Origin: 2008, Shenzhen, China

Field: Unisex

Designer: Kain Picken and Fiona Lau

Biography:

ffiXXed is a collaborative art and design project initiated by Kain Picken and Fiona Lau in Berlin, February 2008. The primary focus is the production of a unisex, prêt a porter fashion label that develops between a range of other art and design based activities. In February 2010, after moving between studio spaces in Berlin, Hong Kong, New York and Melbourne, they established their own in-house production studio in Shenzhen, China – one of the world’s fastest growing cities. Here they have transformed a former 4 level village building located at the foot of the Wutong Mountain into a unique, integrated living and working space that centre’s and shifts around the production of ffiXXed products.

They currently split their time between Shenzhen, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

Style:

The ffiXXed collections engage traditional garment requirements as a starting point, creating new and unexpected forms of trans-functionality for every-day basics. Their minimal style is often offset by the application of highly personalised manufacturing techniques, home handy crafts, and a d.i.y. approach  to production. By utilising a range of surfaces and materials to enhance basic garments, ffiXXed integrate additional function and applications, combining everyday wear with more formal and conceptual elements to address, transcend and stimulate a variety of social and domestic situations.

Exploring the relationship between spaces, places and the objects and bodies that occupy them, ffiXXed produce situations for new living ideas, and ideas for new living situations.

Fall/Winter 11 Collection:

The question of how to make (and maintain) spaces that promote integrated lifestyles remains central to the ffiXXed project. The title of the current collection refers to the experimental living systems developed by D.I.Y. designer Ken Isaacs through the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.  Isaac’s ‘Living Structures’ reconfigured domestic space, producing a series of simple forms to support ways of living and working that challenge the interpersonal, cultural, economic and political dimensions of everyday life proposed by dominant culture.

This collection presents a series garments that might occupy contemporary spaces in a similar way; transforming work into leisure, prioritising analysis, creativity and comfort, and disabling functional and stylistic expectations.