Material Translations: Japanese Fashion at the Art Institute of Chicago

Rei Kawakubo for Comme de Garcons, Dress, 1983. All images courtesy Art Institute of Chicago.

Rei Kawakubo for Comme de Garcons, Dress, 1983. All images courtesy Art Institute of Chicago.

Ever since Japan was first opened to trade with the West in the mid-19th century, Japanese arts and crafts have had an enduring influence on those of the West. Fashion is perhaps the most public face of this influence. Designers such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons led the wave that continues with younger designers such as Harajuku. Japan remains a nation whose rich textile and costume traditions have translated into cutting-edge innovation.

In Japan both courtly life and samurai culture were highly stylized. In the late 17th century the cultural focus shifted from military actions to bureaucratic ones. With this shift came the popularity of dark colors, especially black, which symbolized self-discipline. Even today the same phenomenon indicates urbane good taste. Continue reading →

Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta at the Museum of Art and Design

Margaret de Patta, 1960-1964, Sterling silver, beach stones, pebbles; fabricated. Photo: John Bigelow Taylor

Margaret De Patta was a truly California designer. Originally a painter, she studied in San Diego at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and briefly at the Arts Students League in New York. Always self-directed, she taught herself to make jewelry when she couldn’t find a suitably “modernist” wedding band; she eventually gave up painting entirely, preferring design in three dimensions. Like modern architecture and sculpture, for De Patta jewelry design was about “space, form, tension, organic structure, scale, texture, interpenetration, superimposition, and economy of means.”
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Stripes are out. Zigzags are in!

A wall of chevron printed heavyweight cotton upholstery fabrics at Mood Designer Fabrics in New York. Photo courtesy Julie Sandy

Chevrons, Zig Zags and Flame patterns. Do you know the difference?

Thanks to Missoni for Target zigzags have given the trusted, tried and true stripe new life. But not every up-and-down pattern is a zigzag. People use words like chevron and flame. Let’s clear the confusion. Continue reading →

BRILLIANT: White in Design

All photos courtesy Linda O’Keefe and the Monacelli Press

It has been said that one of the greatest achievements of a designer is to make white look new again. Author Linda O’Keffe has accomplished exactly that in her new book Brilliant White. The pages are filled with ample and glorious photography showing the color in art, design, architecture and nature and the pictures are punctuated with thoughtful musings
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Get your go-go boots it’s Youthquake!

Giorgio di Sant’Angelo, ensemble, cotton, suede, shell, feathers, 1968, USA, gift of Marina Schiano. Photograph ©The Museum at FIT.

Get your go-go boots it’s Youthquake! at The Museum at FIT fitnyc

When did street culture become high fashion? When did youth dictate what the older folks would wear? In the 1960s! The British Invasion was happening and they brought more than music with them. This was the birth of a new “mod” style which included fashion and culture. This was the decade defined by the ascendance of young people – who were warning each other not to trust anyone over 30 – as a political, social, and aesthetic force. The term Youthquake was coined in 1963 by Diana Vreeland who was the editor-in-chief of Vogue at that time. Continue reading →

Know Your Sweaters!

 

An Irish Aran cardigan, made with bainin yarn. Photo courtesy Lisa Dusseault from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aransweater

A winning combination of icy northern climates and large populations of sheep has produced the perfect winter artifact: warm wool sweaters. Each country that boasts these elements has produced its own distinctive design solution. From the rainy west coast of Ireland comes the Aran or Irish “fisherman’s” sweater. Norway has its traditional black and white Lusekofte sweater. Sheep from the Shetland Isles provide wool for both the Shetland sweater and the colorful Fair Isle sweater. And there is the Lopapeysa sweater from Iceland.
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