Untitled (detail)
Pencil on paper
46cm x 42cm
© 2008 Tammy Lu

“For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the mind. In all his Modes and habilatory endeavours an Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth are the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded mantles, based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amid peaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starched ruffs, buckram stuffings and monstruous tuberosities; or girth himself into separate sections, and front the world an agglomeration of four limbs, –will depend on the nature of such Architectural Idea…”

Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833)