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

The Power of Industrial Archaeology: Carlo Valsecchi's "Gasometer M.A.N. n. 3" @ The Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna, Italy

Abandoned industrial sites, buildings and structures can be very inspiring elements and places for creative minds, for their crumbling textures, colours and architectures.

The Gasometer M.A.N. n. 3 in Bologna has been a recognisable feature in the city skyline for decades. Opened in 1930, the 52 metre high structure was used until 1984 to stock gas.

The building was considered as a sort of industrial architecture gem since its design and shape were deemed as extremely experimental (very similar structures were located in other countries, but not in Italy).

The gasometer has a 16 face prism-like structure covered in sheet metal with a concrete base. The top is covered with an iron roof that integrates a ventilation dome. Outside the gasometer there are three gangplanks connected by a single staircase that runs around the structure.

The last charcoal distillation oven was closed in October 1960, then the structure was used for gas, but once the new plants were opened in the '80s, the building was abandoned.

The structure has now become the unlikely protagonist of an exhibition of images by Carlo Valsecchi, kicking off tomorrow at the Sala degli Incamminati at the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna (National Art Gallery of Bologna; until 31st March 2019). The exhibition is part of the ART CITY Bologna event.

In his practice Valsecchi mainly focuses on architecture, urban and industrial landscapes and infinite natural spaces. The gasometer project was inspired by a trip to Bologna the photographer took a while back. The images chronicle the restoration process the gasometer went through thanks to the support the Gruppo Hera.

In the photographs the gasometer is conceived as a living structure that has been on a journey of constant transformation since the '30s. Rather than looking like an old piece of industrial architecture, the gasometer calls to mind a mysterious futuristic structure, its roof shot from the inside resembles indeed one of those fascinating views of complex machines like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Valsecchi wanted to give the structure an almost sacred aura, portraying it like a silent space located in a utopian dimension where the physical and emotional landscapes collide and combine.

Hopefully there will be at some point an architectural documentary about such industrial landmarks as they are very inspiring from a cultural and architectural point of view. For what regards Valsecchi's images instead, expect them to reappear at some point in a fashion collection: the more you look at them, the more you can imagine the pictures as prints on utilitarian jackets or functional dresses with an architectural edge about them.  

Image credits for this post

All images copyright Carlo Valsecchi

The Alienating Consciousness of Loneliness in a Globalised World: Mika Rottenberg @ MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy

Did you know that at the border between Mexico and California an undeground tunnel connects the cities of Mexicali and Calexico? You can access it from the Dragon Restaurant, in Mexicali's Chinatown.

But you're warned: if you enter the tunnel in Mexico, you don't emerge in the States, but in a huge hypermarket located somewhere in China, a Baroque temple where millions of plastic products are lined, all guarded by tired and sleepy women.

You don't believe this story? Well, if you suspend your disbelief and watch Mika Rottenberg's "Cosmic Generator" video (that was also part of the US Pavilion at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice), you will change your mind and swear such a tunnel exists.

"Cosmic Generator" is just one of the videos by the Buenos Aires-born, but New York based artist, on show at the first Italian solo exhibition of Rottenberg's works, kicking off tomorrow at the Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo; until 19th May 2019).

There is plenty to see in this exhibition, part of the main programme of the ART CITY Bologna event, that also features three new works produced by MAMbo in collaboration with the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art London and Kunsthaus Bregenz.

The artist's fans will discover in the art museum spaces a kinetic sculpture entitled "Finger", mechanically mesmerising and alienating with its constant rotating movement and its scarily long and curved nail; "Ponytail", mysteriously erupting from a wall, moving with a disturbing force, curious, bizarre and utterly disquieting since it looks as if somebody (a ghost?) was trapped inside the wall; and "Smoky Lips (Study #4"), a pair of silicone lips integrated into a wall, sending smoke signals and inviting visitors to look inside them to watch a video inspired by Surrealism.

Yet Rottenberg's surreal videos mesmerise more than her quirky installations: quite often the artist employs indeed the techniques of documentaries and the visual semantics of journalistic reportage for her films.

In "NoNoseKnows" (2015), for example, Rottenberg takes the visitors through a small pearl factory and introduces them to the cultured pearls industry in China.

Rottenberg actually visited the pearl-making facilities of Zhuji, in the south of Shanghai, and integrated documentary footage showing Chinese women seeding pearls in her 21-minute long video.

