after the crit..

Getting feedback on the crit was a good way to consolidate what I already knew.

-I’m creating new systems of design, building outcomes that I don’t know the outcome of. The process is important to me, but the outcome is also important. I may not be able to have an exact idea of it during the process but it will become clearer as I build the garment.

- I’m not clear of what is important to give the consumer. Do they really need to see just the process? They can’t wear the process, so why should they care as much about it?

-I thought my thesis was quite separate from my studio work but now I see that there is a big link. Here is a quote that I found quite interesting when researching my thesis topic.

“Cathy Horyn, the fashion critic for the New York Times, wrote in her review of the show, ‘All those scarred fabrics are essentially ornament; the underlying shapes don't change much, and they're not interesting. Indeed you wonder if they are bored or intimidated by the actual mechanics of design--cutting, setting a sleeve--and that what their clothes express isn't technical virtuosity but inarticulateness.’”

It made me think, if the Rodarte sisters had graduated from university, would Cathy Horan take this view on their work? Even if they were actually ‘bored’ or ‘intimidated’ by the mechanics of design, does it make their work any less important? Does a designer have to have learnt the basics of construction and design to then move on? A lot of people (including me) think that everything has been done in fashion, so why do we stick to methods that essentially give us the same outcomes? Shouldn’t we be really embracing a move away from what we know, so we can look for original designs? That critics view on Rodarte is certainly apart of a minority of critics of the label. I wouldn’t have learned what I learnt without going to university, and I don’t think I would have explored other possibilities of construction and design processes like the ones I am if I stayed in my TAFE course. I don’t think I would have questioned fashion.