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

Illegal Combinations of Objects & Silent Stones: Jimmie Durham, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement @ The 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice

The Jury of the 58th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia - comprising Stephanie Rosenthal, Defne Ayas, Cristiana Collu, Sunjung Kim and Hamza Walker - awarded this morning the Biennale prizes.

Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to Lithuania's performance piece "Sun & Sea (Marina)"; Arthur Jafa got the Golden Lion for the Best Participant, and Haris Epaminonda scooped the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant. Besides, the Belgium Pavilion, Mexican artist Teresa Margolles and Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga all got a special mention.

Curator Ralph Rugoff and Paolo Baratta, President of la Biennale, awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to artist, performer, essayist and poet Jimmie Durham.

In April when Durham was announced as the Lifetime Achievement award recipient, Rugoff stated in a press release: "His generously expansive artistic practice spans many media, including drawing, collage, photography and video, but he is best known for his sculptural constructions, often made from natural materials as well as inexpensive common objects that evoke particular histories."

Some of these sculptures can be admired in the Arsenale section: the pieces are made with natural materials and everyday items including furniture parts, industrial elements and used clothes. So you may get a musk ox made with scaffoldings covered with piles of assembled clothes from which emerges a maimed skull with a jaw replacement in wood.

Durham calls these pieces "illegal combinations with rejected objects" as they recreate the size of the animal, but they are also the vision of the artist, who has a unique interpretation of these fantastic beasts that combines the human and the animal aspects (his musk ox seems indeed to be wearing the leather jacket that forms its body…). The pieces also point at the species under threat because of human-induced climate change.

As Rugoff added in the press release: "These sculptures are often accompanied by texts that drolly but incisively comment on Eurocentric views and prejudices. Insistently invoking the limits of Western rationalism and the futility of violence, his work has also frequently made reference to the oppression and misunderstanding of different ethnic populations around the world by colonial powers. Durham typically treats this material without the slightest trace of ponderous gravitas; instead, he forges razor-sharp critiques that are infused with shrewd insight and wit, and that pleasurably demolish reductive ideas of authenticity."

There is also another piece by the American artist accompanied by a text in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini. This newly commissioned work is entitled "Black Serpentine" and consists in a framed slab of serpentinite, a silicate stone.

Durham detailed the journey of the slab with a text exhibited next to the stone: the slab was excavated in northeast India, close to the border with Myanmar by local people from the Loi, Kuki and Naga tribes.

The slab was taken to Mumbai, then loaded onto a container and sent by ship through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea. Through the Strait of Gibraltar it reached the Atlantic and the port of Hamburg. The slab then travelled on a train to Leipzig, arrived by truck to Hartha and was then transported to Berlin, where Durham lives and works. It was then sent to Mestre by truck and arrived in Venice by barge.

The beautiful slab of serpentinite hides a dark story, though, as it hints at the way the West exploits undeveloped countries where stones are excavated by underpaid workers. The stone is therefore an inanimate object, silent yet loaded with stories to tell to people willing to listen.

Friday Inspiration: Eye-Catching Unedible Geometries From The 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice

Yesterday we previewed the works of Zhanna Kadyrova in the Giardini section of the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice (from tomorrow till November 24th, 2019). Yet this year there is a suprise as the Biennale curator Ralph Rugoff decided to present the same artists in both the Arsenale and the Giardini's Central Pavilion. The 79 selected artists appear therefore in the two venues, but with different types of work.

Rugoff selected artists who often present works that could be interpreted in different, almost ambiguous ways, but this dichotomic approach may also come from the curator's will to mirror divisions in today's contemporary society and social discourse.

Zhanna Kadyrova's "Second Hand" revolved around recycling or upcycling materials from old factories, but in her practice the artist experiments a lot with different media, such as photography, video, sculpture and performance.

Kadyrova is also very interested in geometrical shapes as proved by her installation "Market" (2017 - ongoing) in the Arsenale section of the Venice Biennale where she recreated different types of food you can find in a market using cheap tiling and heavyweight concrete and cement.

