Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology

Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion

Yesterday's post was dedicated to an art and fashion comparison, so let's continue the thread for another day to look at the "Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion" event.

Announced last September and conceived by the BFC/Bazaar Fashion Arts Foundation, the project - part of the London 2012 Festival, a cultural event celebrating the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games - is a collaborative effort involving Britain's artists and designers (check out the complete list of collaborations here) teaming up together to create new artworks.

The results, unveiled this week during a fundraising event, were radically different as the artists and designers were given an open brief based on a dialogue between the two disciplines with some connections with fundamental Olympic values.

Some projects are actually wearable: Giles Deacon and Jeremy Deller came up with a a body suit and cape with a print derived from a William Morris stained glass window and described by the pair on the British Creates site “an Arts and Crafts suit of armour for an athlete” (the duo will also apply the same print to items such as marathon blankets and badges that will be handed out during the Olympic Games).

Other works, such as “The Four Minute Mile”, Hussein Chalayan's recording on a bronze copper master and on vinyl (symbolising in their shapes and grooves the Olympic rings) of an interview with Gavin Turk with special effects of running feet in the background, are more conceptual.

Colours and the power of light seemed to be the starting point for Jonathan Saunders and Jess Flood-Paddock's installation of 200 colourful screen-printed plastic sheets (based on Saunders' graphic jumpers) hanging on a rail, and for Stephen Jones and Cerith Wyn Evans's luminous halo-like “Celestial Bonnet” installation, featuring five rings shining with LED lights. 

As it happens at the best contemporary art fairs/exhibition in the world, while some pieces are very gratifying from a visual point of view, they also have the same alienating effect modern art can have on museum visitors and make you wonder what's the final meaning and aim of modern art (think about Nicholas Kirkwood and Simon Periton's steel rings with cast resin scalpels and dismembered parts of Kirkwood's shoes, Mary Katrantzou and Mark Titchner brilliantly coloured video installation based on Olympic values such as courage, ambition, passion or strength and inspired by a line in an Emily Dickinson's poem or Peter Pilotto and Francis Upritchard's arched figurine clad in an embellished body suit by the design duo).

The artworks will actually go on display at London's Victoria & Albert Museum from next week while Selfridges will use them as window displays in August and eventually host a charity auction of two of the pieces.

If you think you're going to miss the event, fear not, it is also possible to buy a boxset with two books that feature essays, posters of the artworks and an accompanying CD.

The volumes also provide an insight into the inspirations that led specific designers/artists to the creation of their works with sketches, notes and explanations about each piece.

Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collusion, 6 – 29 July 2012, V&A, London.

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Consumption as a Pop Obsession: Jeff Koons an Andy Warhol Vs Burberry Prorsum and Moschino Men's S/S 13

Art has always represented a strong inspiration for fashion designers, but in recent menswear collections there were both direct and indirect references to artists who represent capitalist consumption, such as Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol.

This wouldn't be the first time such modern artists were referenced, yet it seems particularly apt to move from them in our times, since both Koons and Warhol's visually gratifying works embody at the same time the innovation and the shallow culture and banality of the society we're living in. 

The art references started with Burberry Prorsum where Christopher Bailey came up with a collection mainly featuring sensible tailored pieces but punctuated here and there by macs, trousers, bomber jackets, collars and sandals in metallic fuchsia, blue, green and yellow.

Though the classic and sartorial pieces will probably be a much wiser investment, the vivid metallics gave an energetic touch to the collection. Apparently the colour palette was inspired by artist David Hockney and the hand-drawn geometric prints were instead influenced by the Bloomsbury Group and the work of painter, potter, and textile designer Duncan Grant. Yet those eye-popping metallics called to mind works of art such as Jeff Koons' gigantic high-gloss stainless-steel balloon sculptures. The shades and texture of the metallic pieces in this collection seemed indeed lifted from the artist's highly reflective balloon-like polychrome and chromium stainless steel coated sculpture entitled "Tulips". 

Moschino moved from Pop Art and supermarket inspirations with Bill Shapiro and Rossella Jardini sending out not on a runway, but along the aisles of the food hall of Milan's Excelsior shopping emporium, models clad in suits, cardigans and shirts  decorated with prints of Budweiser-like Moschino logos and "Fresh" detergent (spoof of Ariel washing powder).

