This project was based on the text by Jonathan Faiers, ‘The Sound of Fashion Thinking’ which establishes Fashion Thinking as a new field of critical inquiry, utilizing the many ways fashion is produced as a methodology with which to explore a range of contemporary cultural, political, economic and social concerns.
‘The Sound of Fashion Thinking’ was realised by its author, Jonathan Faiers and Nick Ryan as a 15 minute sound piece, with the use of a variety of fine silks from Pongees Silk Showroom, a specialist silk merchants in London.
Taking its cue from earlier etymological definitions of fashion, understood as making, or bringing into existence, Fashion Thinking is inspired by the very act of fashioning. In the same way fabric can be fashioned into a coat—something produced from next to nothing—that same material can easily be unpicked and refashioned, even reworked into a completely new garment or object. Fashion Thinking is characterized by this potential, fluid state, approaching each new topic according to specific demands and desires, cutting its cloth and finding its voice accordingly—whether poetic, analytical, autobiographical, technical, or discursive.
Like fashion itself, Fashion Thinking is social, ludic, anticipatory, transformative, reciprocal, and aims beyond interdisciplinarity to a state of indisciplinarity. Such a term implies the state of being among disciplines but also being outside of or oblivious to them—indeed, unwilling to be “disciplined” per se, preferring instead the often turbulent, unruly, and invariably seductive margins where fields of activity overlap.
Taking the form of a guide to an imaginary fashion exhibition that ironically displays no clothing, The Sound of Fashion Thinking inhabits the space of the museum solely through sound. Each “chapter” or “room” is constructed from a series of reflections and discussions on different aspects of fashion, including its production, reception, dissemination, and development, all inspired by the sonic experiences encountered therein.