In recent years, there’s been an encouraging rise in awareness and openness toward gender fluid apparel. Although high street behemoths like H&M and Zara have dipped their toes into the unisex universe of late, smaller, independent brands have been the real pioneers of the genre, far ahead of the mass market in terms of gender queer expression and representation. Softwear — a collaboration between Melbourne photographer and a designer, Shannon May Powell, and artist Marley Sheridan — is just one such project exploring the concept of fluidity through fabric, one which is also inspired by ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) experience, cinema, and conceptual theories of a post-human world.
Since the project’s inception, Powell and Sheridan have sought to create clothing that explores gender from a nuanced and expansive perspective. The collection, which comprises silk, multi-hued suits printed with Powell’s photographs, is partly inspired by the book, The Sex Appeal of the Inorganic by Mario Perniola. Exploring philosophies of desire in the modern world, the book — according to Powell — “imagines a world where our biology is mixed with technology, and where notions of gender, sexuality and identity become non-binary, ambiguous, superfluous even”. Sheridan agrees. “Keep pushing the envelope towards Perniola’s utopian future. Fluidity is the essence of wearing what you want,” the artist tells SLEEK. For the designers, Softwear is about expanding beyond the perimeters of fixed genders for what Sheridan describes as “the modern person” — “for our friends and ourselves, who do not pertain to binary gender codes. We hope that the wearer makes their own story when they wear them.”
Cinematic influence saturates their tactile and colourful garments. The pair draw inspiration from Wong Kar-Wai’s stunning 2000 romance, In the Mood for Love, in particular the scene where “Maggie Cheung’s dress matches the powder blue curtains,” muses Sheridan. Arguably, Softwear’s delicate satin and silk ensembles, marbled and blotted with photographic pattern and waves of colour, resemble on-screen shapeshifting, the shimmering of light and texture as well as the fluctuating flow of images.
The future for Software is certainly bright as Powell and Marley gear up for an exhibition of wearable art next year in Melbourne, following on from the duo’s installation and photography show, The offering of one’s body as extraneous clothing, last April. “There is always this debate in fashion ‘is it art”?” explains Sheridan. “Softwear is a project seeking to blur those lines further and create pieces that communicate a narrative and are worn with intent.” The future isn’t stopping with exhibitions either. “We like to evolve our mediums each step of the way,” says Powell. “And then who knows what’s next? Maybe holographic techniques, cyborg models…” One thing is for sure, Softwear’s future will be fluid.
See more from the collection below:
CREDITS
Photographer: Shannon May Powell
Talent: Mercy Sang, Willem Horck, Lara Killham-Walter
Stylist: Marley Sheridan
MUA: Georgia Gaillard
Clothing: Softwear