In yesterday's post we mentioned how some designs by Xavier Brisoux on display in the Maison d'Exceptions section at Première Vision in Paris seemed to have structures borrowed from nature and reminiscent for example of the shell valves on chitons.
Let's continue the thread today with a close-up of a pair of Brisoux' fingerless gloves photographed next to dried chitons (first image in this post) and to a fossil gryphaea (second image in this post).
Chitons, marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora, are also known as sea cradles or "coat-of-mail shells" for their distinctive shell composed of eight separate shell plates or valves. These plates overlap at the front and back edge, but they are also articulated one with the another. So the chiton has a solid armour, but can easily flex and move on uneven surfaces. The shell plates are encircled by a skirt known as a girdle (not visible in these dried samples).
In a way the structure of this Haute Maille design by Brisoux is the same - you have knitted layers that almost overlap one with the other and that guarantee freedom of movement and flexibility to the wearer.
The gloves also call to mind the gryphea: known as "devil's toenails" these extinct oysters lived on the sea bed in shallow waters. These fossils range from the Triassic to the middle Paleogene period and were characterised by closely interconnected narrow ridges of crowded steps that seem to be evoked by the knitted layers on Brisoux's gloves.
Wonder at how unusual and yet interesting this post is.
Posted by: Annette Keith | February 22, 2020 at 01:16 AM