Lez in Training
Get to know EVERYTHING about the new collaborative collection from The LezBag, Jennifer Crouch & Ex-Girlfriend FC...
“Some bisexuals are just bisexuals and that’s fine…I really fantasize about ruining heterosexual marriages.” Jennifer Crouch
The handkerchief code was apparently brought into the world in 1972 by Alan Selby of Mr. S Leather. Although the idea of flagging discreetly to fellow Queers started with keys clipped via carabiners onto either side of belt loop, the introduction of bandanas and using colour variations helped refine individual preferences by non-verbally communicating one's sexual interests, tastes and kinks.
I’m sure I’m preaching to the converted here already (yes we know about gay bandanas Xoey get on with it) but I do see The Lez Bag as a means of flagging whilst providing an evolutionary step-up from the lone carabiner or bandana: it also helps carry your shit. With its crossbody design, carabiners used to clip plastic zip-bags onto an array of colourful strap options, The Lez Bag encompasses all other forms of non-verbal communication but does so in the form of a playful, gender-neutral accessory.
Modelled by Stacey. Photo by Mr Lez
So It’s no surprise since 2016 The Lez Bag has been a staple fixture within the Queer community and continues to develop unique means of signalling by collaborating with various artists who create their own take on the concept. Scrolling through their website you will see all the bags and ties they’ve produced so far succeed in pushing beyond the binary signifiers of sexuality and identity whilst inviting consumers to use the bag as a conduit for stylistic play. In essence its form is functional with a purposeful means to signal & seduce.
“when we create characters from our bags or ties, it’s sort of in a way imbuing the objects with a kind of life, because clothes do have life, you wear them and you cherish them and they become a part of your history.” - Mr Lez
The Lez Bag invites itself into your wardrobe with egalitarian poise & reeking of Dyke Camp. Their new collection continues to make me swoon over its self-assured, bombastic simplicity & this time, their keen special interest is football. Specifically: grassroots women's football and their love of the lesbians, trans mascs, dykes and enby’s who inhibit it.
Interestingly enough, during our interview it’s clear Mr Lez & Jennifer Crouch aren’t really into football as a sport at all. Because of this I realised their combined passions stem from a love of the more tactile elements of the sport, their own personal histories with the game & their love for the community of dykes that make up their friends & peers.
One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was privileged enough to interview both Mr Lez & Jennifer Crouch. As they sprawled onto the table their works-in-progress, they both explained in meticulous detail why each fabric was chosen, where it was sourced, what it meant to them and the unique story each bag will be telling. I was completely awestruck by the sheer amount of research that had gone into Lez In Training already but needed to find out more. So below is the transcript of our interview. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did listening…
Who are you?
JC: Jennifer Crouch and
MrL: Lez Bag (Mr Lez for the people)
How did you meet?
JC: I was working on a commission for an anatomical drawing book
MrL: Around lockdown I started messaging you because of your stories of your plant collection, so beautiful! You were so enthusiastic, excited and knowledgeable about all the different plants, and you had a plant called Cock that’s a lipstick plant? And you promised me a cutting
JC: Yes it’s very big now actually, it’ll come to you
But then you’ve worked together in a Lez Bag previously, how did that come about?
MrL: I had been approached by Suky Stroud, the captain from Ex-Girlfriend FC 2 years ago who wanted to do a collab. Suky said she needed me to design a bag that could carry a ball to practice so I said “yes” and then started an R&D period and it took me forever to learn how to make these nets to carry the balls but when I showed Souki her reaction was “but my keys are going to fall out”, and she said "maybe you can think about an inner lining" and that just knocked me back to six. But in my experiments during that R&D phase I found these strips of fabric and hardware, I put it around my neck and was like “Heyyyyyyy”
JC: The Lez tie was born
There's a lot of research involved and finding specific materials that work for each individual project, is that a sustainability angle?
MrL: I guess the Lez Bag is quite sustainable because it is just me in my studio and I make every single thing by myself.
JC: Yeah, it’s not about scale, with my practice too it is about the intimacy of making
MrL: Yeeeeeeah
JC: and I think what we both get really fucking hard about is the materials
You’re both very tactile
JC: You call it object fetishes right?
MrL: Mmmmmmm
JC: Like for example, can you pass me my Lez Bag?
[Mr Lez passes Jennifer Crouch her Lez Bag]
JC: There’s like stories and zips, here’s a bathroom mat that’s more of like a choker and it leaves suction marks on your neck and that’s kind of nice.
