Interview #217 — Annie Wu

by Amie Mai

Annie Wu is a designer, artist and educator based in Melbourne. She has developed her fashion practice (and brand) Articles of Clothing for the last seven years, translating a numbering process—that is often used in naming untitled or serial works of art—into a sustainable fashion design process and archive.

Currently there are 180 styles in the Articles of Clothing archive; each style can be retrieved and re-produced at any time. Annie holds a MA Fine Art from Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, and has exhibited her work locally and internationally.

Annie talked to Amie about lightbulb moments, the process of constructing an archive, and the beauty in small details.

The name Articles of Clothing is just so perfect. It feels like a little in-joke as it states the project so plainly but there’s so much more than meets the eye. Was this your intention?

I think at the time, I was riding on the irony wave of generic and direct titling, playing on the idea of common and archetypal clothing whilst also embracing commonality and the beauty of everyday as guiding principles for design. I titled the project Articles of Clothing when I was part of an exhibition at the Design Hub back in 2014 where I decided to recollect and document all the garments that I had designed and made over the years. I took the opportunity to recollect them all and start an archive which then over time evolved into what Articles of Clothing is now. I guess the humour doesn't need to be explained. Every now and then, random people on instagram will jokingly tag @articlesofclothing, on a pair of jeans they’re wearing, I totally embrace that.

I first discovered the project back in 2013 while shopping at Monk House Design (rip!). How do you feel the Australian fashion landscape has changed (if at all?) and what is your relationship to it? Who is the Articles customer and have they evolved over time?

It may have been 2014, or 2015, yes Monk House Design was really a store that supported local designers, but much like all creative outlets and practices, they are a labour of love. The changing landscape of the transition to online retail has pushed a lot of niche brick and mortar stores out of business. It can be hard to justify having a physical store at all for small fashion brands. Stores like Monk House really helped local brands reach a wider audience.

The Articles of Clothing customer is someone who is conscientious, considered, playful, experimental, creative, someone who is a collector of well-executed and thoughtful garments who understands and appreciates a structureless and continuous process of creating.

How did you come to see yourself as an artist? Can you tell me about one of the earliest pieces you ever made? Where did you first find creative expression? What other mediums do you work in?

My background is in art—I studied Fine Art at RMIT and MFA at Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. I exhibited work extensively back then; in more recent years, I have gained a new audience with my contribution to the fashion world with Articles. Some of my early works weren’t medium specific, they were conceptual and abstract in nature, often text-based, exploring word games, diagrams, and publishing. When I was in Amsterdam I made a word find game on the window of a gallery with only symmetrical letters from the alphabet, so that people can play on the inside and outside of the space. I republished a newspaper from the New Australia Movement, which was an utopian socialist settlement in Paraguay founded in 1893 by William Lane whose intent was to set up an idealist paradise outside of Australia. Even though it has been a while, I am starting to make art again.

I used to play in a noisy angular post punk band called Oh! Belgium in my late teens and early twenties. Music was the foundation to my later creative explorations. Through music, I became aware of subcultures and the ability to create an identity through dress which was very much the underpinnings of how I started to explore fashion. So, Music, art and fashion have been the three lives I’ve had so far.

What is your connection to sewing and making clothes? Did you grow up surrounded by creativity and DIY sensibilities?

My parents met at a textiles factory in Shanghai and when my mum and I moved to Melbourne in the early nineties to reunite with my dad, my mum continued to work in garment factories in Melbourne and eventually started her own alterations business at home. I was around industrial machinery since I was very young, she is an incredibly talented technical pattern maker and very skilled seamstress. She has mentored me over the years, so I think my approach to fashion has been a mish mash of her technical advice mixed with my free form art education approach. My dad is the DIY man of the house’ he finds all sorts of aesthetically unpleasing economical design solutions to problems around the home. I’m not going to lie and say he hasn’t played a part in my design education—I find the absurdity in his home design hacks very amusing.

Moving from Shanghai to the Netherlands to Australia—have your travels influenced your creative practice? How does the art scene compare across all the places you’ve lived and worked?

My years in Holland were incredibly enriching. I managed to find a community of like-minded artists and designers there—they were formative years of understanding the ins and outs of being a creative practitioner and what it means to feel socially accepted as a creative practitioner. The Dutch are incredibly generous with cultural funding. There are systems in place that nurture their long tradition of artistic output across both art and design practices. This may be the main point of difference between the Netherlands and somewhere like Australia, in that Australia has advanced in other cultural sectors such as food and sport. Having Chinese ancestry meant that I had another perspective on social organisation with which I can compare Australia and the Netherlands with. I find that Chinese culture, although very different in many respects, probably has more alignment with European culture than Australian Anglo-Saxon culture, in that they are both collectivist societies.

You’ve described the design process as akin to sculpting with fabric, and Articles feels very much like an art project. Yet your designs are incredibly functional and practical like workwear. What draws you to making such utilitarian pieces?

My process very much begins with a functional concept in my head, but the execution and process, is usually unconventional and this adds the magical ingredient to what makes my work unique despite the functionality and utilitarian nature of the pieces. There are many established and industry standardised conventions in pattern making processes which I don’t necessarily follow because I don’t have that technical training, but it just means that as a result, I can be more free to experiment with expanding the scope of possibility with how pieces are constructed and finished.

Different things can contribute to the design of new work. At times, it can just be an initial idea or some visual stimuli that is workshopped through many lightbulb moments (usually with my verbal collaborator and dear friend Vanessa). Sometimes, it comes from finding a solution to a design problem, sometimes it comes from re-thinking scraps or left over fabrics from previous designs, other times it’s completely unintentional and something is created by accident or a mistake because I had originally intended to design something else.

