CONTENTS
Introduction The Rationale The Process Central Saint Martins Research Team Members
SECTION B: REMAKE/REMODEL 8 12 15
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE Chapter 1: Methods and Making From 2-D to 3-D to 3-D animation
20
Chapter 2: Dress Summaries and Museum Statements International Dress Collections: Museum Statements 68 Victoria and Albert Museum, London Claire Wilcox Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris Myriam Teissier
Chapter 3: Ways of Looking Liam Leslie
188
Chapter 4: Capturing the Ghost Technologies of the Body, from Mannequins to Movement Caroline Evans
196
Chapter 5: Wearers Isabella Coraça
220
Chapter 6: Looping the Loop Design Genealogies and Fashion Exhibition Histories Alistair O’Neill
242
70 SECTION C: DESIGNER-CUTTER/CUTTER-CUTTER Chapter 7: Pattern-Cutting in Practice: Then and Now
Twentieth-Century Fashion Designs and their Designers: Five Case Studies Madeleine Vionnet
72
Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Andrew Bolton
86
Charles James
88
Palais Galliera, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris Miren Arzalluz & Véronique Belloir
104
Cristóbal Balenciaga
106
Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), New York Valerie Steele
120
Halston
122
Kyoto Costume Institute, Japan Rie Nii
138
Comme des Garçons
140
The Gusset: The Common Denominator
154
Dress Patterns
158
272
Chapter 8: Patrick Lee Yow and Esme Young in Conversation Exploding dialogue Interview for 1 Granary, 2012
282 288
Conclusion
294
Biographies 296 Research Team 296 Notes 297 Picture credits 301 Acknowledgements 303
CONTENTS
Introduction The Rationale The Process Central Saint Martins Research Team Members
SECTION B: REMAKE/REMODEL 8 12 15
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE Chapter 1: Methods and Making From 2-D to 3-D to 3-D animation
20
Chapter 2: Dress Summaries and Museum Statements International Dress Collections: Museum Statements 68 Victoria and Albert Museum, London Claire Wilcox Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris Myriam Teissier
Chapter 3: Ways of Looking Liam Leslie
188
Chapter 4: Capturing the Ghost Technologies of the Body, from Mannequins to Movement Caroline Evans
196
Chapter 5: Wearers Isabella Coraça
220
Chapter 6: Looping the Loop Design Genealogies and Fashion Exhibition Histories Alistair O’Neill
242
70 SECTION C: DESIGNER-CUTTER/CUTTER-CUTTER Chapter 7: Pattern-Cutting in Practice: Then and Now
Twentieth-Century Fashion Designs and their Designers: Five Case Studies Madeleine Vionnet
72
Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Andrew Bolton
86
Charles James
88
Palais Galliera, Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris Miren Arzalluz & Véronique Belloir
104
Cristóbal Balenciaga
106
Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology), New York Valerie Steele
120
Halston
122
Kyoto Costume Institute, Japan Rie Nii
138
Comme des Garçons
140
The Gusset: The Common Denominator
154
Dress Patterns
158
272
Chapter 8: Patrick Lee Yow and Esme Young in Conversation Exploding dialogue Interview for 1 Granary, 2012
282 288
Conclusion
294
Biographies 296 Research Team 296 Notes 297 Picture credits 301 Acknowledgements 303
Ray Eames, miniature woman’s paper dress inserted with three safety pins, 1959
Ray Eames, miniature woman’s paper dress folded into two pieces, 1959
8
INTRODUCTION
9
Introduction The Rationale Exploding Fashion unpicks and pulls apart twentieth-century fashion and then puts it back together again in order to understand it better. Like an exploded-view drawing, or artist Cornelia Parker’s sculpture Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), this Central Saint Martins research project deconstructs five museum objects – key examples of the work of five twentiethcentury fashion designers invested in pattern-cutting – in order to unmask the design and construction processes of fashion. The Italian art curator Germano Celant, who was also director of the Fondazione Prada Milan from 1995, wrote an essay about the importance of cutting in art and fashion. He said: ‘To cut is to think and to see.’1 Indeed, pattern-cutting involves a technical, conceptual and creative transformation: it turns two-dimensional cloth into three-dimensional garment form, changing fabric into fashion. This research project foregrounds the pattern cutter as an essential maker and technician in the fashion design process – a figure largely unfamiliar in both design histories and popular imagination. The pattern cutters in our research team brought not only an extraordinary level of technical knowledge to the project but also an intuitive sensibility in reading garments, something that again is not fully recognised in fashion histories in general, or museum cataloguing in particular. At the same time, we examine the industrial craft of pattern-cutting and the role it plays in dress design. In relating the concept of ‘thinking through making’ to traditional archival research methods, the project has the potential to catalyse a different paradigm for object-based research in the field.