Sausages and salami were made using a terrazzo flooring texture; flower bouquets were made with concrete and broken mirrors, (maybe a hint at ephemeral vanity); watermelons, bananas, oranges and aubergines assumed new geometrical configurations, their softness replaced by an unpleasant artificial rigidity. 

In this case, rather than being suspended between art and fashion, Kadyrova looked at Russian Constructivism and Pop Art, almost reinterpreting Claes Oldenburg through geometrical lenses and adding to the process a touch of Surrealism.

Last but not least, the stall is a great excuse for social interaction: while the clothes in the Giardini represent a sort of private wardrobe with some strong historical connections, this stall invites people to take part in a market game.

In Venice the stall becomes both a reference to local markets too often used by tourists as cool backdrops for hip selfies, but also to art fairs, where works end up being sold at inflated prices. Fear not, though the fruit and vegetable pieces on display here can be bought by weight, at the rate of 1 gram per unit of local currency.

And if you want to bite into something real, just leave behind concrete food and head to the real fruit and veg stalls - some of them on boats - around the Arsenale (probably the main place where Kadyrova sourced the wooden and cardboard crates included in this installation). Early morning is the best of times to see these stalls coming alive, so write it down in your diary. 

Upcycling and Cementing a New Style: Zhanna Kadyrova's "Second Hand" @ The 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice

In yesterday's post we looked at the possibility of exploring the art and fashion connection with a moment captured at the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice (May 11th to November 24th, 2019).

On the first floor of the Central Pavilion at the Giardini there is instead the chance to explore a series of themes, including recycled fashion, via a clever installation by Zhanna Kadyrova.

Born in 1981 in Brovary, Ukraine, Kyiv-based Kadyrova has been among the first Ukrainian artists to make site-specific work. She makes sculptures for public spaces, often consulting with local people and also creates temporary installations, inspired by the spaces where she mounts them.

The installation in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini consists in a series of garments made with collected ceramics from various places. The artist has been working on this long-term project - very aptly entitled "“Second Hand" (2014 – ongoing) - in different locations to make connections between the architectural and social memories of various communities.

The inspiration comes from her home country, Ukraine, that has got a long history of ceramic tile production. Kadyrova usually employs for these works materials sourced from old factories.

Some of the pieces on display here were made for example with tiles from now defunct Soviet-era industrial buildings, including the Darnitsky Silk Factory, the Poliske bus station in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, and the Kyiv Motion Picture Printing Plant.
Kadyrova made with the tiles garments with shapes and silhouettes inspired by 1960s and 1970s Soviet fashion.

You can choose between A-line dresses, square shoulder jackets that evoke David Byrne's giant gray suit from the Talking Heads' 1984 live movie Stop Making Sense, T-shirts and scarves, but also more casual pieces like a padded vest.

One of her dresses is also displayed on a dummy between two windows reopened last year in occasion of the architecture Biennale.

The pale blue, brown, white and green tiles used for the dress on the dummy go particularly well with the colours surrounding it – from the dark brown of the Carlo Scarpa window with a geometrical frame with two interlocked circles, to the white and blue boats and the green trees along the canal.

Through the window visitors can see further pieces by Zhanna Kadyrova hanging from a clotheslines, they were made with ceramic tiles from the Hotel All'Angelo in Venice.

Kadyrova started the project shortly before Ukraine introduced decommunisation laws that erased all traces of the country's Soviet past.

While this is an art project with some architectural connotations, Kadyrova's installation also ties in with the recycling and upcycling trends in fashion. It's easy to wonder if she will ever collaborate with a fashion house, maybe reusing ceramic pieces or even tiles created by a fashion designer (Gucci's Alessandro Michele who also works as Creative Director at porcelain manufacturer Ginori?) to make her dresses.   

Art & Fashion Runway Moments: Eva & Adele @ The 58th International Art Exhibition, Venice

The red carpet at the Met Gala that opened The Met's Costume Institute's spring exhibition "Camp: Notes on Fashion", was definitely a super fashion show, but there are other forms of runways that take place during other events.