The latter features shots of depressing apartment towers and manufacturing buildings around Zhuji, but then the attention shifts onto a mysterious woman, interpreted by Bunny Glamazon. The 6'3'' fetish performer acts as a sort of Western overseer who in turn becomes another clog in the machine.

Metaphorically locked in an elaborate fiction, but physically trapped into the factory (the tightly framed shots contribute to convey this impression to the viewers), she opens and closes doors that only lead into tiny rooms in which surreal soap bubbles and foam blobs fluctuate in the air like ethereal pearls; or, even more bizarrelly, Bunny sits in her office filled with flowers and located beneath the production floor. Here her nose grows long and red until she sneezes, Chinese food bursting from her nose and providing nourishment for the pearl workers.

Rottenberg has been fascinated with the theme of sneezing as proved also by her 2012 video "Sneeze" (maybe a reference to Thomas A. Edison's 1894 Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze) featuring men in suits with rather peculiar noses that sneeze all sorts of things including rabbits, steaks and bulbs.

Bulbs are another personal obsession of the artist: in an untitled projection, a gloved hand breaks coloured bulbs and the viewer gets the same point of view of the camera, becoming a part of the kaleidscope of colours formed by the broken fragments.

There is one key to grasp better the essence of Rottenberg's works - repetition tinged with sarcasm: the protagonists of her videos (mainly women) are trapped in a series of daily and relentless routines that have the potential of driving someone mad.

Humans turn into robots, but, right when you thought a revolutionary message or a comment about exploitation may appear on the screen, Rottenberg turns to sarcasm and humour.

In her video "Tropical Breeze" (2004) for example we look at the absurd production of lemon scented tissues that involves a body builder, Heather, who spreads the scent with the sweat of her body.

It's when Rottenberg shatters these stories of alienation and frustration with her trademark sarcasm that you suddenly remember a badly paid job you've done or you're trapped in, and that's when you want to cry and laugh at the same time, thinking about the absurdity of it all and the uselessness of some of the repetitive gestures seen on the screen, that are probably the same ones you're currently doing in your life and in your job.  

That's when you realise you've been Bunny Glamazon zealously opening and closing doors that lead to tiny empty rooms; you've been one of the women in the pearl factory or one of the workers falling asleep in the hypermarket in "Cosmic Generator", surrounded (and almost suffocated) by garishly coloured Christmas tinsel.

The life of Rottenberg's workers also seems influenced by the objects they manufacture: through elaborate and obsessive production rhythms, these women have turned into grotesque characters or machines (Rottenberg looks at the relation between machines/products and living organisms in "AC and Plant" in which an old air conditioner ends up feeding a plant with its water of condensation, forming an unlikely bond with it). 

The absurdities in Rottenberg's films become stratagems to point at real and painful themes, such as differences between classes, social inequalities and the effects of the gig economy and of globalisation on human beings. The artist seems indeed to warn us not to be fooled by the bright and vivid colours in the Chinese hypermarket, as that's where the dark magic of the hyper-capitalist society hides.

There is also a political message behind some of Rottenberg's videos: "Cosmic Generator" was inspired by a trip the artist took to China while US President Donald Trump was elected, and her tunnel in which she invites viewers to fall like Alice in Wonderland, is a way to escape Trump's wall.

So, while wandering around the MAMbo ponder more about the meanings behind these videos: in her films, while actions endlessly and irritatingly repeat and gestures lose their meaning, Mika Rottenberg reminds us that final products are useless and worthless. Their values stand indeed in the actions performed by the human beings who produced them and by the efforts and energies they employed to make them.

Image credits for this post

1, 2, 3 and 19
Mika Rottenberg, Cosmic Generator, 2017
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

4. Mika Rottenberg, Smoky Lips (Study #4), 2018-19
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

5. Mika Rottenberg, Finger, 2018
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

6.
Mika Rottenberg, Ponytail (Orange), 2018
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

7-12. Mika Rottenberg, NoNoseKnows, 2015
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

13. Mika Rottenberg, Sneeze, 2012
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of Antoine de Galbert, Paris

14. Mika Rottenberg, Untitled Ceiling Projection (video still), 2018

15 and 16. Mika Rottenberg, Tropical Breeze, 2004
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Collezione Pasquale Leccese
Courtesy Le Case D’Arte, Milano

17. Mika Rottenberg, AC and Plant, 2018
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth

18. Mika Rottenberg, Bowls Balls Souls Holes (AC and Plant), 2014
Installation view at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, 2019
Photo credit: Giorgio Bianchi, Comune di Bologna

A Woman's Journey, From Toe to Head: Tomihiro Kono X Aganovich Couture S/S 19

There was a sort of unintentional correspondence between Aganovich's Haute Couture S/S 19 collection, showcased in Paris during the local high fashion week, and the headpieces created by Japanese hair artist, head prop designer and wig maker Tomihiro Kono (河野富広) to complement the designs.

