“A Fitting Room”: Embodied Object-Based Research at the Seneca Fashion Resource Centre

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Dr. Mark Joseph O’Connell

“An individual’s reaction to trying on a garment is rarely what you expect.” (Philip Sparks 2019)

“A Fitting Room” a performative engagement with the fashion research of Seneca Fashion professor Philip Sparks

As a part of his ongoing research into fit and conformity, Seneca Fashion Professor Sparks has created a series of dress shirts that have been designed specifically with non-traditional fits, shapes and proportions. Students from the Seneca Fashion Studies program engaged with this practice-based research as part of their FST101 Design subject taught by dr. Mark Joseph O’Connell.

Among other aspects of the processes of design and production, Professor Sparks explores in this body of research the question:

HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE FIT?

As he states of this hybrid art/performative research methodology:

“A Fitting Room, invites the audience to participate in the experience of a missed fit by trying on a variety of shirts made not to fit. This was done to highlight how everyone’s experience with dress is different. The pieces were made with some intention of not fitting in a particular way. The creative body of works I produced as part of this research explore the written theories that I found in my search for good fit, demonstrate that mechanical fit influences psychological fit, and that there are tools that can be developed to produce diverse approaches to fitting the body. The creative work challenges conventional attitudes to fit. Some other examples of this challenging of conventional attitudes to fit can be seen in the works of Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo for the brand Comme des Garçons (Bolton 2017), in the past creations by Belgian designer Martin Margiela for his Paris-based brand Maison Margiela (Samson 2018), and in the designs of American fashion designer Thom Browne. Missed Fit, the exhibition of my creative work, forms the body of this research. A key part of my methodology is the exploration of fit form a variety of perspectives as well as being open to new concepts of fit as they opened up during my research process.”

Professor Sparks describes the creative practice-led research undertaken for this project:

“These were fabricated so that various random observers could try on the unusual garments. Creating a performative art project that involves not only the art public viewing the work a sculptural installation, they also interact with it; and eventually physically embody it, as they fit their own disparate body shapes into these unusual formal shirts. Through performative engagements, the audience becomes a living part of the sculpture, changing the silhouettes of the garments, personalizing them through their own adoption and wearing of the pieces.”

This is exactly what my Fashion students did!

Seneca Fashion Studies FST 101 "performance" at Seneca Newnham Campus, Nov. 25th 2022. Photography Rose de Paulsen, photo-imaging dr. Mark Joseph O'Connell.

Professor Sparks describes the shirt/sculptures as follows:

200%

200% is a shirt with its pattern enlarged to two hundred per cent of my own shirt size to create more of a long gown than a shirt. Despite its outsized form, I did not want 200% to become too comfortable for the wearer, so I made it from a very fragile cloth with very little cohesiveness. This meant that one had to be very careful trying on and wearing the piece as a finger could easily puncture the cloth. Many visitors told me that this piece reminded them of trying on their parents clothing as a child (Figure 20).

75%

75% was a shirt made 25 per cent smaller, which produced a significant difference in the size of the finished piece. 75% was made from a four-way stretch fabric so that those who tried it on could have the experience of trying something on that was too small. Of course, I had two guests that fit the shirt quite well, received a hug and words of gratitude for producing something that fit someone who normally has issues with clothing being too large, usually left wearing children’s clothing. Some of the pieces looked at restricting movement as an issue with fit.

Abduction

Abduction, meaning “moving away”(Marieb 2011, 214), is a shirt made with the arms attached too low. Abduction is designed to prevent the wearer from lifting their arm away from body. Many new end uses, such as capes, were referenced as guests tried on this piece.

Upside Down

Upside Down was a shirt with the sleeves set upside down, again with the intention of restricting movement of the arms, but this time leaving the participant unable to comfortably put their arms down by their sides. Abdomen and Neck are both shirts where one part of the shirt was enlarged.

Abdomen

In Abdomen, a front section of the shirt was enlarged by 200 per cent and gathered back into an otherwise regular white shirt. This was a play on enlarging a part of the body that I am usually conscious of minimizing. Abdomen presented several ways of being worn. Many people suggested that it could be worn when carrying a child. I myself tried to wear an oversized pair of trousers and Abdomen for a day and concluded that I was too afraid I might just get comfortable and let myself grow into them.


Neck

Neck was made with a neck opening too big, exposing most of the chest abdomen and navel. It was meant to question the concept of appropriateness in clothing, but most guests simply appropriated the shirt and thought of it as a new type of jacket instead.

Professor Sparks notes that:

“Watching the audience try on these pieces […] illustrated how body proportions and personal identity overlap in the experience of fit. As a tailor, it’s important to set aside my own expectations of how someone else will respond to the fit of a piece of clothing. An individual’s reaction to trying on a garment is rarely what you expect.”

Also that:

“research journeys into fit from a wide range of theories and fields using a variety of research methods, and concludes in the making and exhibition of works that advance knowledge in these areas”. and that ” Many of the initial findings from the literature review can and should be explored further by other makers. These findings have been included as they help to form a full picture of the complicated experience of getting dressed.”

He concludes by stating that:

“The goal of this research is to expand the ways practitioners in fashion consider what is deemed to be good fit. What I have learned from my study of historical tailoring texts and through apprenticeship is that, traditionally, tailors define good fit as a garment that hangs in a balanced way off the shoulders and sits on the body without excessive folds or creases while the wearer is in a comfortable standing position. As a researcher, I learned that good fit is determined by the wearer and is different for every individual.”

The Fashion Studies students were both intrigued by the alternative research methodologies adopted (created) by Professor Sparks’ research, and also excited to see what this “body” of research would reveal next!

MJO’

Further information on the Seneca Fashion Studies can be found here:

https://www.senecacollege.ca/programs/fulltime/FST.html

Documentation of the performance at Seneca Newnham Campus, Nov. 25th 2022. Photography Rose de Paulsen, photo-imaging Dr. Mark Joseph O’Connell. Special thank you to the Fashion Studies class of Fall 2022.

Sparks quotes excerpted from: Sparks, Philip. “Missed Fit.” Fashion Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2020, pp. 1–37, https://www.fashionstudies.ca/missed-fit, https://doi.org/10.38055/FS030104.

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