Art exhibitions and fairs can be wonderful occasions to combine art and fashion while debating key issues about our society and the Venice Biennale always offers such great moments.

Iconic German artists Eva & Adele always offer us a great example of how to combine art, fashion and performance: this morning they joined the visitors, journalists, art critics and gallerists at the press days of the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice (May 11th to November 24th, 2019). Eva & Adele braved the weather in matching ensembles in a super bright shade of Schiaparelli shocking pink that they accessorised with bags and umbrellas.

Curated by Ralph Rugoff, the Biennale this year is entitled "May You Live in Interesting Times", a sentence inspired by an ancient Chinese curse referring to periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil, that seems to be extremely apt for the times we're living in.

Strolling around the pavilions (it is worth remembering that Eva & Adele aren't among the artists exhibiting at the Venice Biennale, but they are at the same time part of each and every Biennale) and embodying the concept of camp currently being explored at the Met's Costume Institute exhibition, Eva & Adele as usual turned the people they met into a part of their own live performance, employing fashion and art to tackle some of the themes explored by the artists included in this year's biennale - breaking boundaries, challenging stereotypes, exploring gender fluidity, believing in freedom and transforming the human space we inhabit with optimism. 

And, well, they also brought a (much needed) ray of metaphorical sun and a lot of joy to the Arsenale. Ah, yes, one last thing, how they manage to keep their clothes and shoes from getting dusty while walking around the Arsenale and Giardini remains a mystery for us, so don't ask.

Duplicity, Masked Illusions and a Loïe Fuller Moment on the Met Gala Red Carpet

There was extravagance and a great sense of elation on yesterday's red carpet for the annual Met Gala fundraiser event. It was perfectly understandable as the theme of The Met's Costume Institute's spring exhibition is "Camp: Notes on Fashion", inspired by Susan Sontag's 1964 essay "Notes On Camp".

Lists of best and worst dressed celebrities accompanied by funny memes have been all over the Internet for a few hours already and there were a few stars who made quite an entrance. 

Billy Porter channelled Cleopatra in a super-sparkling golden winged costume, while Jared Leto, dressed in a red silk gown covered in diamonds, carried a replica of his own severed head.

Though he was channelling Gucci's A/W 2018 runway show, in a way his outfit also hinted at the duplicity behind the "camp" theme.

Ezra Miller also did quite well: known for taking many risks on red carpets and always managing to nail looks and moods, he opted for a Burberry pin-striped suit covered with a diamond encrusted corset and matched with a grand white cape attached to the suit.

He also carried a blank mask and teased the photographers for a while until he revealed what was underneath – five eyeballs that created an amazing optical illusion.  

Yet there was one piece that stole the scene and that was the result of pure technical prowess – Iris van Herpen's cape for Jordan Roth.

The American producer and president of five theaters in Broadway arrived in a dark red cape. The colour looked consistent with the outfit Roth donned at last year's Met Gala.

Then he opened it using two sticks hidden under the cape and the fabric revealed a giant print showing the interior of a theatre with Roth on stage recreating Loïe Fuller's iconic "Serpentine Dance".   

Van Herpen and Roth worked together on the piece during the past two months. The main inspiration was the theatre with its curtain closed and open and, to create this effect, Van Herpen came up with a double-layer cape. The top layer in cotton and Mylar features an image of red curtains and it is laser-cut (the concept was already featured in her S/S 2019 Haute Couture collection with architect Philip Beesley).

When the cape opens up the cuts reveal the image underneath with a 360° theatre combining photos of Paris's Palais Garnier, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the Royal Opera in Stockholm, by photographer David Leventi.

The result was a pure performance: Roth seemed to love it even during the fittings (on Van Herpen's Instagram account there's a video showing his surprise as he tries it on) and the multi-layered optical illusion worked incredibly well on the red carpet.  

