GAD Fashionably Early Exhibit
Folding techniques to achieve rigidity and stability are being explored by us using paper models. Photo by David Haseler
Translated into 1:1 cardboard prototypes with fixings by National Capital Cardboards. Photo by GAD
Everyone enjoys trying on the unusual fashions designs. Photo by GAD
After weeks of stakeholder meetings, planning, talks and a busy opening night, the curator enjoys the exhibition with younger visitors.
ABOUT FASHIONABLY EARLY - BY GAD CANBERRA
The fashion industry is recognised for its efficiency in a globally networked system of supply, production, distribution and waste. The time from concept to consumer, often a matter of days, is so fast that increasingly there is simply no time for design. Participating in the global market today increasingly demands a race for higher volume and lower cost. As the Australian industry struggles to maintain viability on price, volume of manufacture, and significant cultural difference, designers are asking if they want to be part of this race. Or, is there perhaps another paradigm?
Fashion is one of the worldʼs most environmentally and socially damaging industries. As the contemporary designer starts to recognise design responsibility as an opportunity, this problem presents considerable motivation for change. Fashion academic Angela Finn argues that uncertainty is a catalyst for innovation; in the hands of innovative designers it inspires a return to basics, a quest for new knowledge and the capacity of the designer to see the problem optimistically as an opportunity.
Todayʼs economic uncertainty, coupled with a mandate for improving the environmental and social responsibility of the fashion industry, might just present an opportunity for genuine innovation to the next generation of designers. This uncertainly is challenging designers to look beyond the garment, to return to basics and to reconsider the whole system of fashion design.
Fashionably Early Designing Australian Fashion Futures aims to offer designers a non commercial space to think. It encourages diverse solutions, experimentation, risk taking and play. To encourage divergent thinking the exhibition presents fashion in three distinct forms: as an image, an artefact, and an experience.
The image is the central way we consume fashion; it is the sensory vehicle that communicates aspirations and values. The first step to creating new value is perhaps for the designer to let go of that image as the driving force for the fashion solution, at least momentarily.
The artefact of fashion is the garment that sits behind the image. It reveals design thinking, materiality and making. Looking at the artefact rather than the image changes the criteria for evaluating and for designing fashion. Six innovative young fashion designers propose a fashion system for tomorrow. Their new models of practice consider alternatives to the current standardised mass production from material supply to systems of production. They consider reducing waste, exploring new technologies, engaging the wearer, and the total lifecycle of the garment.
The experience of fashion becomes reality when the garment is worn; student designers consider what happens when wearability rather than image drives the design of fashion. Will it generate a different type of fashion image? Two public events held during the six week exhibition will invite you, the viewer to participate in consider what you wear, with the opportunity to experience wearing design prototypes.
This exhibition looks beyond the fashion image and asks: On the global fashion rack, what will make the next generation of Australian fashion outstanding? Can it be authentic, sustainable, and valued?
