Modern society depends very much from drugs and, while not all of us may be addicted to illegal substances, most of us use (and abuse) specific pills and medicines.
As every fashion cycle is very much linked to what happens in society, it is only natural for designers to take inspiration from or reference drugs or move from themes linked with pharmacopoeia, that is drug-making.
This term first appeared in works describing special medical preparations and in particular in a book published at Basel, Switzerland, in 1561 by Dr. A. Foes. The term entered at the beginning of the 17th century into general use.
In the early days of pharmacopoeia, the compounds employed in medicine included rather unusual and bizarre ingredients such as crabs’ eyes, coral, and the excrements of human beings and animals, something that changed in 1721 when many remedies were eliminated. By 1746, only those preparations which had received the approval of the majority of the pharmacopoeia committee were retained.
Modern pharmacopoeia has obviously moved on, focusing only on synthetic chemical remedies, but it remains a fascinating discipline that has inspired quite a few artists, including Damien Hirst in his glass, stainless steel, and aluminium display cases filled with coloured plaster and painted pills (think about “Standing Alone on the Precipice and Overlooking the Arctic Wastelands of Pure Terror”, 1999-2000, or the more recent “The Dark Continent”, 2009-2010, a cabinet filled with black/grey pills).
It wasn't therefore a surprise spotting the pharmacopoeia trend at London's Graduate Fashion Week (GFW; on until today).
The main inspiration for Emma Quinn (from the Limerick School of Art and Design at the Limerick Institute of Technology)'s collection was actually the movie Silver Linings Playbook and the graduate mainly focused on the portrayal of obsessive-compulsive disorder and bipolar disease in the film, that she reinterpreted through colour blocking and asymmetrical designs in her pieces.
Some designs were also decorated with pharmaceutical beading (that made you think a bit about Hirst's works or his backpack adorned with prescription pills designed in collaboration with the Olsen twins' label View this photo) that represented the medical aspect of the disorder.
Two students from the University of South Wales went for the pharmacopoeia/clinical approach, Haf Philpotts and Ashleigh Muza.
The former came up with a collection of white garments that included lab coats with large pockets and trousers with prints of chemical formulas or with lateral inserts of transparent PVC in which coloured liquids float.
All the pieces were accessoried with oversized pill necklaces (imagine a modern hip hop version of Schiaparelli's white porcelain "Aspirin" necklace designed by writer Elsa Triolet and developed by Jean Clément) and pill bags.
Muza's collection featured instead black or white ensembles decorated with flexible keyboards that seemed to merge the chemist laboratory look with that of a tech expert.
Textiles weren't immune from this trend: Harriett Fieldman (from the University of Brighton) explored in her designs inspired by the theme of suspension, the possibilities that layers and contrasts may offer to designers. The graduate played with transparent and opaque themes, creating in some cases pockets in which she trapped styrofoam balls or pill-like sequins.
If you fancy this theme and you're a chemist or a scientist, you can maybe leave fashion behind and apply to Tournesol 2016 (deadline 31st August 2015), a research project about scientific and technological cooperation carried out in cooperation between higher education and research institutions and government agencies from Wallonia-Brussels and France.
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