This was the first time that the Dutch designer created a men's couture look and hopefully it won't be the last one.  

via GIPHY

Decolonised Perspectives: "Ex Africa" @ The Archaeological Museum, Bologna

"Ex Africa semper aliquid novi", "Always something new from Africa" wrote Plinius The Elder in the "Naturalis Historia", and the objects featured in an exhibition currently on at Bologna's Museo Civico Archeologico (via dell'Archiginnasio 2) perfectly prove Plinius was right.

Curated by Gigi Pezzoli and the late Ezio Bassani, "Ex Africa" (through 8th September) is one of the largest exhibitions of African artifacts ever organised in Italy with pieces on display on loan from prestigious institutions all over the world. It features 270 pieces arranged into nine sections conceived as journeys through the continent. Following these paths visitors will discover different works of arts and artists, materials and techniques and travel through time and places.

The curators conceived the event as centred on "African arts", with the plural and highlight that artworks by African artists were often distorted by Western classifications that usually considered them as anonymous.

The event opens with ancient wooden sculptures, introduces visitors to the refined court of Benin, looks at art from Mali, analyses the Vudun aesthetics, passes through a section dedicated to collections of exotic curiosities, and explores the influence of Africa on Europe via works such as Man Ray's "Noire et Blanche" (1926).

Among the most iconic pieces included in the exhibition there are the heads from the Nigerian town of Ife. Located in the South-West part of the country, in the Osun state, Ife is an ancient town in Yoruba history and is regarded as the cradle of civilization. The beautifully sculpted terracotta or bronze heads included in the event represented divine kings (Oni).

Yet this is just one story included in the exhibition, there's more to explore in the various sections including the intricate Afro-Portuguese ivory carvings commissioned to local artists, or the forgotten story of the African exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1922.

This event, organised by archaeologist Carlo Anti and anthropologist Aldobrandino Mochi, was a pioneering one as the curators dared to focus on the artists who had made the pieces, rather than the continent as a whole, enraging the critics. 

The exhibition then introduces works by contemporary artists, such as Malala Andrialavidrazana's prints exploring the cultural mutations brought by the globalisation and El Anatsui's sculptures made with found materials such as discarded aluminum caps and plastic seals from liquor bottles, which he flattens, shapes, perforates, and painstakingly assembles with copper wire. 

On display there is also a chair by Gonçalo Mabund, an artist with a vision that evokes Braque or Picasso's imagery: from a distance his thrones look as if they were made with an assortment of metal pieces, but getting nearer you will discover they are actually assemblages of rifles, rocket launchers, guns and grenades from the Mozambique Civil war that divided the region.

With this exhibition the curators focused on one main mission – destroying stereotypes such as the ones stating that African art is made by anonymous artists. By re-shifting the attention on the actual quality and beauty of the pieces and identifying the masters, visitors can finally appreciate them.

Besides, the curators also invite visitors to look at the masks, relics, female and fertility statues on display and try and spot links with European artists such as Modigliani, Picasso and many more. The subtitle of the exhibition "Storie e identità di un'arte universale" (Histories and Identity of a Universal Art), hopes indeed to inspire such global connections.

It is a shame that there wasn't the opportunity to introduce in this event more examples of African textiles (that was a missed opportunity) and that the spaces didn't allow to include also more established artists such as Bodys Isek Kingelez, or representatives of a youngest generation, like Serge Attukwei Clottey, Yaw Owusu or Ibrahim Mahama, yet "Ex Africa" offers intriguing perspectives on artists who had to wait decades before being acknowledged for their skills and vision, and remains a first step towards a new de-colonised presentation of African arts.

Abstractions in Search of a New Equilibrium: Rei Kawakubo Vs Isamu Noguchi

Awards are exciting and inspiring occasions: at times you may not agree with the decisions of a jury of a prestigious prize, at others instead you find yourself supporting their choice, as it recently happened with the Noguchi Prize that last week was awarded to Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garçons and co-founder of Dover Street Market.

Launched by the Noguchi Museum in 2014, the Isamu Noguchi Award was established to honor the achievements of this unique artist and to acknowledge other like-minded, highly accomplished individuals who reflect similar ideals in their own times.

The Award thus celebrates innovation, global awareness, and Eastern and Western exchange. 

