Fashioning Evolution Making fashion practitioner research by analogy Donna Sgro Abstract In my research, metamorphosis is used as a conceptual analogy to explore how change occurs in the process of making fashion garments. This research forms part of my PhD by project, Metamorphoric Fashion: A Transformative Practice, undertaken at RMIT University. Metamorphosis is understood as a process of change through which something undergoes a complete trans-form-ation. Change is acknowledged to be a defining characteristic of fashion, yet is rarely theorized from the perspective of the practitioner engaged with processes of materialization. Within the context of fashion and design studies, fashion practitioner research is under-represented, and the understanding of what fashion practitioner knowledge is, lacks solidarity. For emerging fashion practitioner researchers this is complex, however, represents unique opportunities for individual contributions to be made to the development of creative research practice within the discipline and more broadly; to consider what is shared and what is different within creative practice research. To make research through fashion practice, I have used metamorphosis as an analogic structure as a strategy to develop criticality; in order to be able to develop reflection, identification and articulation of the experience of making fashion. In this paper I propose the concept of fashioning evolution to describe how change is experienced as an ongoing generative condition within fashion making practices, which are actively shaped in the process of making garments. 1. Fashion practice in the field of research Perhaps it is no accident that the word used in Greek antiquity to describe the skill of the practitioner, tekhne, is derived from the Sanskrit words for axe, tasha, and the carpenter, taksan. The carpenter is ‘one who fashions’ (Sanskrit, taksati), a shaper or maker (Ingold 2010, p. 92). The recent thesis publication by Finn (2014) analyses key issues for fashion practitioner research in the university. This work evidences under-representation within fashion and design studies, linked to a “lack of consensus around what constitutes practitioner knowledge in fashion” and how this relates to the practice of design (Finn, 2014, pp. 21-22). Finn argues that advancing fashion practitioner research involves exploring issues of tacit knowledge, and developing specific language and communication. Alongside this academic context, secrecy within fashion