Entre Vous: When S!X met Leon

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BACKGROUND The tailored jacket has been a part of S!X's design investigations for 20 years. It has been recut, restitched, reshaped, reconstructed, and recycled. Technically it is one of the most difficult garments to master, while semiotically it is one of the most stable signifiers of masculinity. Our investigations explore the possibilities it offers for the reconstruction of both garment and signs of maleness. These sometimes respond to the personalities and experimental openness of individual clients. Enter and view gives you the viewer a glimpse into the S!X world of jackets and the client.

CONTRIBUTION The work arose from a brief from a client, RMIT University's Professor of Innovation in the School of Architecture and design, Leon van Schaik who couldn't part with his SABA jacket and was brave enough to come to us. Our response to rework it with foil and pair it with more supposedly juvenile clothing (shorts, tee, sneakers) tested the limits of masculine maturity and seriousness while also exploring new forms of reconfiguration and embellishment, extending a garment's lifecycle, intervening directly in a client's wardrobe, and problematizing the branded authenticity of the original SABA jacket.

SIGNIFICANCE S!X were chosen together with a small number of other designers representing fashion and design in Melbourne to create a piece for the exhibition by Creative Victoria and the organisers of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, the City of Melbourne. This work was one of two accepted.