Born in 1904 in Los Angeles, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed in 1942 the directive authorizing the internment of Japanese citizens and American citizens of Japanese heritage living on the west coast, Noguchi voluntarily entered the Poston War Relocation Center, in the Arizona Desert, despite being exempt from internment as a resident of New York.

He hoped, indeed, that it would have been possible for him to turn the camp into a more human environment, adding a park and recreational area, baseball fields, swimming pools, and a design for a cemetery.

His plans were never put into practice, but, while at the camp, Noguchi's works transformed, going from figurative to modernist: at Poston, the artist started working with new materials, including wood, while his works, inspired by organic and geometric forms, became more abstract.

Kawakubo often explored such shapes in her designs, creating iconic pieces like the ones in her S/S 1997 "Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body" collection (also known as the "Lumps and Bumps" collection) or the costumes for Merce Cunningham's "Scenario" (1997). Her bulbous shells and absurd forms pointing at the theme of body transformations connect her with Noguchi's sculptures.

In a press release the museum stated about the award, "Hailed as one of the most brilliant and innovative designers of our time, Rei Kawakubo has consistently defied notions not only of beauty, but also of what fashion can be, at once confounding our expectations for clothing and - like Noguchi - challenging the idea that design and art are inherently different endeavors. Also like Noguchi, Kawakubo celebrates not only forms, but also the spaces between them."

Previous recipients of the Isamu Noguchi Award include Lord Norman Foster and Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jasper Morrison and Yoshio Taniguchi, Tadao Ando and Elyn Zimmerman, John Pawson and Hiroshi Senju, Naoto Fukasawa and Edwina von Gal. This is the first time the award is assigned to a fashion designer and for Kawakubo the award is another cause for celebration, after marking this year the 50th anniversary of Comme des Garçons. 

Upon receiving the award Kawakubo highlighted how she does not consider herself an artist, but she is always trying to create something new in her work. 

Noguchi has a link with fashion: a blue, white and orange star-shaped pinwheel-like sculpture he made for an airport appeared in a photograph by Gene Fenn entitled "Noguchi sculpture and model" and portraying a young girl wearing the sculpture as if it were a  headdress. The photograph was used as the cover of Junior Bazaar magazine. So while the prize entitled to him didn't have any fashion connections until now, Noguchi actually was already fashionable in his own peculiar way. 

Rooting for The Museum at FIT's "Wearing Memories" Project

The Museum at FIT recently announced that their projection mapping project in the exhibition "Fabric In Fashion" was selected for the 2019 American Alliance of Museums MUSE Awards, together with another project by the same institution - the crowd-sourced "Wearing Memories" linked to the exhibition "Fashion Unraveled" (2018).

MUSE awards recognize outstanding achievement in Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) media and it is awarded to institutions that enhance such experiences engaging audiences with useful and innovative digital programs and services. Projects must be produced by or for a GLAM, and may include but are not limited to websites, podcasts, social media campaigns, multimedia installations, games, interactive kiosks, audio tours, and mobile apps.

We are particularly happy for the "Wearing Memories" project being selected as we believe that clothes (and accessories) have the power to engage our minds and stimulate our recollections. We may look at a picture, look at the clothes we were wearing then and remember something linked with that particular occasion, or we may preserve a special garment and pass it on to a relative or a friend as a heirloom. Besides, there been art projects revolving around the theme of memory and clothes that have proved fashion can even help people with Alzheimer's disease.  

The project at the Musuem at FIT wasn't a scientific one, but it moved from the possibility of telling stories through clothes and offered people from all over the world the opportunity to share deeply personal memories about themselves or their loved ones: people contributed with all sorts of garments, form motorcycle jackets to handmade sweaters and jumpers, from furs to skirts, waistcoats, T-shirts, glasses and shoes.

Some garments were employed to point at the skills of the person who made them, others conjured up memories of a loved one. There were happy, sad and heartbreaking moments that go beyond fashion. Selected stories were compiled together in a video that was shown in the lobby of the museum during the run of the "Fashion Unraveled" exhibition, and they were also published online on a dedicated site.

