What goes into making what we wear?

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From the course by The Museum of Modern Art

Fashion as Design

351 оценки

The Museum of Modern Art

Fashion as Design

351 оценки

Among all objects of design, our clothes are the most universal and intimate. Like other kinds of design, fashion thrives on productive tensions between form and function, automation and craftsmanship, standardization and customization, universality and self-expression, and pragmatism and utopian vision. It exists in the service of others, and it can have profound consequences—social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental. Fashion as Design focuses on a selection of more than 70 garments and accessories from around the world, ranging from kente cloth to jeans to 3D-printed dresses. Through these garments, we’re going to look closely at what we wear, why we wear it, how it’s made, and what it means. You’ll hear directly from a range of designers, makers, historians, and others working with clothing every day—and, in some cases, reinventing it for the future. Studio visits, interviews, and other resources introduce the history and development of each garment and their changing uses, meanings, and impact over time. Course Learning Objectives: Develop critical tools to appreciate and contextualize fashion design—from everyday clothing to couture garments—through many different perspectives. Trace the history, development, and impact of garments over time, and explore how they may be reinvented. Investigate garments through multiple lenses including politics, identity, and economics. Understand more about the lifecycle of clothing, from its design and production to its marketing, distribution, and consumption. Better comprehend the choices you make about fashion with respect to the visual language of dress, individual and collective identities, and issues such as labor practices, sustainability, and body politics.

From the lesson

Coutures

The French word couture means "dressmaking" or "sewing,” and often refers to one-of-a-kind, primarily handmade garments intended for a specific individual. This module approaches couture from a broader perspective, exploring the complex processes—from traditional handcrafting to the use of new technologies—that go into the making of high-end and everyday garments.

What goes into making what we wear?4:14

Meet the Instructors

Paola Antonelli
Senior Curator, Department of Architecture & Design, and Director, Department of Research & Development
Department of Architecture & Design
Michelle Millar Fisher
Curatorial Assistant
Department of Architecture and Design
Stephanie Kramer
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture & Design

Welcome to week four, this is Silhouettes.

I'm Michelle.

>> It's Coutures.

>> Cheers. >> [LAUGH]

>> We're going to be talking

about coutures this week and that's coutures with an s, very specifically.

And I'm going to ask our resident fashion historian and

expert to talk about why we're talking about coutures and with an s.

Why is it plural and what does even couture mean?

>> So, many of us have probably heard the term

couture applied to different aspects of fashion.

It is a French word that translates into dress making or sewing.

And I'm sure some of us have heard it applied to probably like an expensive

piece of fashion, something that was handmade, or even one of a kind.

And all of those descriptors are in part true but the word couture, as it

applies to fashion, really originates in the 19th century, with the establishment

of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, meaning the couture syndicate.

It was essentially a governing body that was established

in order to protect designers in France from piracy.

It still exists today, and in order to be considered couture,

you have to essentially abide by some very strict regulations put forth by this body.

Very extensive, but

a few examples are, you have to have your atelier located in Paris.

Every garment needs to be one of a kind and made for a specific client and

have multiple fittings, and most of the garment needs to be handmade.

So that's sort of the technical meaning of couture, but the idea of couture,

something being handmade, exclusive, taking a lot of craftsmanship,

can be applied to many, many fashion items, including humble masterpieces.

Which is why we have chosen to call this week coutures with an s,

because we're going to look at all of the different ways of making

fashion items from actual haute couture items to more humble masterpieces.

>> So as part of this week we'll talk about crafting, and

one of the things that we'll talk about, and

you'll actually get to see by going into the studio, is how a bespoke suit is made.

And so our team went to Anderson & Sheppard, it's a tailor in London that's

been on Savile Row, a place that really is the heart of suit making in London and

actually really worldwide.

It's globally known for

it's production of suits, they've been there since the turn of the 20th century.

And you'll see the process really from the very, very first picking of the materials,

the measuring of somebody's body, very precisely, the measuring out then onto

paper patterns and then onto fabric, the cutting, the sewing.

Every single bit of painstaking labor that goes into creating a suit.

We're then going to look at.

What's our next topic?

>> We're going to go from crafting to what we're calling producing.

So we're going to look at some examples that,

perhaps, at one point, were made by hand, were made for one person.

But due to their rising popularity,

have been made in more of a mass assembly line manner.

And so a few examples that we're going to look at are the clogs, the Aran sweater,

and then we're going to look at the leather biker jacket.

A lot of us look at the biker jacket and

think of it as the garment of the cool kid, that Marlon Brando so famously wore.

But it's actually a wonderful example of a garment that is made very intricately, but

on a bit of a larger scale than, perhaps, a Panama hat, or a suit for one client.

Leather is not like a regular textile, like polyester or

cotton, so it really requires very highly trained craftspeople,

who also know how to work fairly quickly, in order to produce more than one a day.

So it's an interesting example of the transition from crafting into producing.

>> And then we'll also think about growing, actually cultivating,

as a means to think about couture.

So everything from cultivating pearls to thinking about bio coutures, so the idea

of being able to grow from living cells to other types of living organisms and

making that into something that's a fashion garment or an accessory.

And then also thinking about growing through 3D and 4D printing, so

additive processes like those.

We'll have actually a look at MoMA's collection, the Kinematics Dress.

>> We hope you enjoy this week, and perhaps you'll look at your clothes

a little differently, now that you know how they're made.

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