In the mid-'60s youth fashion introduced a new, affordable and desirable avant-garde design - the paper dress. In 1966, department stores Abraham & Strauss in New York hired Pop artist Andy Warhol for a unique paper dress "happening": the "Two Dollar Paper Dress promotion" introduced consumer to a Mars Manufacturing Company of Asheville paper dress sold with a paint kit.
For the occasion Nico from the Velvet Underground wore the dresses while Warhol painted them: on one design he silkscreened the slogan "Fragile" down the front in bright magenta, while Nico was lying on a table, and then signed it "Dali"; he glued large silkscreened paper bananas, two in front and two behind, on the second dress.
The dresses were then donated to the Brooklyn Museum since they had been produced at an art happening and were to be considered as art objects. This event turned into a small landmark celebration of three main creative forces - art, fashion and music.
This story from the '60s may be read in a superficial and commercial way, but it may also be analysed in-depth, pondering for example about ideas and meanings associated with art and culture, in conjunction with the powerful communicative function of music and clothing.
People who would like to explore and examine all these topics should maybe try and visit the Tilburg-based Textiel Museum where they can discover the exhibition "Pop Art Fabrics & Fashion: From Warhol to Westwood (1956-1976)".
The event features more than 200 textile and fashion designs chronicling two decades of popular culture, examining the interaction between art, fashion and music via garments, fabrics and interior design pieces.
The starting point of this exhibition is a symbolic decade, the '50s, with the cultural revolution brought by rock'n'roll. Garments and designs included in this section are characterised by trademark imagery borrowed from adverts, packaging, billboards, cartoons, comics, film and music.
The pieces on display hint at a carefree lifestyle: their colourful patterns, prints of musical notes and stylised images of bands are directly borrowed from the music of those times, characterized by infectious arrangements and catchy lyrics. Jazz is not forgotten, though, and next to Elvis Presley there are also prints inspired by John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk.
The following decade is inspired by Pop Art and saluted by a joyfully exuberant explosion of textures and patterns created for fabrics and wallpapers.
Renowned Pop artists such as Andy Warhol designed indeed textiles for fashion and furnishings, and the event includes rarely shown fabrics by Nicholas Zann, the New Yorker best known for his comic books.
Zann reunites in his biography all the main themes of this exhibition: in the '50s he fronted a rock'n'roll band with which he recorded and toured internationally; from 1965 he dedicated himself to the world of fine arts and worked as a painter, illustrator and cartoonist, but he also created prints for fabric companies such as New York-based Leon Rosenblatt. In 1990, MTV even aired a special profile edition on Karl Lagerfeld, Andy Warhol and Nicky Zann.
Zann's textile designs share a strong similarity with the work of Roy Lichtenstein who, in turn, used the comics and cartoons of this acclaimed graphic designer as the main inspiration for his art.
Yet there was another scene that lent itself very well to fabric design – Op Art. In 1965 the "Responsive Eye" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York promoted this movement and, almost immediately, its patterns and motifs were transferred onto fabric.
Op Art motifs were crossovers between popular culture and high art and quite a few fabric companies jumped on the bandwagon considering this movement as a healthy departure from the more superficial Pop Art.
Black and white shades and dizzy swirls prevail in this section of the event that also introduces the clean lines, geometric shapes and stiff fabrics (vinyl, plastics and, well, chains...) favoured by Space Age designers such as André Courrèges, Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne who based their designs on employing new materials based on modern technologies.
While the late '60s are embodied by Woodstock trousers, "Love and Peace" prints, psychedelic posters created for the Beatles shop and fun Zandra Rhodes fabrics, the next decade is represented by anarchic punk fashion, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, both closely linked to the Sex Pistols.
One of the most striking displays in this section actually revolves around the T-shirts designed by British sculptor John Dove and his wife, textile designer Molly White, with pictures of David Bowie, Siouxsie, Iggy Pop, Jordan and Johnny Thunders.
The highlight of this wall is their "Breasts" T-shirt, featuring a photographic image of top model and pulp fiction writer Pat Booth's breasts that created a trompe l'oeil effect. The design was sold at Countdown, a leading Chelsea boutique co-owned by photographer James Wedge and Booth. Dove and White's work from the 1970s on elevated T-shirt design to modern art.
It would have been exciting to maybe add another decade in the exhibition: Elvis, bananas, ice cream cones, soup cans, psychedelic patterns, oversized motifs and items from Elton John's personal wardrobe, would have gone well with the joyful '80s and with smiley prints evoking the rave movement.
Yet, even as it is, the exhibition offers entertaining moments (and it is accompanied by related activities at the museum with tours, workshops that will teach you how to make a Pop Art T-shirt/Pillow, a Space Age clutch, a punk accessory and masterclasses about Pop and Op Art) and it's a good idea for the Summer holidays that, stretching until November, will add some colour to the autumnal months as well.
One final note: quite a few fashion houses nowadays call artists to collaborate with them on a print for a specific fashion collection (while high street retailers seem to be more interested in stealing ideas from young artists…), but it would be interesting to bring back artists into the world of fabrics, not just as occasional collaborators for one collection or for a one-off "happening" like presentation, but as proper illustrators and textile designers.
"Pop Art Fabrics & Fashion - From Warhol to Westwood (1956-1976)", The TextielMuseum,Tilburg, The Netherlands, until 20th November 2016.
Image credits for this post
1. "Love Comic", interior fabric
Designer: Nicky Zann, 1970
Material: cotton
Technique: roller print
Production: Leon Rosenblatt, New York, for Concord Fabrics, USA
Collection / photo Target Gallery, London
2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 19. Overview exhibition. Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
3 Elvis Presley, border print for skirt
Designer: Rock 'n' Roll skirts, 1956
Material: cotton
Technique: roller print
Production: Rock 'n' Roll skirts, USA
Collection / photo Target Gallery, London
7. "Soup Can"
Designer: Lloyd Johnson, 1973
Material: cotton
Technique: screen print
Production: Lloyd Johnson, UK
Collection / photo Target Gallery, London
8.Overview exhibition with the "Ice Cream Cone" dress, designed by Andy Warhol (fabric) and Stephen Bruce (dress), 1964, and produced by Stehli Silks Inc.
Photo: Josefina Eikenaar/TextielMuseum
13. "David Bowie T-shirt"
Designer: John Dove, Molly White, 1976
Material: cotton jersey
Technique: silkscreen
Photo John Dove/ Molly White
14. "Jordan T-shirt"
Designer: John Dove, Molly White, 1976
Material: cotton jersey
Technique: silkscreen
Photo John Dove/ Molly White
15. "Breasts T-shirt"
Designer: John Dove, Molly White in collaboration with photographer James Wedge for "Countdown", 1969
Material: cotton jersey
Technique: pigment print
Photo John Dove/ Molly White
17. Men's Waistcoat, made for Elton John
Designer: unknown, ca. 1971
Material: cotton
Technique: embroidered, appliqued denim; Production: Moonbeam Studios, UK
Photo Target Gallery, London
20. "Lipstick", fashion textile
Designer: Zandra Rhodes, ca. 1967-68
Material: crêpe
Technique: silkscreen
Collection / photo Target Gallery, London
21."Mystic Eye" jurk (with eye of Audrey Hepburn)
Designer: Harry Gordon, 1967
Material: paper
Technique: screen print; Production: "Poster Dresses", (USA,UK)
Collection / photo Target Gallery, London
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