A week ago today, I was in Paris, marveling over Madeleine Vionnet’s work in the Musée des Arts décoratifs‘ exhibition, Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la Mode. The exhibition, running June 24, 2009 through January 31, 2010 (you still have this weekend!) has brought to the public the first-ever retrospective exhibition of Vionnet’s oeuvre.
The exhibition is a delightful walk through early twentieth-century design, showcasing 130 of Vionnet’s designs, dating from 1912 to 1939. In 1952, Vionnet, one of fashion’s most celebrated designers, credited with the creation of the bias cut and the one-seam dress, and women’s transition out of corsetry in the early part of the century, generously donated her collection of dresses, patterns, and photographs to the newly created Union Française des Arts du Costume, for preservation and for the education of future generations. Included in the donation were 126 dresses and 727 patterns, 73 copyright albums (including sketches), and more than 12,800 photographs, constituting her maison‘s entire archive.
The exhibition was staid, chronologically and thematically laid out, in keeping with the reverence with which you would expect the work of a master couturière, known as the couturier’s couturier, to be displayed, simply letting the construction and exquisite details of the dresses speak for themselves. Greeting us when we entered was an articulated small scale mannequin which Vionnet used to drape designs. It was humble, but its significance was repeated visually, as the exhibition’s display mannequins were all full-scale versions of the doll-like figure.
I had hoped to have many good photographs of the exhibition to share, however, photography was interdit. Even better than my grainy photos are the following short (about two minutes each) and professionally produced videos on the exhibition.
Most of the dresses were accompanied by copies of the original illustrations for the designs. Below is one example.
The show ranged over two floors in the museum. The first floor covered Vionnet’s early decades. The second floor covered her later period. It was the second floor I had to breeze through, unfortunately, as my traveling companion was more interested in the museum’s other show, the Playmobil 35th anniversary exhibit, and had kindly been quite forbearing while I examined the displays on the first floor quite thoroughly, and whose patience was rewarded with a timely exit.
For more about Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la Mode, visit the Musée’s extensive web site for the show. It is in French. If you do not read French, the site has a marvelous slideshow of dresses, photographs, and more, for which little understanding of French is needed. If you do read French, you will particularly enjoy Pamela Golbin’s Imaginary Interview of Madeleine Vionnet, taken from the exhibition catalogue.
On the subject of the exhibition catalogue (titled Madeleine Vionnet: Puriste de la Mode), I made sure to purchase a copy from the museum shop, 107 Rivoli, while I was there. I wanted the catalogue in its original language and I wanted to be frugal, so I purchased the 55 euro French language edition over the 70 euro English edition. As I write this, I see that purchasing the English edition from Amazon would have saved me even more money. Today’s price for the title: US $47, plus free Super Saver shipping. Not bad for a book weighing more than 2 kilos. Alors, c’est la vie, I have a wonderful addition to my library, and a treasured souvenir to help me expand my French vocabulaire de la mode. If you would like to purchase your own copy in French, the museum shop’s site does not appear to offer online shopping, but here is a link to it on Amazon.fr.
I’m please to bring you a book review by Laura McLaws Helms, a photographer, blogger and fashion history graduate student at F.I.T.
“For me, Foale and Tuffin represented the revolution that was happening in London. They were all about all that was new. They were before Ossie Clark, before everyone.”
As two of the key players in the creation of the groundbreaking Swinging Sixties look, Foale and Tuffin were long overdue for a book based on their legacy. Iain R. Webb, a well respected British fashion journalist and author of Bill Gibb: Fashion and Fantasy, has taken on their rather remarkable story and put together a well-edited look at their designs and partnership in Foale and Tuffin: The Sixties. A Decade in Fashion (ACC Editions, January 16, 2010). An eleven-page foreword succinctly tells their story, while the rest of the book is rather cleverly organized around three interviews Webb had with Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin. Interspersed between these interviews are short one or two page interviews with thirty-seven characters connected with their company and the period.
Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin met at Walthamstow Art School in London in 1955, studying art and design. From there they were accepted into the exclusive Royal College of Art’s fashion design program, led by the legendary Janey Ironside. While in school they were taught to look to the great Parisian couturiers for inspiration, but they also sought to design simple and wearable clothes for themselves, the kind of clothes they couldn’t find anywhere. Graduating in 1961 Foale and Tuffin decided to set up a company out of their flats, and approached several stores with a lookbook of youthful designs. Fashion had not yet moved on from the full-skirted silhouettes of the fifties and only one buyer, the 22-year-old Vanessa Denza from the 21 Shop in Woodlands department store, took them on.
The 21 Shop was a completely new style of store-within-a-store geared toward young people and carrying designs that were “simple, zany, not for squares (in any sense).”[2] She chose three dresses from their collection, buying three of each and placed one, a simple gray a-line flannel dress with frill front, in the window. Spied by an editor from Vogue, it was quickly photographed for the magazine by David Bailey and subsequently ushered in the new Dolly Bird look. Soon orders were coming in from stores all over the globe as everyone became enchanted with the London Look. Caroline Charles, the British designer, says, “Foale and Tuffin’s clothes were absolutely delicious, very pretty in a girly way. It was a joyous and innocent time and Foale and Tuffin reflected that brilliantly.”[3]
Foale and Tuffin were always seen to be at the forefront of fashion in London, constantly coming up with new styles that would have young women running to their little store off of Carnaby Street, one of the first boutiques to open following Mary Quant‘s Bazaar, and would have other designers and manufacturers scrambling to copy them. As the decade went on their style evolved from a-line minis into more feminine bohemian maxi dresses, foreshadowing the rise of hippie culture. Webb writes that “their narrative… perfectly traces the decade from its groovy, optimistic beginnings… to its demise, as sixties sanguinity melted away into a hangover of seventies cynicism, masked as it was by fancy-dress escapism.”[4] They closed the company in 1972 after a few seasons of more exotic, Japanese inspired looks even though they were still highly successful and still widely used in magazine editorials.
Webb’s decision to structure this book around interviews is very interesting and at times very compelling. The interviews with both women are wonderfully engaging, as their still close relationship is palpable and inspiring. The short interviews with others are also of interest as he took great pains to speak to everyone from their machinists to several fashion editors, celebrities, other designers and friends. These interviews are quite illuminating about the incredible creative energy in London during that era and capture the “anything goes” attitude that helped these young girls with no business training become successes.
According to the fashion editor Meriel McCooey, “Everything was going on in London at that time. It was like a big club really, and you had to be talented to become a member. You had to be producing something amazing; you had to have a credential, a form. Everybody knew everybody, and we all had enormous respect for each other.”[5] Their associations with the other great creative minds of the period, from the Beatles to pop artists like Peter Blake, helped their business and also kept them at the forefront of popular culture. Webb makes their importance to the London scene clearly visible and illustrates it with hundreds of snapshots, fashion photographs and sketches.
The one failure of this book is that at times it can be rather repetitive- whereas normally a historian will take the best quotes from all their interviews, Webb has included quite long sections from each one and many of the participants have many of the same things to say about Foale and Tuffin and about the 60s. There is also a lack of real depth as all of the interviews are short and more general in subject. While I would have enjoyed a more detailed analysis of their clothes and business Webb’s book is still a highly enjoyable and worthwhile look at these very influential designers.
In conjunction with this book a retrospective is on view at the Fashion & Textile Museum in London. Titled Foale and Tuffin: Made in England and curated by Dennis Nothdruft, I was lucky enough to see this exhibition while in England over Christmas. Cleverly designed, in the main hall of the gallery a replica of their famously tiny shop has been recreated down to the metal pipes for hanging clothes, their innovative hangers with long necks, records and their sign made out of red and blue light bulbs. The main gallery showcases all of their mod designs with supplementary sketches and photographs, and a large video projection of girls zipping around London in their trendy frocks. The upstairs gallery is given over to their later designs, the floaty hippie pieces made from Liberty fabrics. Rather remarkably both women’s worktables have been maintained in their original condition and are on view heaped with original fabrics and notions. At the end of the show is a small display of the work they have been doing since they closed the company- Foale has found great success with her company of handknit garments, and Tuffin as a ceramics designer. The show is on until the 24th of February and is well worth a visit if you are in London.