I took part in it with a Fiorucci jumper with a matching shawl (that I featured in a previous post on this site analysing it from a fashion point of view rather than from a personal one), the pieces are currently part of my personal archive as they belonged to my late auntie Flavia.  

Fiorucci was very popular in the '80s in Italy. I loved its neon coloured plastic bags and Pop Art sweats. The brand also produced more formal clothes such as the 1984-85 sweat and shawl ensemble that belonged to my auntie. The designs were probably part of the collection Elio Fiorucci made after seeing shirts with floral patterns during a trip to Mexico.  

Both the sweater and shawl were indeed characterised by a multi-coloured wool embroidery of flowers on a black background. The floral pattern extended from the front and reached the right shoulder on the sweater, while the flowers were mainly concentrated on the central portion of the shawl. The main inspiration for these pieces was probably Frida Kahlo.

My aunt Flavia would wear these pieces to go out or whenever she had to take me to ballet classes. It was a practical and functional yet elegant ensemble.

Flavia liked drawing, dressmaking, knitting, embroidering and cooking. She was patient and often made clothes for me and my dolls (I still have some of the bed socks she knitted for me, sometimes fashioned after pointe shoes because I was obsessed with ballet...) and she always seemed to have the proper ingredients to make a quick cake or some cookies for me and my brother.

Once she painstakingly covered a plain woollen beret that came out with a fashion magazine with leftover buttons (I thought it was too pòain, so we decided to do something with it) and the beret became an iconic must of my wardrobe (over 30 years have gone since then, but I still have it and I still get stopped in the street and get complimented about it when I wear it).

After my auntie died we chose a picture for her tombstone - in the picture she is wearing this Fiorucci ensemble, she is happy and smiling. Whenever I see the photograph and I see the pieces hanging in the wardrobe I think about happy times, joyful flashbacks that form the puzzle of my childhood and memories of a humble woman who dedicated to me a lot of her time.

So it is easy to understand why I'm rooting for "Wearing Memories" - it helped me remember a dear one and share my personal memories with other people. But it looks like I wasn't the only one feeling like this: the crowd-sourced project received more than 400 submissions and it was one of the Museum at FIT most successful social media campaigns to date. 

Know Your Textiles: "Fabric In Fashion" @ FIT Museum, New York

"Know Thyself" said that maxim inscribed in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, but in fashion we should really change it into "Know Your Fabric". It is indeed only through an in-depth knowledge of materials that the best results can be achieved in a collection.

"Fabric In Fashion", an exhibition currently on at New York's FIT Museum (until 11th May), is centred on the importance of materials and on how textiles changed as centuries passed.

The event invites visitors to ponder about the knowledge we used to have about fabrics in the past: women knew how to recognise different fibers and could identify their origins, quality and cost, and spot the difference between wool fabrics appropriate for menswear and women's wear.

In the past people could afford fewer clothes than we can nowadays, yet in our modern times we avidly consume fashion without really knowing what we wear. The exhibit is therefore a way to reconnect with fabrics and learn more about history and cultures.

The exhibition is divided into four sections - silk, cotton, wool and synthetics - and starts with a focus on the history of silk.

China began exporting silk towards the West during the Han Dynasty via the route known as the Silk Road. By the 1200s, European traders regularly imported expensive fabrics such as handwoven satins, velvets, damasks, and brocades from the Far and Middle East. By the 18th century France, England and Italy started producing silk textiles enriching them with Western motifs.

Garments in this section include a striking salmon pink dyed silk taffeta morning robe from 1870 integrating kimono fabric panels, and a silk brocaded taffeta robe a l'anglaise dating from around 1760 characterised by a colourful floral brocade fabric and juxtaposed to a Norman Norell evening gown from 1955 with a classic Western silhouette and made with a multi-coloured sari-inspired silk brocade.

The wool section is also a journey through civilisations as it reminds us wool was a major industry in Mesopotamia by 2500 BCE, but also thrived in ancient Persia, Greece, and Rome.

