“Being natural is simply a pose” – a critical intervention into conventionality of clothes through the process of experimental fashion design

This thesis is a study of critical thinking in the process of clothing design. It shows that the design process is a form of critical thinking through which it is possible to acknowledge, challenge, deconstruct and change culturally predominant binary oppositions. The thesis investigates, through theory and the process of creating a clothing collection, how the actual design process from pattern making to final garments and their photography can be seen as a method of changing the conventional meanings of clothes as gendered.

The motivation for this thesis thus lies in the ability of fashion design to propose critical approaches and in its possibility to participate in the process of deconstructing certain dichotomies. This thesis draws from research that has shown that the dualistic idea of gender is deeply rooted in culture and therefore also in the very core of fashion as an embodied practice. By acknowledging the gender dichotomy inherent in fashion this thesis utilises it as a filter to investigate also other oppositions such as functional/unfunctional and that of natural/artificial in order to reveal ambiguities between these assumed oppositions in fashion. The thesis proposes a nonbinary approach and how it can be reached by critically investigating the aspects of the design process. This thesis exposes that fashion is involved in constructing embodied representations of reality, and that it is also a critical practice that has power to change that reality.

The thesis draws from examples from the 1980s and 1990s – the period defined by a rise in the philosophy of clothing and increasing conceptuality. During these decades fashion began to question itself and the heteronormative and binary assumptions about gender and its ‘natural’ presentations. The thesis draws from certain subversive cases in the history of ‘deconstruction fashion’ and utilises them in the production part consisting of seven looks. The collection is the result of experimental pattern drawing and methods with an aim to deconstruct the ideas of ‘natural’ and ‘functional’ in clothing through reconsidering traditional shapes and characteristics. Through the experimental approach, this thesis aims to reinforce the acknowledgement of clothes as interpretations of social and cultural constructions.