I’m not sure that readers understand the lengths I will go to source material for this column. No Crafty subject is too hard or out of bounds. Nothing will stand in my way. So when I received an invitation from artisan to attend the upcoming opening of their new exhibition, Fashioned, I took up the challenge. The invitation stated that the opening would be accompanied by a fashion parade highlighting the exhibited works. I decided that this topic was too important to the Craft World to rely solely on the press release, a firsthand look was required. Well, somebody has to do it.
Off I went notebook and pen at the ready. I dropped my sister at the door and went to park the car. I didn’t get very far before the car’s immobiliser had set itself into lock. Why, who knows but it’s not the first time but I can guarantee it is the last. Pulled into a car park, went to call the RACQ. In this short time the car’s wheels had been clamped for illegal parking. By the time I had negotiated them not to tow it and paying $200 for the privilege the fashion parade was over.
So it is back to the press release. Fashioned showcases adventurous Queensland talent. Each year artisan hand-picks our most exciting and innovative graduate work from leading art and design institutions to assemble a groundbreaker exhibition in the Unleashed series. This year we see fashion mix video installations, typography, hats and creations that are inspired by some of the great art movements of the last hundred years.
Artistic trends from fashion of the Edwardian era are explored by ex-fashion model Tovah Cottle. Robyn Taggart explores the aesthetic of early 20th Century Modernists like Mondrian, while Lauren Elise Clarke channels one of the great abstractionists, Mark Rothko. Lauren says her work has been developed from the “atmospheric compositions of stacked and floating rectangles…and Rothko’s signature palette of dark hues.” The men in our lives haven’t been forgotten. Jeremy Gillis’s “Modern Dandy: The Perfect Gentleman” is a collection which aims to modernise the dandy aesthetic. After all, Baudelaire stated that “A dandy aspirant must have no profession other than elegance, no other status but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons.”
By all accounts, (okay it was only my sister’s) the fashion parade was worthy of a Parisian runway. You can still see these beautifully crafted clothes at artisan, 381 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley. For more info http://www.artisan.org.au/ I suggest catching a train.
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