Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

New Dimensions in Technical Constructions: 3D Printed Motifs for Leather Accessories

In yesterday's post we looked at knits designed for the D-house project by Dyloan incorporating Stratasys technology. The design studio replicated this project in collaboration with Stratasys also for a mini-collection of accessories presented at the latest edition of the Lineapelle leather fair in Milan.

Students from the Italian Accademia di Costume e Moda, located in Rome and Milan, presented a series of ambitious ideas that incoporated leather and 3D printed technologies.

Moving from foldable footwear ideas developed in the last few years, Nicola Silja Haßlacher created the "fold shoe", a design devised to minimize leather off-cut waste. The frame of the shoe, its sole and its 3D printed skeleton are basically just one piece, in this way material components are reduced, while this flexible design can be made on demand in just a few hours, so that material stocks are better used and distributed. 

Elisa Simonetti focused instead on bags: inspired by Japanese small stone Jizo statues resembling a Buddhist monk and believed to be the guardians of children and travelers, the designer created two compact bags.

Nature and in particular birches with their trunks strewn with knots in the shapes of eyes inspired Simonetti a three-dimensional motif that was 3D-printed around the handle of the bag. The resulting designs vaguely look like mysterious owls, magical ancient creatures or small totems from an enchanted forest.

Caren Meirle's bags move instead from topography: the designer recreated on the leather bags 3D printed topographical maps.

The most intriguing thing about these bags is that, topographical maps are flat renditions of something that is three-dimensional and, by using 3D printing, Meirle managed to recreate the original structure of specific terrains and bring the maps back to life. The result is interesting as the topographic configurations in bright shades emerge from the soft leather. 

Inspired by Pop Art, Azzurra came up with the "Pica" and "Mati" bags - two designs that seem to move from Andy Warhol's famous painted portraits.

Two panels forming colourful faces with 3D printed pins are recreated on the handbags and their straps is also made with a chain formed by a series of colourful 3D printed elements.

These designs may just be prototypes, but they show us the possibilities offered by advanced 3D printing techniques like Stratasys' Polyjet 3D printing and you can be sure that, while in these cases they are applied to new pieces, some of these motifs may be used in future to revamp and reinvent also old pieces or goods from previous collections that usually (and shamefully) luxury houses prefer to destroy rather than sell.   

New Dimensions in Technical Constructions: 3D Printed Motifs for Knitwear Designs

Textile design builds on the interlacement of two juxtaposed notions: traditions and innovations. The former consists in keeping on experimenting with time-honored techniques such as weaving, knitting and crocheting. The latter looks at the future, at smart textiles, computational processes, digital matter and 3D printing.

In the previous post we looked at the latest collection by Laura Theiss that mainly includes crocheted dresses and separates inspired by traditional stitches.

Yet the designer has often experimented with futuristic techniques: she recently created for the D-house by Dyloan project, made in collaboration with the Bond Factory, a company specialised in thermowelding, taping, press bonding and laser cutting, hybrid designs that combine traditional yarns and a 3D printed technique.

Theiss' oversized hand-knitted sweater with thick three-dimensional braids inspired by Arran jumpers integrates 3D printed colorful spikes (reminiscent of the technique used by Julia Koerner as seen in a previous post) in a turquoise, purple and blue palette with metallic and reflective yarns hinting at robotics and mechanical processes. The skirt Theiss designed for this project is made with 3D printed elements joined by hand with the softest wool yarns.

This experimental multi-layered ensemble shows an abundance of influences, from art and architecture to technology and robotics, and expands the boundaries of knitwear, finding a new balance between handmade slow crafts and machine-made fast manufacturing processes.

While Theiss used longer 3D printed spikes, Katharina and Cissel Dubbick opted for rounder and smaller shapes for their design for this project, elements that, from a distance, look like dots or pixels.

The design duo studied body shapes and mapped the body temperature with a thermal imaging camera of the type used in the army.

