Robert Sheppard doesn’t often design garters nor does he
usually compose monostichs. But he saw a pair of eighteenth century garters in a Lancaster museum with mottos embroidered on them and thought he could produce monostichs (one line poems) for a modern pair. He hadn't thought of them actually being manufactured. Neither had he realised that this ancient garment/moral instrument had endured into the current age in wedding lingerie.
No matter: he offered the erotic poems to Tom Jenks for his Zimzalla series and Tom (ever the resourceful craftsman as he has proved with this varied series) set to work. You can just about read some of the words in the photo above.
This is the result:
Robert Sheppard – Avant Garters – poetic hosiery wrapped in gold paper and sealed with wax.
Other recent and, frankly, more orthodox Sheppard publications (books of poems mostly) may be read about here.
