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Fabric
of fashion
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Fabric of fashion poster/publishing.
Skirt embossed with flowers and top in puff
fabric from I.E.Uniform, autumn/winter 2000.
Michael Danner' photograph.
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Researches
in the textile area and raw material developments
are the biggest challenges of the contemporary
fashion. Shapes aren't changing anymore as they
used in the first half of the XX century, colors
come and go, while differentiated structures and
treatments of fabrics take privileged place in
the fashion world. Therefore, wins who experiments
and invents. It is not by coincidence that designers
from A to Z have been trying to have their "Issey
Miyake moments", challenging frontiers between
create on top of the fabric and create the fabric
itself.
By
the other hand, everything which is "hand
made" resizes its importance for the latest
years of fashion, in a fair contraposition to
the influence of the mass fashion and the vulgarization
of the prêt-a-porter. Small collections
, with a touch of haute couture and a fragrance
of the formerly dressmakers, embroideresses and
knitting women , provokes and inspirers the big
textile industry.
Two
very good reasons for Fabric
of fashion happens. And better: The double
intention of the exhibition, done by the
British Council, now showed in the
Crafts
Council Gallery, join these important
characteristics of the contemporary fashion, through
Marie O'Mahony and Sarah Braddock curatorship.
The mix of high technology and hand made, experimentalism
and technique is the trade mark of the work of
young and talent creators. Through unmatchable
proposals the gallery shows works signed by 15
names who are making history in the current English
fashion.
Right
at the entrance, the digital installation Portrayal,
from Jane Harris, defies the perception with a
3D animation. Would the fabrics be real or just
a simulation? The movements and shapes, the bodies
and clothes invented there, just announce a good
match between technology and fashion, it's the
Fabric of Fashion proposal. In the two ambients
which are next, clothes and accessories question
the frontiers between design, printing, modelling
and technique.
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3D
Installation from Jane Harris
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Fabric
which looks like paper, leather that seems to
be paper, photograms which simulate structures,
laser cuts that dispense sewing, are just some
examples of what is exposed in Crafts Council.
Brands as Vexed Generation, I.E. Uniform and Mulligan
- this last one with pieces inspired in artists
like Christo and Louise Bourgeois; stylists as
Eley Kishimoto, Sophie Roet and Jessica Odgen
model, sew and print originality and singular
concepts, while the architect and textile designer
Savithri Bartlett, born in Sri Lanka, invents
structures in silicon, paper and polyester for
Boudicca couple.
Good
humored , Paul Murray Watson makes experiments
in shoes - shapes, printing and notions, as the
boot all made of zippers, which dismounts from
the top to the bottom and Jo Gordon loses his
head in hats that reproduce - with the warming
and molding technique and applied in felt - the
shape of historic and funny hair cuts.
Special
note for Shelley Fox's "poetry" who
burns fabrics creating scars on them, maybe pain
marks, as dramatically as he prints in Braille
code, reflecting about blindness and fashion;
from B.Earley with prints which invent imaginary
clothes superposition : an old knitted vest over
a micro fiber suit, an old nightgown with threadbare
embroidery, over a basic contemporary dress; and
yet - as it couldn't let it be - from Hussein
Chalayan, with his dress made of buried
and exhumed silk , full of hearth and time spots,
from life and death.
The
exhibition promises yet to impress cities like
Helsinki, Moscow, Copenhagen and Prague in the
year 2001. Until 14 of January it continues in
London, also offering lectures and workshops.
Crafts
Council Gallery - 44A Pentoville Road - London
Angel tube station
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