Is it the expectations of emotional and physical fluidity put upon women that have, historically, tied women to all things aquatic? Is there some intersection between women and nature which brings us necessarily closer to water? And yet, are we still ashamed of our own wetness?
Di Petsa doesn’t just create impossibly fluid pieces but also considers the female experience of fluidity via clothing, performance, and research.
The brand, founded by Dimitra Di Petsa, set out with the goal of creating “a vision of a totally wet woman”. Today, Di Petsa is synonymous with their ground-breaking, draped ’wet-look’ technique and their ‘Wet Script’ excerpts.
Di Pesta produces both bespoke, custom pieces and seasonal collections available via their online store. The latest collection, Self Birth, sees heavy use of blue and white, stretch mesh printed with Wet Script excerpts such as Our bodily fluids, water filtered through our bodies, bodily water, and cries in public.
With these Wet Script pieces and others like them from previous seasons, the idea of the ‘wearer-performer’ takes shape. As “performance tools” the pieces play a role in re-centering the wearer, bringing them back to their home self and connecting with their intentions on a deeper level, according to Di Petsa.
The full Di Petsa texts can be found in their book, Wetness: A Script Of Bodily Water, which consists of 7 chapters exploring 7 bodily fluids such as Urine, Saliva and Brest Milk.
Again, exploring the relationship between women and water, the signature diaphanous, wet-look pieces invite an acceptance of our relationship to water and our origins of wetness. The cutting-edge, ‘wet-look’ fabric design was 6 months in the making and stemmed from a series of performances that Di Petsa presented during her BA in performance design and practice at CSM.
As these pieces tend to flow with the natural folds and curves of the body, the wet-look pieces are all customized and, as such, have become a celebrity favourite, worn by the likes of Doja Cat, Kali Uchis, Alexa Demi, and SZA.
Achieving both global, commercial success and a widely-circulated vision of the ‘wet woman’, Di Pesta and her brand have started a dialogue on the shame associated with female wetness and the special relationship between women and water.
As a brand, Di Pesta encourages displays of raw humanity and eschews historical ideas of women’s bodies as dirty and in need of sanitation. With Di Pesta, all forms of wetness are encouraged — breastfeeding on the bus, dribble running down your chin, pissing yourself, crying in public, and many more which we’ll leave up to your interpretation.
Let the mind run wild, you’re never too wet for Di Pesta.
