Ms Susan Maria Dimasi
Susan is a non-standard fashion practitioner- her work as a designer sits in the global context of conceptually driven design. Susan's practice is based in trans-disciplinary exhibition work supported by theoretical development with a view to developing future systems for the application design in fashion. Susan considers her broader work as a Lecturer at RMIT University in the School of Fashion and Textiles, and Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Victoria as logical extensions of her practice. Susan is presently completing an MA in Fashion at RMIT University.
Sense of Place
Earthbound human began making maps to understand their place in the world. Early maps 'were carved into stone, impressed in clay, knotted into cords and nets, tied together from sticks and nuts, engraved into metal, painted, drawn on papyrus, vellum, silk and paper, moulded from gold, bronze and plastic' (Kunz, Egon & Elsie, 1971). Humans also began to adorn their bodies and in this paper I suggest that the connection between map making and fashion is more than material deep. 'Sometimes the body is the most available surface for inscribing resistance' (Kondo, 1997). Fashion is transportable and has always served as a communicator of ideas. In movement from one place to another fashion also evolves collecting, recording, and disseminating information and ideas through space and time - acting as a type of map functioning on many different micro and macro levels. There is a similarity of experience that exists between a street map made of paper, and a draft, even a commercial dressmaking pattern. The familiarity is not just in the handling of the object but in the reading of the information inscribed on them. Digital technologies are driving new ways of seeing and new methods to describe what is seen as the physical world expressed through map making. This paper explores the correlations between map making and fashion.
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