Modus Hosts
MODUS
a mode or procedure
a way of doing something
About MODUS
MODUS is a network and a platform to connect and celebrate fashion practices in the expanded field. While the mainstream fashion industry continues to uphold commercial boundaries, there are emergent practices that propose alternate value systems and thus different ways of thinking, doing and being fashion. These are expanded fashion practices – experimental methods, curiosity and criticality that thrive in the margins and boundaries and that interrogate the social, cultural, political and environmental impacts of fashion, pointing to a future that transcends the current capitalist paradigm.
Initiated in 2018 by Ruby Hoette and Caroline Stevenson, MODUS takes various forms, from publications to events, exhibitions and workshops as well as the MODUS Archive; a collection of printed matter documenting this growing field – all with the aim of building an international network that represents and supports this community of practitioners. The central thread is a glossary – a collection of habits, methods, techniques, repetitions and actions – that together, begin to map out a shared language for expanded fashion practice.
MODUS at the Fashion Space Gallery
MODUS Hosts is an exhibition: a space to assemble, connect and nurture modes of practice in the expanded field. Here, at the Fashion Space Gallery, we bring together nine international artists, designers and collectives working at and beyond the traditional boundaries of fashion, creating dialogue between their methods and procedures. With an emphasis on process rather than outcome, we invite you to encounter fashion as a verb through a community of practice engaging in action, disruption, conversation, memory and care.
Caroline Stevenson, Programme Director of Cultural and Historical Studies at London College of Fashion, UAL said: “Contemporary fashion culture is seeing creative practitioners actively seeking to challenge traditional practices and question the very definition of their discipline. This new exhibition opening at London College of Fashion’s Fashion Space Gallery responds to this by bringing together nine international artists, designers and collectives working within the broad field of fashion practise to explore radical ways of ‘doing fashion’ through conversation, collaboration and playful criticalities. Visitors will be able to explore a host of fantastic works across the expanded field of fashion practice exploring new experimental methods to interrogate the social, cultural, political and environmental impacts of the fashion industry and consider how the future of fashion might transcend current capitalist models. We are so delighted to share this truly collaborative project that unites practitioners across political theory, design, criticism and culture to redefine and challenge existing notions of fashion and the ways in which it is communicated and experienced.”
Exhibition highlights:
COLECTIVO MALVESTIDAS
Colectivo Malvestidas (Poorly Dressed Collective) is a two-headed creature (Tamara Poblete and Loreto Martínez) born in 2016 in Santiago, Chile, to examine and dismantle dominant and oppressive discourses in fashion, and to make visible and generate disruptive and counter-hegemonic discourses.
ELLEN SAMPSON
Ellen Sampson is an artist and material culture researcher who uses film, photography, writing and performance to explore the sensory and emotional entanglements between bodies, and garments, both in museums and archives, and in everyday life.
MUSLIN BROTHERS
Established in 2011 in Tel Aviv, and located in Brussels, Muslin Brothers (fashion practitioners Tamar Levit and Yaen Levi) is named after muslin fabric that is widely used to make veils, men’s shirting, and clothes prototypes prior to production. The studio acts as both a fashion brand and research studio to speculate about the way personal and social systems are shaped through clothes.
All exhibitors:
- Colectivo Malvestidas (CL)
- Ellen Sampson (UK)
- Kasia Gorniak / talking through our bodies (FI)
- Laura Gardner (AU) and Femke de Vries (NL)
- Muslin Brothers (IL/BE)
- Nakako Hayashi / here and there (JP)
- Sue Tompkins (UK)
- Tenant of Culture (UK/NL)
- The Community (FR)
Curated by Caroline Stevenson and Ruby Hoette.
Fashion Space Gallery opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am – 5pm.
Image courtesy of Modus.