Phashion: A Brief History and Design Philosophy

Abstract

Establishing his design practice in 1998 after graduating from Central St Martins, University of the Arts London, Simon Thorogood is a fashion designer/artist who chooses to show his clothes and the ideas behind these in installation and gallery environments. He is currently a research fellow at London College of Fashion and previously an LCF/V&A designer in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.He terms his design work “Phashion” (pronounced “fashion”), a blend of the scientific term “phase transition” (the transformation of one form or substance to another) and “fashion.”His research is concerned with applying novel ways of creating and communicating fashion design, pursuing the idea of “growing” design through simple systems. His presentations often have an element of interactivity, considering the role of an audience in determining, in part, the course or outcome of a fashion product or event. It questions how people engage with ideas and how they can continue and expand creative methods and objectives through an active blend of invention, event, and co-authorship.Thorogood has shown his installations internationally and his garments are held in the collections of leading fashion and costume institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), New York. A new reworking of his Fascia project can be seen as part of The Art of Fashion: Installing Allusions exhibition in Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, September 18, 2009-January 10, 2010.Simon Thorogood's engineered bespoke garments have been described as a mix of futuristic, medieval, and ecclesiastical and are almost exclusively produced in silk Duchesse satin. Andrew Bolton, author of The Supermodern Wardrobe (2002: 118), and now curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, wrote about Thorogood's first collection White Noise:As is typical of many designers of supermodern clothing, Thorogood is constantly expanding the boundaries of his discipline by incorporating elements from others … Indeed his “multimedia events” have much in common with the “art happenings” of Cardin and Courrèges in the 1960s.The White Noise collection was shown as an installation of suspended garments, surrounded by forty early Apple Macintosh computers showing Thorogood's background research, together with synchronized lighting and live electronic music. This presentation was later to evolve into the Digital Runway project, where pressure pads were installed on a catwalk, triggering visual responses.Here he reflects on his design process, inspirations, and presentations, which aim to involve the audience and potential customers in collaborative creation.