Ray Eames, miniature woman’s paper dress inserted with three safety pins, 1959
Ray Eames, miniature woman’s paper dress folded into two pieces, 1959
8
INTRODUCTION
9
Introduction The Rationale Exploding Fashion unpicks and pulls apart twentieth-century fashion and then puts it back together again in order to understand it better. Like an exploded-view drawing, or artist Cornelia Parker’s sculpture Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), this Central Saint Martins research project deconstructs five museum objects – key examples of the work of five twentiethcentury fashion designers invested in pattern-cutting – in order to unmask the design and construction processes of fashion. The Italian art curator Germano Celant, who was also director of the Fondazione Prada Milan from 1995, wrote an essay about the importance of cutting in art and fashion. He said: ‘To cut is to think and to see.’1 Indeed, pattern-cutting involves a technical, conceptual and creative transformation: it turns two-dimensional cloth into three-dimensional garment form, changing fabric into fashion. This research project foregrounds the pattern cutter as an essential maker and technician in the fashion design process – a figure largely unfamiliar in both design histories and popular imagination. The pattern cutters in our research team brought not only an extraordinary level of technical knowledge to the project but also an intuitive sensibility in reading garments, something that again is not fully recognised in fashion histories in general, or museum cataloguing in particular. At the same time, we examine the industrial craft of pattern-cutting and the role it plays in dress design. In relating the concept of ‘thinking through making’ to traditional archival research methods, the project has the potential to catalyse a different paradigm for object-based research in the field.
INTRODUCTION
Our research team constituted an unlikely collaboration between practitioners and theorists, bringing pattern cutters, historians, curators and digital visualisers into dialogue with each other. The collective nature of the project directly informs this book: in the way it is structured and approached, and even in the way it is written, reflecting the voices of our research team, capturing conversations not often recorded and lending a spontaneity to their findings. A new fashion narrative. Exploding Fashion focuses on complex pattern-cutting in fashion design. By delving into the museum archive and working backwards, it reverse-engineers unique examples of twentieth-century fashion design by making patterns, toiles and digital moving visualisations of selected designs. As if looking through the wrong end of the telescope, this approach foreshortens historical distance and allows us to see the museum object anew by uncovering the processes that led to its creation. It takes surviving dress divorced from a body and brings it to life by showing how it was originally designed – to address a body in motion. The project involves significant archival research in five international dress collections: the Kyoto Costume Institute (Japan), the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (both New York), Palais Galliera and Musée des Arts Décoratifs (both Paris). The host museum for the project was the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, whose Clothworkers’ Centre for the Study and Conservation of Textiles and Fashion provided a unique opportunity to study one of the world’s most important collections. — ALISTAIR O’NEILL
11
Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, blown up garden shed and contents, wire, light bulb, 1991
10
INTRODUCTION
Our research team constituted an unlikely collaboration between practitioners and theorists, bringing pattern cutters, historians, curators and digital visualisers into dialogue with each other. The collective nature of the project directly informs this book: in the way it is structured and approached, and even in the way it is written, reflecting the voices of our research team, capturing conversations not often recorded and lending a spontaneity to their findings. A new fashion narrative. Exploding Fashion focuses on complex pattern-cutting in fashion design. By delving into the museum archive and working backwards, it reverse-engineers unique examples of twentieth-century fashion design by making patterns, toiles and digital moving visualisations of selected designs. As if looking through the wrong end of the telescope, this approach foreshortens historical distance and allows us to see the museum object anew by uncovering the processes that led to its creation. It takes surviving dress divorced from a body and brings it to life by showing how it was originally designed – to address a body in motion. The project involves significant archival research in five international dress collections: the Kyoto Costume Institute (Japan), the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (both New York), Palais Galliera and Musée des Arts Décoratifs (both Paris). The host museum for the project was the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, whose Clothworkers’ Centre for the Study and Conservation of Textiles and Fashion provided a unique opportunity to study one of the world’s most important collections. — ALISTAIR O’NEILL
11
