In yesterday's post we looked at Alighiero Boetti's works revolving around colours and mentioned his embroidered maps. Boetti's tapestry-like planispheres and "Mappe" with countries embroidered with the colours and the symbols of their flags by Afghan craftswomen remain key works in his practice as they articulate the trans-global cross-cultural East-West dialogue and map the constant changes of the world.
"For me the work of the embroidered 'Mappa' is the ultimate in beauty," Boetti once stated. "For that work I did nothing, chose nothing, in the sense that: the world is made as it is, not as I designed it, the flags are those that exist, and I did not design them; in short, I did absolutely nothing; when the basic idea, the concept, emerges everything else requires no choosing."
Maps are currently quite popular: a recent exhibition organised during the London Design Festival at The Map House, London's oldest seller of antique maps (originally founded in 1907), showcased the work of Kristjana S Williams.
The London-based Icelandic artist, a graduate of Central St. Martins, reinterprets the traditional art of cartography overimposing on historical maps of the world or of specific locations, vibrantly coloured flowers, animals and mythical creatures. Her work includes large scale mural displays at the Victoria & Albert Museum, a collaborations with furniture maker George Smith and with wallpaper designer Cole & Son, a limited range of prints for Liberty of London and commissions by the Chanel Group.
But what about fashion and maps? In a previous post we looked at the cartography trend in menswear, but it looks like maps will be popular also in womenswear come next Spring.
Christopher Raeburn gave maps a sporty and feminine edge for example: his Spring/Summer 2015 collection features indeed plenty of lightweight outerwear (anoraks, bomber jackets, parkas...) in technological fabrics, and garments made with silk organza or with parachute material used in humanitarian aid drops.
Among the standout pieces of the collection there are garments with digitally printed weather and map patterns inspired by studying the aerial views of the fields of decommissioned aircraft around the Arizona desert. The result were weightless and dynamic pilot suits reworked into practical separates such as top/shorts combinations and dresses.
Do you want to jump on the map bandwagon without waiting for the Spring/Summer 2015 season and do so with a fraction of the money you would spend on such designs while still getting a light and waterproof garment made with a technological fabric?
Here's a little DIY project for you: get two Crumpled City maps and stitch them together with a zip, leaving a hole large enough for the head (please note: two maps should be enough for quite a few sizes if you're making a top or a pair of shorts, if you're not sure about your size or if you're good enough to make a jacket, get a third map).
This solution for a top allows you to combine together two different cities (London and Paris in this case; you can pick your fave cities or cities you have visited, or fashion capitals...), conceptually blurring boundaries while jumping on the map/weightless techno fabric trend (the maps are made in Tyvek) with a relatively small budget (each maps costs around 12 Euros, and you have to buy a zip long enough for the sleeves, prices vary, but they usually range around 8-10 Euros), and recycling at the same time in a stylish way maps you may not be using.
If you still need the maps, you can unzip the top and reuse the maps or you can stitch them upside down as in this case, so that you can still read them while you walk around a city.
What to do with the top when you don't need it anymore? Put it back in the little bag that the maps are sold in and carry it in your bag in case of rain. Remember, the crumpler, the better!
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