When discussing architectural designs, our minds often envision rigorously cut minimalist pieces. However, it's important to remember that functionality is a key aspect of architectural fashion. Bearing that in mind, let's explore two types of functional designs that incorporate pockets, combining style and practicality.
The first one is Claire McCardell's "Popover" dress. Conceived as the answer to a challenge by Harper's Bazaar that consisted in creating a dress that could transition from housework to cocktail party, the design was launched in 1942. The Second World War prompted countries to introduce fabric rationing, so at the time there was a desire for utility-wear and adaptable designs.
Moving from practical pockets in men's clothing, McCardell came up with a simple topstitched dress in grey fabric with a wraparound front, a deep pocket and an attached oven mitt (it was sold attached to the dress).
The publicity photo accompanying it (by Louise Dahl-Wolfe) showed a model wearing the "Popover" dress with one hand in an oven mitt and the other in the pocket, with the headline "I'm doing my own work - and what's more I'm doing it well" that referred to women whose servants had gone into war work, leaving them to cope with chores alone.
Originally the design was indeed designed to be "popped over" something nicer when doing housework; then it became a dress in its own right, ideal to be worn alone as a house dress or a beach wrap, that could easily transition also into the evening. One advert described it as "the original utility fashion", the ideal design to be "equally at home in the kitchen, at play or outdoors".
Sold at $6.95, the dress, classified as a "utility" garment, was a success: in the first year of production Townley (McCardell worked as an assistant to Robert Turk at Townley Frocks, but took his place after the designer's untimely death) sold 75,000 dresses and the design was acclaimed by the American Fashion Critics Association.
Outlasting the war, the patented "Popover" remained in the market for years: from then on McCardell added a version of the dress in every subsequent collection she did, reissuing it in different fabrics, including denim and gingham.
McCardell may not have had the skills of French couturiers, but she didn't need them as she was into more versatile and relaxed designs that catered for the average American women. Her clothes that achieved practicality through inventiveness, were affordable and guaranteed functionality - you could indeed use the pocket of the "Popover" dress to carry around the bare necessities and the buttons around the waist to attach the oven mitt to the dress while cooking. Design with function was the principle that Bruno Munari also had in mind when the Mantua-based publishing house Corraini asked him to design a display stand to showcase the pocket-sized volumes of the "Block Notes" series.
Rather than coming up with an interior design pieces, Munari created a vest incorporating different-sized pockets in a variety of textiles and textures that prompted the wearers to experience knowledge through all their senses, from sight to touch.
The bookshelf-vest has now been re-edited through a collaboration between Corraini Edizioni and sustainable design brand Blue of a Kind.
The 1992 version of the vest, in gray fabric and with pockets that closed with buttons, was reinvented in two colours, in "Dilma" pink (named after Munari's wife) and in upcycled blue denim fabric recovered from vintage garments and incorporating responsibly produced textiles and yarns such as Tencel™ Luxe and Refibra by Lenzing. The design (available to pre-order – delivery starts in July) comes with a booklet explaining its history and with a few books by Munari books to slip in the pockets.
The convergence of function and practicality is evident in these two thoughtfully designed creations. Can you think of an architectural design that has consistently been reissued and that remains popular specifically for its functionality? It's not an easy task to find it, actually, which proves that architecturally functional designs that truly stand the test of time are not so common.
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