You can easily find connections between fashion and architecture in the most unexpected places: a collection may be deemed "architectural" to indicate rigorous or fluid lines; there are architects who turned fashion designer (the tradition is long and goes from Gianfranco Ferré to Tom Ford, passing through Kei Kagami, just to mention a few ones), or fashion designers who collaborated with architects on their collections, or turned to them to design their creative spaces, boutiques and runway sets (by now collaborations such as Iris van Herpen/Philip Beesley or Miuccia Prada/Rem Koolhaas's OMA/AMO are well established). It is also not so rare for fashion conglomerates to call a famous architect to design their HQ or a public space with philanthropic intent (think about The Fondation Louis Vuitton/Frank Gehry).
American fashion designer Bonnie Cashin was ahead of her times not just for what regards fashion garments and accessories (that get widely copied by contemporary designers), but also for some very peculiar architectural and design associations.
Stephanie Lake, designer, curator, auction specialist and the caretaker of the Bonnie Cashin archive (and author of the volume Bonnie Cashin: Chic Is Where You Find It) posted yesterday on her @cashincopy Instagram account the section of a letter that proved that for a few years Cashin tried to buy an island in New York's East River. The island wasn't destined to a private project, but it was part of a plan with inventor and designer Buckminster Fuller.
"This small bit of land sitting alongside the UN and in full view from her UN Plaza apartment windows would become the site of a nonprofit, educational foundation," Lake explains on Instagram. "One idea was to have a small structure with a rooftop flame that would rise and fall according to the state of global conflicts and resolutions handled within the UN."
Sadly, the island project and the educational foundation (with that rooftop detail that may be so tragically symbolical even in our times) never came into being. That was an absolute shame as who knows what amazing structure may have resulted from such a collaboration. Yet a connection remained between Cashin and Fuller.
In 1980 Bonnie Cashin established the Innovative Design Fund, a New York-based not-for-profit organization that ancouraged new designs. The organisation donated up to $10,000 to designers with original ideas in fields such as home furnishings, textiles and fashion, and who needed funds to turn their sketches into products. The fund wasn't interested in one-off products, but in designs that could have brought genuine innovations in the lives of ordinary people and that may have been easily produced. A volunteer committee of designers, educators and executives would select winners and Buckminster Fuller himself served as honorary director of the fund from 1979 to 1983.
"Buckminster Fuller once said it took 20 years for a good idea to reach the public. We're trying to close the gap for someone,'' Cashin stated in 1986 in a New York Times article about the Design Fund. Maybe there is something that major fashion houses (entities that may be able to financially support such ventures) should copy from Bonnie Cashin - the island project or the Innovative Design Fund. We do have quite a few competitions dedicated to fashion design students, but there are no educational foundations nor design initiatives funded by a major player in the fashion industry dedicated to the public and to ordinary people. Who knows maybe the time has come for fashion to stop copying Cashin's designs and start copying ideas that she conceived but never managed to turn into reality and that could be useful to society.
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