A non-fashion event on a non-runway? Voxfrock reports from one of the Melbourne Fashion Festival‘s many intriguing off-site events that question fashion’s status quo.
Words and photographs: Tilly Parsons
After the hustle and high energy of Melbourne Fashion Festival, a cosy night at Docklands studio space, Run Artist Run was a welcome respite.
Learn To Read Fashion was a collaborative project by artist designers Annie Wu and Chunxiao Qu, an innovative showcase and unique celebration of wearable poetry where language took centre stage.
Annie explained their collaboration was born out of a conversation, interpersonal chemistry and a mutual interest in fashion, text and conceptual art.
Whatever your mood, you couldn’t help but relax at Learn to Read Fashion. The space was softly lit by warm lighting, gentle instrumental music played, guests huddled together, smiling and laughing.
In the middle of the room, a bed and on it, a body pillow embroidered with the text; “I am having the most wonderful sex with capitalism because we keep fucking each other non-stop”.
Annie is an artist, fashion scholar and designer of Articles of Clothing, an archive of one-off pieces numbered sequentially from their conception. Chunxiao is an artist, author and designer of CxQ, her art brand represented by Futures Gallery.
The two united their skills in fashion design and text-based art. They produced a diverse collection of unisex garments, both original and re-activated from Annie’s archive, handsewn with clever and witty poems. Their use of text subverts the usual way in which words function in fashion as a signifier of brand or identity.
Learn to Read Fashion was punctuated by a performance of Chunxiao resting on the bed in the middle of the room beside her self-designed “writing shoes”.
Later Annie described the event as an “anti-runway” and its uniquely calm atmosphere as a defiance against à-la-mode runways, typically located in spacious halls with loud electronic music, harsh spotlights and buzzing crowds.
Instead of strutting down a runway, Annie and Chunxiao’s “models” mingled among guests, blending almost seamlessly, if it weren’t for their evocative clothes.
The night wrapped on another level of humor when the “non-catwalk” was transformed into a ‘dogwalk’, a canine model sporting a lead with handsewn text, “If everyone is an artist every dog can be an artist too”.
Meet the Voxfrocker – Tilly Parsons
