Danielle Brustman has worked extensively as a set designer and maker in a diverse range of fields most notably film, theatre, interior architecture, exhibition design and furniture design. She lives in Melbourne and has designed for numerous theatre, film and design companies including: Arena Theatre Company, The Malthouse, Blackthorn Pictures, The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, Stuck Pigs Squealing, Third Drawer Down and David Bromley Studio. She has art directed music videos for Eskimo Joe, Something for Kate and The Whitlams. Her set design work has received and been nominated for multiple awards.
In 2006 Danielle was invited to present work at the AGIDEAS conference held annually at the Melbourne Arts Centre, sharing a speaking platform with a host of international and Australian artists/designers.
Danielle is proud to present in this exhibition with Michelle Boyde, her new partner in crime.
I once read an article in a magazine that went something like this:
Fashion and Art are like two great dames at a cocktail affair that are acutely aware of each other’s existence, but refuse to acknowledge the other is in the room
My interest has always been the conversation these two might have if they got drunk enough.
Having an early career in the performing arts as a dancer and choreographer, and increasingly interested in exploring a more fashion forward approach to costume, Michelle creatively produced ‘FLASH Fashion’, as part of the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Arts Program in 2004. FLASH was a collaborative event designed to encourage conversation between the local fashion, and the visual and performing arts industries, resulting in the founding of FAD (Fashion Art Drama), a company devoted to presenting events and entertainment that combined the three.
FAD’s interdisciplinary approach resulted in several event design commissions by the National Gallery of Victoria (for Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules and Bill Henson’s 3 Decades of Photography), Monash Gallery of Art (Tracey Moffatt Retrospective) as well as commissions by a host of local venues, festivals and special events around Melbourne. FAD also continued the FLASH series presenting Flash Factory (L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2005) and Flash Faction (Melbourne Design Festival 2009).
Since commencing a Design Degree in 2007 at RMIT University, Michelle has designed and made for Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, NICA, Chunky Move Dance Co., Sweet Jelly Roll and local milliner Richard Nylon as well as a host of independent performing artists. She is currently founding a design label focused on headwear and accessories as well as creating a concept collection with designer Danielle Brustman under the anomaly D&M Design. The first piece from this collection will be debuted at Unwearables.
Sarah Martinus graduated from R.M.I.T. completing a Bachelor of Design (Fashion) with First Class Honours in 2008.
She involves herself in guerrilla fashion events around Melbourne and currently deigns costumes for Spill Collective.
Spanning a multitude of mediums and prying open concepts surrounding sustainability, process and plasticity; the beast of PrettyHotAndTasty is Sarah’s ultra-consumptive alter ego; obsessed with artificiality and the plastic nature of the constant self-devouring process of fashion.
For Unwearables P.H.A.T. contemplates FLESH STYLING; a grotesque visceral take on the process of ‘un-wearing’.
Costume making, props and occasionally puppets.
What if we armored our bodies with the detritus in our lives? The thrown away things become our new armour. They would show others our place in the world - where we had been in talismans of bread tags, bottlecaps and ice cream spoons. Maybe they would build up in layers over years like tree rings protecting us from the outside world. Stuff is following me, its accumulating, maybe leaving a small trail behind.
Cassie was born in Adelaide as the second child of her nuclear family. Her home was and still is a modest brick house nestled amongst others between Belair national park and steep quarries.
She learnt Japanese at school and a pivotal moment in her adolescent development was a two-week visit to Japan. This was a catalyst for her interest in the art, fashion and philosophy of Japanese culture.
She moved to Melbourne in 2008 at the tender age of 18 with an itch to learn about fashion, and from there grew a passion for fabrics, sewing, pattern making, illustration, and design.
Now 20, Cassie is moving from Fashion to Fine Art, majoring in sculpture at RMIT. She is an avid fan of sewing and remaking clothes, gardening, cooking, reading and drawing. She is currently interested in 'empathy' in art and fashion, and has designed her pieces for UNWEARABLES with this in mind...
Laura recently completed her Diploma of Applied Fashion Design & Technology at RMIT in 2009. She is 23 and from Western Australia and in the process of starting a fashion label.