After spending 2009 as an Instructor for an Intro to Fashion course and being the Lead TA for the Textile Analysis labs, I’m now back to the Goldstein Museum of Design as a Graduate Assistant for what is (cross your fingers) the last semester of my doctorate. I was one of the Graduate Assistants for the Goldstein from Fall 06 to Summer 08, and they needed someone quick to fill in this semester due to an unexpected change in personnel. My friend Mary Alice and I are splitting the position, which primarily focuses on the public relations and external communications side of the museum, such as press releases, website and social networking, event planning, and membership management.
Thought I’d let you know I’ve shifted gears back to museuming temporarily, however this Fall I will be on the market applying to professor positions for Fall 2011. Ideally I’d find a position somewhere that overlaps prof and museum work, but I know there are few schools with that option.
The conference takes place in Bursa, the textile center of Turkey, May 12–14, 2010.
Papers on fundamental research related to the science and engineering of fibers and fibrous materials are being solicited. Submissions of original work related to the following major themes, as well as any aspects on the frontier of fibers and fibrous materials, are welcomed:
• Fiber and polymer science and nanotechnology
• Textile processing technology
• Dyeing, finishing, and biotechnology
• Textile testing
• Industrial textiles
• Functional textiles
• Fiber-reinforced composites
• Smart textiles
• Fashion design, costume history, and aesthetics
• Nonwovens
• Textile recycling, “green” technologies, and sustainable manufacturing
Online submissions are now being accepted. Go to the Fiber Society websiteand follow the link to register and upload your abstract. A template will be provided for all submissions. Abstracts will be no more than 2 pages in length in the prescribed format that includes abstract title, author(s), and affiliation(s). Abstracts will be in MS Word (NO pdfs, please), Times New Roman, 11-point font. Submission deadline is March 12. Notification of acceptance into the program will be no later than April 12. For those who must acquire travel visas, early submission is highly recommended.
In conjunction with the conference, Clemson University’sCenter for Advanced Engineering Fibers and Films will present its Advanced Fiber Process Development Workshop, May 11. The one-day course will provide background on the key elements in a fiber-spinning process and the state-of-the-art in modeling those elements. It will also offer information on polymer characterization, including on-line measurements that can be made to verify model predictions. Registration and other details will be forthcoming and available on the Fiber Society website.
Finally, table top exhibitors will attend, demonstrating the latest in testing and analytical instruments, software, and materials and material conversion technologies. Registration details will be available on the Fiber Society website.
Details continue to be developed. For current information and updates, access the Society’s website at www.thefibersociety.org. For other inquiries, contact Pam Gabriel at pam_gabriel@ncsu.edu, or the conference chair, Dr. Yusuf Ulcay, at ulcay@uludag.edu.tr.
I stumbled upon the contest Cheap-ChicWeddings.com sponsored for the most impressive wedding gowns made of — wait for it — toilet paper! Yes, this humble stuff is the focus of an annual challenge to use as the sole fabric of a wedding dress. I’m always interested to learn how technology affects textiles and by extension, fashion, but it’s equally interesting to be confronted with garments made of material whose primary function is not the building block of a dress (some will recall my earlier post on a similar duct tape prom dress competition). Yet another difficulty was probably disguising the “fabric” so it concealed its bathroom origins.
Though I myself have never tackled such a garment, challenges working with this particular paper would, I imagine, include transparency and flimsiness. But like all materials, I suspect experimenting with various brands would be part of the process, finding the texture, weight, stiffness, etc., that best suited various parts of the garment. Frankly, the whole contest reminds me a bit of the Charmin “quilted” toilet paper ads of bears and things sewing toilet paper for a supposedly softer, quilted product. It strikes me as hilarious that non-cartoon animals tackle this task… and in the form of wedding dresses, no less! Following are 2009′s winners.