Though the collection featured also more tailored (and wearable) striped suits and designs, the energetic pop pieces were definitely the ones that caught your eye displaying also a strong connection with Andy Warhol's Brillo Soap Pads. This is actually not the first time the fashion house successfully channels in its collections a sort of obsession with American consumer culture (remember its Mr Freedom-inspired collection?). 

In a way it's interesting to see how themes such as banality, artificiality and falsity tackled by artists such as Koons and Warhol, could be applied to specific fashion collections, but also to the entire fashion industry, to its vampirical addiction for consumption and to the way the fashion media prompt and push consumers to buy the next "must-have" item. And while you could argue that clothes are just clothes with no art meaning attached to them, it was somehow impossible not to look at Moschino's Pop Art pieces and hear in your head The Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket", and not laugh thinking about fashionistas and fashion victims looking for "that special offer" - a "guaranteed personality."  

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Space and The Body: Jil Sander Men's S/S 13 Vs Le Corbusier's Notre-Dame-du-Haut

News arrived yesterday that Álvaro Siza Vieira has been chosen as the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition that will take place later on this year in Venice. We will have time to look at his work in future posts, in the meantime, to celebrate this architectural piece of news, let's look at an interesting comparison between a building by Le Corbusier and Jil Sander's Spring/Summer 2013 menswear collection.

The building in question is the Notre-Dame-du-Haut Chapel in Ronchamp, France, and the comparison is not only conceptual, but also physical, with specific architectural features in this building - namely the windows - resembling some colours and graphic elements in the collection.

Regulated by strict mathematical and geometrical forms, the chapel at Ronchamp is shaped like a neolithic construction with an ample roof and undulating walls. The structure is made of concrete and rubble infill, concealed under layers of thick white gunnite. When Le Corbusier designed it, he tried to explore the vital relation between the human body and the architecture that surrounds it. The chapel was built on an ancient place of sun worship and this seems to be reflected also in the brilliant colours of the glass windows decorated with Le Corbusier's painted images that punctuate its interior.

The windows are actually the focus of the building with their deep set, coloured glass that casts an eerie haze over the main seating area. There is a contrast in a way between the colourful windows and the materials used to build the church with its square slab altar and rough walls.

In a way there is a symmetry between this building and Jil Sander's collection: the latter marked the return of the German designer to fashion after an eight-year absence and opened with squarish pristine and formal jackets and sleeveless coats as severe as the exterior of this building, and often paired with voluminously ample shorts. The knitwear pieces were among the most interesting designs with jumpers and cardigans featuring Mondrian-like stripes inspired by German abstract painter Blinky Palermo and American minimalist Robert Mangold.

It was possible to detect that slightly architectural Le Corbusier influence in the palette employed for the knitwear and in the yellow or cobalt blue outerwear. The graphic motifs on the designs also called to mind the structure of the chapel windows and the colourful effects they produce when they are hit by a ray of sunshine.

Somehow you almost feel that, for this collection, it is valid the same quotation used by the Board of La Biennale di Venezia, as motivation for the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Álvaro Siza Vieira: "I am equal in size to whatever I see, not hemmed in by the size I am" (Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet). It looks like Jil Sander's new man is indeed at ease in the game of proportions and ample squarish silhouettes alternated to streamlined ones that its original founder created for this season.

Pics of Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, courtesy of Frank Boyle

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What's In A Name: Rebranding Dementia Hits YSL, Pardon SLP

We have heard the news, but, somehow, the decision still doesn't make sense to legions of fashion fans.

I'm referring to the announcement that arrived last week regarding new Yves Saint Laurent creative director Hedi Slimane, who, in the attempt to recapture the freedom that inspired Saint Laurent Rive Gauche, asked the house to drop the name of the founder.

Following this decision, the ready-to-wear stores and labels will be rebranded SLP (Saint Laurent Paris), but the YSL logo will remain the same.

Despite many fashion houses are currently identified by a single surname (think about Donatella Versace dropping the name Gianni after her brother's death or other maisons that do not carry anymore the name of the founder, such as Chanel, Lanvin and Givenchy), in the last few days this change has been negatively commented upon by loyal followers of the brand and fashion critics as well (and who knows what Pierre Berge, Saint Lauren't lover and business partner of 50 years, or his muse Catherine Deneuve truly think about this change...).

