As we adapt to the rapid changes enforced by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are reminded of the creativity and resourcefulness of our School of Fashion & Textiles community. This issue of the Houndstooth shares some of the thoughtful and innovative ways we are learning and teaching during this time.
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Advanced Fashion Studios
Bachelor of Fashion (Design)(Honours) & Master of Fashion (Design)
From the advanced fashion studio programs, we highlight the work of Dr Laura Gardner and Blake Barns in the Fashion Image course.
Course Coordinator, Dr Laura Gardner said: “Fashion image is a course in which students deeply explore the practices, contexts and conditions of image making in fashion. The course enables students to refine their image-making practices towards producing a lookbook, publication and/or portfolio of their work. We cover basic technical skills and creative practices and contexts in fashion communication, image making and photography for students documenting their work, and to produce and curate fashion imagery.”
Fashion Image in the virtual classroom
In response to learning and teaching online, Laura said: “We’ve had a really positive response from the students and they are doing great work in response to the conditions of isolation. One of the things we have been doing in our transition to digital is inviting industry guests to visit our virtual classroom for short drop in sessions. These have included Xeneb Allen (freelance Hair and Make-up artist), Hali Christou (Freelance stylist and fashion consultant), Luke Mayes (Head of photography, Rick Owens), Matthew Linde (Curator), Amanda Nicholls (Fashion Designer, Replica Project, and Master of Fashion (Design) graduate 2018) and (Designer, Balenciaga and HB Peace).”
“Guests have come in to chat with the students about their diverse practices and work in fashion, bringing in advice and answering questions from students about image making, photography in fashion in its many forms of practice, from styling and freelancing, image research and photography in the design process, campaign and editorial photography.”
“In addition to the industry guests, we are also continually sharing and updating the students with the resources and creative projects that have sprung up in the wake of COVID-19. From photographers doing really interesting shoots in their own homes, to Vogue’s Global Conversations series, and the many galleries and institutions facilitating online viewings and discussions. This has given us a lot of material and I think has got the students thinking about how they can use the restrictions of isolation in productive and novel ways. We are creating workshops and exercises in response to these conditions, the included images are student images created during a workshop we did in our first online classroom: ‘All dressed up and nowhere to go’.”
Follow the efforts of the Advanced Fashion Studios on their instagram account @rmit_advancedfashionstudios.
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Bachelor of Fashion (Design)
Program manager for the Bachelor of Fashion (Design), Dr Denise Sprynskyj, made the following reflections on working from home:
“Working from home has been a really interesting experience especially for studio based teachers like myself. I have turned the usual linear narrative that I follow such as making and exploring on the stand into combining and planning swatch making, experimental form in paper and miniatures, mapping in drawings and throwing myself into research. Then when I have the planning and research at a point I take these ideas into full scale forms.”
“I encourage the students that I teach in Transform Fashion Design materials to use this methodology for their designing, it is one that I used when I did not have a large studio space. It is also something that I am seeing as a global Fashion Design student movement……..I am proud that our students and staff are a part of contributing to a watershed moment in our history, rethinking how we work, when we work and how to make an impact through fashion design.”
“Our student cohort has embraced the change and we have had some really surprising results using film, image and dressing up for feedback sessions, wearing a special hat or showing your pet.”
“There has been a lot of openness and sharing as we learn and teach, beaming into people’s houses both staff and students have been generous in collaborating and discovering new and different ways of using the virtual space.”
Dr Alexandra Sherlock coordinates Fashion Design Body Artefacts and Accessories, one of the few practical courses which is continuing online, despite the pandemic. It is a collaboration with Trippen, the German footwear designer/manufacturer.
‘This is not a shoe’: Defamiliarisation through Deconstruction
Alex said: “In this first assignment students were encouraged to ‘unmake’ a pair of shoes and use the resulting components to inspire a material-led approach to design. Rather than selecting materials to realise an accessory design, this approach affords a more sustainable approach where the designer is encouraged to make use of the materials and tools they have to hand, often resulting in unexpected and innovative design ideas. The exercise also helped students to think beyond traditional perceptions of accessory archetypes and imagine new forms and functions relating to real bodies.”
