The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute spring 2016 exhibition, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, officially opened last week on the 5th of May. It explores how designers are reconciling the handmade with the machine-made in fashion, and among the machine-made creations are numerous pieces resulting from collaborations between Materialise and Iris van Herpen with Julia Koerner and Daniel Widrig, as well as threeASFOUR with Bradley Rothenberg.
According to Materialise’s Creative Director, Joris Debo, “The key to truly innovative 3D printed fashion is not the printing process itself, but the co-creative process that proceeds the print. With each fashion collaboration undertaken, we increasingly come to appreciate that it is through bringing together individual strengths – the fashion designer for creative concepts, an architect for creative implementation, and Materialise for 3D printing expertise and software – that concepts are formed into inspiring and unique pieces ready to go down the catwalk. The inclusion of several designs resulting from this process in Manus x Machina is a confirmation of the success of co-creation.”
He continued, “With each collaboration, we continually explore how to add value through 3D Printing, not just aesthetically, but functionally. From the hard, structural designs originally produced, we have moved towards increasingly more flexible and wearable fashion. This work has also moved beyond the catwalk, with the past year in particular also seeing collaborations between Materialise and leading footwear and eyewear brands. The shared goal of these projects has been to improve upon the functionality of existing insoles, shoes, and glasses respectively, with the aim of enhancing the customer experience for a broader public.”
Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, Andrew Bolton, had this to say about this year’s exhibition, “Traditionally, the distinction between the haute couture and prêt-à-porter was based on the handmade and the machine-made, but recently this distinction has become increasingly blurred as both disciplines have embraced the practices and techniques of the other. Manus x Machina will challenge the conventions of the hand/machine dichotomy and propose a new paradigm germane to our age of technology.”
Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology features more than 170 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from the early 20th century to the present. The exhibition can be found in in the Museum’s Robert Lehman Wing, and is on view from May 5 through August 14.
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