Sustainable Fashion London Sample Sale

I've recently read the book 'Naked Fashion' by Safia Minney, founder and CEO of the award-winning Fair Trade and sustainable fashion label People Tree.  A high recommended read and a very impressive company - I'll post about soon.  In the meantime, here's a great opportunity to support the environment and social justice whilst bagging a lovely organic bargain too!  *Scroll down for a special voucher too for this weekend.

Between Skin and Clothing

From the Kunstmuseum in Wolfsburg, Germany (http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de/):

Fashion and Objects by Walter Van Beirendonck, Louise Bourgeois, Hussein Chalayan, Christophe Coppens, Comme des Garçons, Salvador Dali, Naomi Filmer, Robert Gober, Martin Margiela, Francesco Vezzoli, Viktor and Rolf, Anna-Nicole Ziesche and many others.

Viktor & Rolf ; Louise Bourgeois

The exhibition explores the relationship between art and fashion. Since the sixties art and fashion have shared the same avant-garde feeling. Fashion no longer expresses power, money and social class; instead, it starts to express art and culture. Fashion and popular visual cultures—like pop art—became the new visual aesthetics of society. Fashion and Art are conceptual in the same way . During the eighties Japanese designers as Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons started to explore the boundaries of clothing and the meaning of fashion. Viktor & Rolf and Hussein Chalayan too started to present fashion shows in the new millenium that looked like art-installations.

The exhibition, which first has been shown at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, curated by José Teunissen and Han Nefkens, will be reshaped for Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg by José Teunissen and Annelie Lütgens, curator of Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg.

March 5 2011 - August 7 2011

Designs on China: Fashion and Neo-Orientalism

Some of the best exhibitions are hypothetical - when time, money and resources are limited ideas rarely get beyond the portfolio stage. Still, some of these concepts are truly experimental and deserve to be further explored. At the London College of Fashion MA Graduate Show in Victoria House I came across fashion curation student Jun Deng's hypothetical exhibition on 21st century designers' interpretation of the Ming dynasty's blue and white designs for clothing and ceramics. By juxtaposing the designs of Chinese and Western designers with traditional Chinese artefacts Jun Deng exposes how traditional motifs have been appropriated and perceived by different individuals.

Roberto Cavalli's dramatic blue and white dress from his Autumn/Winter 2005 collection is a cocktail of Chinese motifs, including: a dragon, red stamp-painting and the curvilinear silhouette of a Ming vase. Standing against a backdrop of a Chinese painting, the gown is a stand-out piece, creating what Jun Deng terms a Western 'orient impression' rather than truly engaging with the symbolism inherent in Chinese design.

In contrast, viewed through Eastern eyes, Chinese designer You Jia's blue and white fish-tail dress for the aquatic awarding ceremonies at the Olympic Games of 2008, is representative of the wearer's femininity and the sports' watery element. In Jun Deng's exhibition, the gown is hung from a lantern (see above image), a basic symbol of Chinese culture with auspicious qualities. From a design perspective this display method also enables a continous view of the gown's wave-like construction and embroidery. Throughout the exhibition, display methods serve the three-fold purpose of showcasing the objects; enlightening the public about Chinese culture, and exposing its relevance to today's designers.
According to Jun Deng, Chinese as well as Western audiences need to appreciate the beauty and symbolism of traditional Chinese designs. Since the Cultural Revolution of 1966, when Mao proclaimed that all traces of old, imperial China should disappear and the destruction of cultural artefacts on an unprecedented scale was launched, many traditional art-forms have been threatened. Although those days of radical extremism have passed, Jun Deng is concerned that the new generation is growing up on a diet of Americana, ignorant of the traditions that have shaped China for centuries. He believes that exhibiting the work of fashion designers who innovate through tradition would inspire China's younger generation and encourage them to take pride in their rich artistic heritage rather than slavishly imitating the West.

Further details of Fashion and Neo-Orientalism can be viewed at showtime.arts.ac.uk/JunDeng

Squishy Electronics

The IEEE Spectrum profiled a team of scientists who have engineered "squishy electronics" at NC State University. The memristors, made from liquid metal and films of the hydrogel agarose, are being developed as components for the human brain. Brain tissue is soft and wet (squishy), and conventional electronic components are hard. Much like all other regions of the human body, the brain is less likely to reject an electronic implant if it is physically more like itself.

Interesting! But how can it be used in textiles??

Please leave some suggestions, because for now, all I can think of is a light-up meat dress (concept: Katy Parry's dress marries Lady Gaga's dress).

Read full article here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/chemists-construct-squishy-memristors-and-diodes/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=101209

Alexander McQueen SS11: Amazing Textures

Sarah Burton delivered an impressive collection for the Alexander McQueen SS11 runway show in Paris last week.

The textiles were elabourate constructions reminiscent of armour, seemingly crafted by forest dwellers sensitive to their natural surroundings.

Colours referred to the palete of an autumnal woods - cream coloured mushroom caps, orange leaves, rust-coloured lichen, black beetles, yellow foliage and white birds.

The models wore pretty braids, long enough to twirls around their arms and trailing into tapers at the ends. It looked like there were ribbons wrapped in their hair.

It was all very pretty. A return to the gentle side of Alexander McQueen, heavy on the handcraft and nature, and light on the aggression.

