As Craft Australia's 2007 Year of Design program continues, evolving synchronicities between contemporary craft and design practice are further explored. Via this exploration design (when loosely defined as a process of production encompassing numerous creative avenues), has found itself at the annex of numerous dialogues, exhibitions, and trade fairs. One small thread in this complex tapestry concerns the thriving arena of contemporary Australian fashion. View images

In a society increasingly effected by mass production and globalization, the nature of fashion has never been more subject to change. For this reason issues of production, distribution, and the promotion of Australian boutique fashion designers, in the face of these crucial trends, have pervaded the numerous exhibitions and organizations across Craft Australia's Year of Design program. From the annual showcases of Melbourne's L'Oreal Fashion Festival to the innovative and ongoing Young Blood market founded by the Powerhouse Museum, changes in approach amongst a thriving generation of contemporary Australian fashion emerges. Via this emergence, the nature of cloth leaves its former chrysalis, becoming a canvas for the dreams and aspirations of a new generation of collaborative designer provocateurs.

From March 4-10 of each year, L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival presents an innovative and extensive program of fashion, business, cultural and social events to its assorted audiences. Available to the general public, fashion industry, and media personnel alike, the festivals assorted catwalks, (be-jeweled as they are by the glamour and hype associated with such events), should by no means overshadow the important cultural program accompanying them. Via these exhibitions, movie programs, and business seminars, the crucial dialogue between designers, their audience, and the industry promoting them continue. Just as the contemporary approach to contemporary Australian fashion design and its return to independent production or hand-craft is confirmed.

As part of the 2007 program, well-known Melbourne boutique Chiodo housed a collaborative event involving S!X design collective. After graduating in fashion design from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Denise Sprynskyj and Peter Boyd formed this collaboration in 1993. For fourteen years S!X has thereafter practiced a unique blend of garment production, installation and live performance - all of which encapsulate the philosophy that the cloth we wear can mean something.

Through this philosophy the process of producing garments takes on transformative meanings and additional depth. Working from pre-existing garments, any member of the collaborative team reworks their individual designs in the traditional toile style associated with European haute couture. Working in this fashion during the L'Oreal Fashion Festival, audience members watched, as in a manner of moments and a precise restructuring of fabric, a male garment was transformed into a female one. As a result, issues of sustainability, male and female stereotypes and the artistic potentialities within garment production were confirmed.

Notably, the independent production techniques of S!X found itself showcased in a crucial exhibit featured by Sydney's Powerhouse Museum during 2002. This exhibition entitled, Sourcing the Muse: The journeys of eight Australian fashion designers from inspiration to creation, accessed the same crucial discourse that Craft Australia's 2007 Year of Design program explores today. As previously noted, the work of S!X was therein referenced in an exploration of the development of a designers concept to their final creation. Ask yourselves questions like, 'where do designers source their inspiration?', 'how does their production effect its implementation', and the relevance of this showcase becomes apparent.

Opening these questions up for discussion, the Powerhouse drew upon the practice of eight leading Australian fashion designers or design teams,¹ in order to explore the Museum's dress and textile collection, as a source of inspiration from which to create new garments. Once more all that was old became new and the dialogue at hand, (of independent production in the face of mass production), is confirmed.

Further exploring this contemporary approach to fashion, the Young Blood: Designers Market program developed by the Powerhouse Museum proves ripe for discussion. Originally conceived as a segment of the Sydney Design 05 festival program, during this showcase the Powerhouse's Level 3 courtyard is continually transformed into a cornucopia of design in its myriad forms.

Delving into the fabric of this event, the discerning eye will note its status as an invaluable promotional tool for this emerging generation of collaborative design provocateurs. As with the S!X event during the 2007 L'Oreal Fashion Week, the participants of Young Blood demonstrate a collaborative defiance towards ongoing mass production and global branding. Over a period of two days, this event not only affords these creators an opportunity to showcase and sell their work but, (in keeping with this return to original hand-made craft and production techniques), gives visitors the opportunity to become active buyers, personally meeting producers and engaging in dialogue about independent design.

