State of Fashion 2018 | Searching for the new luxury

Iris van Herpen

From Friday 1 June until Sunday 22 July,  State of Fashion displays the search for the new luxury.

Curated by José Teunissen, the Dean of London College of Fashion/UAL, and Professor of Fashion Theory, State of Fashion explores how we can apply fashion’s imaginative, seductive and innovative power to create a more futureproof fashion cycle.

The exhibition shows pioneering designers and thinkers who are proposing innovative and sustainable ideas and designs that are contributing to a better world.
The main question is how can we redifine the meaning of luxury in the context of the world of today, facing sociatel and environmental changes.

The exhibition features several components offering diverse approaches to the subject. The journey starts with innovative future proposals with projects from Yuima Nakazato, Rafael Kouto and Iris van Herpen. Further in the exhibition one can discover new business models such as Matti Liimatainen (Self-Assembly) and work by pioneers like Bruno Pieters (Honest By). The exhibition also shows how cross-disciplinary collaboration and research between science and fashion education can lead to new opportunities through material experiments. One of the strongest features is the contribution by Vivienne Westwood who in her later career still stands in the frontier to fight for a better world.
Each Friday, during the exhibition period, The Whataboutery debates are organized providing a platform for dialogue about various topics related to the theme of State of Fashion. 
For more information: https://stateoffashion.org


State of Fashion
The four-yearly fashion event State of Fashion focuses on a sustainable future. As an international and interdisciplinary platform for ideas, experiment, research and collaboration, State of Fashion unites designers, companies and fashion education with the shared ambition to make their industry more future-oriented, more fair, more environmentally friendly and more humane.

Take a look at my picture report

Yuima Nakazato

‘Heaven or Hell?’

Jólan van der Wiel for Iris van Herpen

‘Heaven or Hell?’
28 January 2018 - 2 September 2018

Heaven or Hell? is an exhibition on extraordinary shoe design at at Cube Design Museum in Kerkrade (The Netherlands)!
The exhibition is a co-production with Italy’s IMF Foundation and can be visited in the Cube design museum from 28 January to 2 September 2018.

 95% of Dutch women feel more confident when wearing a pair of beautiful shoes. However, an average of 23 pairs of shoes in the closet suggest that shoes also fulfil other desires.
Showcasing 100 pairs of remarkable footwear, the new ‘Heaven or Hell?’ exhibition at the Cube design museum highlights the needs shoes can fulfil and how shoe designers play in on this. Current, iconic specimens, shoes from the recent past, and new innovations for future shoes, ‘Heaven or Hell?’ has them all. Stilettos, ballerinas, wedges, sneakers, flip flops: are they heavenly or hell?

UNISEX - Vivienne Westwood AW2015

Taking 'Unisex' to another level with Fall 2015 collection presentation.
The iconic British designer has launched a political clothing collection designed to be worn by either men or women.
As our approach and attitude to androgyny in fashion has evolved and society’s boundaries towards masculine-feminine attributes have blurred, people are increasingly taking a more relaxed unisex attitude towards their clothing choices.
The new unisex line adds a whole new concept to borrowing from your other-half's wardrobe. Trousers for women, dresses for men.
The collection was created by Westwood alongside Andreas Kronthaler and focuses on a more relaxed silhouette with wrap around jackets, knitted jumpers and baggy shorts all of which are designed to be worn by both sexes.
The Unisex idea originates from Vivienne’s ‘DO IT YOURSELF’ collection and is informed by her well known ethos to ‘Buy less, choose well, and make it last.’ In creating this incredibly wearable and desirable unisex line she has made adhering to her fashion philosophy easier than ever.

http://www.viviennewestwood.com

Christmas Jumper for Save the Children

Alexander McQueen

Your chance to win a unique Christmas jumper customised by the best of British fashion talent and to make a difference.
Save the Children is launched its annual Christmas Jumper initiative and this year it's better than ever. The charity has partnered up with the British Fashion Council and leading British fashion talents, each of whom has customised a unique Christmas jumper hand knitted in the UK by fashion label, Wool and the Gang.
Designers in question are Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, Anya Hindmarch, David Koma, Paul Smith, Giles Deacon, House of Holland, Jonathan Saunders, Matthew Williamson, Peter Pilotto, Mary Katrantzou and Sibling.
A month long auction - ending on 13 December, the designated Save the Children Christmas Jumper Day - whereby fashion fans can text bid for the designer sweater they'd like to win. However, there's a twist: it's the LOWEST unique bit that will win the piece in question so everyone has a real chance of owning a designer one-off - no matter how deep their pockets.