Both garments and wigs seemed to hide indeed a sort of duplicity: the clothes looked at times unfinished or mixing two patterns and prints together in the same designs.

In the same way the half wig/half mask headpieces were in some cases integrated into the designs or used in a decadently decorative way, almost as ties and bows.

Tomihiro Kono actually devised the idea of wig-cum-mask a few months before this show, while experimenting on his avant-garde wigs, and the headpieces ended up accessorising the garments in a striking way.

The main narrative behind the show - the second since the French Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture invited Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor to become pat of the high fashion schedule - told the story of a woman on a journey.

The latter could have been interpreted in many different ways: it could have been a journey through space, so from one place to another, or through the runway space - a carpenter's workshop - with models walking along the machines.

But it was also a journey through time, since the designs included historical references and Victorian moods (see the black gowns that wouldn't look out of place in a Gothic fantasy series à la "Penny Dreadful") and details such as the shoulder construction or the feather elements on jackets and skirts, combined with more modern, almost punk, touches.

The journey through time theme was also evoked by the treatments imposed on the fabrics that at times seemed to have been bleached or reduced to pale ghosts of their previous selves.

Last but not least, this was a personal journey through a multiple personality in constant evolution: we all change, the designers seemed to say, and that's why the models often donned clothes with unfinished hems that unravelled behind them, or represented a wide range of characters, from younger punks and rebels, to romantic yet strong girls (check out the white dresses with feathery hems matched with boxing style boots kept together by safety pins...), women ready to fight and more mature ladies, elegant and maybe finally happily content in their hearts.

The design duo employs for these designs the same patterns of their ready-to-wear collections, but the materials are different and more luxurious when it comes to Haute Couture: gold paint decorated for example a white shirtdress and refined textiles by Venetian Rubelli (for that Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" touch) were used for a sleeveless gown (Aganovich already used Rubelli's fabrics in their previous Haute Couture collection).

Tomihiro Kono's veiled masks hid, revealed and constricted the models' heads adding a mysterious edge to the collection.

The main theme of the collection was a woman's journey: did this inspiration reflect also in your headpieces?
Tomihiro Kono: Not really. I proposed my idea of using partial hair attached on masks 6 months ago to a designer. The theme of my pieces was Anglomania - so I combined punk, the looks of British fanatics and maniacs, mohawks, suede cuts, hairstyles inspired by the curly wigs of High Court Judges and 18th century styles. The idea was mixing royalty with eccentricity. That's why I also bleached hair partially to get some worn-out effect that matched the textures of clothes and I dyed the wigs unevenly mixing different colours.

Compared to the previous Aganovich Haute Couture collection in this one your wigs seem to have expanded into the clothes: in some looks they were used as ties or they seemed to be integrated into the clothes. Do you feel this is a new development and direction for your wigs? Do you see them becoming part of the actual outfit, rather than just something used to accessorise it?
Tomihiro Kono: Soon after I started wig-making I realised that wigs can be attached anywhere - so they don't need to just stay on the head, but they can be reinterpreted as expansions. In this case it was a positive collaboration between clothes and hairstyles. For a unique show like this one a wig can become an integral part of the clothes to create a strong character that may reflect the designer's vision. It may become also something interesting to see for the audience, something that adds a little bit of fantasy. Besides, historically speaking, hair was used as a part of costumes, so it can also be employed in a ritual way like an amulet, an accessory. Last but not least, think about the hair used as part of a warrior's clothes.

Which was the most difficult piece you made for this collection in terms of technique or materials? 
Tomihiro Kono: These two pieces. Colouring the hair was a very difficult process as I used bleaches. I didn't want to damage the piece but I needed the effect.

