FFixxed – Autumn/Winter 2009 (click to enlarge poster)
With an upcoming group exhibition coordinated by the creative partnership of Fiona Lau and Kain Picken entitled, ‘Too Much of Everything’ during Melbourne’s State of Design showcase event, their creative and agile partnership ‘FFixxed’ primarily based in Berlin are reconstructing everyday pret-a-porter fashion products that both investigates and determine additional purposes and applications for garments and collaborative applied-objects pieces. It will desensitise Fashion’s own categorical definition of luxurious individual designer runway wares. Their widely applied experiments into the basic elements of clothing have considered the re-linkage of manufacture and artistic craft where in 2008, their scarves challenged surface texture mediums whilst the disassembled furniture units could reinforce space efficiency – maximising small low-fi spaces instead of exploding expansive surface areas. Through deconstructing the definition of ‘Fashion’ as autonomous opulence, finding functional and aesthetically pleasing uses in garments have reintegrated fashion as an inclusive connection with our daily relationship to how we perceive consumer products. Suddenly, ‘clothes’ conventionally perched in its high tower is reduced to a mere mortal of a purposeful and meaning sewn fabric. Particularly for the ‘Shooper bag top’, which Fiona and Kain produced as part of the BLESS Advanced lineup lead by the girls Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag. Fiona and Kain found an ingenious practical application, infusing the simple idea of a tote bag into the shirt’s sidearm therefore eliminating the need for a carrier bag, reapproaching a garment’s pocket feature and creating natural draping. A debut for the Autumn/Winter 2009 collection is their encased fashion collection. Fashion yet not non-fashion. The partnership have determined for the garment range to be invigorating outcomes of, ‘most practical, for warmth, comfort and protection.’ Within the collection, wrapped cable knits, outwear in raincoats, slim jackets and paintsuiting have both created volume and new fashion propositions. Yet in a true Berlinist way, there are not definite or resolute outcomes for perfectioning these garment clothes. As their own website says, ‘this site is constantly under construction’ it is indeed a constant on-going research and investigative process whereby for both Fiona and Kain, fashion is not strictly determined by the reconditioned, cyclic tides of fashion seasons, but approaching clothes to have a more purposeful application and how they can be integrated more meaningfully.
www.ffixxed.com
www.stateofdesign.com.au/events/design-for-everyone/too-much-of-everything
