BRANKOPOPOVICBLOG: The Future of Fashion is Now

Rejina Pyo

#MustSee - The Future of Fashion is Now at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen - open until January 18, 2015.

Throughout the year fashion exhibitions dominated Dutch museums but 'The Future of Fashion is Now' (TFOFIN) at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen is perhaps the most interesting. With its innovative content and extensive public programme with symposia, workshops and events, TFOFIN takes the viewer to a higher ground of dynamic world of the fashion design.
THOFIN offers a broader view on the future of fashion with work of visionary designers including Viktor & Rolf, Hussein Chalayan and Iris van Herpen. Furthermore the exhibition is a platform for new generation of designers that are questioning the fashion system with their groundbreaking and innovative approach to fashion design. Among the new designers one can find work of Rejina Pyo, Craig Green, Ana Rajcevic, Jef Monets and Jennifer Gadient.
These designers are coming up with innovative solutions at the cutting edge of fashion and art. Sustainability, futuristic technologies and the social value of clothes are themes with which these designers address the fashion of the future.

Six fashion designers made new work exclusively for the exhibition, enabled by the Han Nefkens Fashion on the Edge Award. The working process of these commissions is on view on the new online platform www.futureoffashion.nl.

The Future of Fashion is Now is staged based on four topics; Materiality and Experience, New Values and New Stories, Fashion Activism: Community and Politics.

Olek

Materiality and Experience, showcasing the current generation of designers who focus on the tactile values of their creations such as the craftsmanship, contextual use of materials and new technologies. The use of various techniques and technologies enables them to add an emotional experience to the wearer of their products.
Great pioneer in this context is Martin Margiela who deconstructed clothing in all possible ways to redefine them again to create new shapes.
Artist Olek (Agata Oleksiak) uses crochet to cover objects and people and with her installations she questions our everyday reality and suggests an alternative reality.
One of the striking features is the work of Rejina Pyo. Her project 'Structural Mode' shows sculptural dresses with geometric forms and a bright colour palette made from materials such as perspex and metal. The collection explores the boundaries between art and wearable fashion. Rejina Pyo makes sculpural art inspired by clothing rather than fashion inspired by art.

Here we also see work of Wang Lei who does not work with traditional fabrics, but instead he creates garments with paper. For this installation he used toilet paper, which he first moistened and rolled into twine and then created knitted garments.

Comme des Garçons

The (Re)definition of the Human Figure part is staged in red lighted space and focusses on designers and artists who explore relationship between the human body and clothing within our society, culture and media. In this part there is work of Rei Kawakubo who questions the concept of fashion and Western ideals of beauty and femininity. Her 'Lumps & Bumps' collection for Comme des Garçons is a milestone in the history of fashion. With this collection Kawakubo questioned whether the feminine curves in the appropriate places are necessary ingredient for beauty.
Si Chan reflected to his student years, where he felt very isolated among competitive fellow students. He created a collection 'Hug Me' to point out that a simple hug can break through the loneliness.
With her sculptured pieces Ana Rajcevic creates hybrid of man and animal. In addition she also plays with the distinction between sculptures and accessories that are worn on the body.
Furthermore there is work by emerging fashion talent Craig Green, who elaborates upon his AW menswear collection inspired by Persian carpets, workwear and romantic elements. "All pieces within the installation are individually hand painted, so each piece of clothing is a one of a kind textile. The process was a look back to how textiles used to be produced in a reaction to how digitised and easily reproducible textiles and prints have become in recent years".

Viktor & Rolf

New Values and New Stories, is a exploration of identity, storytelling and critical and conceptual approach to fashion. In this section of the exhibition there are performance installations of Viktor & Rolf. Their performance 'Zen Garden' is a summary of twenty years of Viktor & Rolf where they criticize the speed of the fashion system.
Portuguese Lara Torres questions the function of clothing and identity, transience and memory. For the project 'An Impossible Wardrobe for the Invisible' she made temporary clothing where the fabrics eventually dissolve in water. When the fabrics have dissolved, only a memory of the clothing remains. Nuages Gris (Dorith Sjardijn and Jeroen Teunissen) offer a new interpretation of an idea of designer Helmut Lang who considered certain components of garments essential to his style, namely 'accessoires vêtements'. Nuages Gris makes exact replicas of Lang's signature pieces but adding 'smart textile'; data about the wearer's movement and moods is collected and transmitted into an app. These 'accessoires vêtements' therefore tell us something about the 'signature and style' of the wearer instead of the designer.

Digest Design Workshop

Fashion Activism: Community and Politics displays the strengths of fashion design to connect communities and the general power of art of social innovation. Lucy and Jorge Orta believe that art can be a catalyst for social change. In their installation 'Habitent' that dates back to 1992 they created a piece of clothing and at the same time installation that comments on the appalling situation faced by refugees. In 'Wanderer' they chart the nomadic life of the Romani people, who have roamed throughout Europe, forced to move on by nationalistic ideas conflicts that dictate that they do not belong.
'Our Home: Nohting is impossible for Faithful Heart, Faith Moves Mountains', a tent installation by Digest Design Workshop is a investigation and study of the Chinese calico technique. Designer Dooling Jiang has stencilled a bird and floral motifs in reverse and used the resulting textile in various ways in her ready-to-wear collection 'Digest BLUE ground S/S 2014.
The tent is constructed from Chinese fabrics made from natural fibre, using traditional weaving and dying techniques. With this installation desinger hopes to awaken our primary instinct for refuge and protection; the desire for a safe home.
'Experience of Health' is a project by Lucia Cuba that explores notions of health and its absence through garments, addressing the hardships and opportunities that the experience of health can bring forth. With 'Experience of Health' Cuba shows that we can use fashion to interpret and transform our social reality. The garments bear the stories of people's battles with cancer and are actually materialised experiences. She attempts to provide an insight into how people experience sickness and health.

Lucy and Jorge Orta

The Future of Fashion is Now exhibition is on display from 11 October 2014 to 18 January 2015 at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, the Netherlands).

http://www.boijmans.nl/en

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