These days it’s a little-known fact, but the field of architecture boasts a fabled history of dress-ups. At New York’s Beaux-Arts Ball of 1931, at least two dozen architects came dressed as buildings they had designed—including Ralph Walker as the Wall Street Building, and William Van Alen as the Chrysler Building, and Leonard Schultze as the Waldorf-Astoria.

Fast-forward to 2014 and students from Monash University Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) are collaborating with leading Melbourne architecture practices to translate iconic city buildings into wearable forms. In the lead-up to presentation night, they’ll also take part in a series of workshops—hosted by Callum Morton, Miriam Borcherdt and Cate Hall—dissecting their building and redesigning it to a human scale, while experimenting with a range of materials to test the way they work with the body’s movements. The crossover of vocabularies between fashion and architecture will be explored in techniques including folding, wrapping, pleating, draping, suspension, surface design, silhouette and form.

Join them at MPavilion on Saturday 15 November to see the final outcomes—and shake the hand of the building who wins best design.