She has created work which looks at the term unwearable literally and created a simple old-fashion paper-doll.
Tobi recently graduated with a Bachelor of Design (Fashion).
She uses fashion systems to explore contemporary issues of reality and replication.
Her work intersects the categorisation of craft, art, fashion and installation.
For Unwearables she will convert photographic images of a shirt into sculptural souveniers. Her reason for doing so is to draw attention to society's obsession with "furnishing an already crowded world with a duplicate one of images" (Susan Sontag)
Tobi was a selected for Craft Victoria's annual Fresh! exhibition in 2008. She was the recipient of The Sofitel Melbourne Exhibition in a Public Space Award as a part of Fresh! 08.
Daniel has studied both graphic design and fashion design. His work often combines the conceptual principals of graphic design, with the three dimensions of fashion design. His work is often cheeky and brash, while exploring either cultural or political issues. His concepts often take the form of fabric prints or textiles. "I find the issues of pop culture very compelling, and look forward to making fun of them well into the future through my work."
Currently completing 4th year of Bachelor of Design (Fashion) at RMIT University.
I approach clothing as costume for the everyday. I would like to interrogate the creative process and in doing so challenge my own preconceptions about designing and making. I appreciate the role of the image as a communicator of styles of dressing and wearing. I enjoy hand-finished details and when care and consideration is taken in regards to clothes. I am interested in creating environments and contexts as well as the objects within them, potentially blurring the line between one and the other.
ponders concepts of what is natural, sustainable, or whether humans are capable of returning to the wild.
has studied architecture, is now studying furniture technology & interior decoration.
likes to design using stone & bush poles, as well as lightweight tent fabrics.
sometimes it is better to make clothes than take a long time looking & not find what you are looking for.
this is the first venture into making clothes as art, usually just for function.
one of the pieces for this exhibition started as an abstract idea many years ago. it is good to make it real.
Blade runner meets picnic at hanging rock.
The result of over 6 generations of Eugenic class breeding. Clumsy and clueless yet witty and intelligent.
Inspired by history, society, family and friends.
Currently studying Fashion at RMIT, formerly studying design at Melbourne School of Fashion.
Exploring Indulgence.
Uses design to gain an understanding of personal aesthetic and its relevance to humans. Dissecting the ideas of expectation, stereotypes and social boundaries.
Focusing on the relevance of gender, tradition and social hierarchy.
And for fun
Fat cats, unnecessary possessions and the over consumption that has become common practice intrigue me while also making me quite angry/confused and frustrated. I value and appreciate a bleak but comical view on things.
I was initially amused/inspired by early 20th century type cartoons which often depict overweight or oversized wealthy business men looking clumsy stupid and out of place with their surroundings.
I hope this piece offers some humour and maybe a little commentary on the way I guess not only fat cats, but we all live...
Alice Rose Gunn Swing makes many things – mostly trouble. Her monster Swing Machine has produced costumes for various colourful performances including Hitlerhoff, White Whale Theatre productions, Shaking Romeo & Juliet acrobatics in Berlin, and for various performers including Clare Bowditch.
She works within theatre, film and cross-genre with works like the collaborative art project Agents of Proximity as part of Next Wave Festival 2008.
She curated the first Unwearables exhibition at The Projects Gallery in an attempt to explore and create a fun and fancy combination of art and fashion. From her studies in both realms (Fashion Design and Creative Arts) she has tried to challenge the idea that they are exclusive from one another, and found that in most cases the boundary between is easily blown apart.
She has plans to start a jumpsuit clothing label, and is currently designing costumes for Sisters Grimm and forty forty home, and participating in the 2010 Sustainable Living Festival Slow Fashion Show.
Vivian and Rafaella are friends and collaborators combining their interests film, theatre and design for Unwearables.
Vivan is a graduate of media arts and production from the University of Technology Sydney and Rafaella completed her Creative Arts degree at University of Melbourne in 2009. Despite this they feel quite unqualified for the world, and have resorted to staying indoors and making sculptures from dried pasta.
