LOVE TO LIVE IN FASHION

WISTERIA COCKTAIL SKIRT & TOP from Susan Dimasi.

Recently NGV's 200 Years of Australian Fashion closed and almost simultaneously Collective Material opened at Craft Victoria. In both exhibitions MBP was honored to have outfits featured. NGV featured outfits from their own collection, whilst Craft Victoria an outfit owned by Karen Webster. 

 
I compile seasonal collections based on a complete wardrobe concept. The back to back nature of these exhibitions closing and opening made me think about the nature of how people compile their own collections of MATERIALBYPRODUCT (MBP). It also makes think about how these private wardrobes can be read like a timeline of people’s lives.

 The timeline that my fashion forms is a subtle one. Like men’s clothes and work clothes it may not be one that actually stands up in history well because I make clothes that people love to live in. I love it when people tell me they have ‘worn something to death’.

For example when we invited by @marjanpejoski & Sasha Bezovski from @kokontozai to make something for Bjork, it was be her private wardrobe for the Volta tour. It makes me happy to search Bjork + MATERIALBYPRODUCT and find pictures on the internet of her having a really good time in that dress (similar out fit in the NGV collection also). Karen Webster, like so many of my clients tell (usually via text), that they love to travel with their MBP. One client who is a senior scientist, now working in Europe used to text me, “I am travelling with carry on only and its all MATERIALBYPRODUCT.” In a recent Private Viewing she was happy to report that her European colleagues (especially the men) complimented her beautiful clothes and further noted that they appeared made to measure.

The MATERIALBYPRODUCT will not typically appear in vestments worn to occasions of births, marriages or deaths. Rather, our time line documents women from artists to corporates and professionals with great art collections who do not want a division in their wardrobe, work clothes/nice clothes. These women only want to get dressed once in a day, probably starting early in the morning, straddling home, family, professional, social or philanthropic commitments in a continuous flow. 

This week I will do a fairly typical round robin from Melbourne to Sydney en route to Canberra and back again. I love my Canberra women whose wardrobes document the lives of doctors, lawyers, scientist, public servants, business women and creatives. Actually, several messages from city  have confirmed that MBP pieces have survived a wave of de-cluttering that has been inspired by the Marie Kondo tome, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying. So perhaps MBP will be a historical survivor documenting different priorities in the life of modern women after all.

SINCERELY 
Susan Dimasi
Creative Director 
MATERIALBYPRODUCT __________________________________________________________________

In my bag; PART A Week Day Felt Coat /MAGNOLIA Week Day Jersey Slip & Pants & Evening Silk Bodice/Tattooed Kangaroo runners/EMBOIDIMENT Wool Scarf