Interview with Fashion Chelsea aka Chelsea Hickman

Can you describe your artistic process?
My practice focuses on upcycling by utilising old garments, found waste and fabrics salvaged from landfill to create both functional fashion and wearable art.

Upcycling is the process of disassembling a pre-existing product and developing it into a new thing, as opposed to recycling which is the process of melding products into their raw material to create something new from scratch. Upcycling is a way of recreating a product into something new and valuable while still possessing some of the characteristics of the original product.

My artistic process is predominantly practice-driven. I’ll be inspired by a fabrication or technique and that has the potential to instigate a whole project. Each of my projects is a new development of my previous work. I guess all art is kind of that way - an evolution.

The process of upcycling gives me the opportunity to continually cannibalise my previous work, so nothing is left stagnant and unused. This is an important sustainability consideration for me as well. With around 501,000,000 kg of textile waste going to landfill in Australia every year, my main priority is to prevent usable textiles being wasted. Even if a fabric is ‘biodegradable’ or ‘compostable’, landfill stations do not provide ideal environments for the safe and sustainable degradation of textile products. Two thirds of all fabric produced globally is polyester, which is a fibre that does not biodegrade. It’s a plastic-based material, not a lot of people realise that when they buy new clothes. Upcycling is just one of the ways we can prevent textile waste going to landfill.

How would you say fashion influences your art, or perhaps it is vice versa?

It’s not that fashion influences my art or vice versa, it's that fashion is everything and art is my medium to map and unpack social concepts of physical adornment. Clothes can be used as a tool for understanding human history. From technology, wealth, culture and politics - it all affects and is affected by what people wear. In future we will reflect on the time we had to wear masks as a preventative measure during a global pandemic. Fashion is a visual indicator of time and place. 

I experiment with fashion concepts in a lot of different ways. I create performances, installations, textile tapestries, runway shows, photography and exhibitions, to attempt to break the Australian fashion industry out of its conservatism.

Who are your major influences or what sort of things keep you making work?

Fashion sustainability is my main motivator. I’m largely inspired by punk and social activism. The issue of fashion sustainability is so large and ever present, it definitely feels like it’s going to be my life’s work to make the garment industry something better than what it currently is.

What do you think about fashion and the influence it has in society?

‘Fashion’ is a loaded word. It’s an umbrella term for a lot of different things. Fashion refers to a the zeitgeist and includes categories in photography, styling, design, production, textiles, fabrication, modelling, social media, film, there’s so many aspects to fashion. It has both influenced society and is an indication of society.

What I think about the fashion industry at the moment is that it is so very, deeply corrupt. From the farming of raw materials to casual retail worker exploitation, there are very few laws in place that hold fashion brands/businesses accountable for their supply chain. I’m trying my best to not fit into that specific category of fashion - the one that exploits and refuses to take responsibility. I purposely ‘other’ my work.

Has COVID19 had an impact on your artistic process?
Luckily my artistic process hasn’t been too disrupted by the pandemic. My studio has unfortunately had to close due to the lockdown but I am still able to work from home. The boosted Jobseeker payments have eased a lot of financial pressure for me, so I’ve been able to spend the past couple of weeks making masks and selling them, with the funds going to RISE and Pay the Rent.

What I find interesting is the conceptual impact that COVID has had on my practice. I’ve had to imagine a future where potentially no one can afford to buy my work and I catch myself imagining a world where people can’t leave their homes at all. It’s not so hard to imagine after what society is currently going through… but what would fashion look like if that was the world we lived in?

After the bushfires, I also had to seriously consider what my designs would need to be in a world where we can’t breathe the air or need protection from extreme weather conditions.

It's still a bit early to tell what the long-term implications of this pandemic will have on my process.