Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhu Shaojie correspondent Gu Ling
Photo/Courtesy of the organizer
Recently, the exhibition "Fashion from Nature", jointly presented by Shenzhen Design Internet, the National Victoria and Albert Museum (hereinafter referred to as the V&A Museum) and the China Silk Museum, was exhibited at the Shenzhen Maritime World Culture and Art Center, presenting a fashion journey between the East and the West through nearly 400 global fashion exhibits spanning 2300 years of history.
At the same time, Design Internet specially invited Zhang Ximei, a textile expert and special consultant of the Female Red Transmission Hall of the China Silk Museum, to plan the exhibition "Clothes from Everything: China's Past and Present Fashion". The exhibition will be on view until June 6.
The exhibition tells the story of the heritage and innovation of generations of craftsmen, designers and manufacturers, exploring how fashion draws inspiration from nature, how it affects nature, and how design drives consumption change. At the same time, it explores the way of life in which man and nature live in harmony. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
The "Transoceanic Dialogue" of Eastern and Western Fashion
Fashion from Nature is design-linked's first large-scale exhibition in the textile and apparel field, focusing on the precious collections of two world-class museums (the British V&A Museum and the China Silk Museum), in order to present the understanding and dialogue between the East and the West on clothing and the profound influence of cultural origins on fashion design.
With a collection of classic textiles and clothing from around the world, the V&A Museum in the UK is a treasure trove of inspiration for a large number of designers. As the world's largest silk-themed museum, the China Silk Museum is internationally renowned for its research results on textile archaeological culture, and has become a new landmark in the fashion industry by combining Chinese and Western fashion textile art works.
Zhao Feng, director of the China Silk Museum, hopes that the East-West dialogue in the exhibition will help play the role of the museum's cultural hub and advocate a fashion lifestyle that adapts to nature.
The collection of nearly 400 items on display covers clothing, hat accessories, jewelry, shoes and bags. Fabrics and fabrics range from silk and gold threads, from the imitation Yongzheng Sea Cliff Kowloon Makeup Satin Dragon Robe woven with silk and gold thread, the 1780 men's vest embroidered with a playful macaque pattern, to the 19th-century dress decorated with more than 5,000 rainbow gidding insect wings, and much more.
The exhibition also brings together international first-line fashion brands such as Dior, Gucci, Burberry, Stella McCartney and so on. Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gautier, Robert Cavalli, Dris van Norton, Tan Yanyu, Deng Dazhi and other internationally renowned designers all show the charm of fashion design here.
Zhang Ximei, curator of the exhibition "Clothes from Everything: China's Past and Present Fashion", said: "China's economic prosperity in recent years has injected vitality into the fashion market: one eye looks at the latest trends in the world, and the other eye looks at local fashion inspired by China's long history. Today, we are reinventing forgotten textile fibres and weaving processes in a sustainable way of life. You can compare the similarities and differences between the two cultures and think about the impact of the beauty of the clothing we are currently pursuing on the global environment. ”
Revisit the history of the interaction between fashion and nature
Since its inception, fashion has drawn inspiration from nature, creating ever-changing patterns, colors, fabrics and clothing, and permeating different understandings and interpretations of nature in different regions, cultures and customs.
Through the materials, colors and patterns of Chinese costumes and textiles, "Clothing from All Things: Chinese Past and Present" takes the audience through the materials, colors and patterns of Chinese costumes and textiles, tracing back the long history of the sericulture industry and exploring the contemporary inheritance of ancient crafts such as potato dyeing and xiabu.
From a dragon and phoenix thorn silk that imitates the Warring States period in the 3rd century BC to the 2020 brand's "Cover is Flower" canvas shoes dyed with leaves and mud, the imprint of nature is everywhere in these ingenious fashion items.
Fashion from Nature traces the history of fashion manufacturing since the 17th century, examines the production of garment raw materials such as silk, linen, wool and cotton, as well as man-made and synthetic fibers, and reveals the fact that most people today can afford fashion, but the natural environment has suffered greatly.