Jennifer Crouch, a lot of your work involves sigils, so I was wondering whether that might play into this collection at all. What with obviously the hyper commercialisation of football and the importance of logos, if that was going to come?
MrL: Well yeah that whole world of sponsors and stuff is not something that…
Gets you hard?
MrL: Yeeeeah
So are we going to see any sigils brought into the collection then instead?
JC: We did talk about keyrings and trinkets and I’m slowly learning about 3D printing but we were thinking about adding holographic stickers to the bottom of the bags like a football sticker, because my memories of football: I was in a garden, digging holes and pretending I was an animal and people were playing games and I was like “what?”
MrL: Well we were both brought up in London and we were talking about going through the playground and like, balls were flying, it was a kind of knife edge experience trying not to get hit everyday.
JC: I enjoy country dancing.
MrL: But what I tended to do in the playground was I had a pokemon card business, £2 for a shiny Charizard
JC: YEEEAAAAH
MrL: and I’m trying not to get hit by the ball but I did enjoy country dancing.
MrL: But in terms of sponsors and stuff, I think we both share a love of iconography, certainly in our tie collection we had these kind of mascots, one of them was Nigella Lawson and some people from Star Trek: Laxwana Troi, Kaiko O'Brien.
Do you remember the football stickers album? Made by Merlin? OOH and the bobbly heads?
In Unison: YEEEESSSSS
In terms of the collection as a whole is there a colourway thread throughout?
JC: Not that we’re doing this intentionally but each bag is emerging as its own kind of character or creature so we have like….the Fuchsia/Judith, high femme bag with this patent leather and suede interior with clear red vinyl in with that one. Then we have the Hellraiser: Lament Configuration, Leather and Lace and Lavendar Letters made from recycled heavy duty Royal Mail postal bags I found. So there are these characters that are emerging out of the materials that we’re using. There is a Palestine design, with woven fabric using red and green and black and white sheer mini hexagons.
MrL: But we were in the studio in the other day and we were saying how we should probably do a minimal one because
[In Unison] Dykes love a restricted a restricted colour scheme!
MrL: Black and White
JC: or monochrome
MrL: But yeah, well colour scheme wise Ex-Girlfriends FC kit is pale pink and black I think so always had it in mind it would be quite bright with that 90s, multi-coloured, graphics and geometric shapes and because their kit is quite simple it will allow for that to happen.
JC: Also with the classic Lez hardware, we can just get like the special bits and bobs and connect to the uniforms. We did want to make stickers, keyrings, a fold out Risograph poster catalogue with all the bags and their materials and bios in it.
MrL: It’s about touching and intimacy like fabric and intimacy
It’s an affirmation of the love language that you share with each other, the same tactile process
[In unison] Yeeeeeeeeah
Modelled by Honor, Nat & Lucy. Photographed by Jessie Mclaugh
So was the title for the collection ‘Lez in Training’ a pointed attempt to get bisexual women to break up with their boyfriends?
MrL: Oh my goddddddddd. Lez. In. Training.
JC: This is a very specific question…and it’s something I think about a lot
MrL: Is it for bisexuals? Wow. I think when I came up of the title I was thinking about Claude Cahun and their iconic “DON’T KISS ME I’M IN TRAINING” photograph
JC: and also some bisexuals are just bisexuals and that’s fine. I really fantasize about ruining heterosexual marriages.
MrL: Maybe it’s, Bisexuals and I dunno, Trans Femmes who want to explore their Lesbianism. Maybe they’re like “I’m in training, train me!” Maybe it’s the thought of like flirty provocation, like “I’m not really in training but I could be in training for you”
JC: Absolutely, absolutel
It is peak Dyke Camp
[In unison] Yeaah!
If Claude Cahun were a football team, which football team would they be?
MrL: Newcastle United
Why Newcastle United?
MrL: Just the colour scheme. I could imagine them in that kit. There’s something about Newcastle full-stop as well.
JC: The Tyne…River
[Everyone laughs]
MrL: Also Toon rhymes with Cahun
In what way did Dick Whittington inspire your process?
JC: Well I think he’s just super Camp, also kind of butch, he’s got a cat with boots on
MrL: I mean all of it, the little bag on the end of the stick
JC: So cute
So it’s all just pure visuals
[Everyone laughs]
MrL: Listen…I don’t know…Whittington Hospital is my local hospital
JC: I was teaching a quilting course and one of my adult students had been to the place where Dick Whittington was buried, we’re gonna go on a school trip to it
So all roads lead to dick
JC: Yeah, all roads lead to dick basically
Well what would be in your knapsack Lez Bag?