The camera showed body heat in different shades of colour and they translated these differences into their bodysuit featuring a map of body areas defined by 3D printed elements in pale or dark yellow and orange.

Italian knitwear designer Vittorio Branchizio also did a piece for D-house by Dyloan: he created, in collaboration with designer Uroš Mihić, a 100% Merino wool fabric jacquard coat incorporating also thermosetting thread and characterised by a 4-colour three-dimensional effect on the back, a series of hollow cubes made using Stratasys 3D technology.  

For the Dyloan project artist Matteo Cibic also came up with men and women's wear outfits made of pure Merino wool yarns, but he employed Stratasys' Polyjet 3D printing to create jewel-like applications chacterised by shapes inspired by the future and reminiscent of the motifs you may find in space uniforms. 

Knitwear designer and programmer Oliver Hurdman employed Stratasys' Polyjet 3D printing technology as a construction method onto two knitted designs he made for the Dyloan project.

Hurdman wanted the printer to perform the traditionally applied or hand-constructed details and basically printed accessories directly onto the garment to create at the same time aesthetic and functional elements.

The most intriguing thing about these designs is that the 3D printing technique is seamlessly integrated into the garments to create appliqued motifs that are visually strong but that also have a strong tactile quality about them, a very important point that may lead to the creation of special pieces with medical purposes for patients needing this level of stimulation.

In Technicolor Threads: Laura Theiss S/S 22

When knitwear and crochet designer Laura Theiss started working on her new collection one question lingered in her mind – how could she translate into her new creations a symbolic return to life in a post-pandemic world? Then she remembered a scene from Victor Fleming’s 1939 "The Wizard of Oz" in which Judy Garland opened the door and, from a sepia tinted Kansas, she found herself in Oz in its full Technicolor glory. And so Theiss realized she just needed to get inspired by the vibrantly vivid shades of iconic Technicolor films.

Moving from some of the key dance numbers in famous movies, she came up with a collection of exquisitely crocheted designs that celebrate her joie de vivre. Theiss employs in her new creations traditional techniques reinvented and adapted into modern shapes and silhouettes.

Sensual halter neck tops are paired with dynamic fitted trousers; multi-layered asymmetrical scalloped skirts evoke in their fan motifs stylized Art Deco patterns; feminine ruffled miniskirts are matched with cropped tops in Carmen Miranda's style, enriched with a three-dimensional delicate mille-feuille-like motif on the shoulders.

These summer essentials are ideal options for a city holiday, while Theiss' sensual dresses in metallic tones hint at confident women with a strong sense of style like Greta Garbo.

The main color palette - featuring zabaione yellow, bubblegum pink, fresh mint, arctic blue and crystalline turquoise - evokes the costumes from the dance sequences featuring Leslie Caron in Vincente Minnelli's "An American in Paris", while the kaleidoscope crocheted designs call to mind the kaleidoscopic overhead shots and elaborate choreographies in Busby Berkeley's extravaganzas.

This connection with musicals is also a reference to Theiss' affinity with dance and ballet and to her costumes for the Saarbrücken's Opera House and State Theatre.

Theiss's interest in sustainability, nature and women's empowerment is symbolically referenced in the bee motif, subtly crocheted in some of the designs included in this collection. Through this motif the designer reminds us that it is important to protect natural biodiversity and pays homage to her women artisans. Theiss' garments are indeed hand-knitted and crocheted by a team of women working from home in Lithuania, where Theiss was born and where she spent her childhood.

Theiss' S/S 22 collection, presented at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles during the local fashion week, is a story combining the artfulness of Technicolor films with the most beautiful cinematic choreographies told through beautiful threads and stitches to highlight the key role of women artisans in the modern fashion industry.

Six Bougies & One Story of Empowerment Through Textiles

Textiles, as seen from previous posts, can inspire art projects and installations, and they can be employed for innovative projects with a social twist about them. Textiles can also tell stories, and quite often they don't even need to be extremely innovative, but they can move from traditions to tell wonderful tales.