YSL remains indeed one of the most recognisable acronyms in fashion and opting for SLP and introducing in this way the name of the French capital in the logo in an attempt at going local rather than global, may change the perspective of consumers or simply confuse them, critics state.

Slimane - who moved the creative studio of the maison from Paris to Los Angeles on his appointment, is currently working on new store designs for the French maison and will present his debut womenswear collection during Paris Fashion Week at the end of September - said that with this decision he wanted to project the famous French fashion house into a new era. Yet the business move sounds controversial and some critics also highlighted that, led by egomaniac impulses rather than by sensible needs, creative directors at historical fashion houses may be getting too much freedom in their decisions.

The change would be audacious and has been compared to Yves Saint Laurent's bold and revolutionary ideas such as launching a ready-to-wear line and creating his iconic “le smoking”, a tuxedo for women. Yet Slimane hasn't really brought in any tangible and extreme radical changes in fashion so far.

Justified as a return to the origins with Yves launching “Saint Laurent Rive Gauche” to distinguish ready-to-wear from couture, the move wasn't necessarily needed as the house does not seem to have any financial problems at the moment but can boast of being internationally recognisable (and this is also proved by the fact that the best selling products bearing the YSL logo - perfumes and cosmetics - will not be altered...).

In a way, though, the new acronym sounds  terrifically comical: while YSL can only mean the house that Yves founded, the SLP acronym indicates different things in different fields, from "Service Location Protocol" to "Speech Language Pathologist", "Sea Level Pressure" and "School Lunch Program". And while Slimane should have maybe enlisted the help of one of those researchers who check out if a name for a specific product that does not mean anything in one language may be highly offensive in another, he can be sure that, while SLP may not be very successful on a global scale, supporters of the S(cottish) L(abour) P(arty) and S(cottish) L(iberal) P(arty), will be pretty happy to know they will soon have dedicated lines of clothes and accessories.

That said, we genuinely hope this change will not give strange ideas to another infamous creative director, Karl Lagerfeld: he may not have seen any need to alter Chanel's logo or name in his 29-year-old career at the maison, but when egomaniac attitudes are involved, you never know what may happen...  

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Green Economy: Grass Growth Vs Grass Prints

Music fans obviously do remember Bow Wow Wow, originally founded by Malcolm McLaren to promote the fashion lines he released with his then partner Vivienne Westwood.

They probably also remember how an early '80s record cover ("See Jungle!" for the US market/"The Last of the Mohicans" for the UK market) paid homage to Manet’s “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” and how it caused a major scandal because the band's underage singer was naked. 

For her menswear S/S 2013 collection Westwood was back to her “Lunch on the Grass” inspirations, an apt influence if you think that the fashion house went also to last week's Rio+20, the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development.

The runway show was a vision of a summer picnic with models wearing flower wreaths, but the most interesting pieces, in an otherwise rather tamed collection, were the jackets and trousers with prints of grass stains.

They immediately made you think about abandoned or derelict damp buildings reclaimed by nature on which grass and greenery grow (like the one in this post, located in Glasgow).

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Simple Yet Disquieting Unisex Geometries: Prada Men's S/S 2013

Yesterday evening Italy won a key European Champiopnship match against England, but there are currently very few things to be happy about in the country.

Economy is going down the drain, unemployment rates are constantly rising while politicians are constantly stealing and keeping on cutting pensions and culture funds rather than their own wages, not to mention the damages caused by the recent earthquakes.

It was only natural then for Miuccia Prada to take refuge from confusion, chaos and uncertainty in a print-free, balanced and almost too simple collection.

The design silhouettes were very basic since only the pants were slightly flared and the collection included two-button suits, polos with contrasting collars and  borders (inspired to the borders in Roman and Greek garments apparently), lightweight squarish coats and short-sleeved jackets.

The palette revolved around wine, black, white and navy with splashes of pink and green and all the designs were accessorised with basic two-tone plain flat sandals and geometric bags. 

The same garments reappeared also in the women’s resort line that Prada presented during the same show.

Yet in all this simplicity, repetitiveness and gender oblivion with both male and female models walking down the runway, there were signs of overlapping inspirations and references.

