Le Tapis Volant

Background The square of cloth is the simplest geometry that clothes both bodies and interiors and the most basic of surfaces on which to conduct business. It is also essentially transportable, whether worn on bodies or rolled and stowed as luggage. Its versatility allows the textile square to serve an investigation of the relationship between the fashion garment, the interior covering, the merchant's carpet, and the necessary transportability of the work of design accepted for an international exhibition. Contribution Le Tapis Volant consists of a garment (together with accessorizing shoes and bag) cut from fabric that includes pieces printed after a carpet textile. The garment may be laid flat as a square carpet (only a single sleeve retains the three-dimensional form of the garment when flat, to remind of its other purpose), and the work in exhibition includes a performance in which a model transforms the carpet form into garment form. The work continues the investigations by Sprynskyj and Boyd (S!X) into the formal possibilities of the square of cloth in the construction of a garment (after Balenciaga), and the symbolic and domestic connotations of the square in other contexts, when it is transformed into carpets, flags and wallpaper. The creative work is accompanied by a conference paper published in the proceedings that explains the contribution of the work in more detail. Significance The conference and exhibition Everything and Everybody as Material was a peer-reviewed collaboration between the University of Boras, Sweden, and RMIT University that attracted significant contributions from prominent international academics and designers. Le Tapis Volant is an entry in the Victorian Premier’s Design Award for 2020.