Still, the garments spoke of strength. The intensely woven and modern victorian tailored pieces were like exoskeletons of tough little insects, with a taste for modern Victorian tailoring.

view the entire collection's runway video: http://www.alexandermcqueen.com/int/en/corporate/archive2011_ssfilm_womens.aspx

CuteCircuit blazing through the Celebrity Circuit

Wearable electronics are finally going mainstream. CuteCircuit, a fashion label that is headed in part by an electrical engineer, has been designing electronic textiles for years. Their work finally came into the spotlight when Katy Perry wore a custom-made LED dress at the infamous Met Costume Institute Gala in New York. Thanks to the combined effect of Perry's celebrity status and the media frenzy that follows the Met Ball, the dress was all over the press.

It generated so much interest that other pop stars of the Katy Perry-type took notice. Rihanna wore a Moritz Waldemeyer-built LED dress onstage the following week. A month later, Safura wore one made by (again) CuteCircuit.

In fact, CuteCircuit, and powered garments in general, have been in the press for a long time. It just took the right kind of press to get them into the mainstream. WIRED and Computerworld took notice of them years ago, but the Katy Perry collaboration caught the attention of Grazia, Hello!, OK, The Daily Mail, Women's Wear Daily, etc.

Katy said, ‘I think sometimes in fashion it can get a little stuffy so I wanted to lighten up!’. She lit it up with her LEDs. It's very interesting to see how this exchange between the celebrity world and the electronic textile world has also sparked new life into wearable electronics, which up to now, hadn't successfully broken through into the mainstream. So what next for CuteCircuit?

They have designed a new line of light-up dresses to be available exclusively at Selfridges. The "K Dress", for example, was featured in the Selfridges Christmas Press Release, and will retail for £1,350.

Links:
Safura Takes The Stage at Eurovision Song Contest in CuteCircuit
http://www.cutecircuit.com/press/

What you will wear tomorrow according to yesterday

WHAT YOU WILL WEAR TOMORROW - october 1958
By Lester David

"MEN’S fashions, long noted for their sepulchral hues and funeral cut, are currently erupting in a major revolution of styles, colors and surprises. Gone are the days of the petrified collar and suits of “cast iron tweed.” New fabrics, new fashions and new fads are the order of the day. Where will it all end?"

still a big question, huh?

"We asked clothing and industrial designers, textile manufacturers and other experts to peer into their crystal balls and tell us what lies ahead in the field of male fashion. Here are some of their amazing answers: For the immediate future the sunburst of color adopted a few short years ago will get even wilder. According to Baker Case of Hatton Case, a leading men’s wear establishment in New York, waistcoats, Bermuda shorts, sport shirts, cabana outfits and swimming trunks will blaze even louder as the seasons go on.

In Hollywood, Sy Devore, who fashions suits for filmdom’s top stars, has already removed breast pockets from men’s suits because he claims they are totally unnecessary. He’s even eliminated the lapel buttonhole. “Absolutely unneeded,” he asserts.

What about the distant future? The wonders will continue, experts claim, and before too many years have elapsed episodes like this one may be commonplace: A fellow is out to dinner with his best girl. While staring into her eyes, his hand trembles and a blob of gravy drops on his pants. He just lets it dry, then reaches into a pocket for an eraser and rubs out the spot!"

We wish !

"That evening, the same chap surveys himself in a mirror and decides he’d look better in narrower lapels. No fancy tailoring bills for him. He merely takes out a pair of scissors and snips his lapels to the desired width."

The little fairy came and Issey Miyaké was here ("A-POC, a piece of clothe" project)

“There will be no buttons to come loose or to lose on these clothes of the future. A small magnet fastened to each side of the jacket will keep the front closed.”

Oh Jenny this makes you happy...

"These experimental paper clothes can be draped, printed, silk screened and cut and sewn like any other fabric. They can be made to specifications, varying in strength, appearance and texture, and can also be rendered water and flame resistant.

How else can male garb be improved for greater comfort and more efficiency? Officials at Burdick-Rowland Associates, a noted firm of industrial designers, offer these future possibilities.
They suggest a suit made entirely of netting (with the vital areas covered, of course). No part of the netting would touch the wearer. The material would be suspended about a half inch from the body by a simple wire arrangement or small suction cups. What could be cooler for long suffering males in summer?"

see image above. Just awesome

"Another suggestion is clothes with air vents built into them for maximum hot weather comfort. These vents, or air scoops, could be attractively designed and made a part of the suit’s pattern.

A small built-in air-conditioner and de-humidifier operating on transistors would be useful. The jacket housing the device would have to be lightweight and airtight with the neck and sleeves closed.

Communications could also be simplified in the clothing of the future. Ben Fromkin, a Burdick-Rowland designer says, “Why not a two-way telephone built right into the suit, powered by solar light?”"

hm hmmmm. Fascinating


Source : Mechanix Illustrated, october 1958 via Modern Mechanix Blog

Heaven on heels

In the same spirit as Shuella, the umbrella shoes, another girly accesory for your feet designed by precautionous German manufacturer : a stiletto cuff solution that should keep heels high without having to risk life and limb to discover here.

Fashion is nothing compare to Textile but...

At Puff & Flock, we advocate body and soul that textiles is much more than fashion and this post is not about to challenge this position.

But for once, I will shy a little to let you discover a new fashion label, just for a pure rapture of eyes. Kristina Gorina, a talented russian designer based in Paris has just launched her own label. Subtilitly of materials and refinement of the cut for a casual chic silhouette, this is what can be achieved when fashion use textiles at their best.

Design: Kristina Gorina
Photography: Baptiste Rischmann