Miuccia Prada is a cinematic designer and the two-tone headbands sported with fur coats called to mind nerdish looks seen in Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (View this photo).

Yet that wasn't all: the key elements to dissect the collection were the bands of contrasting colours inside the trouser legs replicated by the geometric lines of light projected on the runway and creating intersecting paths that ended in a white anonymous ramp that allowed the models to swiftly disappear behind the scenes.

Geometric lines were all the rage in fashion during the '60s, with designers from André Courrèges to Pierre Cardin employing them to create the space age looks that became so influential in later decades.

This Prada collection isn't strictly "space age", but it displays some references to uniforms that could be donned by both men and women (usually men and women in sci-fi films are dressed in the same practically functional clothes...) and therefore indirectly hint at a world where they will be no difference between sexes at least clothes-wise (and where there will hopefully be no need for so many catwalk shows...).

Yet Prada's vision of the future is certainly not intergalactic nor it suggests new technological advancements in fabrics, clothes and accessories.

When you think about it, though, maybe Miuccia's own words explained it all: the designer claimed this collection was about simplicity and equality, but there were simplicity and equality in futuristic and dystopic novels and films such as The 10th Victim.

In the latter the main characters, clad in black and white clothes characterised by geometric and graphic bold lines, live in a world in which human beings are allowed to kill each other in a sort of universal hunting game.

Though this reading is maybe a bit too intense, who knows, it could actually reflect what Miuccia Prada had in mind (the '60s soundtrack featuring Brigitte Bardot's "Contact" with its sci-fi video was maybe another element that hinted towards this explanation...).

Maybe Miuccia purposely wanted to leave behind her power fuelled Autumn/Winter 2012 menswear collection with famous actors such as Gary Oldman and Willem Dafoe modelling the clothes, to remind people that a dystopian, uncertain and maybe anxiety-inducing future can hide also behind seemingly safe clothes. 

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How Insular Can You Go? Dolce & Gabbana S/S 13 Menswear

If you're a tourist visiting Sicily, buying a pupo (traditional marionette covered in metal armours enriched by engravings), a colourful cardboard cart pushed by a plastic donkey or even a cork temple is a must-do experience.

Hailing from Sicily, but mainly selling their clothes to fashionistas abroad, Domenico Dolce must have thought together with Stefano Gabbana, the other half of the famous fashion duo, that a menswear collection based on these traditional symbols may have been a total hit.

In a way they were right: every time their mens/womenswear collections displayed stereotypical Sicilian/Italian connections or inspirations borrowed from Catholic religion, they were praised by the media and stealing rather than simply moving from traditions was their winning formula in some cases such as their Autumn/Winter 2012-13 womenswear collection, based on the black dresses decorated with gold swirls of the statues of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows.

This would then explain why for their Spring/Summer 2013 menswear collection they opted for prints borrowed from the "opera dei pupi" replicated on shirts, shorts and jackets, for black and white images of Agrigento's Valley of the Temples, and for the kaleidoscopic motifs that decorate Sicilian carts.

To give the clothes some authenticity (and possibly save money in this perennial financial crisis...) they also enlisted non-professional models from Sicilian towns and villages who actually wore well the short sleeved shirts with Sicilian prints, the tops with pupi prints that unzipped right where the theatre curtain should be to give the impression you were at a pupi representation (View this photo), the roughly woven polo shirts with their raw hems accessorised with battered cases and cut-away sandals (a rather too stereotypical Sicilian immigrant look - View this photo), the striped fishermen's vests and the three-piece baggy wool or linen suits.

Though at least the collection was modelled by real boys (some as young as 11) and this gave it some genuine intent, there was mainly one point missing: the message wasn't in the Sicilian souvenirs but in the craft behind them and also in their stories.

The "opera dei pupi" is indeed a representation of the Medieval clashes between Knights and Moors, so it tells a story (just like a fashion collection) and the Pupari, the master puppeteers, are also artists and craftspeople helped in their work by very skilled artisans - including blacksmiths (to make the pupis' armours), painters (to decorate the details of the marionettes and the sets) and writers (to write the stories).