In previous posts we looked for example at Vlisco, the Dutch wax company dating back to 1846 when Dutch entrepreneur Pieter Fentener van Vlissingen established a textile company named P.F. van Vlissingen & Co in the city of Helmond, The Netherlands.

In its collections Vlisco often displays a literary interest and the company usually publishes on its site stories about the symbolisms behind specific fabrics, highlighting the narrative power of textiles hidden in patterns and motifs, such as the iconic swallows print or attempts to make connections between poems and fabrics.   

A recent fabric featuring six spark plugs surrounding the image of a woman on a background characterised by spherical optical elements evoking Vasarely features an intriguing story of technology and empowerment through textiles. 

In 1940, a Portuguese trader named Nogueira arrived in Helmond to order a custom-made Wax Hollandais. He had an idea for a design that featured six bougies (spark plugs), a symbol indicating the wearer was wealthy enough to own a six-cylinder car.

Numerous trial productions were conducted, but during the Second World War, Vlisco was unable to start manufacturing the textile. At the end of the conflict this supply of fabric constituted the first shipment to the fully dried-up Congolese market, and it was an immediate success.

As the years passed, the fabric took a different meaning: the symbols of technology and wealth were indeed transformed into something else - the woman in the middle indicates the fact that she is strong enough to take on six men, a message of empowerment through fabrics. "Six Bougies" is now available once again in an updated version characterised by 7 shades with details enhanced in gold or silver.

The Art of Textiles & Textiles as Art: "Antonio's Dream", Como, Italy

The history of industrial manufacturing in Italy boasts a few entrepreneurs that strongly believed in the power of art, among the others Antonio Ratti.

Ratti founded in 1945 a silk manufacturing company in Como to make silk textiles and accessories. Ratti loved textiles, but also felt, a bit like Adriano Olivetti and Max Mara's founder Achille Maramotti, that industrial production had to be matched with a solid cultural interest to produce something genuinely innovative and truly iconic.

His intents were clear from the early days of the company: in 1958 Tito Spini created a pioneering complex for Ratti's company, the Palazzina dei Servizi Sociali, that was used as a canteen during the day, while, in the evening, it would host concerts, theatrical performances, courses, and debates open to the workers. The need to find inspiration for the creation of new textile designs led Antonio Ratti to collect antique textiles from all over the world.

The company in the meantime expanded and, in 1985, Ratti started a non-profit foundation - Fondazione Antonio Ratti (FAR), based in Villa Sucota, Como - promoting cultural and technological and studies focused on textiles and contemporary art, but organising also a wide range of other activities including lectures, seminars and courses.

Ratti launched his foundation to turn his passion for art and textiles into a dynamic force and inject new cultural impulses into his town, helping people who were interested in studying textiles to develop new researches using Ratti's immense textile collection, and sample books.

The foundation also launched in 1995 an Artists' Research Laboratory program, conceived by Annie Ratti: since then young artists from all over the world have had the opportunity to deepen their practices meeting the great masters of the contemporary art scene.

Over the years, the foundation became a reference point for research, an idea incubator, and a place open to exchange and experimentation, while the artists' program allowed the foundation to invite artists and visiting professors from all over the world.

This passion expanded way beyond Italy: in 1995 the Met Museum in New York also opened with the support of the Ratti Foundation, a technologically advanced structure to study and preserve textiles.

"In my life, I have always found inspiration for my creativity in museums. I want others to be able to have the same experience," Ratti said in 1998 and this statement became the principle behind the work of the foundation. 

Ratti's collection continued to expand throughout the years, thanks to important donations and acquisitions, and it is now a point of reference for scholars, designers and students, in a nutshell its original mission to educate and inspire continues to our days. 

One way to inspire people is through exhibitions: the latest one, "Antonio's Dream: A Journey Through Art and Textiles" has just opened in Como (until 31st January 2022). "Antonio's Dream" is the third event dedicated to the Ratti collection after the exhibition at Palazzo Te in Mantua in 2017, and at the Baths of Diocletian in Rome in 2018. 