Wool became particularly popular in Britain until the 1600s as proved also by the paisley gown and shawl included in this section, that also features an iconic blue coat and dress ensemble by Mila Schön with a spongy texture and an A-line silhouette, and a sculpted but softly shaped red wool trench coat by Azzedine Alaïa from the 1980s.  

The British colonisation introduced a new fiber onto the market - cotton - that became extremely popular between the 18th and 19th centuries, but the exhibition does not hide the darkest aspects behind this material.

There may be exquisite designs in light muslin with delicate silver wire embroideries hand-woven in India in this part of the exhibition, but the notes accompanying the garments on display here remind visitors about the human cost behind cotton and the enslavement of African cotton workers in the Americas.

The 19th century brought new innovations in fabric design, with synthetic textiles such as rayon, the first man-made fiber, produced from chemically-processed cellulose.

American chemical company DuPont began developing synthetic fibers made entirely from petroleum and chemicals in 1926 and European and American companies dominated the research and development of synthetic fibers during the 1930s.

Petroleum-based fibers introduced a completely new aestehtic, more futuristic and dynamic, offering increased performance and containing costs. Haute Couture also embraced synthetic fibers that had a boom throughout the 1960s and 1970s. At the same time, being non-biodegradable, such fibers proved toxic for the environment.

The exhibition invites visitors to consider the power of synthetic fibers via a metallic cape matched with a camisole and pants by Issey Miyake (1982) and a green coat of rayon/cotton velveteen by Romeo Gigli (1991).

The former features heat-set folds that are melted into place; the latter moves from historic designs made with smocking velvet, but the texture of the coat is actually made with faux smocked velvet by Nigel Atkinson made with a heat-reactive polyurethane ink applied to the back of the fabric. 

"Fabric in Fashion " then also looks at the way different fabrics can be manipulated in dedicated thematic sections - couture, weave, knitted and feminized. 

The textiles in these parts of the show go from diaphanous cottons and wools to sturdy taffetas, from complex multiple textures made with multi-coloured yarns to dense and dramatic folds.

Highlights include Isabel Toledo's "Hermaphrodite" evening dress from 1998 made with taffeta, a thin and pliable yet solid material that allowed the designer to come up with an ingenious silhouette; a Schiaparelli faille draped gown with folds falling around the body and a 1962 cape by Cristóbal Balenciaga made with silk gazar, a material he developed with Swiss textile firm Abraham, that allowed the Spanish architect of style to create his sculpturally light forms.

There are also historical garments in these sections that reserve some surprises, among them a knitted silk empire-waist evening dress form 1810 with an extremely modern motif, a grid-like pattern of openwork.

It is a shame they didn't include more innovative "fabrics" such as 3D printed textures in this event, but "Fabric in Fashion" remains a good summary for students and for fashion fans who don't have much time in New York and still want to get a quick and essential guide to the history of textiles in fashion.

Indeed, as the exhibition brochure states, fabrics are "the very stuff of fashion" and it is therefore worth to learn more about them, rather than just look at ephemeral fashion trends. 

Image credits for this post

Silk brocaded taffeta robe a l'anglaise, circa 1760, England.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Traina-Norell, silk brocade evening dress. circa 1955, USA, gift of Mildred Morton. 
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Silk taffeta morning robe with silk crepe kimono panels, circa 1870, USA, gift of Florence Anderson and Mary A. Seymour. 
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Mila Schön, double-faced wool dress and coat, 1968, Italy, gift of Mrs. Donald Elliman. 
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Azzedine Alaïa, wool broadcloth trench coat ensemble with wool jersey hood, winter 1985, France, gift of Azzedine Alaïa In Memory of Arthur Englander.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Issey Miyake, ensemble with synthetic metallic ruffled cape, 1982, Japan, gift of Jun Kanai. 
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Isabel Toledo, shot silk taffeta "Hermaphrodite" evening dress, spring 1998, USA.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Balenciaga, silk gazar evening cape, circa 1962, France, gift of Mildred S. Hilson. 
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Schiaparelli, Red silk faille and pink silk evening gown, circa 1955, France, Gift of Mr. Rodman A. Heeren.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Romeo Gigli, ensemble with rayon and cotton velveteen coat heat-embossed with polyurethane, fall 1991, Italy, museum purchase.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Two-piece dress of silk ottoman with fringe and novelty velvet, circa 1859, USA, museum purchase.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Organdy dress with silk satin trim, circa 1830, England, museum purchase.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Silk organza overdress, circa 1825, USA (possibly), gift of Titi Halle. 
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Cotton "silver muslin" round gown with silk taffeta sleeves, 1795–1800, USA (probably), textile from India, museum purchase.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Knitted silk empire-waist evening dress, circa 1810, England, museum purchase.
Fabric In Fashion
Photograph by Eileen Costa
The Museum at FIT