Being a symbol of art and of extraordinary cultural richness, around ten years ago, the Sicilian Puppet Theatre was placed on UNESCO's list of Immaterial Heritages of Humanity. You can easily spot the connections between the pupi theatre and a fashion atelier, where the designer, like a master puppeteer, is surrounded by other talented people.

Yet this connection wasn't maybe too clear, and it could have been explored in further and more subtle details (maybe leather or metal accessories that paid homage to the engraved armours donned by the pupis...).

Besides, the time has also come for D&G to maybe look at less stereotypical Sicilian icons: Peppino Impastato or Placido Rizzotto may be too political and revolutionary for a fashion industry that only plays at being revolutionary, but it's scared of bringing revolution on the runway, and yet such inspirations or, as an alternative, the artists of the Sicilian tailoring school, would represent very positive values.

You could argue that this collection was a sort of triumph of insularity, but insularity sells well especially with foreign buyers and surely in our financially unstable times many designers would prefer to sell globally by being insular to selling on a smaller market by having globally recognisable inspirations.

The good news? We're now all entitled to get out of the cupboard our Sicilian pupis, carts and cork temples and put them in a corner of the house where everybody can see them. They're suddenly extremely fashionable.

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Escher-Like Illusions: Yuichi Ozaki

I'm republishing today an interview with young fashion designer Yuichi Ozaki who recently won the main Fashion Award during Bilbao's "Art & Fashion" event. The interview was originally done for Zoot Magazine.

There were designs inspired by mystic creatures, artworks and art movements, photography, architectural features and films at the recent "Art & Fashion" event that took place in Bilbao.

The competition received over 800 submissions from all over the world, but in the end it was Japanese Yuichi Ozaki who scooped the main award for fashion with a design inspired by illusions, 3D elements and M.C. Escher.

Mainly based on a restricted palette of navy blue, red, orange and white, Yuichi's dresses, jackets and coats are characterised by a series of panels that conceal 3D architectural structures that create an illusion of folding stripes.

His designs unzip to reveal colourful intaglio structures that, being based on principles such as repetition, rotation and reflection, call to mind Escher's intricate and interlocking etchings and engravings.       

Born in Tokyo, after winning a competition in his home country, Yuichi moved to the UK to complete a year's scholarship at Nottingham Trent University.

How did you feel about winning this award?
Yuichi Ozaki: Though I did my best, I did not expect to win. The event was very good and I was glad I met a lot of people, from the mayor, to some journalists and fashion designers from the Basque Provinces. Everyone said my design was beautiful and congratulated me. 

What's the theme behind the collection?
Yuichi Ozaki: My theme is Illusionism and the coexistence of art with clothing, so fashion and art and questioning the ambiguous borderline between the two. I am a fashion designer, not an artist, but I wanted to express the concept of art as fashion.

There’s a bit of architecture, sculpture and digital fascination in your new designs: what inspires them? 
Yuichi Ozaki: As I said, my collection is inspired by Illusionism and especially by M.C.Escher. By using a pop-up technique and horizontal stripes, I made sure the pattern looks different according to the angle you look at it from. There is actually a 3D shape there, but it is sometimes illusorily, seen as 2D through the effect of stripes. At the same time, my creation has a component of sculpture and architecture.

Is there an architect you particularly like or feel inspired by? 
Yuichi Ozaki: I am interested in architecture, not just in one architect as I think architecture is an inextricable part of fashion.

What kind of materials did you use to make it?   
Yuichi Ozaki: The base fabric is wool and engraved leather for the geometric pattern, printed striped cotton poplin, printed striped velvet, and laser-cut felt for the folded elements.

Some of your designs seem to be based on 3D elaborations, have you ever experimented further with 3D computer programmes or would you like to do so one day?
Yuichi Ozaki: Yes, the designs are based on 3D, but, since I can't use 3D computer programs very well, I had to make a lot of origami paper samples, around 2-300. After that, I thought about the design and made a 3D toile folding the laser-cut fabric by myself.          

Would you like to collaborate with an architect/fashion designer one day?
Yuichi Ozaki: Of course, if there is an opportunity in the future. I do not have a specific designer in mind. Because I am interested in everything, I would like to try and do many things in a pro-active manner, even costumes for films, and I would like to talk with a lot of other designers and artists and exchange opinions and ideas.

