“Fashion in an Age of Technology”

As announced this Tuesday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art new exhibition will explore the relationship between fashion and technology!

“Manus x Machina. Fashion in an Age of Technology” will be the next Costume Institute exhibition. It will focus on the dichotomy between handmade haute couture and machine-made fashion, a distinction that has become increasingly blurred in the years.

Iris Van Herpen, Autumn/Winter 2011 Couture collection. Photo Etienne Tordoir., collection Catwalkpictures, all rights reserved.

This distinction between haute couture and prêt-à-porter, as explains Andrew Bolton, the curator of the Costume Institute, was traditionally based on the handmade and the machine-made, but is now less clear since both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other.

Dress designed by Issey Miyake, Autumn/Winter 1999. Photo by Luísa Ferreira, collection MUDE - Museu do Design e da Moda, all rights reserved.

In the exhibition, the theme will be analysed by featuring more than one hundred pieces of fashion, both haute couture and ready-to-wear, including the designs by Alexander McQueen, Hubert de Givenchy, Coco Chanel, Issey Miyake and Raf Simons, covering over 130 years history. In addition, the exhibition will have several “in process” workshops to let the public know how these technologies work.

The exhibition will be open to the public on 5th May 2016. Until then, have a look at Europeana Fashion couture curation on Tumblr and browse through Europeana Fashion archive to find more about the role of technology in fashion!

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