Sourcing the Muse

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH DENISE SPRYNSKYJ AND PETER BOYD
FASHION LABEL: S!X

Denise Sprynskyj: When I came in to study at RMIT, I met Peter, and (to Peter) you're waiting for me to say it, and there was competition between us. And I suppose that we never thought (Peter laughs in background) that we would set up (she laughs) our own label. But we did have a lot in common. We were quite passionate about fashion, design, design in general, and what was primarily happening in the northern hemisphere because when we were studying, there was no Mercedes Australian Fashion Week or Melbourne Fashion Festival. There were very few platforms to show our work. So we would get together and we'd swap magazines and we would talk about what designers were doing in Europe and America.

And so I suppose when we came out, we did have the idea that we would work on our own design philosophy. And then we stumbled into working together. We shared a studio space.

Peter Boyd: But there was also a reason why we didn't go into industry. We didn't want to learn any bad habits either. (They both laugh.)

Denise Sprynskyj: Yeah. We shared a studio space, and we wanted to set it up on the ideal of Issey Miyake and the Japanese – how they work as a team, and they bring in other designers from time to time to collaborate. So we had this fantastic idea: 'Let's do that; that'll be great. And then we can take our work to Europe and showcase it'. And I suppose that's worked for us, hasn't it? But it was a tough road.

Peter Boyd: Probably people would think that what we do is frivolous as well. I mean it's all a matter of opinion. And there's so many facets in fashion. You know, there's so many things happening at the moment: real clothing, vintage clothing, people are looking at the past; people saying they're modernists… whatever. There are so many sort of fragments in it. But I think what's important to us is to be inspirational not just to fashion people.

Denise Sprynskyj: We've just returned from Paris where you see so many people wearing tailored garments. And there's a definite appreciation of it. But then that's linked to the climate and that it's a lot colder there I suppose. And then that's linked back to the industry and the age of the industry and all these sorts of things. We see that in Australia , people have a casual approach to their garments. And we are definitely up against the streetwear look. Or the surf culture, I suppose, is a lot more prevalent. However, that has good points too because it means for designers that you can no longer create an image from head to toe. And it's good that people are taking parts of your work and breaking it up and mixing it with other labels. And Australians seem to love to do this. So you quite often see somebody with a Target t-shirt worn with a S!X jacket worn with maybe an Akira or Vixen sarong or something. You know, with a pair of shoes from an army disposals store. (She laughs.)

Peter Boyd: And this is why this project was so interesting with the Powerhouse. When we begin, we're not thinking of a face or a body. We both don't have that in our heads. We haven't got pictures of models up or looking at them. So we always start with a really abstract, loose idea, and then the garment evolves around that. So really it appeals to anyone. I mean anyone can wear S!X. But not everyone would like to. We're into interrupting the process of work and…

I mean, we were trained initially to come up with a vague idea in your head, produce a storyboard, collect images… all sorts of obscure colour palettes, then work that into a garment to fit a form, a human body. Then develop that into a pattern which is then developed into a toile and then it's made into a final cloth.

And when we started out, we didn't have a lot of money for fabrics. And it was funny how we sort of fell into this situation and discovered this design process. And it came with a lot of other things that were happening in the world at the time: all this referencing to vintage and recycled clothing. And we started experimenting with that, where we started with clothes, and tore them apart and then put them back together again. But this set up a sort of whole other host of problems that things became one-off, and people didn't want to wear old clothes. There was only a handful of clients that wanted to purchase that so that forced us to develop the process a bit further. And the recycled garment became like the first prototype, like the first toile, and then we'd bring it back to a flat pattern form so we could recreate it again out of new fabric. So the whole working process was disordered.

We looked at the Dior, and the 50s, and the idea of tailoring and construction, and then the Miyake, the pleating and the transportability and the flatness of the garment. So it's a tailored jacket that could be put together by the person or customer like a jigsaw. But there's instructions that they can follow and put it together. But yeah, unlike the Miyake dress which is very void of too much historical referencing, we looked at the tailoring, and there's a lot of handwork and it's a jacket but the whole men's wardrobe has been displaced in the jacket. We've got sleeves as trousers, pockets, but when you look at the garment, it's just a flat piece of cloth until you assemble it and put it together. And then all the referencing is visible.

Denise Sprynskyj: So we'd been working in this way for a while. And we felt that after we'd seen the collection at the Powerhouse, it'd be better if we took the male trouser and put it back into the womenswear, and applied it to this flat pattern technique.

Peter Boyd: So it's like the ultimate sort of hybrid garment we've been working on. You've got a trouser, you've got a jacket all put together from menswear into womenswear. And it's really funny, Denise was saying to you before, she was so happy with this piece, and… I mean, we've been labeled 'deconstructionists' and that's a term that's been coined by fashion people for frayed edges and all this sort of thing. And that doesn't mean too much to us. But if we look at deconstruction on a philosophical level, the way we're actually displaying this jacket is quite interesting because you'll be able to see the front and the inside of the garment simultaneously. And there's no frayed edges on this garment. But I think it embodies that idea of deconstruction the most.

- Denise Sprynskyj and Peter Boyd