They might not be practical, but the outfits on parade for the Biennale of Australian Art’s The Living Sculpture/Art of Fashion Parade are guaranteed to be eye-catching.
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BOAA art wear director Christine Crawshaw predicts some of the fashion on show will only allow models to “walk and breathe” but is expecting the visual beauty to trump the need for practicality.
And it won’t be your regular fashion parade on a catwalk, but a relaxed event with the fashion on a red carpet allowing participants to get close and see the detail and creativity that has gone in to each outfit.
“People can see up close the work that’s gone in to these,” Ms Crawshaw said. “Some of these have got years of work if not hundreds of hours involved in creating them.”
"One of my greatest complements is to be called a living piece of art and I do love to dress up over the top … it makes life more fun!"
- BOAA art wear director and living sculpture fashion designer Christine Crawshaw
The parade is a labour of love for Ms Crawshaw, who loves a dress-up and will also showcase her own outfit made of recycled video tape.
“My personal expression is about found objects or discarded objects or anything that will go in to landfill. I’ve got a slow fashion kind of edge on mine in seeing value in what others can’t. My outfit is all about videotape with hundreds of metres of videotape made in to a stunningly glamorous outfit.”
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Ballarat artists Kat Pengelly and Melinda Muscat will hold an art camp at the Mining Exchange in the week before the parade where members of the public can have a hand in making the wearable art they will exhibit in the fashion parade.
And Ms Crawshaw has a favourite outfit she’s hoping to have bought to the biennale, a dress made by an interstate artist out of beaten bottle caps.
“She got a couple of thousand bottle caps found in the street over five years, beat them flat, punched tiny holes in each and wove them in to a chain mail dress, head piece and accessories that also make a beautiful sound when it moves,” she said.
“I’ve always loved dressing up since I was a very small child and I did as soon as I could get high heels and frills on. One of my greatest complements is to be called a living piece of art and I do love to dress up over the top … it makes life more fun!”
More practical wearable art will also be part of the show and is a fashion segment Ms Crawshaw can see growing.
“Mainstream fashion designers sometimes can see or need to do something more, of feel it inside they have to go wild, and break out with something like this,” she said.
“It will always be very relevant because there is such a link between fashion and art.”
BOAA director Julie Collins said the event, on October 6, would help reach a new audience interested in art, fashion and a fun night out.
“They have made these fabulous outfits and for us it’s about reaching out to new audiences, having a lot of fun and there will be music from Motor City Sounds and dancing,” she said.
The Biennale of Australian Art runs from September 21 to November 6.
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