Experimental studio : 3rd year studio, RMIT University, Bachelor of Design (Fashion Design)
Not only is the universe a transient entity, but also we beings within it are, too, forever in transience. Every life is marked by changes and growth, and the impressions left behind by those processes are what mark any being as whom they are. The vestiges of the past build up, to form the story of that being, and can be read both on the being, and in the environment where they live.
Throughout this experimental studio, I became fascinated with various transient processes and materials, and the macro scale view of ‘transience’ as an integral part of the workings of the universe. In the beginning, my research looked into the broader cycles of life, death, and the endless recycling of matter. However, as the studio progressed and I was introduced to methods and materials such as dissolving fabric, different dye and printing mediums, heat treatments, as well as experiments with ice, dust and bubbles, my interest became more centred in the fingerprints that a transient process can leave behind, and how those more subtle echoes that appeared of what had happened before could give a far deeper reading into the final piece.
This brought me to the decision to explore these fingerprints and echoes via the medium of fashion. I wanted to focus my work on one life form, which could act as a symbol for any life. I chose the cicada, as its progressive phases are so visual that they provided me with plenty of options to develop my designs. My aim was to utilise some of the transient processes from the workshops, as well as building on this range of processes with my own experiments, and transpose them into a fashion outcome.
I pulled out each of the major life stages for a cicada, then sought to distil the impression that was left behind at each stage as the cicada moved on. By creating the impressions left behind, the wearer is exposed to an intimate reading of the life of the cicada, and individual garments build up atop one another to form a complete outfit, and thus tell the complete story of the cicada. But all things fade. So from this whole image that is left behind at the end of a life, as garments are removed and impressions stretch further back in time towards the beginning, they become fainter and paler.