What are your future plans?
Yuichi Ozaki: It is very difficult to answer: I would like to stay in Europe and get as many experiences as possible, while trying to improve my English. However, it is hard for me as I have a Visa problem and I need a lot of money to remain here. If I do not find a job and a good opportunity, I will have to go back to Japan. In this case, I will start to my own fashion brand. Whatever happens I know I'll be a fashion designer! 

Image credits: Picture 1 and 2 in this post courtesy of the "Art & Fashion"  organisation; picture 4 by David Baird, picture 3 and 5 by Andy Espin.

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Text to Textile: TK 730

As a follow up to yesterday's post about the “Technosensual” event, I'd like to go back to an installation developed  a while back by some of the artists featured in this exhibition.

Last summer, artists/fashion designers and members of the e-textile workspace Meg Grant, Anja Hertenberger, Ricardo O'Nascimento and Leonie Urff worked together on a special project for the Summer Session at V2_, the Rotterdam-based interdisciplinary center for art and media technology.

Launched in 2009  the e-textile workspace organises events, talks and projects about wearables and in particular about wearable technologies. So far the group experimented with transformational garments, projects on how to make textiles move and Open Source textiles.

The result of that specific project led the artists and designers involved to the creation of a type-knit machine they called "TK 730" that can convert letters into stitches. The process involved hacking a scanner, two electric typewriters and a manual knitting machine and the results are extremely interesting as the machine can help a designer to translate text into textile.

While we do send a message to the people surrounding us everyday with our clothes, accessories or choice of colours (even when we claim we're not into fashion...), the potential of this machine is great because it may allow you to hide proper letters, messages and codes in the garments you're wearing.

 

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Technosensual: Where Fashion Meets Technology @ Vienna's quartier21

Decade after decade, the future has represented a constant inspiration for many artists and designers.

The space discoveries ruled supreme in the Sixties in art and fashion, but the attention in our millennium and decade has shifted towards other themes, topics and ideas.

Many contemporary fashion designers have for example showed a preoccupation with intelligent textiles and a will to find out how specific fibres and technological components can improve our lives when employed in a garment.

At the moment many of these projects are still at a beta stage, so for example we do not really know when and if nanotechnology will have an impact on our everyday lives, but there is plenty of interest in the technological field. 

Tangible proofs of this interest are the literature currently available on possibile fashion futurescapes and the events organised around these topics.

Among the latter there is also the exhibition "Technosensual: Where Fashion Meets Technology" that recently opened at Vienna’s quartier21 (one of the world's largest complexes for modern art and culture), kicking off the ‘M(useums) Q(uartier) Summer of Fashion’.  

Curated by Anouk Wipprecht, the event focuses on electronic textiles and wearable technologies and features Austrian, British, Canadian and Dutch artists and designers (some of them staying at the MuseumsQuartier as artists-in-residence).   

In some cases, for example in Bart Hess’s videos showing mutant looking humanoid forms or in Lucy McRae’s provocative, beautiful, but also disturbing futuristic visual installations, the future is an inspiring yet frighteningly artistic vision; in others, like Studio Roosegaarde’s, it is connected with the architecture and the space that surround us.

The fashion designers included in the event - from Ying Gao to Nancy Tilbury and Pauline van Dongen among the others - tried instead to use new materials and technologies such as 3D printing or to envisage a way to integrate specific devices into garments.

"Technosensual" features indeed biomechanical and interactive pieces, accessories that can self-grow on our bodies, garments that react to the environment thanks to motion detection sensors, and processors embedded in the fabric capable of managing data flows.

Some of these designs are exciting, others are slighly disturbing as they hint at the fact that in future we may be more controlled by machines, yet all the pieces included will inspire visitors while prompting them to ponder about the dynamic relation between space, people and technology.   

The event will also be accompanied by a series of performances such as the "Audio Ballerinas" one by Benoît Maubrey that entertained visitors last weekend, plus workshops and lectures about fascinating topics such as "Austro-Hungarian Embroidery Gone Electronic" (by Kobakant – 28/29 July) or more hands-on events for children that will teach the participants how to build futuristic fashion accessories from electronic toys. Ready to step into the future? Head to Vienna then.

"Technosensual: Where Fashion Meets Technology" is at quartier21, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria, until 2nd September 2012. 
  
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