First place winner:
Ann Kagawa Lee's toilet paper wedding dress
Ann Kagawa Lee's dress from the back
Ann Kagawa Lee's matching wedding hat
Though this contest is on the alternative side of crafty fashion, paper dresses are not actually new. The 1950s paved the way for this temporary and flimsy fashion by integrating more and more rapid obsolescence in products, from seasonal cars models to kitchen appliances, aggressively marketed as lifestyle essentials. Many historians attribute the ready acceptance of these sped-up trends to a pervasive feeling of impermanence, due in no small part to the fear and doom of nuclear war. It is with some irony that the government itself looked to paper as an alternative to cloth.
In the 1960s the government began experimenting with paper textiles. Paper’s light weight, insulating qualities, and cheapness made it an attractive choice for disposable combat garments, parachutes, and pup tents. The idea went viral when a corporation adopted the idea: in 1966 the Scott Paper Company used a paper dress as a gimmicky marketing ploy where for $1 women could buy a rather shapeless paper dress and get Scott coupons. To the surprise of many (including Scott Paper), women actually loved the dresses (though the color apparently rubbed off easily) and Scott sold half a million of them in 8 months. Fashion designers jumped on the bandwagon soon afterwards, and the paper dress craze lasted for the next few years.
Scott Paper dress, 1966
Here is perhaps the most recognizable paper dress, the 1960′s Campbell’s Soup dress that was inspired by the work of Andy Warhol — expendability and easy reproduction was central to the Pop Art movement, after all. These were produced by Campbell’s Soup as an advertising campaign (see the ad here). It’s a classic example of how fashion intersects art and industry:
Warhol's Campbell's Soup dress of the '60s
The infatuation with paper clothes didn’t last long. They tore easily, were highly flammable, and a bit too fad-ish to last past 1969. Though the full-blown craze died out decades ago, there are still those who use paper as a deliberately challenging material:
phonebook paper dress by Jolis Paons, 2008
And a 1960s version of similar concept:
phonebook paper dress by Waste Basket Boutique by Mars of Asheville
Hussein Chalayn constructed a paper airmail dress that you could write on, fold up and send, and finally wear, humorously playing with ideas of original textile function, disposability, and usefulness:
Hussein Chalayn paper airmail dress, 1999
Designer James Rosenquist created a papery suit out of Tyvek®, a nonwoven fabric made from spun-bonded olefin, adding gender to the mix of concepts (why weren’t paper clothes made for men in the 60s?):
Hugo Boss, designed by James Rosenquist, spring 1998
Leona Scull-Hons had a performance art piece where she wore an elaborate paper dress throughout the day and then sat in a chair in the gallery every evening to sew all the tears. Though I didn’t see the piece myself, I love how she incorporated the female-dominated tradition of sewing and mending, utilizing the frailty of paper to accelorate the breakdown process of clothes.
Leona Scull-Hons, "Mend," 2002
I thought I’d leave off with the paper gown we are probably most familiar with today, though it was invented in the mid 20th century alongside the obsolete paper dresses. Keeping in mind how awful these feel, can you imagine purchasing one to wear in public??
Call for Papers, Proposals, & Designs
International Textile and Apparel Association Annual Meeting
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
October 27-30, 2010
Most of the deadlines for submission are February 1, 2010 with author notification by March 18, 2010.
(This is a good call for students who are in or want to be in graduate school, individuals who are looking for academic jobs as there is always a career fair, and people who want to do some academic networking. I’ve been and presented a handful of times but won’t be able to attend this year due to the timing. -Monica)
The calls: Workshops: Requesting proposals for workshops held at the beginning and close of annual conference. These may include presentations, panels, group discussions, invited speakers, or any other program which may be of interest to members. ITAA is now accepting proposals from resource vendors.
Special Topic Sessions: Requesting proposals for sessions to be held during the annual meeting. These may include presentations, panels, small group discussions, or any other program which may be of interest to members. Special Topic Sessions occur within the regular meeting schedule and should address broad issues and encourage dialogue and audience participation.
Graduate Student Best Papers: Graduate students are invited to submit full papers for the Graduate Student Best Paper competition. The competition is divided into two categories, master’s and doctoral. A first and second place award may be given in each category. A student who wishes to participate must be currently enrolled in a graduate program or must have earned a graduate degree within the past 12 months. Students must be members of ITAA to be considered and must be ITAA members at the time of the annual meeting. Both first place winners will receive $500 toward travel and hotel costs to attend the annual meeting and present their papers. Conference registration fees will be waived for the first place winners.