Will you be working on any new exhibitions/installations soon?
Tomihiro Kono: In early April I’m producing an installation exhibition at the Kuukan Space in Yoyogi-Uehara, Tokyo, in collaboration with Tatami Antiques. The concept being the exhibition is Japan, Spring and Hanami (cherry-blossom viewing). I will be exhibiting some wigs and head props especially made for this exhibition. You will soon find further information about it on my site, www.konomad.com, so stay tuned!

Image credits for this post

Wigs by Tomihiro Kono; all images in this post courtesy and copyright Konomad.

Can The (Fashion) Circus Still Entertain? (Dior Haute Couture S/S 19)

Many creative minds have been fascinated by the theme of the circus: in 1938 designer Elsa Schiaparelli created an entire collection inspired by the circus that also featured an iconic pink jacket with novel buttons shaped like acrobats.

As a child, Federico Fellini often dreamed of running away with the circus, and the director went back again and again to figures borrowed from this world, including angelic and sad Gelsomina in "La Strada" and the main characters in his documentary "The Clowns".

Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior's Creative Director, didn't literally reference these inspiration in her Haute Couture S/S 19 collection for the French house, but they were definitely at the back of her mind.

Fellini is a constant reference for many fashion designers, even when he is not directly mentioned, and the Dior garments included echoes of Schiap's "Circus" collection. The latter featured prancing horses, performing elephants, acrobats, tents and clowns, elements that also appeared on Dior's runway.  

Yet there were also other circus references in the collection - from Avedon's iconic 1955 picture "Dovima With Elephants" to a 1950s' British newsreel showing a Dior catwalk at the Savoy Hotel in London announcing "The Dior Circus Comes to Town". 

The collection, showcased in a circus tent in the garden of Musée Rodin in Paris during the local Haute Couture Week, opened with designs that called to mind the look of ringmasters, maybe referencing  Michael Gracey's film "The Greatest Showman".

There were ringmaster-like pantsuits in red or black at times decorated with delicate gold frogging, plus greatcoats and cutaway tailcoats.

Acrobats from London's all-female all-body-shapes troupe Mimbre joyously performed their acts around the models, carefully balancing each other on their shoulders to physically represent the act of women supporting other women.  

As the catwalk progressed the moods moved onto delicate Pierrot-like looks in black and white often matched with large ruffled collars, while Dior's Bar suit was adapted, transformed into a light and ethereal see-through ensemble. Pierrot is a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell'arte, so the Harlequin patterns (that perfectly matched with the flooring) and dresses worthy of his mistress Columbine didn't look out of place. 

The looks that seemed to reference clown costumes were a way to tackle gender differences by considering the clown as a hybrid character, neither man or woman, but an ageless and asexual being (think Cindy Sherman and her clown portraits...). 

This inspiration led to knitted striped playsuits and to designs covered in colourful satin ribbons matched with a nude bodysuit covered in tattoos, a play on the trope of old time circus strongmen (but there were further circus references in the jacket inspired by Chinese acrobats and in the dresses covered with sequins forming figures of monkeys and elephants).

Chiuri also borrowed some of the shapes and silhouettes for her clown designs from the iconic creations of the late Gérard Vicaire, who designed costumes for the most famous whiteface clowns around the world.

There were no coned hats though, but cute sequinned bonnets designed by Stephen Jones that fastened under the models' chins, other accessories included glittery boots and Mary-Janes.  

The palette alternated between strong tones of red and black, colourful striped motifs inspired by the circus tents and dusty pastels such as powder pink, soft back and pale blue with metallic hints.

The more elegant looks came towards the end with gowns that seemed wowen from strips of organza, designs embellished with  rhinestones or encrusted with sequins in the style of Gérard Vicaire, metallic plissé dresses, delicate dégradé gowns (maybe referencing Mad Carpentier's 1952 "Crépuscule" dress), while a crinoline gown pointed at animals in cages and maybe at constrictions that still trap many modern women.

And that was where you realised the collection wasn't just an ephemeral circus, but a metaphor to introduce other themes. The circus can be for example intended as a place of excesses and exuberance with a dark edge about it.

It hints indeed at our complicated world, in which we all have roles and perform our daily acts, at times feeling bold and strong, daring like acrobats, quite often feeling trapped and desperate like animals obliged to perform the same routine. Last but not least, the circus is a perfect metaphor for fashion.

