Marie goes Dada for Dada

Marie Strauss is undoubtedly the coolest cat in town. I was lucky enough to go to a talk by her at the Dunedin Art Museum about a month ago, and she has now definitely made my top 100 favourite people ever (there are a lot of them). Being both an artist and the owner and designer at Dada boutique, Marie had a lot to say! 

The Dada attitude? ‘Life is art’. Marie was very much into animal iconography referring to the subjects in her paintings as the ‘peeping, shy, childlike bear’ and painting monkeys in real life situations, which I thought was rather adorable! With her big round glasses and eccentric clothing coordination she was hard not to love. 

Marie’s thoughts on fashion: ‘What is fashionable is already out of fashion’ ‘There is no seriousness in fashion’ (which a gentleman sitting next to me bitterly disagreed with), ‘I find fashion relaxing’ and alternatively, ‘I get quite bored, I think what now? What do I do now?? So I bake a cake.’

Gotta love her. 

Liz Odey