Paper-Cut-Project

High-concept origami as fashion
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Photograph courtesy of Jackson Fine Art, Greg Lotus, and Paper-Cut-Project

Athens writer Amy Flurry and former Addiction boutique owner Nikki Salk have madly cut and glued their way out of the economic downturn. Their Paper-Cut-Project—in which they transform ordinary Bristol paper into distinctive, delightfully detailed wigs, masks, and accessories—began as a creative outlet after the magazine Flurry wrote for folded and Salk’s boutique closed. It has since morphed into a booming cottage industry.

“We both shared a love of fantasy, fashion, and storytelling as it played out in the pages of magazines,” says Flurry, who travels regularly to Salk’s Decatur studio to brainstorm and create new pieces. The duo can spend as many as eighty hours constructing the looks, which have referenced sixties fashion photography and have used natural forms like leaves, feathers, and seashells. Since they launched Paper-Cut-Project in early 2010, their masks and wigs have become coveted fashion accessories for international brands like Hermès, Jeffrey, and Cartier, topping models’ heads on runways, decorating shop windows at Kate Spade, or gracing a forthcoming Italian Vogue spread shot by New York photographer Greg Lotus.

Now the pair’s paper wigs are making the jump from accessory to art object, thanks to Jackson Fine Art gallery owner Anna Walker Skillman, who snapped up all seven wigs from the Italian Vogue shoot. Skillman will display the wigs (which run in the $3,000 range), as well as Lotus’s black-and-white photographs from the magazine shoot, at Jackson Fine Art from November 3 to January 21. Skillman will also present the wigs as one-of-a-kind sculpture at the annual festival Art Miami in early December. “The object itself is so intense and beautiful and handmade,” says Skillman of the wigs. “They should be exhibited and presented almost as a piece of art.”

Felicia Feaster is one of our editorial contributors.
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