What happens when a garment becomes a surface for memory, gesture, and presence?

During Stockholm Art Week 2026, A Day’s March and Mack Art Foundation present a collaboration with artist Rugiyatou Jallow – a series of hand-painted garments and a limited-edition silk scarf, shaped through an intuitive, personal process.

Born in Stockholm and now based in Los Angeles, Jallow is known for her expressive, often self-portrait-based paintings. Her work explores identity, belonging, and emotional distance, shaped by navigating multiple cultural contexts. Through layered compositions, forms emerge and dissolve through gesture and repetition.

Here, that language is translated into clothing.

What role does clothing play in how you express yourself?

Clothing is an extension of my practice. In the same way I build a painting through layers, texture, and subtle shifts in tone, I approach dressing as a composition. I tend to gravitate toward minimal silhouettes and earth tones, but I’m always attentive to small details – how a seam falls, how a fabric moves, how something sits on the body. Getting dressed feels like preparing a surface. It’s a quiet, daily ritual of shaping how I want to move through the world – not in a performative way, but as a form of alignment between my internal state and what I present externally.

Do you think garments can hold memory or identity in the same way that art does?

Absolutely. I think garments absorb the body over time – the way they’re worn, repeated, carried through different moments. They hold traces of movement, environment, and emotional states, even if subtly. In that sense, they’re not so different from paintings. Both can act as vessels. A painting holds gestures and decisions; a garment holds lived experience. Over time, they both accumulate meaning beyond their original form.

Do you see style as a form of storytelling? If so, what kind of stories do you tell through what you wear?

I do, but the storytelling is subtle. It’s less about a narrative you can immediately read, and more about a feeling that lingers. The way I dress reflects a balance between softness and presence – something grounded, calm, but intentional. If there’s a story, it’s one of introspection and self-containment. Someone who doesn’t need to announce themselves loudly to be felt.

How do you imagine these pieces living on a body, rather than on a wall?

On a body, the work becomes activated in a completely different way. It moves, it breathes, and enters real environments. It’s no longer something to be observed at a distance – it becomes part of someone’s daily rhythm. I think about how the imagery and materials shift with movement, posture, light, and the pace of someone’s day. There’s something intimate about that. The work is no longer static – it becomes relational.

What do you hope someone carries with them when they wear one of your pieces?

I want the piece to feel like a companion rather than a statement – something that doesn’t overpower, but instead brings the relationship between the person and the art closer.

Each overshirt in the collection has been individually hand-painted by Rugiyatou Jallow using textile pigment.

Variations, marks, and irregularities are part of the work. The silk scarf features a printed artwork by the artist, Förenade i ängens ande (2026).