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.
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