From a pair of gloves embroidered with wheat bales, birds and finches and flowers in 1600 to a plant root skirt planted by Diana Scheler in 2017, the relationship between human society and nature has become more complex and challenging. The exhibition calls on contemporary fashion designers, brands and consumers to become a new generation of "alchemists" to reconstruct a contemporary view of nature by revisiting the history of the interaction between fashion and nature.
In addition to the costume works, the exhibition also provides a wealth of globalization cases, as well as exquisite pictures and extensive research materials, examining the impact of all stages of fashion production on the natural world, including from the acquisition of production raw materials to the production, processing, sales and use of various fashion industry links.
"Sustainable" has become an urgent mission in the fashion industry
According to data released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in 2019, the fashion industry, as one of the pillars of the global economy, is also the world's second largest source of pollution. Today, the global fashion industry is rethinking the way textiles and apparel are manufactured, consumed and processed, and China's textile and apparel industry plays a key role in the international textile, apparel and fashion sector.
Sustainable fashion is a long-term initiative to reduce the negative environmental and social impact of the fashion industry, which includes design and development, material production, clothing manufacturing, consumption and recycling.
Fashion from Nature explores solutions from the dimensions of high technology and traditional skills to build a cleaner, less wasteful fashion future. The exhibition presents a large number of designers' important explorations in the field of materials and technologies, from washed denim, recycled cashmere, the revival of traditional plant dyeing and small weaving mills, to the new materials of agricultural waste synthesis, the ecological return of the sericulture industry, all of which show the sustainable trend of the fashion industry.
Zhao Rong, Deputy Director of Design Internet, said: "The cooperation between Design Interconnect and the V&A Museum in the UK aims to exchange cultural exchanges and trigger cross-cultural and cross-field thinking on design. The V&A touring exhibition "Fashion from Nature" is intended to promote understanding between cultural scholars, designers and industry practitioners in the Field of Chinese and British Clothing.
The unique feature of the exhibition is to discuss the beauty of responsibility and the beauty of natural harmony from the beauty of clothing, and encourage people to reflect on the definition and value of clothing. ”
【Reporter's Note】
Collecting the present is collecting the past for the future
Text/Zhu Shaojie
Generally speaking, the collection of museums and art galleries should have the meaning of a hammer. Entering the institutional collection often means that the collection has entered a certain historical sequence and entered the temple of art. However, the concept of "collecting the present" in the British V&A Museum is worth thinking about.
The V&A Museum originated from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, the founder of the "Empire that Never Sets", and is the largest museum in the world with the theme of "applied and decorative arts", ranging from ancient Greco-Roman sculptures and medieval religious artworks to contemporary clothing, architecture, graphic design, etc.
Today, the V&A Museum is listed among the "16 largest museums in the world with more than 2 million annual visitors.") In terms of the number of museums in the world, the V&A Museum has more than 4.6 million pieces, which is currently the first in the world.
In 2015, the V&A Museum launched its newly opened "Rapid Response Collection" pavilion, in which more than a dozen works on display may seem crude and ordinary, but they are all related to important social events. For example, a pair of loose pants made in Bangladesh and british affordable fashion brand Primark shows that these pants are not used to represent the current fashion, but to provide a macro picture of the global supply chain and clothing production environment.
Curator Kieran Lang explains the "quick response" strategy: "As soon as an object is newsworthy and reflects how rapidly changing global events affect society, the V&A Museum immediately includes it in the pavilion." It is understood that this curatorial approach is very different from the previous curation methods of design and industrial product exhibitions, and the V&A Museum is also the first large-scale museum in the world to adopt this strategy.
Collecting the present is collecting the past for the future. At present, Chinese society is facing drastic changes, and how to leave a sample of today's times for the future may become a topic for practitioners of museums and art galleries to discuss.
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Editor-in-charge | Zhou Xinyi
Review and sign | Zheng Zongmin
Intern | Peng Kexin