by Mary O’keefe and Eliza Malecki
Lost & Found
Covered by Logan Phesay and Kris Torku
Lost and Found is the largest and most recent project of stylist Mary O’Keefe (@maryothrift) and choreographer Eliza Malecki (@slinkymalecki). Much more than just a fashion show, Lost and Found was a performance, involving both a cast of models and a team of dancers. It follows the simple narrative of finding one's outfit for the day , but reveals how deeply personal and important this process can be.
Stylist O’Keefe sourced pieces almost exclusively from thrift store “ Found Boston”, which also means all pieces in the show are second hand clothing. This is both reminiscent of O’Keefes early career, where she would style exclusively secondhand, but also adds to the show's personality. By having secondhand clothing each piece “holds a story” says O'Keefe that they can expand upon with their work.
The outfits themselves bring an infinitely broad range of aesthetics and inspirations, combining streetwear, high fashion, retro, vintage, etc. All linked together by the models and dancers enjoying wearing them. It is made very clear that performers feel confident and comfortable in the selected outfits, which along with the choreography and movement done by Malecki gives an energy and vitality that many runways can lack.
Malecki gives her performers a degree of freedom, involving loose fun gestures and frequent small flares of personality. Such as hair flips or a tip of the hat, that both add to the chique confidence of the show and emphasize the overlap of the shows two main mediums, dance and fashion. Malecki and O’Keefe hope to bring the worlds of dance and fashion closer together with “ Lost and Found”, and as a result has created something very new and fresh for the Boston art scene.