"Antonio's Dream" is actually a larger and more ambitious project about the entrepreneur's legacy that expands in different locations in Como, intertwining ancient textile research, contemporary works of art and archival materials, linking his art and textile collections with the places where he lived and worked.

The main purpose of the curators in this case was to provide visitors with an architectural and cultural journey between public and private spaces.

The exhibition is indeed hosted in the halls of Villa Olmo and Villa Sucota, in Como, in their parks and in other places in the city.

The heart of the exhibition is Villa Olmo, a short walk from the city centre: archival materials and ancient fabrics interact with the contemporary works of art in the neoclassical rooms of the villa.

Artists who have collaborated with the Foundation over the years - such as John Armleder, Luigi Ontani, Giulio Paolini, Walid Raad, Yvonne Rainer, Julia Brown, Vincent Ceraudo, Zishi Han and Moira Ricci - have created works designed specifically for these spaces.

A documentary made by Domenico Palma, screening inside the Villa, reveals Antonio Ratti through the words and memories of those who collaborated with him, and shared his dreams and visions. 

The exhibition then extends into the gardens of the Villa and into the Chilometro della Conoscenza (Kilometer of Knowledge) path with the works of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Liliana Moro, Giulio Paolini and Rä di Martino.

The journey concludes at Villa Sucota, a historical building on the Como Lake, the final stage of the show and the headquarter of the Antonio Ratti Foundation.

The park of the Villa, which already houses permanent works by Gerry Bibby, Jimmie Durham, Liliana Moro, Matt Mullican and Richard Nonas, features installations by artists who over the years have participated in the Artists' Research Laboratory, including Invernomuto, Daniel Jablonski and Oscar Santillan.

Inside the Villa, visitors can instead explore Antonio Ratti's textile archive in dialogue with works by artists who have collaborated with the institution, from Jimmie Durham to Giuseppe Gabellone, from Mario Garcia Torres and Melanie Gilligan to Joan Jonas, Christina Mackie, Walid Raad and finally Karl Holmqvist, who is also part of the exhibition's opening programme of performances.

Antonio Ratti's extraordinary collection of textiles, originally started in the 1950s and considered as one of the most remarkable in Italy, remains the protagonist of the event: the entrepreneur collected more than 30.000 artifacts from all over the world and a library open to the public with more than 7.800 volumes specialized in textiles, fashion, visual arts and crafts.

Including more than 3300 textile fragments and around 3000 sample books that chart the industrial production of textiles in France and Italy, the collection features pieces from different continents and eras, spanning from the third to the twentieth century.

There are Coptic and Indigenous American textiles; Italian velvets; Indian and European cashmere shawls; French silks; Congolese Kuba cloths; Central Asian ikats, Alsatian printed cottons and Japanese kimonos. A special section is dedicated to the history of the local silk production from Como, including the earliest designs of the founder Antonio Ratti.

Textile fans with excellent memory may recognise some of the samples on display here as they may have seen them in previous textile exhibitions in other Italian institutions like the Prato Textile Museum, but, among the rich damasks, brocades and taffeta fabrics, they will also be able to see a variety of samples with abstract motifs and even sketches on paper.  

Last but not least, the exhibition extends to the city, with Alfredo Jaar's installation on the facade of the Casa del Fascio for the opening of the exhibition, and a work by Hans Haacke installed on the facade of the Teatro Sociale and at former San Francesco Church (Cultural Space Antonio Ratti).

The exhibition is an opportunity not only to tell the life and story of a visionary entrepreneur, but also to further the idea he sought and supported of the dissemination and sharing of cultural values. 

"Knowledge of the past generates new ideas and creates new forms of beauty," Antonio Ratti once stated, highlighting that experience and knowledge, art and experimentation are fundamental tools to understand one's time and generate innovation. 

