Technology

Remarkable advancements in textile technology have altered or diminished the authority of traditional construction techniques. Thermoplastic fibers used heat instead of labor-intensive hand-pleating techniques to create pleats, gathers, and tucks, and thus encouraged a radical expansion of the vocabulary of form and the design of the garment as a whole.

Some designers explored new approaches to traditional methods of construction, reinterpreting time-honored techniques such as lace making. By featuring synthetic ornamentation, by combining incongruous materials, such as velvet and plastic, or by integrating traditional materials and practices with innovative ideas, designers assaulted conventional notions of luxury and elegance. The dictates of what was “suitable” or “appropriate” were sabotaged.

New textiles for fashion and interiors include three-dimensional structures designed by computer with sculpted surfaces that replace the traditional techniques of embroidery and beading. Topographical surfaces are achieved with such processes as chemical blistering, spatters and laminates of metallic particles, heat molding and treating, and various complex novelty weaves. With rapidly evolving technology, the potential for textile development will continue to change the look and perception of fashion.

donderdag 12 juni 2008

The futurist of fabric



Experimental textile designer Jun-ichi Arai stands amid his metallic designs, which combine fine strands of aluminum and stainless steel with wool and polyester fibers.




Jun-ichi Arai isn’t a household name in the United States, but his work and reputation have made him a designer’s designer. For more than 40 years Arai has been rethinking what a fabric is: making three-dimensional scarves out of steel, reinterpreting ancient traditions like tie-dye, and developing flame-retardant fibers for theatrical and commercial drapery. His collaborations with Issey Miyake and Comme des Garçons in the 1970s and ’80s—when he became known for combining the new technologies of the West with the ancient Japanese art of obi fabric weaving—have had a huge influence on interior, fashion, and textile designers. “His primary legacy is this belief in experimentation, which is embodied in all of his work, whether it is destroying surfaces to create something that is much more beautiful than the original textile or using traditional methods with new materials,” says Matilda McQuaid, exhibitions curator and head of textiles at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

In an exclusive interview for Metropolis, senior editor Paul Makovsky and Mary Murphy, vice president of design at Maharam, spoke to Arai at Gallery Gen, a new venue for Asian contemporary and traditional art in New York, which mounted a mini-retrospective of the designer’s work earlier this year.


Bron: metropolismag
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