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| Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Photograph @Kimberly Alexander |
I recently had the opportunity to spend time
at both the Currier Museum (www.currier.org)
and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (www.mfa.org),
pondering the current and future ramifications of technology and material in
the current fashion marketplace. How do post-consumer recycled materials, fused
fibers and 3D printing change not only the look and possibility of an evolving
“fashion”? How does this alter the availability of items such as shoes for
world cultures in need of footwear – whether the need be created by poverty,
famine, or natural disaster? How do new technologies free the body or respond
to the environment? Of course, there are hardly new questions, but if you are
interested in making your own exploration, I encourage you to visit #techstyle at the MFA Boston and
“Killer Heels” at the Currier Museum (on view until 15 May 2016; http://www.currier.org/exhibitions/killer-heels-art-high-heeled-shoe/).
There are a number of fascinating garments included
in #techstyle, but I have selected
just a few, in large part because my predilection is for an exploration of how
past dress iconography is envisioned in new materials and with relatively
recent technologies.
One of the best known garments in the exhibition is
the “Anthozoa” cape and skirt. Curious about the title, I did a bit of research
and discovered that anthozoas are from the family of sea anemenoe and corals.
They can be brightly colored, vary in size and live singly or in a colony.
Taken in this context, the dress and cape is all the more paradoxical – using the
natural form of a sea creature as the basis of a design which is created by
predominately man-made materials.
Iris
van Herpen and Neri Oxman
Anthozoa
3D cape and skirt from the Voltage Collection, 2013
Polyurethane rubber and acrylic co-polymer 3D
printed on Stratasys Connex 3D printer, steel cage, cotton twill, silk satin
Manish
Arora known for combining “traditional Indian crafts
like embroidery, applique , and beading with Western silhouettes.” The bodice, which was look #33 from his
Spring/Sumer 2013 collection is a fusion of traditional clothing with modern
technology; here the laser-cut leather is embroidered with beads and sequins.
Finally, both exhibitions plumb shoe typology and technology in
work of the late Zaha Hadid for NOVA and the botanically-inspired shoes of Iris Van Herpen and Rem D. Koolhaus,
United Nude.
For more:
“Killer Heels” by Lisa Small, et al http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/3791353802/ref=pe_1205900_163960600_em_1p_4_ti
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