An international fashion research project exploring the 'craft of use'

Action Tools

The tools of use become an extension of our creative expression and shape our engagement with the world. Courtesy of simple or sophisticated technology, they open up alternative pathways of action.

Rip start

“Well it all started off at a workshop… I had recently got an embellishing machine… and was excited about the possibilities as to what you could do with. I started [the dress] in about 2008 from pieces of silk, cotton and velvet, added a bit to it and then it put it away for about two years… I took it out again in at the beginning of 2011 when I started making and making and making [using the embellishing machine] and I had to drape it around a dummy to get the shape of the dress and I’d add a piece. The great thing about the embellishing machine [because it doesn’t use thread] is that you can rip [the garment] apart and put more pieces in and rip it apart and do this, that and the other.”


Dublin - April 2012
Photograph by Des Moriarty