Image credits for this post

1. Villa Olmo, Como, Italy

2 and 3. Silks from the 1700s, Antonio Ratti Foundation Collection, "Antonio's Dream", Installation view, Photo credits: Agostino Osio

4 and 5. Drawings and sketches, Antonio Ratti Foundation Collection, "Antonio's Dream", Installation view, Photo credits: Agostino Osio

6. Brocaded damask, 1733 - 1737, Italy

7. Warp-printed taffeta (chiné), 1765 - 1775, Lyon, France

8. Brocaded damask, 1700s, Italy

9. Brocaded lampas, 1713 - 1718, Lyon, France

10 - 14. Drawings for tie motifs, painting on paper, 1934 - 1939

15. Drawings and sketches, Antonio Ratti Foundation Collection, "Antonio's Dream", Installation view, Photo credits: Agostino Osio

16. Drawing, pencil on graph paper

17. Drawing, tempera on cardboard, 24/4/1950

18. Drawing, tempera and ink on cardboard, 14/5/1949

19. Preparatory sketch, painting on paper

20. Preparatory sketch, painting on paper

21. Drawings for tie motifs, painting on paper, 1934 - 1939

22. Paisley scarfs, Antonio Ratti Foundation Collection, "Antonio's Dream", Installation view, Photo credits: Agostino Osio

23. Giulio Paolini, Double truth, 2021, Antonio Ratti Foundation Collection, "Antonio's Dream", Installation view, Photo credits: Agostino Osio

24. Jimmie Durham, Untitled (Apecar), 2004

25. Alfredo Jaar, The Aesthetics of Resistance, 2005 video

Magical Pleats: The Lenticular Weave by Antoine Peters

As a designer, if you develop a great idea you know that you will be able to apply it to different products and areas of your practice.

A good idea with a lot of potential is indeed not a trend, but something timeless that won't go out of fashion in 3 months' time. Amsterdam-based Dutch designer Antoine Peters knows this very well and so he recently opted to explore again the possibility of his lenticular designs in a different medium.

In 2013 Peters developed a lenticular dress that featured a special pleated pattern: when the wearer moved, you got the impression that the print on the dress mutated and the polka dots turned to stripes and viceversa.

Peters continued experimenting with the technique hoping one day to develop a proper textile. An extensive research that lasted one year and a half followed. In this time the designer produced more samples and a series of lenticular dresses and he has now finished his "Lenticular Weave". 

To be showcased at the "Things That Matter" event (Microlab Hall) during Dutch Design Week (16 - 24 October, Eindhoven, The Netherlands), this textile is a sort of innovative tapestry that changes when viewed from different angles.

The piece was developed by Peters in collaboration with EE Exclusives, a producer of high-detailed custom jacquard woven fabrics for unique wall coverings, haute couture fashion (they have worked for Viktor & Rolf and Walter Van Beirendonck among the others), interior design and art projects, known for its woven products made combining high-tech machines with craftsmanship and 3D weaving techniques. 

In a mini-documentary by filmmaker Ezra Bijleveld, Peters explains his research and the visual and kinetic possibilities of the new textile.

In a way the tapestry that will be on display during the Dutch Design Week, with its Cubist face, could be interpreted as a large sampler, integrating various motifs to show viewers what can be achieved with this technique.

The textile incorporates indeed a closing eye, an arrow changing direction and a sad face turning into a happy smile; a black section hides a myriad of colours, while straight lines become waves.

According to Peters, this textile could be applied to a variety of fields and disciplines: it could be used for walls and room dividers to reduce reverberation and improve acoustics while giving a dynamic touch to the room with its kinetic motifs; but it could be employed for interior design pieces as well such as cushions and poufs and, obviously, in clothes and accessories. The development of product- or site-specific made-to-measure designs would also be possible on request.

At the same time, Peters hopes this will not be just another commercial product: the main purpose of his designs has always been to make people smile, but the emphasis now seems to make them smile in a more contemplative and slower way, prompting them to observe things carefully by changing their perspective.

