Holes and Buttons, 2020

The system of re-working

'Buttoning' is to fasten something, usually a piece of clothing, using buttons and buttonholes. It is conventionally an activity in which buttons are fastened parallel to its buttonholes by wearers. However, what if the wearer does not button up parallel to its holes? Or, what if the holes on a shirt fasten with the buttons on trousers? It could create an unexpected silhouette which is not intended by designers and makers who have created the garment. It might be one of the simple ways for wearers to access designing a new shape after the designer and maker.

Sehikyo introduces a film reflecting the possibility in which wearers are more engaged in creating a shape of their garments with the designer and maker by 'buttoning'. The wearer in the film embodies a response to three pieces of garments that the designer provides.

As a designer and observer, Sehikyo promotes the wearer’s spontaneous wearing activity based on the wearer's imagination and aesthetic of how to wear it rather than taking the designer’s taste unilaterally in the fashion industry having the overabundance labels, and the wearer proposes another form through buttoning. Ultimately, 'buttoning' could reflect interactive communication as a medium of the designer, buttonhole maker and wearer. Furthermore, the practice offers to get away from the surfeit of style and develop own aesthetic. In terms of reworking tastes through ‘buttoning’, the practice establishes the idea of the activity possibly being a form of reworking which the wearer can re-shape their garments. 

Sehikyo embeds this idea into the actual practice called ‘Holes and Buttons’, that wearers participate in creating the garment with buttons.