Urban Fashion Immersion ( Concepts of Identity )
September 1, 2018
The expressive communication of personal style builds and reinvents our sense of identity in relation to social cultures and ideologies that are contextual to time and place. We are at 42 Mollison Street, West End Australia, the year is 2018. We are surrounded by development, we exist despite the priority of industry and growth, we are urban, we are a community.
Urban Fashion is a curated programme consisting of fashion, art, workshops and events that play with fashion in an urban context. The programme aims to celebrate creative cultures that influence individual and collective identity through fashion.
Urban Fashion will explore how our sense of identity can be non-binary; individuals move from one sense of self to another and manifest this in a visible way through personal style. As we explore where we sit within societal juxtapositions of boy-girl, soft-hard, natural-industrial, we make visible our relationship to ourselves and society.
SHOWCASE DOCUMENTATION
Click through to view event and artwork documentation
FASHION IMMERSION ZINE
MEET THE ARTISTS!
Artist in Residence: Evie Willsteed (Genkstacy)
‘Genkstasy’ was born from the merging of Genki (from Japanese 元気, meaning life-force, spirit, energy) and Ecstasy (rapturous elation). It stands for solid communities, for families built on connection rather than blood, for moments spent in pure being.
It stands for evolution, for growth, and for the future we will build together. A future that is bright, strong, and exalting.
When designing for Genkstasy, Creative Director Evie focuses on bringing a sense of youthful joy to the clothes we wear, balancing the weight that often ends up on our shoulders in life with playful colours, movement, and connection. Working to change the way society perceives “acceptability” and "success", by pushing the boundaries of gendered fashion to create a space where all people can feel accepted and empowered in their expression of themselves.
Since launching the label in 2017 Genkstasy has been featured in numerous fashion publications (including Peppermint, Cocktail Revolution, Fashion Journal), stocked in local boutiques and Pop-Ups in her hometown of Brisbane and in Melbourne, as well as working on collaborations with artists and creatives both locally and abroad. Now, this global-minded local label is excited to share a space with House Conspiracy opening up a studio for drop-ins and rad chats with locals about all things fashion and future. If you have Q's or want to get involved in the discussions drop in and say hi!
Writer in Residence: Lauren Davidson
Lauren Davidson is a writer who would like you to ask more questions. Davidson’s practice is less about providing answers, and more about prompting you to consider concepts and issues that tend to go unquestioned because they are so ingrained in our way of living. Davidson as an artist is “plagued with fascination for and a thirst to explore relationships between place and identity – place primarily in the physical sense, and particularly the culture and societal structures of places.”
The work Davidson has installed for Urban Fashion Immersion is an interesting new area the artist, who works primarily with text, is exploring. Along the side of the house will be three documents pasted onto the wall with cards providing introductory information. The documents simulate the work of a historical fashion anthropologist who was employed by the Institute of Planar Research and Experimentation, to research and study the way different societies across different dimensions and planes operate and behave. The anthropologist investigated how fashion and clothing are used to express identity across various societies both alike to and vastly different from our own, exploring the links and gaps between fashion, identity, society and place.
Interactive Fashion Immersion by Joseph Burgess
Live street art with Hollie Cassidy
DJ Nester Vargas
CREDITS:
Click on Names for Profiles
Artist in Residence: Evie Will (Genkstacy)
Writer in Residence: Lauren Davidson
Partner Artist: Hollie Cassidy
Featured Artist: Feidrun Avar (West End Tailor)
Featured Artist: Joseph Burgess
Showcase Writer: Molly Young
Creative Director: Ellie-Lea Jansson
Documentation Photography: Joseph Lynch
Production team: Paula Araujo
Production team: Angela Timbs