"Can the circus still entertain?" wondered Fellini in "The Clowns". "Certainly the world to which it belonged no longer exists. The theatres transformed into circus rings, the glowing, ingenious sets, the childish naiveté of the public...they no longer exist. What remains of the old circuses? Subtle worn traces. And that's what we'll seek out."

Somehow Fellini's words can be applied to fashion. Can it still entertain? Probably yes, at the level of couture it certainly does, sure not many can afford it, but at least most of us are left with the dream.

Fellini stated in his essay "Why Clowns?" that the circus should have been rescued, defending it on the notion that it has brought with it lasting myths including "adventure, travel, risk, danger, speed and stepping into the limelight". Maybe Chiuri was telling us with this collection that also fashion should be rescued, at least until it's daring and dreamy, bright and bold, grand and glamorous.  

The Colours of Celestial Cartography, The Shapes of Hybrid Creatures: Iris Van Herpen Haute Couture S/S 19

Season after season Dutch Iris van Herpen has been creating unique designs that have combined different disciplines together from art and architecture to science and technology in very innovative ways.

Yet quite often, though beautiful and mesmerising, her exoskeletons and futuristic constructions were considered by critics as certainly worthy of museum exhibitions, but rather impractical and unwearable in real life.

Fast-forward to Paris Haute Couture Week (that closed on Thursday) and you realise the designer has been working hard to make her creations softer and more functional, while managing to retain an avant-garde edge about them.

For her S/S 19 collection - entitled "Shift Souls" - van Herpen came up with 18 looks, some of them inspired by the colours of early examples of celestial cartography such as the star atlas Harmonica Macrocosmica (1660) by German-Dutch cartographer Andreas Cellarius.

The "Harmonic" section of the collection included voluminous spheroid dresses with curved wing-like elements characterised by vibrant patterns through translucent gradient-dyed organza plisse-ed by hand.

Additional inspiration for the colour palette came from former NASA engineer turned artist Kim Keever, who's known for his photographic and acquatic expressionist experiments.

Keever usually pours house paint into a fishtank and takes pictures of the abstractions created by the colours as they mix and mingle in the water. Ephemerality and movement are the principles behind these images. 

Van Herpen collaborated with Keever on translucent layered cloud designs - dubbed the "Cosmica" dresses - that seemed to freeze in a garment the ephemerality of his signature work. Vaporous colored clouds by Kim Keever were printed on translucent organza that was then employed to create layered mille-feuille like designs with a gaseous or nebulous consistency about them.

The shapes of the dresses included in the collection were borrowed from the possibilities of DNA engineering and human/animal hybrids.

"For 'Shift Souls' I looked at the evolution of the human shape, its idealization through time and the hybridization of the female forms within mythology. Specially the imagination and the fluidity within identity change in Japanese mythology gave me the inspiration to explore the deeper meaning of identity and how immaterial and mutable it can become within the current coalescence of our digital bodies", the designer stated in the collection press release.

Gradient-dyed silks were multi-layered into sculptural shapes by a fine 3D lasercut frame of PETG to create concentric layers echoing the configurations of topographic maps.

At first the layered designs looked as if they were just distorting the contours of the body, but then you realised they hid shapes and forms like anamorphic faces or birds among the multi-layered silks heat-bonded within frames of lasercut mylar. In the looks closing the collection the layered birds seemed to be bursting out of the models' bodies, modifying their anatomies. 

The 3D printed "Cellchemy" face-contouring jewellery (of the kind Björk favours...) completed the collection. The pieces were developed through a generative design process based on a 3D face scan: a semi-arbitrary density structure was mapped from the face by combining the colour information with the 3D shape in grasshopper algorithm. The designs were created through a high-resolution multi-material printer in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology. 

The show closed with a light installation by contemporary artist Nick Verstand who divided the space using walls of laser lights; a laser beam was also projected on the hems of the dresses and traced the footwear for a unique glow-in-the-dark effect.

As a whole, while the inspirations behind the collection looked at a distant future, the techniques and fabrics still pointed at the codes of couture.

Yet, while the combination of colours such as ochre, purple and indigo and the softer materials were unusual for van Herpen's standards, biggest surprises await her fans in the next year or so, including a major exhibition in Paris in 2020, a new book and an architecture project (rumours say it may be a natural history museum in The Netherlands). Looks like van Herpen's passion for couture will soon evolve into something else, just like human and animal DNA may mingle one day to create hybridic creatures.  