Undergraduate Student Best Papers: Undergraduate students are invited to submit papers based on original research for the Undergraduate Student Best Paper competition. The paper may be written and submitted by any undergraduate student or student team (3 member maximum) under the sponsorship of an ITAA faculty member. Students must be currently enrolled in textiles, apparel, merchandising, or related programs or have graduated from such a program within the last 12 months. The faculty member supervising the research is to be entered as faculty advisor. The Undergraduate Best Paper will be presented in oral format at the ITAA Annual Meeting. The student author(s) of the winning paper will receive $500 to be used toward travel and hotel costs and conference registration fees will be waived for the first place winner.
Research Presentations: Scholars are invited to submit proposals to present original research papers at the ITAA annual meeting. Appropriate submissions include research studies and scholarship from diverse theoretical positions. Research must be completed at time of submission and may not have been published or reported at a national or regional conference prior to the ITAA Annual Meeting. Each paper must be presented by one of the authors in oral or poster format. Deadline for submission is April 1, 2010; author notification by June 30, 2010. Click here to download the Research Papers call.
Technical Design / Fashion Illustration / Textile Design: Of special interest for undergraduate students. Scholars are invited to submit proposals to present original research posters at the ITAA annual meeting on Technical Design / Fashion Illustration / Textile Design. Appropriate submissions include design research from diverse positions, recognizing that design includes apparel, costume, textiles, accessories, functional and technical design, apparel product development, and fashion illustration. This call is for research only, and does not include the teaching of technical design or fashion illustration. Although the final poster can have a strong visual focus, the proposal should include a strong research focus. Research must be completed at time of submission and may not have been published or reported at a national or regional conference prior to the ITAA Annual Meeting. Each paper must be presented by one of the authors in oral or poster format.
Teaching Presentations: Scholars are invited to submit proposals to present papers on the creative teaching, curriculum strategies and best practices at the ITAA annual meeting. Papers should be reported in narrative form and may not have been published or reported at a national or regional conference prior to the ITAA Annual Meeting. Each paper must be presented by one of the authors in oral or poster format. Deadline for submission is April 1, 2010; author notification by June 30, 2010.
Click here to go to ITAA’s site with all of these calls and more details on awards.
Legend has it that a vanity-stricken youth named Narcissus fell so in love with his own image that he drowned himself in a pond while bending down to kiss his reflection. The story of Narcissus (which developed into the modern day affliction known as narcissism) has taken on various different connotations in contemporary culture. But the tale of Narcissus has several different important connections to fashion.
Fashion has often been dismissed as the realm of the vain and the superficial. Those who concern themselves with clothing, it’s been said, must just love the sight of themselves so much that they feel the need to constantly “dress up.” A classic image comes to mind of a woman preening before a mirror, draped herself with jewels, reveling in admiration at her own image. Indeed, the mirrored reflection that Narcissus so adored is a part of the process of getting dressed, but to what degree? Is fashion inconsequential because it has to do with how one looks in a mirror, or how one looks to others?
The actual question of reflection, or mirroring and imitation, is incredibly pertinent to fashion. It’s true that in fashion there exists a simultaneous desire for differentiation and uniformity. Mirroring and imitation gets at the heart of uniformity. Isn’t it the case that there are times when we want to imitate someone’s outfit so accurately that we notice every single detail — even down to the kind of buttons on her garment?
But what do we get when we mirror others through fashion? What does imitation really give us? Is it just the satisfaction of knowing we can now be official members of a certain sartorial group? Or is it because we are using those around us as mirrors to reflect ourselves back to us?
Another often overlooked component of the Narcissus tale is the nymph Echo, who so loved Narcissus, who loved himself, that all she could do was echo what he said. It seems to me that our cultural narcissistic epidemic (see The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement) has now lead to a case of the echoes.
A lot of what is happening in fashion today is simply endless repetition – infinite echoes of what has already been done. Ironic that in the midst of such narcissism, there is actually such conformity. Somehow our extreme individualism has morphed into a bunch of identical copy cats. Because our individuality is never strictly our own.
