Curated by Kate Rhodes, How You Make It looks at a range of conceptual approaches to fashion design. It focuses on practice-based research where cutting, marking, joining and sizing – the cornerstones of garment production – are used to create a language from which design philosophies grow. Here, play and material thinking are a productive resource and a design value. Often existing garments have been deconstructed, reconfigured and reworked using fine tailoring techniques and self-established design schemes. These systems are used to explore and create new garment forms and new ways of wearing clothes. These Australian practitioners open a dialogue between craft and design that sees formal processes become a platform for experimentation.

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FORMALLYKNOWNAS (Toby Whittington), ta I aw (Cross-over vest – coCreated by Ahmad Abas), 2007, LACE collection, (suiting) polyester viscose, (lining) satin acetate, installation view. Photography: Slowlight Images
Courtesy the artist and Craft Victoria