NEW YORK.
The Costume Institute’s spring 2016 exhibition, presented in the Museum’s Robert Lehman Wing and Anna Wintour Costume Center, will explore how fashion designers are reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear.
Manus x Machina features more than 120 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from an 1880s Worth gown to a 2015 Chanel suit. The exhibition address the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production. It explores this ongoing dichotomy, in which hand and machine are presented as discordant tools in the creative process, and will question this relationship and the significance of the long-held distinction between haute couture and ready-to-wear.
The Robert Lehman Wing galleries on the Museum’s first floor and ground level will present a series of case studies contrasting haute couture and ready-to-wear ensembles to unravel the hand/machine conundrum. Traditional métiers of the haute couture, including embroidery, featherwork, artificial flowers, pleating, lacework, and leatherwork will be presented alongside innovative processes, such as 3D printing, circular knitting, computer modeling, bonding and laminating, laser cutting, and ultrasonic welding.
The Anna Wintour Costume Center galleries will resemble a traditional maison de couture with ateliers of tailoring and dressmaking. Toiles and prototypes will be presented as garments in the making.
May 5–August 14, 2016, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photos: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
