Opening Thursday 9 September, 6-8pm
To be opened by Dr Hélène Frichot, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, School of Architecture + Design, RMIT University.
Ricarda Bigolin and Michael Spooner showcase the outcomes of a creative exchange between the disciplines of fashion and architecture.
An elephant becomes the mask for a creative interchange between fashion and architecture, its worth seemingly conspicuous in the face of an allegiance to any discipline. The elephant reconstructs, without bearing any resemblance to, the dressing room of Charles Frederick Worth. Worth is characterized as the first fashion designer, a title that is symbolic of the industrialization of dressmaking. The idiom For What It’s Worth renders an open-ended dialogue where the production of ‘things’ serves not as a representation of a potential building or garment, but is caricatured as a prop in a multi-textual account of the creative process and the inevitable question of what any ‘thing’ offers to a profession. ‘Worth’ subsequently serves as a technical precursor for an intimate exchange between a digital model and a knitted 3d seamless prototype.
Ricarda Bigolin is a research-based fashion designer currently undertaking a PhD at RMIT University. Her practice examines modes and ways to express a fashion outcome, both in terms of how fashion is made and how it is communicated. Current projects embody a collaborative approach to design, working with advanced technologies such as 3D seamless knitting, heavily reliant on the dialogue between designer and technician as an emergent type of fashion practice.
Michael Spooner graduated from RMIT with Bachelor of Architecture in 2007. His graduate project, ‘A Clinic for the Exhausted’ was awarded the Architecture Australia Unbuilt Prize for 2007. He has been a design tutor at Melbourne University and RMIT University and is currently undertaking a PhD by project within the architecture department at RMIT.
For What It's Worth is supported by RMIT School of Architecture + Design through SRC Funding.
