The dual mastered establishment of two core designers, that of Susan Dimasi and Chantal Kirby who lead the Australian fashion house name MaterialByProduct are an atypical setup whose name is driven by the compact and sophisticated design system they have implored in a self-discovering of a newly awoken garment experience. Whilst the label may initially appear as a dichotomy, the atelier they work from in Fitzroy, Melbourne have differntiated themselves from indeed the fashion label based system typified by revolving trends and marketed design. All garments created by the two designers are made directly in-house whereby Susan explains it is the, “cutting, marking and joining” that is the core template resulting in artisanal garments that attain a beauty of nature and craft.

The world could not have exactly foreseen the depth and aptitude for the enclave of highly-skilled designers, imparting their emotion, melange of daily experiences and cerebral attachment onto why is it they design clothes for people. If the schooling and precocious visionaries that were born from the 1980′s avant garde period, slanting mass-commercialism and manufactured production, they like Susan and Chantal are fully-focused on discovering their own niche. Nothing in the way describes on their website biography is the assumption of Australian fashion designers forthright. They remark, “What inspires the design duo is an unmistakable language that is composed of how things are made; technique and process. Thus Dimasi & Kirby invented techniques and processes that define all things MATERIALBYPRODUCT.” Like artisans, their workroom goes through a revolving cycle of processes. Transient, diaphanous and amorphous shapes come to apparition and are distilled in each designer’s ability to form intrinsic silhouettes that echo sumptuous forms revealing their human anatomy. MaterialByProduct as the name suggests does not prematurely end with this. They have created capsules of a ‘portable fashion house’ for which they have presented to varying audiences both in Australia and internationally. However, it is the ‘Screengown’ and Curtain that have driven the MaterialByProduct concept. How a piece of elongated fabric is impregnated with a wood veneer texture or undressed curtain fabric being translated into a worn clothed garment is their distinctive modus operandi. Fabric is untamed and although weaved they non-exclusively follow human proportions nor made just for fashion. The concept of MaterialByProduct characterises how gentle and neutral their garments are as a way to disspell associated references, heavily informed by saturated forms of popular culture.

Both Susan and Chantal’s desire is for their MaterialByProduct fashion house to closely relate back nature, from the concept of the Gown and the chrysalis to their metaphorsis of it becoming the Ball Chain Chandelier for which they have just unmasked this year. Unlike in the courant contemporary collections, which define a manufactured structure, Susan tailoring characteristics fused with Chantal’s drapery wrap but do not cocoon for those who choose to become their garment wearers. At Fashioning Now, a University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) event that explored an invited list of designers from different fields of the clothing and fashion industry, Susan presented saying, “The desire for something new, something novel, something branded, something designer.” The forum touched on Fashion’s new problematic crossroad of sustainability, whether clothes produced each year can reduce its material waste and if the consumption of luxury goods conflicts this. Susan confronted the idea of sustainability by adding it is through the in-house design system (minimal cutting, marking) and with their template, using the best fabrics and the best construction methods would be the key to ensuring the longevity of a specific garment and thus reducing waste. Luxury therefore as described by Susan is the sustainability of wearability as a formidable solution to clothed consumption.

In delicate movement, Krystal presents Ball Chain Chandelier on her body. Appearing, the ball silk satin gown

The current manifesto of MaterialByProduct has transmogrified into what the dual designers call Ball Chain Chandelier. Light illuminated from art decorated spaces such as lavish chandeliers and illumination created from glass and crystals are a consummated presence, the starting point for their portable fashion house. In an abridged room in Sydney’s former Grand Post Office, now standing the Westin Hotel, the arresting and sky high architecture housed and adorned a specific mise en scène. Daintily and softly stilled, Crystal (MaterialByProduct’s garmentmaker and model) stood motionless in the centre of the room, the morning still light illuminating her porcelain skin. Her completely nude body (covered in body stockings halfway down) was crowned and entangled with ball chains clung to her arms and head. Susan and Chantal introduced MaterialByProduct’s manifesto of the Ball Chain Chandelier to a small media audience that became completely immersed in the show’s performance. Like the process of in-house design, so too did the physical performance of Krystal, who first was untangled from the silvery ball chains that had adorned her, became dressed and undressed, accompanied by the pairing of MaterialByProduct’s new garment pieces as complete ensembles was a discipline in itself. As an angelic like trance, Krystal moving in a circular motion and as languid and delicate in her own movement, the worn pieces themselves became dimensionally tactile. It was as if the audience watching onwards felt a driving force to touch the garments whilst they moved in spatial air.

Shift ‘slip-on’ dresses with their shorter shoulder sleeves in black, imprinted with MaterialByProduct’s disperson screenprinted silver disc motif resonated throughout the Autumn collection as they did with a double silk crepe golden beige gown and a suave silk satin blouse worn with a knee-length skirt in emerald green. In detail, Chantal described to Cultures In Between that the designed trench coat consisted of a half-pleated front and flat noir back and additionally, the ‘Noveau’ bodice and skirt shifted in colour from green to black. The inner workings meticulously described by Chantal reflected their pattern-making system, ultilising their minimal cutting techniques, garment pieces that joined rather seamed reflected Ball Chain Chandelier’s pure dynamism. As the garments themselves garnered a couture made quality, both Susan and Chantal earmark that the collection itself were a practice of everyday life. From hi-luxe to streetwear such as their shown cotton hooded anorak, these weren’t fragile nor too precious. Ball Chain Chandelier reveals and exposes the relevance of today’s wearability by transforming natural fabrics into organic attire.

Ball Chain Chandelier sheaths the female body and through the gowns that have transformed into a dress, so too has it refined it and the tactile textures they characterise are as one as the surface of skin.

Please view the entire image gallery of MaterialByProduct’s show performance in full through Cultures In Between’s special gallery RAFW feature here.