Ms Vishna Collins
Vishna has a Bachelor of Education in Visual Arts and post graduate qualifications in gifted and talented child education, and has studied fashion design at East Sydney Technical College. She is also founder and president of the Australian Wearable Art Association. Current projects include designing and making a collection of Contemporary Tea Gowns exploring traditional knitting, crochet, and free form machine embroidery. Her research includes the history of the Tea Gown, Aesthetic Dress, and Fashion of the 1920s and 1930s. Vishna is also currently researching, and collating material for a book on Australian Wearable Art.
Body Adorned and the Art of Dress: The History, The Phenomenon of Wearable Art
This paper looks at the development of Wearable Art, and how this worldwide phenomenon has emerged as the contemporary dress design practice, transcending the traditional notion of what constitutes dress. Throughout the ages the body has always been a recognizable image. Since the beginning of time, human beings have had an enduring fascination with the body: its beauty; its mystery; and its many layered meanings. The inherent desire to modify, enhance, decorate, embellish and clothe the body has been an enduring social need. Wearable Art practitioners use the body as the central vehicle to record and communicate the way they see the world around them. Wearable Art, like the body itself, has many layers of meaning: it challenges the traditional notion of dress; it celebrates the body; it is about aesthetics, combining art, fashion, and craft to design one-off personal signature statements; it is a sign of its time. In contemporary society, the way we dress has become an individual option. By its very nature Wearable Art challenges the homogeny of contemporary ready-to-wear dress. The paper also looks at the ritual of dressing as a means by which the body is transformed into a pleasing aesthetic whole, and compares leading Australian and international designers in their use of Wearable Art for self-expression, and body adornment.
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