A lone artist takes to the stage, announcing, tonight is the final night. A sense of foreboding is in the air, she feels destructive, smoke’s coming in from somewhere, tonnes of garment waste overflow the stage- her employer doesn’t know she’s here. It’s Apocalyptic. Everything’s going to hell. Now this is the time to debut the A/W collection. You are damned, our heroine says, but maybe you should try something on. She’s naked, blood red, eyes solid black – an archetypal demon – maybe it’s a warning. Maybe it’s going to get dangerous.
DEAD STOCK is a confrontation with the troubling practices of the fashion industry from an insider.
This premiere performance by Chelsea Hickman (Victorian Premiere’s Design Award: Fashion 2022, Fashion Chelsea, Lo-Fi Salon) combines high-energy spectacle with surprisingly intimate performance, an anarchic antifashion runway, and an anarchic electropunk soundtrack.
Audiences are asked to bring an garment of clothing to sacrifice to the artist’s pyre of consumer waste.