Although excessive imitation in fashion may point to some larger psychological concerns in a society, it’s also the case that fashion only becomes symbolic and/or meaningful when there are enough shared “syntax,” if you will, for a language of clothing to really develop.
Museums regularly face issues associated with a lack of space for their collections. As new acquisitions are made, space must be found to store these new objects. For many museum clothing collections, this can be an especially tricky problem. A number of options are regularly used: Offsite storage, a new building, compact storage (just to name a few). Most memorable in recent history is the Brooklyn Museum’s decision to transfer its entire costume collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The result of this move is the forthcoming major retrospective exhibition: American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity which will be composed entirely from the “newly established Brooklyn Museum of Costume Collection at the Met.”
But taking a step back, what does one need to consider when moving a collection, en mass? For those interested in careers within collection management, this is an issue one would have to face with some regularity. And so I thought examining a few resources and examples would be helpful for readers of Worn Through.
Some good general resources for handling collections are:
I asked some experts in the field who have had some recent experience with this and plan to share my discoveries with WT readers over a series of posts. Christina Johnson, of FIDM was one of these experts and she’ll be enlightening us on her recent experience with moving her collection of Gernrich‘s in to compact storage. The Oakland Museum of California is also in the middle of a similar process, and they are blogging about the transformation of their history galleries here. Both the de Young Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Arts have recently acquired new buildings, however, Philadelphia’s move was specific to the Costume and Textile collection.
Hanging costume in old storage
Hanging costume in new storage
According to their website, this move was executed in January 2008, and involved some 30,000 pieces of costume and textiles. It took eight years of planning, with funding obtained from an IMLS grant, Mellon Foundation and the Kress Foundation. Details on the Museum’s historic move are available to the public and academic community here: Costume & Textile Department Move
The website includes an overview, and details on the storage survey, design process, rehousing and the move itself. The site is heavy with photographs, video and architectural drawings.
Part of the “Storage Survey”
“Ideal storage”
From “details on mount making”
Another museum professional recommended checking out the American Institute of Conservation‘s website. Here I found a whole range of papers from their last meeting, but several specifically addressed this issue, including:
“New Lab Space, New de Young” by Sarah Gates, Head of Textile Conservation, and Beth Szuhay, Textile Conservator, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, de Young Museum
“Out of the Box: New Costume and Textile Storage at the Philadelphia Museum of Art” by Sara Reiter, Conservator of Costume and Textiles, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Linda Gottfried, Director of Museum Products, Borroughs Corporation
Their next meeting is May 11, 2010, and will be held in Milwaukee. Details here.
Finally, I hope you’ll comment below on experiences you’ve had with moving a museum collection, and keep an eye out here for more on this topic in the coming months.
(1. Adjunct position, Fashion Marketing and Management, Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham
The Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham is searching for adjunct instructors to teach courses in our Fashion Marketing and Management program.
Qualifications:
- Master’s degree in Fashion Merchandising/Marketing, Management, or related field.
- 3 – 5 years of increasingly responsible experience in industry and /or teaching.
- Genuine interest in helping students.
- Ability to act effectively as the member of a team.
- Proficient in management, merchandising practices, and selected software’s used in the industry.
- College level teaching experience preferred
- Strong problem solving and interpersonal communication skills
- Strong writing and communication skills
Qualified applicants should submit a cover letter, resume and copy of transcripts to:
(2. Assistant Professor, Fashion Merchandising and Management, Cheyney University
Candidates required to have a Ph.D. in Fashion Merchandising or a closely-related field. Collegiate teaching experience and fashion merchandising or apparel experience is required. A collegiate teaching experience from a student-centered perspective is highly desirable. The candidate should have demonstrated ability to teach courses in the history of apparel, textiles and apparel production and merchandise buying at the undergraduate level. Preference will be given to candidates who have collegiate teaching experience from a student-centered perspective, are actively engaged in research, able to teach FMM courses at the graduate level and have experience in curriculum development, especially at the graduate level.