You’ve never positioned Articles as an explicitly ‘sustainable’ brand, but its ethos of longevity, circularity, resourcefulness, and rejecting the traditional seasonal calendar makes it implicitly so. Can you speak a little on this and where this philosophy emerged from? Was it a conscious decision?

Articles has gone through several phases as a project, because of this it has also adopted several identities over the years. It is now in its current phase as a brand and online ecommerce platform. The word ‘sustainability’ has become integral to the understanding of how a clothing brand aligns with our values as consumers, and we have become dependent on this knowledge to assess what and why we purchase. The reality is that every single new ‘brand’ these days must address sustainability to some capacity through their work.

I think because my practice has evolved gradually over time to become a clothing brand, the fashion community then started to see potential in how my approach addressed certain issues within the fashion industry. I think that is the main difference between what I do and say a traditional sustainable brand.

To answer your question, I deliberately leave the marketing spiel about sustainability out because I don’t want the discourse around sustainability to overshadow my work. But if a conversation about sustainability comes up, I’m more than happy to contribute to it, as I do see its importance.

There’s so much playfulness in your designs. I’m thinking of the formal Pyjama Suit Set made from vintage wool suiting (totally foreshadowed our WFH reality!), the Inverted Tote Bag, and the Underlining series which celebrate and recontextualise certain features of a garment or accessory to the forefront. What drives you to draw attention to these different details?

Thanks for recognising these elements in my work. I think oftentimes these small details can be overshadowed when not openly discussed. The idea of inversion often comes up subconsciously in many of the garments in the archive. All three of the works you mentioned above feature this process. The Pyjama Suit which was a commission for Ana Tiquia’s installation and performance Workplace thinks about a hybrid suit which is comfortable enough to lounge in, but also formal enough to work in. You are correct in identifying that it was indeed a predecessor to working from home during the pandemic because these were exactly the avenues we had to negotiate.

The inverted tote bag and underlining series are more literal in that it shows the internal composition of garments and accessories, not a ground-breaking idea in the history of fashion, as it has been explored by many designers, but i think what makes these designs unique in retrospect is me creating an outlet via these pieces to share my own compositional strategy (or design language) publicly. And this is the major point of difference between owning a standardised item that has been industrially produced compared to the work of a maker/designer/artisan that reveal the unique complexities in thought, processes and finishings.

The label was born out of documenting all the garments you’d made as commissions for friends and clients with each piece identified by the sequential order they were designed. Where did the idea of cataloguing each piece come from and why is the archive important to your project?

Great question—at one point this was the backbone of my PHD research, so I have had many years to think about this question. The desire to document all my scattered wearable works somewhat ten years ago came out of my desire to recall and celebrate all the wearable pieces that I had made over this time and to create a linear platform to then continue to build on. As I recognised that there was continuity in what I had started, I saw the archive as a way to collect all the works that I had made over the years; solidify a foundation from which I could continue to build on; to create recognition for a method of collecting a body of work that can contribute to discussions within the broader art, design and fashion communities.

What shapes and forms do you hope to take in future?

I’ve been working a lot with these narrow cotton drill fabric strips which I produce an abundance of to use for ties on other garments, straps, belts and belt loops, it’s a continuing feature in a lot of my garments and I actually thought about starting an internal series celebrating these fabric strips, making use of the left over pieces to make hanging mobiles, woven placemats, and other functional / decorative objects.

I’ve been working more with other artists and designers this year which has been super fun. I’d like to continue doing more of that and exchange ideas about production and materials and have our conversations underpin the development of new articles.

Articles of Clothing is mostly a solo project, how do you find community through your work?

I think working collaboratively is one way of finding a community. And you are correct in saying that it is very much a solo project where I am the mastermind behind all the creations, so it is really nice to open up that process by blending other ideas into the mix. This is also the perfect way to prevent stagnation and stay connected to the world.

In addition to running your business, you’re also a teacher.

Teaching is really fun, exhausting too because you’re essentially performing a monologue for the majority of the time for hours at a time. Most of the time it is very rewarding because you are helping the next generation of artists and designers find their direction and way and exposing them to influences that have shaped the way you work and see the world. I think teaching along-side a creative practice is quite complimentary, but the reality in Melbourne is that teaching is hard to get and even when you have teaching work, it is often precarious, with a lack of job security which can be quite unsettling as time goes on.

How do you define success for yourself?

I think success is maybe the feeling of being understood and appreciated for the work that you do. I also feel successful after a great conversation, or after a brainstorming session, when I’ve solved a problem, when I accomplish a goal I set out for myself, when I make new connections and learn something new about myself or others. It’s an achievement, but the degree is entirely up to oneself to determine.

And—do you have any advice for aspiring designers?

Don’t compare yourself to others, work together, form communities, form collectives to stay strong and support each other. Starting your own fashion project can be a daunting experience and very isolating. Fashion doesn’t really exist in a collectivist framework, it often takes on a very individualist approach, so I think establishing these networks could really benefit fashion practitioners in the long run.

What have you been watching / listening to lately?

I really enjoyed Jenny Odell’s talk at the Wheelers Centre. There's a part where she talks about rocks and how rocks are nothing more than what they have been shaped by, which really resonated with me. I watched a great documentary on Noguchi the other day too called Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper which I would recommend as it highlights the impact of cultural identity on creative output.

How do you practise self-care?

Doing something creative, going for a walk, organising my week, planning my lunch the next day, cooking something nourishing, connecting with a friend, establishing self-trust, and following through with plans and goals, having a bath, getting a massage.

What does being Asian-Australian mean to you?

It’s like a passport for a whole set of unique experiences I can share with others. It means having a full spectrum of cultural understanding, thorough appreciation of food diversity, and oftentimes some maladaptive attachment style.