Burberry

To make sure you don't look like Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy at the infamous 'turkey curry buffet',  Text bid from Thursday November 28, to 78484 with the name of the designer and your bid.
Texts cost £1.50 www.christmasjumperday.org/designerchristmasjumpers

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/christmas-jumper-day/about

Blue Jeans exhibition at Centraat Museum Utrecht

Blue jeans, from 17th century to present day 

You don't even have to take a closer look to notice that Dutch people love to wear jeans like no other. Jeans is dominating the  streetstyles in the Netherlands.
Apparently the Dutch wear the highest number of jeans per head of the population.
Based on general street style in the Netherlands this is not something to pursue. However this exhibition proves that there are reasons to be proud of this fact.
With this exhibition Centraal Museum Utrecht is showing the historical and current aspects of jeans. The exhibition shows the experimental and creative side of jeans: from their origin as work wear in the 17th century, to high fashion in the 20th century, to contemporary jeans - including worldwide renowned Dutch brands such as G-Star.
What's so great about this exhibition is that it covers all kinds of topics and that it shows some amazing pieces from classic  jeans brands to jeans couture from Maison Martin Margiela, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Vivienne Westwood.

As Yves Saint Laurent often repeated: “I wish I had invented blue jeans: the most spectacular, the most practical, the most relaxed and nonchalant. They have expression, modesty, sex appeal, simplicity – all I hope for in my clothes”.

Blue jeans, from 17th century to present day is open until March 10
http://centraalmuseum.nl

Highlights from London Fashion Week SS 2013

Vivienne Westwood Red Label

Dressing the 20th Century at MMH Fashion Museum Hasselt

Dressing the 20th Century | Women’s Fashion in the Designer Era
Some of you still may not have heard about the MMH Fashion Museum Hasselt (Modemuseum Hasselt) (Belguim) but with its exciting and relevant exhibitions and their collection it is one of my favorite museums.

MMH recently bacame owner of a home-grown fashion talent and phenomenon Raf Simons. Substanial Raf Simons archive is now part of their collection and is shown in the in the exhibition Dressing the 20th Century.
Alongside Raf Simons the exhibition focuses on a number of Limburg designers such as Martin Margiela and upcoming labels Ti + Hann and Sofie Claes.
Also worth mentioning is the scenography. This time Michiel van der Bos was responsible.
For more information: http://www.modemuseumhasselt.be


Here are impressions from the opening of the exhibition!


Dressing the 20th century is open unti the 6th of January 2013.

The 20th Century was characterised by extremely diverse fashions which followed each other at a breath-taking rate: from orientalism, Roaring Twenties, the elegant Thirties, the new simplicity and New Look to the revolutionary Sixties, anti-fashion & ethnic influences, Dress for Success and avant-garde, with an explosion of different fashions at the end of the century.

Vivienne Westwood

Spurred on by technology, supply and demand and sociocultural change the concept of fashion was given another interpretation. The status of the designer was also redefined. The exclusive atmosphere of Parisian couture at the beginning of the 20th Century moved towards the instant worldwide accessibility of fashion on the internet in the nineties. Paris remained the epicentre, but designer fashion was simultaneously developing in the United States, Italy, Great Britain and Japan.

Throughout the 20th century intercultural and historical influences had a major impact on fashion design. Styles, designs and materials from earlier periods and other cultures became more accessible to designers as a result of more efficient travel and communication opportunities. At the same time, developments in the field of photography and new printing techniques meant that designers could draw on ideas from secondary sources such as illustrated books, magazines and newspapers.