Mechanical Couture: Fashioning a New Order

ORGANIZER  Design Museum Holon, Israel

DATES  October 14, 2010-January 8, 2011

DESCRIPTION
Haute Couture, by definition, is made-to-order, high-quality and hand-executed, and for centuries has signified the ultimate in luxury and exclusivity. Conversely, machines typify the antithesis of couture, implying mass-production and decreased standards. Currently, however, we are witnessing a fascinating phenomenon of mechanical luxury, whereby designers are reinterpreting couture as a hybrid of both mechanized process and customized craftsmanship. This exhibition will feature designers who employ machines and technology neither for their streamlining abilities nor for their capacity to take advantage of mass production, but as a means to realize completely new forms and products that signal a new interpretation of luxury design. As opposed to simply incorporating technological components into wearable pieces, designers included in this exhibition either create a new machine in order to realize their vision, they are inspired by machines as concepts, or the machine becomes part of the actual work. From witty lo-tech explorations to mind-bending experiments, machines play a pivotal role in the redefinition of couture.

Exhibition design by Design Mill, Israel

DESIGNERS
Marloes ten Bhömer (NL); Hussein Chalayan (CY/UK); Dana Farber (IL) and Galya Rosenfeld (US/IL); Cedric Flazinski (FR/NL); KOBICANT (Mika Satomi [JP/AT] and Hannah Perner-Wilson [UK/US]); Dai Fujiwara for Issey Miyake with Dyson (JP); Shelley Fox (US/UK); Ying Gao (CH/CA); Patrick Killoran (US); Alyce Santoro (US), Studio 5050-Despina Papadopolous (GR/US); Yael Taragan (IL); Simon Thorogood (UK)

CATALOGUE
Fully illustrated, in English and Hebrew, the book includes an essay by the exhibition curators and by guest essayist, Steven Skov Holt (with Mara Holt Skov), Distinguished Professor of Industrial Design at California College of the Arts