from their manipulations of a garment or piece of furniture.
Bless is a provocative collaborative project by Desiree Heiss (born 1971 in Freiburg, Germany) and Ines Kaag (born 1970 in Fürth, Germany) generating products in the fields of
fashion accessories, design and
fine art.
Bless have exhibited internationally at the 1st Berlin biennale (1998/99), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1999), Centre Pompidou (2000), Manifesta 4 (2002), Palais de Tokyo (2003), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2004), Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2003), Goethe-Institut, Tokyo (2005), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006)...