Can Garments Kill?

A while back we did a post about a warning label spotted on a pair of trousers by a fast fashion retailer. The label highlighted to consumers that the dye used for that garment may have transferred onto light-coloured materials. In that post we also wondered if that dye may have been toxic for the wearer.

Yet in some countries we seem to have reached a new level of "label consciousness" when it comes to warnings. Yesterday Twitter user @Aziaani posted pictures of the label she spotted on her Fashion Nova's Water Sports neon green bikini ($34.99).

The label stated: "This product can expose you to Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, lead and cadmium, which are known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and other reproductive harm. For more information visit www.p65Warnings.ca.gov". The Twitter user wondered if other consumers were aware of it. 

Popular brand Los Angeles-based Fashion Nova is actually not the only one bearing such a label in California. There are indeed other clothes brands, but also coffee chains and furniture stores that have got to put similar labels on their products in accordance with what is stated by the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, also known as Proposition 65.

Requiring businesses with 10 or more employees and with a physical presence in California to provide warnings to Californian consumers about significant exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm, the Proposition allows people to make their decisions about these products. On its site consumers are provided with information on chemicals, products and locations often associated with Proposition 65 warnings. At the time of writing, Prop 65 requires warning labels for around 900 chemicals and the list of chemicals is updated at least once a year.

There are similar warnings to the one on the Fashion Nova bikini even on coffee sold in California: Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle ruled indeed in March 2018 that coffee sellers in California need to post cancer warnings in accordance with Prop 65 since, during the roasting process, acrylamide, a chemical known as carcinogen, is produced (studies have actually proved the benefits of coffee, while big companies stated the level of the chemical in coffee isn't harmful).

So Fashion Nova, better known for plagiarizing some of its products from more famous brands, was actually complying with the law when it came to the incriminated bikini (now out of stock). Some consumers got worried, but experts highlighted the label is similar to the adverts found on cigarette packets and is supposed to educate consumers while highlighting potential dangers.

Yet the negative attention the bikini attracted on social media is good since it makes us sit and ponder about other issues. First of all, it would be interesting to see if the retailer uses such labels also on products sold outside California. Would indeed a retailer reveal the presence of potentially dangerous materials in its products if it weren't obliged to do so?

Apart from that the reactions on Twitter were interesting as some consumers wondered if clothes can cause cancer (well, risks associated with wearing clothing that contains these harmful ingredients is unknown, but manufacturers and companies should definitely be able to explain us more about possible risks), showing that we are maybe still very ignorant about our clothes, especially when it comes to fibres and dyes (quite often getting proper and technical information about them may be hard: in a previous post we highlighted how the Italian tax police discovered some faux cashmere products in Turin, but they had them analysed by a specialized laboratory to be really sure about the fibres contained in the garments).

For consumers beginning to read the labels to check at least what our garments are made of, what they contain and where the final product is actually made, is already a starting point. Demanding clarifications to manufacturers maybe using social media is another great idea, but it would be even better if companies would invest their money in experimenting more with materials that are not derived from carcinogens.

There are a lot of researchers all over the world working on innovative materials (engineers at the University of California, Irvine, are developing for example conductive materials inspired by cephalopods that are capable of regulating how much heat is trapped or released), collaborating with them or even investing in their work would be a good idea for fashion companies as it would help them developing great products and win consumer support.