Fashion Constellations

All images via goldsmithsdesignblog.com.

An exhibition of evolving denim quilts, Fashion Constellations: blueprints towards expanding fashion practice is open to the public in the Constance Howard Gallery of Goldsmiths University until 26 March. The items on display document the teaching process on the Fashions & Embodiment Studio of the MA in Design: Expanded Practice (and the MA in Fashion before it).

Programme co-lead Ruby Hoette and lecturer Katherine May asked MA students to bring in old denim garments and ‘upick’ them, then sew them together into a quilt, exchanging stories and ideas as they go. The outcome is always different and unpredictable, while the process of this relaxed activity functions as a bonding and engagement opportunity as well as a conversation and questioning of fashion ethics. Unpicking jeans - a symbol of the resource-intensive fast fashion industry - as a metaphor for unpicking the fashion industry and considering how it can be remade.

In the exhibition, you can see the resulting quilts made by successive cohorts of students, as well as other artefacts, images and texts. Over the course of the exhibition the Constance Howard Gallery has been a site for dialog, collaboration, and experimentation through a programme of workshops and activities, including: Fashion Constellations workshop, conversations facilitated by Kinship Podcast, and publication assembling by Sasha Lychagina. The compiled parts will be available to view from 17 - 26 March.

MA in Design: Expanded Practice at Goldsmiths is a radical post-disciplinary programme for practitioners who want to push the boundaries of what design can be and do. During the MA students are supported to transform their practice as a critical and social undertaking. They are encouraged to actively contribute to a deep understanding of how design is set to address and affect change within contemporary society.

For more information visit goldsmithsdesignblog.com