Bjork ‘s Costumer James Merry Embodies Nature via Embroidery

Vice’s i-d recently featured Bjork ‘s costumer, Icelandic native James Merry. James moved to New York six years ago to work alongside the alternative icon, saying about the experience “meeting and working with her has definitely been the best thing that ever happened to me, in so many ways.” James works with Bjork to construct her eccentric fantasies, creating for her delicate dreamlike outfits which capture the essence of Bjork as an artist.

Coming from a country as overwhelmingly beautiful as Iceland spurred James’ infatuation and appreciation of the nuances of nature, something that is lacking in his current home the industrial artificial New York. A stint of James being in New York for too long (something he tries to avoid) inspired the artists’ latest project, an exploration of juxtaposing old iconic mass-produced sportswear with overlaid delicate hand embroidery. James said his goal for the project was “to take something that was super urban and machine-made and barren (my old Nike sweater), and fertilize it, forcing it to flower by embroidering a glacier flower and moss on it.”

This dissection and re-connection of disparate elements is not a new theme for James, in 2012 he released Anatomies a collection of illustrations which merge human and plant forms. A project which he describes as an “attempt to explain actual physical sensations I would feel when looking at plants or flowers—some kind of weird tactile/plant synesthesia…I was fascinated by that overlap between botanical and anatomical. It’s always such a lush place, where two seemingly different worlds can overlap.”

Read Jame’s full interview with i-d here, and check out his website here.