Modular Prêt-à-Couture: Yuima Nakazato Haute Couture S/S 19

Throughout the history of fashion quite a few designers have been fascinated by the possibility of transforming one garment into another to offer wearers an opportunity to experiment in a more personal way and get more out of one design piece (think about Italian designer Nanni Strada's creations).

There have also been designers (see Kei Ninomiya) who have been on a quest for innovative "no sewing" solutions and have developed a series of clever strategies to avoid using traditional thread and experiment with more avant-garde alternatives, such as modular systems that allow to secure fabric with studs, a technique that could easily be replicated at home if you had the materials, time, patience and courage to do so.

Japanese designer Yuima Nakazato combined these two obsessions in the garments he has been creating for the last few seasons.

His S/S 18 collection, entitled "Harmonize", tried for example to complement the shape of the human body with a perfectly designed and customised garment, made with different types of upcycled textiles, including airbags and parachutes.

For his Haute Couture S/S 19 collection the designer moved from social revolutions and movements that have the potential of transforming things, including the gilets jaunes.

Nakazato took used fabrics and objects, dismembered and sectioned them and then proceeded to put them back together.

The main challenge was avoiding using traditional threads, so he employed a new production system named Type-1.

The system reunites digital fabrication and artisanal techniques: fabrics (in the case of this collection from pre-existing garments and objects) are laser-cut and reduced to small manageable pieces that are then anchored one to the other via plastic or metal buttons. 

The technique behind the collection comes from Japanese kimonos, traditionally made with rectangular pieces of fabrics that allow a person to alter, recreate and wear them throughout the decades.

Yet the designer added a story to the technique: eight different people took a garment or an object that meant a lot to them and Nakazato proceeded to turn it into something wearable.

Among the people included there was a widow who turned her husband’s paintings into dresses, while a child's plush toys were turned into a super kawaii garment.

This process allows wearers to extend the lifetime of a piece, but also to incorporate into a garment elements that are very personal, customising them, and adding to a design personal stories, memories and experiences (and it is proved that clothes, once linked with specific memories, can have a therapeuthic value, apart form encouraging people to keep their clothes rather than throwing them out after less than 6 months...).

The results for this collection looked basic in some cases, in others the final effect was more varied, especially when you realised the same piece could look entirely different once some panels were shifter around, while the dotted lines of the Type-1 rivets turned into disctinctive decorative elements with a punk edge about them.

The pieces presented during Paris Haute Couture Week were just a way to show people that a new fashion ecosystem is possible and an innovative way to create individually-designed sustainable clothes may be the path to produce less, recycle more and get a healthy dose of fashion (all the pieces as you may guessm are instantly repairable, since you just need to replace a panel and you will get a new shirt or dress).

You like the technique and would like to experiment with it but don't have Yuima Nakazato's Type-1 rivets and laser-cutting machines? Well, try plastic snap buttons: yes, like the Enduro bike wheel skins suggested in yesterday's post they represent a cheap option, but at least you will learn experimenting with the technique and attempt to create your own personal prêt-à-couture garment by disassembling and reassembling what you have in your wardrobe.  

 

Monochrome Vs Multichrome: Givenchy Haute Couture S/S 19

In yesterday's post we looked at an installation during Pitti Filati characterised by multi-coloured panels of fabrics forming a textile kaleidoscope. But multi-coloured pieces also appeared on the Parisian runways during Haute Couture Week (that closed yesterday in the French capital).

Things actually began in the dark on Givenchy's runway, held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. The opening look, a tailored black jacket with white lapels matched with black latex leggings was followed indeed by several black and white dresses and designs (splashes of yellow were added in between) for both men and women.

The main idea for Creative Director Clare Waight Keller was indeed starting from a blank page (the collection was entitled "Bleached Canvas"), yet there were two moments in which rainbow colours materialised in the form of two designs made with hand-made organza tubes.

The idea behind them wasn't definitely new, but the technique and the construction in one of them was remarkable, especially as the design in question featured tiny coloured beads around the waist that seemed to melt into threads cascading onto the organza tubes. It was as if the technique was used in this design to create the structure and the shape of the bodice and of the beaded band around the waist.  

