tableware miscellaneous by Nina Levett

Camouflage Couture is about repeating images, much like the military look of it's namesake. Nina Levett’s patterns are combined in wallpaper, fashion, plates and accessories, and furniture so that they all blend into one and disappear.

The story of the camouflage couture idea is as follows:
Nina Levett had started a degree in Architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna but never finished because she moved to Italy for several years and had a family. When she separated from the father of her children, she returned to Vienna and wanted to study fashion design. For the entrance exam she had to chose a theme, and do a fashion collection, so she chose 'fashion for the housewife'. The designs worked with the fact that the woman of the house has historically been seen as a sort of household object; looking nice, perfect body, being sexy and speaking rarely. So, she thought the perfect clothing to go with this idea of the 'housewife' could be pieces that make her disappear; they would be the same color and print as the tiles in the bathroom, or as the sheets on the bed, all blending into one.

She now uses these designs with wallpapers, home textiles, and fashion articles; all the things that we use to make our homes and lives perfect. The idea is to show the perfect home, swallowing the perfect housewife with her perfect husband, and make them ridiculously invisible so that they become accessorized by their wish to be seemingly perfect people.

This teapot is handpainted. The paintings on the teapot are done with feather drawing and porcelain colours. It is a unique piece from the vintage series: pieces of porcelain from the fleamarket are re-elaborated and turned into new works of art.

Handprinted teapot with special Austronautic Alpine Levett design mixing pixel art and smooth vector lines.

Traditional symbols are printed on this teapot with the embroidered style of 'Heimat'. Mixing these traditional symbols with sexual images is somewhat strange and they work in contrast to each other.The combination of sex and Alps is a sort of sweet and sour mixture. It is unusual and comprises a type of criticism. It shouts. Open your eyes! Open your mouth! We’re all just human. The typical West-Austrian Alpine traditional symbolism has no space for sex, so I find it interesting to force these two themes together.

The Alpine Poesy collection references the designer’s personal life to a large degree, with illustrations of Austria, the Alps, the female body, sex, and fertility.
The Alpine Poesy collection is comprised of traditional symbols that are printed on products, and also presented on textiles with the Austrian Alps embroidered style of 'Heimat'. Mixing these traditional symbols with sexual images is somewhat strange and they work in contrast to each other. The combination of sex and Alps is a sort of sweet and sour mixture. It is unusual and comprises a type of criticism. It shouts. Open your eyes! Open your mouth! We’re all just human. The typical West-Austrian Alpine traditional symbolism has no space for sex these two themes are forced together.

The female body images in my work are always a sort of anonymous self portrait, but they also represent all women, regardless of their individual situation, and speak of the idea of woman as an object, which is much different than the idea of the male as object. 

The image of the child on the teapot is that a reference to the designer’s upbringing in Austria.

The Austrian Dirndl (the traditional dress on the girl on the teapot) is  linked to her grandfather's death and his identity, as he was a jew that died in a concentration camp. Sometimes, she escapes to her visual language and her work because they are silent, but also speak with a loud voice about the family, Austria, life here, identity, home, and safety.