(din of crowd)
(single piano note plays)
(gentle modern music playing)
BOLTON: The subtitle of the exhibition
is "Fashion in an Age of Technology."
And the show isn't really about fashion and technology, per se.
It's more about techniques and processes.
I think people are expecting the exhibition to be about robots.
It really isn't about that at all.
It's about rather subtle hidden technologies.
The show's taking place in the Lehman Wing,
and we've actually created a building within a building.
It looks almost like a sort of 21st-century hybrid
between a traditional couture atelier
and a scientific laboratory.
It unfolds as a series of rooms based on the traditional metiers
of the haute couture.
One of the garments that inspired the exhibition
is a dress by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel.
Initially, it was sketched by hand by Karl,
and manipulated on the computer
to give a pixelated Baroque pattern.
Then the pattern itself was hand-painted onto the train
and transfer-printed by machine,
and then finished by hand by Lesage with gemstones.
It sort of embodies both the handmade and machine-made
within one garment.
The exhibition itself is structured
around Diderot's "Encyclopedia,"
the first time that fashion was elevated to the same status
as arts and sciences.
What is interesting is,
the metiers within Diderot's "Encyclopedia"
still structure the metiers of the haute couture:
embroidery...
Featherwork...
Artificial flowers.
And on the lower level, you'll come across pleating...
Lacework...
Leatherwork...
And a special category on tailoring and dressmaking.
As you walk through the exhibition,
there's conversations or case studies
between the haute couture and pret-a-porter
in terms of the processes involved with those techniques.
People are so preoccupied by the next thing
that there's a lack of appreciation
in the making of fashion.
So part of the exhibition's intention
is really to make people look at garments.
It is not just the sort of hand-in-the-machine techniques
that go into the making of fashion,
but the concepts embodied in one particular garment.
Instead of seeing the hand and the machine as dichotomous,
the show tends to see it more
as a continuum or spectrum of practice.
I think technology should be used,
and especially by good designers,
should be used as a way
to enhance their design practice.
And I think that within fashion,
people sort of cling on to those sort of notions
between the haute couture and ready-to-wear.
And I think what I'm finding
is that the gap is really diminishing.
The exhibition is trying to come up
with a new paradigm within fashion
that's not so polarizing
as the haute couture- ready-to-wear,
the handmade and machine-made.
(piano chord plays, music fades)