The colour and technique in these two creations broke with the austere rhythm of the other designs, emphasising the artisanal aspects of the collection and giving it a playful tone. The monochrome vs multichrome dichotomy in the collection also seemed to hint at a further contrast between two French Haute Couture concepts and principles - tailleur and flou.

These colourful looks contrasted with the darker pieces that seemed inspired by horror films and stories, among them also a floor-length blood red dress covered in red sequins matched with a latex cape (inspired by a cardinal's cassock?), and a black gown on which red Swarovski crystals perfectly recreated drops of blood in a disturbingly sublime way ("Suspiria" anybody?). 

Latex - considered by Waight Keller as "couture leather" and not as a material for fetish wear - represented the hard edge of the collection via leggings, bodysuits and a single sleeve, designed by specialist brand Atsuko Kudo.

Accessories included white or black backpacks attached to monumental butterfly wing-like bows and matched with a white Swiss guipure dress, or a white shirt and black trousers, for that Odette/Odile or Angel/Demon dichotomy.

Think the giant bow bags may be too much for you, but you still like the fringed designs and would like to replicate the look in an extravagant way? Try experimenting with spoke skins and covers for enduro bike wheels: yes, they may not be so Haute Couture, but most of us can't afford high fashion. Besides, once you're tired of the look or the accessory you make with the skins, you can still recycle them for other projects or more simply put them back on your bike. 

The Future of Hybrid Techno-Luxury Fibres

When it comes to knitwear it is difficult to resist to the allure of natural fibres, yet innovations can offer great possibilities, especially when it comes to new blends of traditional materials and synthetic yarns.

The compact installation entitled "Techno-Luxury", designed by Angelo Figus for Pitti Filati 84 (on until tomorrow in Florence), features a colourful kaleidoscope of 15 metres high fabric panels, symbolically joining with their colours and textures the earth with the sky.

The panels create a setting for the 12 designs on display, among them shirts, dresses and evening gowns made with blends of luxury yarns (wool, cashmere and natural fibres) and polyamide. 

The designs on display are characterised by blocks of colour and geometrical patterns and in some cases they seem to be inspired by a sort of Constructivist aesthetics.    

The most interesting designs on display are the ones that show a sort of duality and feature dynamic elements and draped motifs inspired by the moulage technique. 

The warp-knit, circular-knit stretch fabric sections in the garments on display were created in collaboration with manufacturers Carvico and Jersey Lomellina - more famous for their textiles for streetwear and beachwear and for super-dynamic sports and activities including skateboarding and surfing. The two companies are taking part in the international Florentine yarn fair for the first time. 

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are the main inspiration behind these designs: they do indeed combine sporty elements with high fashion, mixing traditional textiles and techniques from the East and the West with innovative fibres, to symbolically try and bridge the gaps between different cultures. 

Will sport designs become more elegant and Haute Couture opt for more casual and dynamic designs? Angelo Figus is postive changes are coming. "The future is increasingly hybrid," he states in a press release about this project. "In the yarn industry, we are experimenting with a tendency to combine noble fibres, such as cashmere, with polyamide, within the same garment. This work, which visitors can enter for a real chromo-experience, demonstrates the potential that can emerge from this encounter."

Spinnig Infinite Yarns (Without Forgetting the Graphic Book Covers): Todd & Duncan S/S 2020

Fashion is obsessed with the latest trends and seems to be on a constant quest for what's fresh and new, so it was only natural Scottish cashmere yarn manufacturer Todd & Duncan to ponder a bit about the meaning of the word "new" while working on its S/S 2020 collection.

The company, well-known for its interest in developing colours often borrowed from art movements or contemporary artists, decided to interpret the theme of the "new" working on innovative shades for its cashmere yarns and eventually came up with two colour groups.

The first, entitled "Summer Melanges", is inspired by natural plant dyes found in the Scottish countryside such as woodland and hedgerow, and features 6 new soft melange and versatile colours; the second includes 15 new solid colours with a cluster of these inspired by trout flies fished on Lochleven.

There is also a visual inspiration for this collection that comes from graphic design and in particular from the cover of Penguin Classics. This inspiration is particularly intriguing as the manufacturer kept in mind the possibility of creating with its yarns knitted patterns with a geometrical edge about them, like motifs of circles, triangles, squares and rectangles.

