Oscar Keene
Fashion Design BA Hons
RMIT University Melbourne
Specialisms: Apparel / Fashion Technology / Fashion Illustration
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Oscar Keene
First Name: Oscar
Last Name: Keene
Specialisms: Apparel / Fashion Technology / Fashion Illustration
Sectors: Fashion/Textiles/Accessories / Fashion/Textiles/Accessories / Fashion/Textiles/Accessories
My Location: Melbourne, Australia
University / College: RMIT University Melbourne
Course / Program Title: Fashion Design BA Hons
About
Oscar Keene undertook their honours year in the Bachelor of Fashion (Design) (Honours) at RMIT University in 2020, focusing on digital content creation due to the limitations imposed by the pandemic. Their practice explores queer materiality & the subversion of convention through fashion archetypes, having previously undertaken a degree in history at the University of Queensland, & the Associate Degree in Fashion & Design Technology at RMIT. In 2020 their digital outfit opened the Melbourne Fashion Week Student Runway, & they were a finalist for the Australian Fashion Foundation Award Scholarship. They are also currently a finalist for the iD International Emerging Designer Awards 2021. Previously they have received the award for a Diverse & Impacting Studio Project in 2018, for Creativity in Sustainability in 2019, & had their work featured in Semi-Grad: The Showcase, Situation: Brunswick, and Wandering Room Gallery. In 2021 they had their digital & physical fashion content exhibited in MARS Gallery as part of Melbourne Fashion Festival, had their garments featured in a Revlon campaign, and produced a digital runway for VFILES in New York. They were the recipient of the Grathelms Scholarship for their honours year at RMIT in 2020, & they received the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grant to sustain the development of their digital fashion practice.
“Fluid” explores queer selfhood during the time of COVID-19 addressing the questions; how does the queer body intersect the material and relate to space when traditional boundaries are in flux? What does queer safety look like when queer community is fractured? The collection demonstrates the potential for slow fashion to be prototyped digitally and then made to order. This technology adapted to fashion can engage the viewer in a different way to live streamed runways and conventional photoshoots, and can connect the artistic, conceptual framework behind a collection to the viewer with significantly reduced waste. This work merges art, fashion and commerce. 3D software can create compelling visual narratives, and design, patternmaking and prototyping can be accurately recreated virtually. There is no physical waste involved in these phases of production, and the accuracy of the simulations reduces the waste involved in creating the physical garments. “Fluid” emphasises the capacity for digital fashion to align with pre-existing fashion practices, to improve on the chain of production and combat fast fashion, highlight the potential for a multidisciplinary approach to fashion that advances the industry, reduce waste, and create more immersive content that can be experienced by a wider audience. It celebrates non-traditional narratives that can reflect the lived queer experience and the increasingly diverse identities that fall under that expansive category.