A few years ago I did an interview with a relatively young Italian designer who somehow made me think a lot about the relation between fashion designer and clothes manufacturer.
The collection of my interviewee featured some knitwear pieces and, when I asked him if they were manufactured by any historical Italian company, he coldly replied “I’d prefer that not to be mentioned”.
I wasn’t shocked, but I was certainly annoyed by his reaction, after all designers wouldn’t be able to create their collections if they wouldn’t have solid manufacturing companies behind their backs.
Many people – especially younger and uneducated fashion consumers - think that the clothes we see on the runways are entirely the product of a designer's mind (hence the profusion of words such as “genius”, “marvellous” and “magnificent” directed to just one fashion designer in reviews and comments).
Yet the (somewhat obvious) truth is that different forces contribute to create the perfect alchemy behind that final garment.
Leaf through old magazines for example and you will discover that, in the past, textile and yarn manufacturers were acknowledged in fashion adverts. Check out for example the 1976 adverts featured in this post.
They show designs by Yves Saint Laurent, Gibò (Giorgio Armani used to design two different lines for them in the '70s, Gibo and Gaia; this company really had an amazing story and produced Montana and Gaultier's collections and, in more recent years, worked for further key names in the fashion industry including McQueen, Chalayan and Viktor & Rolf), Renato Balestra and Ennesse.
All the adverts include the names of the fabric and yarn producers - Abraham, Liberty of London, Sisan, Faliero Sarti and Bemiva.
This was not an exception, but the rule: in some cases there were even “thank you” notes added to the textile or yarn manufacturer.
In a world that has gone global and in which many textile manufacturer closed down because they couldn’t face the competition coming from other markets and and in which we don’t even know where fabrics come from, you can almost understand why no tribute to such producers appears in modern fashion adverts.
But textile/yarn manufacturers had (and still have) a vitally important role in the fashion industry as they helped and keep on helping designers to find the perfect blends, materials, colours and weights for their collections.
It’s not a secret for example that beautiful textiles created by Sergio Carpini and made in Prato were employed for key pieces by iconic designers exhibited in prestigious museums (including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and in exhibitions all over the world.
Yet when these designs are exhibited the textile/yarn manufacturer is never credited. Shouldn’t we go back to the early days then when manufacturers were mentioned and even thanked on the glossy pages of famous fashion magazines?
I think that would be a good point and it would even help young fashion students and young designers to acquire a better knowledge of fabrics and yarns and to understand that they will have to be humble in their career.
After all they aren't stars solitarily shining in the fashion sky (as too many people would like you to believe...), but they are part of a wider and much more complicated constellation made of different skills and talents.
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Posted by: Product Packaging Boxes | January 20, 2012 at 05:38 AM