MrL: I would have a sandwich in there
JC: I would put my Caterpie in there (pulls our a Caterpie figurine from bag)
MrL: I don’t know about you Jennifer Crouch but I feel like with fashion and football I think of childhood nostalgia and there are certain textures and certain colours that evoke this childish sense of wonder and fantasy and play!
JC: I wanna say with my bag (shows bag), for the fancy knapsack when you open it up it’s a fucking picnic with glasses of wine kinda ‘lady and the tramp’ evening laid table on gingham with candles all just pops up magically and perfectly unfurled. That’s the fantasy I want.
MrL: Maybe when we create characters from our bags or ties, it’s sort of in a way imbuing the objects with a kind of life, because clothes do have life, you wear them and you cherish them and they become a part of your history.
JC: But yeah the idea of past and present and bringing things together, dykehood, I think escapism is really important but also like looking for these beautiful combinations of things and getting really excited about that and finding so much pleasure and excitement in just these material combinations. The world is a fucking mess, how do we cope with this fucking shit and it’s not about ignoring it and pretending it’s not there but it’s about being together and enduring and creating magical life affirming moments that give us courage . If you think about the Dyke Market it’s this ecology of self-sustaining economy within this ecology.
MrL: It’s an interesting one,what I find alienating about sports is this kind of competition that is baked into it right? Certainly in my artistic practice collaboration or creation is something apart from competition. There is something I guess that intrinsically frightens me about competitiveness?
What is it that you find frightening?
MrL: I think maybe it’s sport and the body, I guess to go back to disability maybe? Not feeling like my body worked in the ways that team sports celebrated.
I think it’s something to do with physicality. I’m reading this book by Alana Portero, it’s basically a fictive memoir but she talks about football and basically going to this football match with her Dad and his friend and feeling this real threat because the friend was emboldened to be racist and there’s something that potentially scares me about football culture.
I don’t know, but it is a way of making community too
JC: It’s also flagging dyke
MrL: I mean at the Dyke Market people were like “I don’t know if I can pull (this lezbag) off” but I feel like the minute you put it on, you’re wearing it, so you’re doing it right?
Exactly, I remember buying my first pair of platforms and feeling so anxious about the idea of putting them on and actually wearing them outside but when I did I realised no one gave a shit and I came into this new power for myself. It’s so amazing to see you both pushing the perceptions of yourself via the designs with this collaboration too, I mean even just looking at what you’ve brought along to share with me today…you’ve got a fucking stick on the table you know?
MrL: Stick Whittington honey, Stick Whittingtonnnnnnnnn!
Oh my god imagine if one of the bags was a cat carrier
[In unison] Oh wowwwww
MrL: But sticks are also very childlike. I was never far from a stick as a kid
So what’s going on after this collection? Have you got any plans for the foreseeable future?
JC: I want to make a strap-on with Lez Bag fabric and a corset and some sleeves made out of some organza and just really research some medieval costume design. But I also want to make dildos, I really want to make an alien xenomorph dildo that you can punch, like fuck-punch. It would be a really fun way to fuck somebody or get fucked.
MrL: I’m thinking about making some porn
JC: YES!
MrL: So that’s a potential thing and I’ve got two collaborations coming up, one with Chloe Baines, one with Maria Maltino erm and yeah, just trying to find time to squeeze them in and ...erm yeah, porn.
And when will the collection be ready?
MrL: I’m thinking by September, hopefully September 10th
Why not September 11th?
JC: Oh…well, that’s your favourite date
Yeeeah
JC: I’m gonna be 40 soon
When?
JC: 30th September
MrL: Shall we take a little selfie before we finish?
Yeah
JC: yeeeeah
The first drop of the new collection ‘LEZ IN TRAINING’ will be available Friday 12th September at some point in the afternoon. Get your orders in HERE & if you don’t already make sure to follow them on socials.
Post interview notes from the collaborators themselves:
Since the interview we have decided to make keyrings and stickers and embroidered patches with a holographic sigil/crest representing the union of LEZ, EG FC and Jennifer Crouch (exclusively for this project cos we love it) - will be be available in late October/ early nov.
The idea is to capture 'Monster Munch Bicycle Spokey Dokey Reflector & Stickers' circa 1991 and the magic of MERLIN holographic football stickers and sticker books. So these will be ENCHANTED with our own special spells that protect and celebrate queer DYKEHOOD in all its forms and manifestations... These will be released a lil later as they are a recent development in the project. Maybe by mid October or early November