‘Making Do: Utility Wear with Annie Wu’

A Fix and Make workshop with Annie Wu of Articles of Clothing.

During World War II, the British Government introduced the Utility Scheme CC41. The scheme encouraged clothing manufacturers throughout the UK to use cloth supplied by the government. The style of the items was regulated. Straight cuts and slim silhouettes with no embellishments and unnecessary pleats maximised the number of items that could be cut from the cloth and minimized waste by reducing offcuts. While these austerity measures created some hostility, they saved millions of metres of fabric and clothed thousands of people in a time of extreme scarcity.

Leaping from the CC41 scheme, Annie Wu will teach you how to create unconventional patterns for functional garments that reduce waste. You’ll make a template for a contemporary utilitarian uniform (that can be worn every day) and cut the pattern from supplied cloth. Pieces can then be assembled at home or be handed over to Peter Kongmalavong at the end of the workshop for completion. Peter will be able to provide you with a quote to sew and return your new garments. This workshops encourages us to think about how we might dress ourselves differently.

Our ‘Making Do’ Fix and Make series looks at alternative ways of making and repairing things and is designed to encourage us to consider the objects and raw materials that already surround us in new ways.

Annie wu is a Chinese Australian fashion designer, artist and researcher. She was born in Shanghai and moved to Melbourne when she was 7. She studied MA Fine Art at the Piet Zwarte Institute in Rotterdam, then worked in the field of art and design in the Netherlands for several years before returning to Australia to start her fashion project called ‘Articles of Clothing’. Article of Clothing operates outside the conventional modes of fashion production. Garments are functional and minimalist and devoid of ‘trends’ connected to seasons. They are released at their own speed and catalogued via a serial number. Her work is stocked in Monk House Design, Shifting Worlds, Shop Kinobi in Melbourne, online and various stores in Japan. Annie is also currently a PHD candidate by practice in the school of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University.

Peter Kongmalavong is a recent graduate from the ANU School of Art where he majored in textiles. Since graduating, Peter has worked as a design assistant and PR consultant with Materialbyproduct and Haryono Setiad, working on collections for offsite Mercedes Benz fashion week shows. Peter currently manages a tailoring store in the Canberra Centre. In this role, he has built experience in professional tailoring and developed a sophisticated understanding of working with the body, pattern making, free form draping and dressmaking.