Fashion Design Proffessional Practice
Presentation
It was complicated to devise and pinpoint a distinct ethos for myself, mostly because it’s easier not to contemplate and define what underlies your process and your work. So I will simply describe the process of this formulation from the perspective of what I do, what I care about and what interests me in the context of fashion.
As an individual I thrive on inquiry, learning and discovery. I have an insatiable curiosity and lust for knowledge, the new, the unexpected and the beautiful. There is no discipline that I would not gladly venture into, even if its sitting in on a thermodynamics lecture and scribbling defeated circles on my notepad with highlighter and giggling a little about how beyond me it all was to my rocket scientist friend.
In the context of design, I think I would rather be dead than lose a sense of wonder at the world, and this I feel is an apt way of expressing how I inquire into the things I create. I tend to feel that if I can have enough knowledge, all I need to do from there is interpret it my way and I will never lack in creative outcomes. That being noted, I also love to translate my knowledge into some form of narrative, namely by creating garments that transition between different states. I suppose my ultimate goal is to bring small wonders to life so that they may be enjoyed. In this sense I quite respect Hussein chlayan’s process and perspectives because he is said to be one who “crosses disciplines to explore the latest innovations in science, design, music, and multimedia arts.” I’ve always been particularly enamoured by chalayan’s ventriloquy collection, a series of sugar dresses that the models cracked open at the end of the runway.
Another facet of this philosophy is a rather holistic one in that I have this infallible optimism towards finding an idea that will produce something (hence the constant conceptualization thought and research). In a way, its similar to what happens when I am creating an illustration. I am never certain of what it is exactly, only that it definitely, might be, could be something.
Yoji Yamamoto says “Perfection is the devil”, nothing turns out quite right or exactly perfect but instead of trying to sharpen the result, I allow the process to become a part of an imperfect yet perfect whole. In this I also considered Rei Kawakubo’s words “Creation is not something that can be calculated.” In a sense I feel a certain level of abhorrence toward the fashion cycle, as it puts a certain measure of calculation into a process that’s entirely creative.
The egg represents a process of breaking things open, examining the ideas within, and understanding these broken fragments as parts of a whole. It expresses the holistic, uncalculated way in which I create, whilst also alluding to narrative (that is, you are aware of what has happened to this entity and as such know it in a different light to simply seeing it.)