To appreciate the qualities of this textile piece at the Dutch Design Week, visitors will have to go on a journey of discovery, walking in front of the tapestry several times to pay attention to all the details.

Peters believes that when everybody slows down a little - by being forced to look, feel or think twice - the things we do or say contain more empathy and awareness.

In this case slowing down will also allow visitors to understand that good things come to those who work hard, research and experiment to create magically innovative designs.  

Last but not least, Peters also hopes the piece will stimulate reactions and interactions in viewers: the 3D weave can indeed influence the space or a person's emotion or mood and could therefore be employed not just for commercial products, but also for art and architecture installations and applications with a social twist about them. 

Marbles Like Textiles: Zanellato/Bortotto, Mae Engelgeer & David/Nicolas X Del Savio 1910

In yesterday's post we looked at inspiring geometries in prints, so let's continue the thread by looking at intriguing shapes in marble patterns.

"Marble Patterns" is actually the name of an experimental laboratory by Pordenone-based marble company Del Savio with the art direction of the Zanellato/Bortotto studio.

Giorgia Zanellato and Daniele Bortotto founded their practice in Treviso in 2013 and for this project they launched a collaboration with two other studios - Dutch textile designer Mae Engelgeer and Lebanese interior and art design studio David/Nicolas.

Each designer created three collections for a total of nine patterns, all made with ten different types of Italian marbles.

Marble manufacturing is deeply rooted in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region and the natural stones employed for this collection - from the Grigio Carnico and the Fior di Pesco Carnico - are produced and worked in Pordenone, in the headquarter of the Del Savio company.

All studios worked with three main purposes in mind - transforming the classical art of Palladian flooring, creating visually striking pieces based on geometrical motifs and designing versatile patterns.

Their versatility is a clear from the fact that, the more you look at the graphic motifs, the more you get the impression they would look beautiful on both garments and accessories; besides, jewels with marble elements with these patterns would look simply stunning. 

In these patterns marble is transformed into unique surfaces that can be used for floor coverings or work surfaces, or can become special elements like coffee tables, or employed to embellish rooms, especially when combined with many types of cement to make an even wider range of patterns.

The multiple sophisticated textures and palettes are indeed the result of a highly artisanal process that combines Italian marbles and special coloured cements, which allows infinite variations to customise environments (the slabs of the collection can be customised in different ways to obtain personalised products).  

The emphasis on customisation and versatility comes from the background of the studios involved in the project: Mae Engelgeer is indeed a textile designer and studied fashion at the Amsterdam Fashion institute and at the Sandberg Institute.

Passionate about craftsmanship and hoping to innovate and reinterpret in a modern key traditional techniques, Engelgeer works on a wide range of projects, from interior design to large-scale installations and public art. 

She has a talent for creating complex compositions with soft colour palettes and linear motifs that have vibrant tactile and dimensional qualities. "Myth", "Vision" and "Icon", the patterns Engelgeer developed for Del Savio (images 3, 4 and 5 in this post) feature graceful drawings that form subtle optical illusions. The pieces can be used separately or mixed together to form an intriguing composition. 

Zanellato/Bortotto's patterns (images 6, 7 and 8 in this post) reinterpret the Palladian tradition from a contemporary perspective by juxtaposing various, irregular pieces of marble or other natural stones.

Marble swirls and veins are also mixed with various patterns of coloured cement to design unique motifs. In one pattern there is an optical twist as lines are discontinuous and keep chasing one another without never meeting.

There is an even greater emphasis on optical motifs in David Raffoul and Nicolas Moussallem's "Standard Geometries" patterns (images 9, 10, 11 and 12 in this post) some of them have indeed got a Vasarely quality about them. The interior design duo attempted a dialogue between a basic geometrical figure - a square, a triangle and a diagonal line - and the space surrounding it. 

Geometrical figures are repeated in parallel, perpendicular or oblique sequences, to create one single, unified unit by combining modules made of different materials, such as marble or concrete resin. The empty interstices of marble, conventionally seen as mere residual spaces to fill up, define the visual structure of this product, as well as the vibrant composition of its surface. 

