In the studio with Mira Halász

Mira Halász has worn the same five garments — three black tunics, one grey trouser, one cream shirt — every day since 2012.

We met her in her studio outside Budapest in February. She was, as expected, wearing a black tunic.

"It is a discipline," she told us. "It is not an aesthetic."

We talked, over the course of an afternoon, about the difference. About what it means to choose constraint as a method, rather than as a style. About the seventeen drafts she made of the first tunic, in 2011, before she let herself wear it. About the second one, made three years later, which is identical except in three places where the seam allowance is two millimetres different.

"Most people understand constraint as a refusal," she said. "It is not. It is the opposite. It is what allows the work to begin."

She paused for a long time, then added: "The colour of the garment is a question. Once you have asked it, the rest of the questions can come."