Making the Unfinished

The work in this exhibition originated in a design studio led by Denise Sprynskyj and Peter Boyd of S!X. Participants in the studio were set the deliberately paradoxical brief summarised by the title, Making the Unfinished. Their task was to respond in their own ways to the deconstructive design methods practised by S!X. They began by researching an archive; they then selected garments and objects from those archives, which they examined, took to pieces, unpicked and reconfigured. The aim of the studio was to develop an appreciation of artisanal and reconstructive practices, of the hidden or neglected detail, and of unorthodox tailoring techniques. Some of the works then produced examined and played with the gendered differences of menswear and womenswear. Other works sought to question the very difference between a garment and an object. All works in some way challenged our usual preconceptions of finish and structure, to produce artefacts of an abstractly poetic nature. The exhibition was held in conjunction with Melbourne Spring Fashion Week as part of the cultural program.The exhibition formed part of the doctoral research undertaken by Boyd and Sprynskyj on the collaborative nature of their own practice. In this case the relationship between designer and client was reversed, with the designers acting as clients, by proposing a brief, and the participants playing the role of designers, by interpreting the proposal. The range of work produced for the exhibition also established a broader perspective on the aesthetics of deconstruction in fashion; or rather, it showed how the method of deconstruction could be freed from a particular aesthetic, namely that commonly associated with Belgian and Japanese design.