One contemporary design collective participating in Young Blood on a regular basis is IMOK. Through their range of distinctive designs, this collaboration found their array of shirts, caps, scarves and other objects supported and promoted by the event. For Jennifer Roberts and Sandra Mason, (the two collaborators making up this team), the experience affords them the opportunity to open up a dialogue or discourse regarding their own design practice alongside that of similar creators. When asked about this particular showcase, these provocateurs relevanlty stated that: "The Young Blood Designers Market is one of our favourite markets ... It has been such a great launching pad for us in terms of getting our name out there, picking up new boutiques and meeting some fantastic contacts in the design industry."²

Relevantly, the Powerhouse museum has also hosted the artistic practice and expertise of Sydney-based artist Zoë MacDonell on numerous occasions. Whether as part of the 2005 d-factory program,³ or the artist talks associated with the DesignTech forums of 2006/07 for NSW High school students, MacDonnell proves a relevant participant in the dialogue being established throughout the 2007 Year of Design discourse. As with the Young Blood market and S!X, this is a discourse lying somewhere between the artists awareness of conventional production techniques, alongside open discussion with the audience of this art practice. These type of events, (Young Blood, D-factory, and Designtech), continually provide open forums for the changing practice of creators in a contemporary Australian context, and prove invaluable.

For this reason, when exploring MacDonell's work, similarities arise between her practice and that of both S!X and IMOK. All are inspired and devoted to the discussion of contemporary Australian design practice. All draw upon individual craft and production in their creative processes. Taking this further, all also actively acknowledge their production processes as distinct alternatives to mass production and consumption.

For Zoë MacDonell specifically, her artworks often involve sketching, photocopying and photography over silks, calicos, and a variety of inspired textures. Just as the imagery she draws upon is often informed by the collected and discarded, the worthless or disposable alongside their opposites: the 'high end' or long term, as embodied by the materials she uses. Like the Melbourne-based S!X, producing either installations or individual pieces allows MacDonell to explore the "treasured patterns found within the textile samples."³ Following the natural flow of this association, she thus taps into patterns of consumption and disposal within our increasingly global lives.

In a sense, it is the synchronicities and social meanings between what is considered valuable and what is deemed worthless that lies at the centre of this contemporary Australian artists work. For this reason her oeuvre, (alongside that of S!X, IMOK, and the infinite number of contemporary Australian creators like them), proves a telling tale. A tale regarding current approaches to fashion, textiles, and their ability to inform the production processes of both artists and designers alike. In this tale, cloth in its infinite forms becomes either interior disguises or wrappings, hiding and/or decorating the physical objects or complex social issues underlying their creation.

Ultimately, it is the psychologically expressive nature of cloth and its connection to the effects of mass production on independent hand-craft that proves apparent through this discourse. As time passes one can only imagine the myriad creations and ongoing discourses that will, undoubtedly, emerge.

R.T Hines
June, 2007

Also see: Crafted fashion by Raymond Thomas Hines

S!X DESIGN COLLECTIVE - Current Range
L'Oreal Fashion Week Event - Choido Boutique March 2007
Photographer: Lucas Dawson

S!X DESIGN COLLECTIVE - Current Range
L'Oreal Fashion Week Event - Choido Boutique March 2007
Photographer: Lucas Dawson>

IMOK DESIGNS
Editorial Image, 07 Collection
Male model: Music Notes chocolate graphic Tee with Distressed Military Hat in Black
Female model: Through the Cities Deep-V striped shirt with Jersey Scarf in Purple
Photography by designers

IMOK DESIGNS
Young Blood, 06
Assorted Hand-painted pieces of furniture and limited edition jewellery boxes.
Photography by designers

ZOE MACDONELL
Artists studio, 2007
Assorted textile-based artworks
Photograph: Courtesy of the artist

Footnotes

1. Those selected were Akira (Akira Isogawa), Easton Pearson (Lydia Pearson and Pamela Easton), Gwendolynne (Gwendolynne Burkin), Michelle Jank, Nicola (Nicola Finetti), S!X (Peter Boyd and Denise Sprynskyj), Tea Rose (Rosemary Armstrong) and Vixen (Georgia Chapman and Maureen Sohn). For more on this exhibit visit: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/sourcingthemuse
2. Directo designer quote from Jen Roberts and Sandra Mason when interviewed in relation to this discourse.
3. For more on d-factory and its associated programs visit http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dfactory
4. Direct artists quote when interviewed on the nature of her production process in relation to this discourse.