Unmaking (Artefact)

This research film was developed as part of my practice-based PhD and presented a sequence of 14 short allegorical sequences edited into a short video essay. The short film ‘Unmaking’ explores the limits of fashion practices today, proposing a ‘stream of consciousness’ in which I have looked into transcribing intricate thought processes through video. The film’s own ‘unmaking’ deconstructs preconceptions about the relationship between body, clothing, production and consumption in an attempt to understand the constituted makeup of ‘fashion’. Intended for use as a means of reflection, the film refers to a post-productivist condition of fashion. The editing of the film was put together itself as a research methodology. Unmaking is seen here as an activity inherits from fashion deconstruction the idea of subtraction and displacement. As I moved towards a ‘dematerialized’ practice (to use Lucy Lippard’s term), film itself began to ‘decompose’ - becoming a fragmentary form which, alludes to the process of thought-in-the-process-of-being-thought. There is in this strategy a negation of one of the main aspects of fashion: production. By not producing garments represents a position of resistance towards over-production and commercialisation of the fashion product, by working with video my intention has been to replace the product by the idea/image which is essential in the definition of fashion itself. Providing new ways to deepen and expand the areas of intervention and action available to fashion practitioners.