A few months ago I saw a story on the Cern Courier about a research published by a group of paleontologists that focused on the colour of dinosaurs and in particular on the striking plumage of some species of dinosaurs, tracked via melanosomes, that is pigment-loaded sacs contained in fossilised feathers. Indeed, apart from mineralised bones, fossils contain a significant amount of well-preserved organic material.
The research led to the discovery that the 125-million-year-old species Sinosauropteryx had red-brown and white stripes along its tail, while the face of the 150-million-year-old species Anchiornis huxleyi had reddish and black spots, its body was dark grey and its limbs were covered in white and black feathers.
The story on the Cern Courier mainly focused on the role pigmentation played in the life of these dinosaurs, yet it came back to my mind after seeing this window display at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
“The Inference of Feathers in Dinosaurs” display actually moves from the dinosaurs' featherlike structures rather than on the pigmentation, so it focuses on the function of ornamentation rather than on colours.
The placard in front of the window features an extract taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica explaining: “Feathered dinosaurs are intended as any from a group of theropod (carnivorous) dinosaurs, including birds, that evolved feathers from a simple filamentous covering at least by the Late Jurassic Period (about 161 million to 146 million years ago). Similar structures have been reported on the bodies of some ornithischian (or “bird-hipped”) dinosaurs, and they are also known from pterosaurs (flying reptiles). It is, therefore, possible that the common ancestors of all these animals may have had some kind of filamentous or hair-like body covering.”
I thought this was quite a good example of how to incorporate unusual inspirations into fashion designs and how scientific journals and researches may lead to wonderful and thought-provoking designs/window displays.
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