The Collaborative Genius of threeASFOUR

Art

The revolutionary design collective takes fashion to a seven-foot-high temple

If multiculturalism is a gateway to enlightenment, then nirvana can be found on the third floor of a battered tenement building on New York’s Lower East Side. There, at the heart of this iconic immigrant crossroads, three floors above a Chinese plumbing supplies shop, lies a loft space painted silver and filled with metallic sequined upholstery, mirrors, art books and potted plants. This shimmering world is the ethereal headquarters of threeASFOUR, an avant-garde fashion collective composed of three designers who themselves come from culturally divergent backgrounds.

"All my life I heard my relatives bitch about the Jews. Then the war started, and it was Christians against Muslims. Everybody was bitching about each other. Later, when I met Adi in New York, we realized that our cultures were so much the same."

Angela Donhauser, the comedienne (and expert couturier) of the group, was born in Tajikistan and grew up in Germany. Gabi Asfour, who studied engineering and math before decamping to fashion, was born in Beirut to Palestinian parents. Adi Gil is the charismatic redhead and artist who grew up as a Jewish Israeli. The cross-pollination of experiences and ideas is central to their collaboration. “Our work is very much about that,” Gil says. “We want to show that everybody is connected.”

Still, with their diverse backgrounds, the designers were surprised to receive an invitation from the Jewish Museum offering to host a major exhibition on a topic of their own choosing. The museum’s director, Claudia Gould, had seen a threeASFOUR exhibit in Tel Aviv, Insalaam Inshalom, which sought to underline the similarities between Jewish and Arab cultures, and reached out. “She gave us a platform,” Gil says. “And we took it!”

Angela searches for art and fashion titles in the floor-to-ceiling library at the rear of threeASFOUR’s Lower East Side workroom.

The designers’ cat finds her regular perch on a wicker stool in front of the silver-painted bookcase.

A collection of sketches, drawings, and other artwork by the design collective.

Sliced kosher dill pickles and a special drinking glass.

The five-month-long exhibition, threeASFOUR: Mer Ka Ba, consists of an ambitious multimedia installation incorporating fashion, architecture and video projections. The centerpiece is a seven-foot-high “temple,” designed in collaboration with the architect Christian Wassmann, that is shaped like a three-dimensional Star of David. The museum will also exhibit threeASFOUR’S latest fashions—gorgeously realized and intricate couture pieces that were made (with the help of another architect, Bradley Rothenberg) with such cutting-edge technologies as 3-D and digital printing and laser cutting.

What’s more, as part of the Performa biennial festival, the designers will stage a performance at the museum with live models clad in gowns made entirely out of bread, which the audience will be able to tear off and eat. “The bottom line is we are all very curious creatures,” says Donhauser. “And we have found each other. We explore that curiosity through fashion. When you think about it, we are artists operating in fashion, and not really fashion designers, per se. We are exploring and pushing—creating something new.”

Gabi wears a calligraphy necklace of his name commissioned by his mother (she did so for each of the three designers) from a Lebanese artists in Beirut.

Central to the Jewish Museum exhibition is the concept of merkaba, an enigmatic term that the designers discovered has roots across several antique cultures, from early Jewish mysticism to Hinduism. The term ka ba also alludes to Kaaba, one of the holiest sites of Islam. In the Kabbalah, a symbol of merkaba is the star tetrahedron, two pyramids interlaced to form a 3-D six-pointed star. “It’s believed to create an energy force like an aura,” Asfour says.

ThreeASFOUR has always been drawn to concepts of mathematics and geometry. An earlier collection revolved around fractal patterns, which the designers digitized into textile prints. For the Jewish Museum exhibition, they sought out tiling patterns from synagogues, mosques and Romanesque churches, and used them to create digital prints and three-dimensional garments, including pants, dresses and a plastic resin shoe cover designed to slip over a stiletto. “What’s amazing is that we found that when you overlap these patterns, they all visually connect,” Gil says. “We created a print that represents all three cultures and brings them all together.” 

"When you think about it, we are artists operating in fashion, and not really fashion designers, per se. We are exploring and pushing—creating something new."

As thrilled as he is about the Jewish Museum show, Asfour admits that at an earlier point in his life, he would never have imagined his participation in such a project. “My parents left Israel when the Israelis came,” he says. “They were kicked out during the Mandate and moved to Lebanon. All my life I heard my relatives bitch about the Jews. Then the war started, and it was Christians against Muslims. Everybody was bitching about each other. Later, when I met Adi in New York, we realized that our cultures were so much the same. My Palestinian mom is very much like a Jewish mother. Even our two languages, Hebrew and Arabic, have so many words in common.” “Yes, a lot of bad words!” Gil interjects. “Yeah, like hummus,” Asfour jokes.

As the sun begins to fade, reflected in the silvery light of the workroom, the designers return to their preparations for their upcoming fashion show and exhibition. Donhauser approaches the loft’s small kitchen and starts assembling sustenance for the evening ahead: a green salad topped off with small rounds of dill pickle purchased from the nearby The Pickle Guys stand on Essex Street. While she chops, Asfour and Gil return to the complex task of piecing together 3-D clothing sections—fresh from the printer, Materialise in Belgium—into wearable garments. “We spend most of our lives here,” says Gil of their LES studio. Donhauser concurs: “It’s not where is your home. Home is where the art is.”