Yet the company didn't just choose books for their recognisable font styles that could be easily applied to jacquards and intarsia motifs, but also looked at their content. Among the inspiring volumes there are indeed Nationalism by Rabindranath Tagore, a volume in which the author called for a resurgence of the East, pondering on the challenge it posed to Western supremacy, and proposed a future beyond nationalism, based on cooperation and racial tolerance, and The Anatomy of Judgement by M. L. J. Abercrombie, in which the author describes her research teaching students how to think scientifically and objectively, helping them to develop their observational skills in order be better able to obtain accurate information from specific situations. 

Some of the themes tackled in these volumes, such as the juxtaposition between the East and the West in Nationalism, are symbolised by some of the bi-coloured yarns in Todd & Duncan's summer marl palette that features three colour stories ("The Contrasts", "The Brights" and "The Tonals"). Todd & Duncan's S/S 20 yarns were presented during the international yarn fair Pitti Filati 84 that opened today in Florence, Italy (on until 25th January).

From Tradition to Innovation (Via Sustainability): "Virtual Yarn Project" by Tollegno 1900s

In yesterday's post we looked at yarns and traditions, let's continue the thread (pun intended) for another day while looking at how textile traditions may be taken into the future. Manufacturer of yarns and fabrics Tollegno 1900, part of Tollegno Holding (leading Italian company in the international textile sector, owner of Manifattura di Valduggia and producing apparel and underwear under the Ragno, Julipet and Riabella brands), will indeed launch at Pitti Filati 84 (kicking off tomorrow until 25th January in Florence, Italy) the "Virtual Yarn Project".

This service employs Shima Seiki technology and allows a designer to simulate the final performance of the chosen stitch once the colour, type of yarn and processing have been defined and decided.

For Pitti Filati Tollegno has deviced a hi-tech workstation managed by its own technicians to show visitors how the project works and to let them experiment with it. Visitors will be invited to test the project first digitally, selecting the yarn and the processing technique, and then they will be allowed to see the results on Shima Seiki machines.

The project aligns with the current trends for sustainability in fashion since it allows to cut costs and reduce waste and time: it will indeed no longer be necessary to send yarns, colour cards and cones to verify the results of the correspondence between need/yarn/colour, but designers will be able to make their creations digitally and then make the order if it complies with the expectations. The possibility of trying different variations (from the colours to the processing) will also allow maximum customization of each creation, tailored to the needs of each client.

Sustainability is not a new principle for Tollegno 1900 as the company has been working on investments and operations that have a minimum impact on the environment: its purification plants process 2,300 - 2,500 cubic meters of water a day, returning it to the Cervo torrent in compliance with laws on surface water treatment; part of the company's factories' roofs are covered with photovoltaic solar panels (12,500 square meters above the weaving plant and 5,000 above the spinning plant, with a maximum energy generation capacity of 1.4 megawatts and 750 kilowatts per hour, respectively), and the production employs advanced machinery with Green Label certification, as well as processes that do not use toxic substances.

The Spring/Summer 2020 yarn collection also revolves around sustainability with a colour card inspired by nature. Among the new yarns there is "Harmony 4.0", a shrink-proof water-repellent yarn, machine washable at low temperatures, and made with cohesive and compact fibres that guarantee a greater strength, high resistance to abrasion, and a lower pilling.

The inspiration for Tollegno's Lana Gatto knitting yarns - luxury hotels - is less technological, but it offers intriguing blends of fine yarns, such as Alpaca, Baby Alpaca and Merino Wool, and very unusual fibres like Himalayan nettle, one of the components (20%) of the "Concorde", a soft and naturally melange yarn.

The Wild-Growing Giant Himalayan Stinging Nettle Plant grows spontaneously in Nepalese regions between 1,800 and 3,000 meters above sea level where it is harvested, defibered by the local populations and sent to Italy to be scoured and worsted.

This nettle is capable of absorbing large amounts of CO2, and the harvesting process does not require preventive deforestation or the use of pesticides or other chemical products, but creates jobs in profoundly disadvantaged areas.

 

Despite the increase in the costs of raw materials, Tollegno achieved good results for the financial year ending 2017, recording 10% growth over the previous year (consolidated revenues for 2017 amounted to €172 million, against €156 million in 2016).

The positive results are to be attributed to production efficiency and innovations: while maintaining a strong link with the past through its historical archives preserved in its headquarters in Tollegno (near Biella, in Piedmont), the company is indeed focused on the future and has pledged to continue its investments in technological projects in the next seasons.