Del Savio's "Marble Patterns" were developed following an interdisciplinary approach: looking at the graphic designs developed by these three studios you get the impression you may be seeing patterns for fabrics rather than for marble slabs, so let's hope that in future we will see Del Savio working with a fashion house to develop a limited collection of garments and accessories with matching interior design pieces in the finest marbles.

Charting Colours Through Geometries: John Baldessari's "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs"

Mondays can be dreary things, so let's start the week in a colourful way getting inspired by one of the most influential American artists, John Baldessari (1931-2020).

Working in a variety of media including sculpture, printmaking, photography, painting, film, performance, installation and books, Baldessari is well-known for his photographs with faces erased by coloured dots. 

John Baldessari's works collectively entitled "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs" (Green, Orange, Red, Purple, Magenta, Blue, Yellow and Brown) are the result of a collaboration with historical printmaker and publisher (but also medium) Mixografía® that lasted for 20 years, but Mixografia's three-dimensional printing technique has been developed and perfected over the course of 50 years.

Baldessari employed the Mixografia printing technique to explore notions of texture, volume and subject. Inspired by Giorgio Morandi, the "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs" could be considered as geometrical still lifes.

Eight geometrical shapes are printed in a basic bold colour with visible brush strokes; on the bottom of the print, there is the name of the colour of each shape.

What makes them extraordinary is the three-dimensional quality of the print with colours highlighting certain areas and obscuring other sections, reshifting the viewers' attention to the power of perspective and leaving them wondering if they may be looking at a painting or at a paper sculpture.

There's therefore a new visual narrative in these works as geometries are explored as fantastically sculptural shapes that can be used in a simply decorative way to please our eyes or in a more conceptual way, to start a conversation about art, colours and shapes in space.

The prints could also be interpreted in a humorous Pop Art key, with geometrical shapes re-contextualised from their usual field and employed in art with a different purpose and message, combined with vibrant colours.

The "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs" are on disaply at Sotheby's Palm Beach as part of the Selected Works by John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha selling exhibition (until 14th November 2021), showcasing two pioneers of the West Coast art scene. All works exhibited are published by Mixografía®.

Brief Fashion & Politics Notes: The Spanish Civil War & Bolero Jackets

A demo that took place yesterday in Rome against the extension of the Green Pass, the health certificate that proves you've tested negative to Covid or you have received one or two doses of vaccine, turned into a violent riot led by neofascist groups.

A mob stormed the HQ of the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), Italy's oldest trade union, and occupied an A&E department, blocking off the red zone area, reserved to patients who arrive at the hospital in critical conditions. Members of the far-right Forza Nuova party were arrested after the demo.

The Green Pass was first introduced in Italy in August to enter places such as bars and restaurants, museums, theatres and cinemas; extended to means of transport in September, it will be compulsory by Friday this week to have it for workers before entering their workplaces. Workers who fail to present a valid health certificate will be suspended without pay.

According to the media, demonstrators were planning to storm also into the Chigi palace, the official residence of the Italian prime minister Mario Draghi. The scenes filmed at the CGIL called to mind the siege on Capitol Hill in January this year, but to the minds of many Italians they were reminiscent of Mussolini's armed squads violently devastating clubs, workers' leagues and trade union offices in the '20s. The riots were condemned by many politicians and the centre-left Democratic party called for Forza Nuova and other neofascist movements to be dissolved.

Can fashion help fighting against the return of fascism? Well, fashion can be used in a political way, as seen in previous posts and in the history of fashion there have been cases in which specific garments were used in symbolical ways to support a cause.   

When in 1936 the Civil War broke out in Spain, designers responded with creations inspired by Spanish dress. Ballet costume designer Karinska and anti-fascist fashion designer Schiaparelli showed their support to the left-wing cause by creating dinner suits influenced by the attire of bullfighters (Schiaparelli also owned jackets by Spanish Sastreria Cornejo that were auctioned 8 years ago at Christie's).

