Sartorial Choreography: The Materiality and Performance of Clothes-Making Gestures

The materiality of clothes is closely tied to bodily movement and performance, and fashion designers and researchers have explored how clothes become expressive through wearing and performing. However, while the performative aspects of wearing clothes have been extensively investigated, the choreographic side of making clothes, such as the bodily movement of weaving, cutting and stitching, has not been explored. These clothes-making processes incorporate peculiar intensity, rhythm, speed, sound and texture as well as kinaesthetic sensations that are generated by the distinctive hand gestures of the clothes-maker. This practice-based research explores clothes-making gestures as choreographic forms of expression in their own right. It examines the peculiar materiality of clothes-making gestures by focusing on not only the kinetic and sonorous sensations generated by movement but also on material marks (inscription) created through gestures, for example, stitches, drawn marks, holes and notches. The research centres on the gestures of hand weaving, hand embroidery, cutting and sewing techniques, particularly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when clothes-making processes seemed to incorporate more hand skills and kinaesthetic awareness than today. The research is conducted mainly through my creative work as a designer and maker, using my body and practice of clothes-making to materialise specific physical sensations involved in clothes-making processes. Through creating garments, installations and films, my practice reimagines historical clothes-making gestures and combines them with the gestures of contemporary clothes-making techniques, such as digital printing and 3D body scanning. Along with making, the thesis demonstrates the significance of clothes-making gestures by analysing my practice in relation to theories on performance, gesture and inscription, especially with regard to Jacques Derrida, Antonin Artaud, André Lepecki and Carrie Noland. This thesis attempts to offer fruitful insights into the choreographic aspects of clothes-making that have the potential to open up new opportunities for contemporary fashion practice.

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