“The feeling amongst students at the moment is that they’re enjoying the leather-working demonstrations we’re providing online (recorded by Mick Peel) and that it’s giving them something practical to do while isolating at home. Due to the lack of access to University facilities there is now an emphasis on hand-working techniques using the bundles of leather offcuts that Trippen sent over before the pandemic began. Trippen are hoping we will come up with some accessory ideas to make use of their leather waste.”
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Bachelor of Fashion (Design Technology)
Surviving isolation in the COVID 19 environment by being creative is the new mantra for the final semester students from the Bachelor of Fashion (Design Technology) as they receive fashion deliveries in the metropolitan parks around the edge of the city.
Program manager Gareth Kershaw said: “Switching to remote working to develop your graduate collection can be challenging when you don’t have access to specialty equipment or pattern making materials, along with most fabric stores limiting their public access.
Supporting students and keeping that sense of belonging to the program and school became my priority when the university closed. We had already suspended their studio courses before moving the remainder online.”
“I realised if they can’t come to us at Brunswick then I will go out to them. On our last day before the campus closed, I grabbed studio essentials like rolls of pattern making paper, calico, blocks, fusing & threads – all the elements to continue working from home. I let the students know I was on-call – Uber style – to deliver any of these materials and the offer has been taken up!”
“We have been very lucky that 98% of our students have access to domestic sewing machines through a survey we did with them at the start of semester. The remainder are developing their patterns in anticipation of returning to RMIT.”
“I’ve also been conscious of the need to keep in contact with many of our international cohort who live in the CBD. Their isolation is compounded by family distance and as they don’t drive and catching public transport is not an option at the moment, it is important that the teaching team checks in with them regularly to offer feedback via facetime, WeChat or skype on their toile development.”
“This is where the offer to meet them at a respectable distance to hand over supplies has been a creative solution to so many impacting factors.”
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Master of Fashion (Entrepreneurship)
Innovation and adaptation are no strangers to an entrepreneurship program! Senior Lecturer in the Master of Fashion (Entrepreneurship) program, Dr Carol Tan said “All industry clients and guests for courses across the program have joined us on our online journey. Utilising Collaborate Ultra to deliver guest lectures and industry briefs is a first for all partners. However, they are very happy to adapt to this new delivery mode.”
This has included the online delivery of beauty product pitches to private label manufacturer of sustainable cosmetic and personal care products Green Leaf Cosmetics in Research Strategies for Fashion Ventures with Dr Saniyat Islam and connecting with industry through weekly online guest speakers in Fashion Entrepreneurship and hearing from Carl Nave in Fashion Retail Management Strategies with Angelo Pantalone.
The program also has a tradition of taking a group photo in the last class of each course, with the recent completion of the intensive Business Management course resulting in screenshots in Collaborative Ultra instead.
The efforts have been appreciated by the MoFE students, with one student, Hemasri Dogga, posting on her instagram:
“1st week of online classes successfully done!! It is a big challenge for a program like Fashion Entrepreneurship to run online and cut down on all the industry visits, pitches to the industry partners, designing and making products etc. Thank you to the @rmitmofe staff for making the online lectures and tutorials interesting, fun and convenient for the students!! Thank you for making big and quick changes in our course structure within the short period of time we had.”
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RMIT x Air Max Day Melbourne
Congratulations to Ricarda Bigolin, Chantal Kirby and Blake Barns, who (pre-Working From Home) led an exciting research project between Nike Sportswear and RMIT! The project involved a series of design research workshops for the global creative product launch of ‘Air Max Day’, on March 26, with over 70 Master of Fashion (Design) and Bachelor of Fashion (Design)(Honours) graduates and students, as well additional industry practitioners involved.
Nike produced a microsite to present the research project, as well as sharing content on multiple global Nike platforms. Documentation is also available at @rmit_advancedfashionstudios.
Proving prescient, the banner statement for the project reads: “Sometimes change is all we can count on. And it’s in these times that creativity and radical thinking are just what we need. To remain joyful. To inspire. To contribute to the collective good.” Words to live and design by in these strange times.
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Thank you to all the staff in the School of Fashion and Textiles for your efforts during these uncertain times. If you’d like to share news from your program or course, we’d love to hear from you! Please contact julie.macindoe@rmit.edu.au.