To apply please submit application materials to:
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
Office of Human Resources
1837 University Circle
P.O. Box 200
Cheyney, PA 19319-0200
Panel Discussion
The Sustainability Equation: Ethics and Aesthetics in Contemporary Fashion
Tuesday, January 26, 6 p.m.
Pratt Manhattan Gallery
144 West 14th Street, 2nd Floor
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Exhibition and panel are free, no reservations required
Confirmed panelists include Julie Gilhart, senior vice president, fashion director of Barneys New York; Mary Ping, designer and founder of Slow and Steady Wins the Race; Caroline Priebe, designer and founder of Uluru. The panel will be moderated by “Ethics + Aesthetics” guest curators Francesca Granata and Sarah Scaturro.
“The Sustainability Equation: Ethics and Aesthetics,” will examine what constitutes sustainability within the American fashion system and will explore the sustainable fashion practices of American fashion designers including “Ethics + Aesthetics” designers Ping and Priebe. “Ethics + Aesthetics = Sustainable Fashion” is on view now through February 20, 2010 and features work by companies, clothing lines and artists including Alabama Chanin, Bodkin, Loomstate, SANS, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, SUNO, and ULURU, and by designers and artists such as Susan Cianciolo, Kelly Cobb, Zoë Sheehan Saldaña, and Andrea Zittel and Tiprin Follet, smockshop.
Francesca Granata is a fashion theorist and independent curator completing her Ph.D. in fashion history and theory at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London. She also lectures at Parsons The New School for Design. Sarah Scaturro is a textile conservator at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and adjunct instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Julie Gilhart is senior vice president, fashion director of Barneys New York, a high-end luxury specialty store based in the United States. In spring 2007, she spearheaded the development of an all-organic collection of casual, sexy clothes that are available in every Barneys New York store in the country. She has inspired many designers to develop “sustainable” products and was instrumental in the creation of Barneys’ 2007 holiday campaign titled “Have a Green Holiday,” which focused on environmentally-conscious fashion products. Gilhart believes there is an essential need to increase awareness of the development of sustainable products and how the customer makes buying decisions. She works to instill changes in the fashion business that leave a lighter footprint on the earth and promote more conscious consumerism.
Mary Ping’s Slow and Steady Wins the Race is an experimental “laboratory” line that stemmed from a desire to dissect the fashion vocabulary and led to an exploration of patterns of consumption and brand identities. The label’s mission is to “promote and produce interesting and significant pieces from the simplest fabrics and materials.” Following a product design model, the company is intent on slowing down the fashion cycle by creating non-seasonal pieces focused on specific and fundamental characteristics of clothing design. In addition, the designs are produced in limited numbers and sold at a contained price.
The garments of Uluru’s Caroline Priebe are tightly focused for maximum ecological impact and emphasize a “less is more” philosophy. For example, Priebe’s Westlake dress has only two seams, creating a sophisticated, simple look that is reversible and has pockets. The Kathleen coat, a classic design based on her grandmother’s coat, highlights the longevity of design and its relation to personal and historical memories. The recycled cashmere sweater, adorned with appliqués hand-sewn by the workshop of Alabama Chanin, underscores the collaborative nature common to sustainable fashion.
For more information, please call 212-647-7778 or email exhibits@pratt.edu or click here.
Photos, left to right: Ethics + Aesthetics, Pratt Manhattan Gallery; Slow and Steady Wins the Race section of exhibition; ULURU stitched by Alabama Chanin, recycled appliquéd sweater, cashmere and organic cotton jersey.
Photography credits: Installation views, Harry Zernike Photography; ULURU photo, Kate & Camilla
(ACC Editions, January 16, 2010). An eleven-page foreword succinctly tells their story, while the rest of the book is rather cleverly organized around three interviews Webb had with Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin. Interspersed between these interviews are short one or two page interviews with thirty-seven characters connected with their company and the period.
. London: Mitchell Beazley, 2003.
. London: Michael Joseph, 1973.
. London: Comet Books, 1983.
. New York: Broadway, 2003.
. London: Ballantine, 1967.
. London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 2006.
) has now lead to a case of the echoes.
from the American Association of Museums.