Cornelia Parker, Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, blown up garden shed and contents, wire, light bulb, 1991
10
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_METHODS AND MAKING
Toile for the remade Charles James, 1945, an evening dress with sleeveless bodice and draped full-length skirt
36 37
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_METHODS AND MAKING
Toile for the remade Charles James, 1945, an evening dress with sleeveless bodice and draped full-length skirt
36 37
44
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_METHODS AND MAKING
Model’s historicised walk in the remade Halston toile in blue fabric
45
44
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_METHODS AND MAKING
Model’s historicised walk in the remade Halston toile in blue fabric
45
3D animation of the remade Balenciaga dress
118
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_DRESS SUMMARIES AND MUSEUM STATEMENTS
119
3D animation of the remade Balenciaga dress
118
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_DRESS SUMMARIES AND MUSEUM STATEMENTS
119
164
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_DRESS SUMMARIES AND MUSEUM STATEMENTS
Front lay
165
Back lay
164
SECTION A: MAKE, UNMAKE, REMAKE_DRESS SUMMARIES AND MUSEUM STATEMENTS
Front lay
165
Back lay
Madeleine Vionnet dress on c.1980 dress form in MAD archive 204 SECTION B: REMAKE/REMODEL_CAPTURING THE GHOST
Madeleine Vionnet dress on c.1910 dress form in MAD archive
205
Madeleine Vionnet dress on c.1980 dress form in MAD archive 204 SECTION B: REMAKE/REMODEL_CAPTURING THE GHOST
Madeleine Vionnet dress on c.1910 dress form in MAD archive
205
260 SECTION B: REMAKE/REMODEL_LOOPING THE LOOP
Installation view of Comme des Garçons display, Three Women: Kawakubo, Vionnet, McCardell, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1987
261
260 SECTION B: REMAKE/REMODEL_LOOPING THE LOOP
Installation view of Comme des Garçons display, Three Women: Kawakubo, Vionnet, McCardell, Fashion Institute of Technology, 1987
261
Jan Reeder Anna Yanofsky Museum at FIT Valerie Steele Fred Dennis Elizabeth Way Karen Trivette (FIT Special Collections) Emma McClendon (FIT Special Collections) Kyoko Costume Institute Akiko Fukai Rie Nii Naoko Tsutsui Masako Matsusaka Hideki Fukushima Musée des Arts Décoratifs Pamela Golbin Myriam Teissier Marie-Hélène Poix Emmanuelle Blandinières Beuvin Éric Pujalet-Plàa Olivier Gabet Palais Galliera, de la Mode de la Ville de Paris Miren Arzalluz Véronique Belloir
We are especially grateful to MoMu Fashion Museum Antwerp for recognising the potential for the project to become an exhibition in the renovated museum in 2022, as well as a publication. Although we were not able to include MoMu within the project’s international research as the museum was closed at the time, it is important to acknowledge the pivotal role that the Game Changers: Reinventing the 20th Century Silhouette exhibition played in inspiring the project to take shape. MoMu Fashion Museum Antwerp Kaat Debo Elisa De Wyngaert Romy Cockx Birgit Ansoms Lannoo Carolijn Domensino Viktoria de Cubber Dirk Martens Astrid Devlaminck Graphic Design Paul Boudens Madeleine Wermenbol Editing Caroline Evans Marketa Uhlirova Copy Editing Denny Hemming We have many colleagues at Central Saint Martins and University of the Arts London to thank, as we were supported by them throughout. CSM remains an inspiring place to work, and we need to thank our students first and foremost.
Central Saint Martins Head of college, Jeremy Till Dom Biddulph Tom Corby Rachel Dickson Naomi Dines Matthew Edwards Steve Hill Debi Kenny Janet McDonnell Kevin Rowe Judy Willcocks Fashion Programme Director, Hywel Davies Rio Ali, Beatrice Behlen, Fleet Bigwood, Cally Blackman, Pamela Church Gibson, Philip Clarke, Lauren Cochrane, Stephanie Cooper, Elizabeth Currie, Becky Edwards, Charlie Flint, Judith Found, Natalie Gibson, Louise Gray, Sarah Gresty, Brian Harris, David Kappo, Miriam Kremers, Elizabeth Kutesco, Craig Lawrence, Debbie Lotmore, Louis Loizou, Sanae Matsunaga, Reba Maybury, Felice McDowell, Nikola Mijovic, Adam Murray, Chris New, Maria Nishio, Fabio Piras, Jane Shepherd, Heather Sproat, Mark Tarbard, Roger Tredre, Julie Verhoeven, Willie Walters, Judith Watt, Anna-Nicole Ziesche. UAL Oriana Baddeley, Shahidha Bari, Stephan Barrett, Judith Clark, Alexandra Duncan, Ragnar Hrafnkelsson, Suzanne Marcuzzi, Prema Muniandy, Clare Shelton. Patterns Yuanchu Yi Machinists Joan Murray Jan Shefford Fabric Sponsors We would like to express our gratitude to Fabrizio Labrozzi from the Italian Trade Agency at the Italian Embassy, London, for arranging sponsorship of the final fabrics, and to Susi Castelline from Milano Unica for assisting with fabrics kindly sponsored by Estethia, Inseta and Texmoda Tessuti. We would also like to thank fabric suppliers MacCulloch & Wallis, Pongees and Woolcrest Textiles. Sign up for our newsletter with news about new and forthcoming publications on art, interior design, food & travel, photography and fashion as well as exclusive offers and events. If you have any questions or comments about the material in this book, please do not hesitate to contact our editorial team: art@lannoo.com (c) Lannoo Publishers, Belgium, 2021 D/2021/45/118 - NUR 452/644 ISBN: 9789401476058 www.lannoo.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. If, however, you feel that you have inadvertently been overlooked, please contact the publishers.