Schiaparelli's Haute Couture A/W 2021 collection is actually entitled "Matador Couture" and features some references to bullfighter jackets among its elaborately embroidered designs, but the new creations are just a way to display the finesse of haute couture artisans and the original political reasons of Schiap's bolero jackets from the late '30s - early '40s has obviously been lost in our days.

Are you a fashion designer? Can you think about a way to support a social and political cause through a garment rather than a slogan T-shirt?  

From Ballet Costumes a Few Lessons for Fashion Designers

Let’s continue the ballet thread that started yesterday by getting inspired by costume designer Karinska.

Born in Kharkiv, now Ukraine, the Russian Empire, Varvara Andreevna Jmoudsky (1886-1983) was better known as Barbara Karinska or simply Karinska.

She had a rich life and from Russia she moved to Berlin, then lived in Paris where she worked for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and then moved to London and started collaborating with Cecil Beaton. 

When she relocated to the United States, George Balanchine gave her an unused room at the School of American Ballet in New York City for her to work (the first ballet she made for Balanchine from her own designs was "Bourrée Fantasque" in 1949).

In the '60s, Balanchine invited her to join the New York City Ballet and Karinska ended up collaborating with him on seventy-five ballets in all.

Karinska's modus operandi actually drove many crazy: despite being a workaholic, she was always late in handing out her costumes, as she was a perfectionist as well. She often finished the costumes right before the start of a show; costumes would usually arrive on the evening of the show with seamstresses in tow to do the final last-minute alterations. Legend goes that at 5pm on the opening night of Balenchine's Nutcracker, Balanchine himself and Jerome Robbins had to sit down and start stitching the costumes themselves.

Costume designers can be interesting inspirations for people working in fashion, but Karinska may be intriguing for fashion designers for different reasons. First of all, she made some historically relevant changes to tutus and ballet costumes and worked on the structure of the designs. 

She layered different colours of tulle throughout the tutus to create visual depth and a sort of watercolour effect on stage, but she also launched the "powder puff" tutu (also known as the Balanchine-Karinska tutu - it first appeared in 1950 in the ballet "Symphony in C"), what is now the standard in ballet companies all over the world. 

She started building the tutus on a yoke gathering multiple layers of tulle in rows beneath one another. In Karinska's tutus the base of the costume incorporate a shorter skirt made of six or seven layers of gathered net that support the other layers. Each layer is a half inch longer than the preceding layer and no wire hoop is therefore needed. Stacked together the result is fluffier compared to the stiff "pancake" tutu.

For what regards embellishments, Karinska favoured embroidery, beadwork and appliqué effects, lace motifs and crochet, materials and techniques that probably came from her training in Russian embroidery.

One of the most interesting stories about Karinska is that she used to hide details and decorative motifs in places where they wouldn't have been seen by the audience.

At times she added bows between the panty and the yoke of a tutu and embroideries even inside the garments. As they would be visible to the dancers, the wardrobe people and the makers, why would she include these details? "For the soul", she would reply to those who asked.

The truth is that those details weren't just for the soul, Karinska hoped indeed that the costumes would be displayed in public exhibitions one day. So, there are lessons to learn from Karinska's costumes and let's hope that, at some point, they will also do a film or a series based on her rather adventurous life and intriguing career as a ballet costume designer.

Image credits for this post

1. Barbara Karinska, 1960-64, The New York Public Library Digital Collections

2. New York City Ballet rehearsal room, George Balanchine and costumer Barbara Karinska looking at Nicholas Benois' sketches for "Theme and variations", choreography by George Balanchine (New York), 1970, Photograph by Martha Swope, The New York Public Library Digital Collections

3 -7. New York City Ballet - costumes by Karinska for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (New York), 1968, Photographs by Martha Swope, The New York Public Library Digital Collections

8. Barbara Karinska, Photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1962, The New York Public Library Digital Collections