Nick Gomez
Nick Gomez
Nick Gomez works in fashion as the event planner for Trunk Club NYC, putting on events for partners like Ralph Lauren, BMW, and Google. His love for fashion extends to writing for Fashion Week Online, and assisting other partners with creative content and direction.

Manus X Machina: The Met Explores Fashion and Technology


(Story by Nick Gomez. Intro by Pablo Starr.)

The Costume Institute’s Manus X Machina: What to Expect

mLove it or hate it, technology is woven into the very fabric (no pun intended) of our daily lives. Or, as Daft Punk once sang via vocoder: “Harder, better, faster, stronger.” Indeed, the whole idea of technology is a fierce thrust forward.

But it strikes home nowhere quite like in a field like fashion, born of work done entirely by hand (in Latin, manus), and now principally by machine (machina).

Technology strikes home nowhere quite like in a field born of work done by hand.

Like the apocryphal John Henry — racing against a steam-powered hammer — or Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, we’re constantly reassessing where technology is making our lives better, and where it may be creating a hidden sacrifice.

We’re constantly reassessing whether technology is actually creating a new sacrifice.

Just as books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma are forcing us to reassess the way we’ve traded nutrition for convenience, there’s a movement toward handcrafted and bespoke clothing quietly gaining momentum beneath the über convenience of quasi-disposable “fast fashion” (some of which, we admit, we’ve gladly purchased ourselves).

The very presence of technology in an artisanal-based industry engenders many questions:

How significant is the distinction between haute couture (exclusive custom-fitted clothing) and ready-to-wear (mass produced in standardized “sizes”)? How has technology changed fashion, and where is it going?

How has technology changed fashion, and where is it going?

This spring, some of the debate around technology will be brought to the forefront with Manus X Machina: Fashion In An Age Of Technology, opening May 5 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 
At the Press Preview

[portfolio_slideshow id=11409 align=center width=699 click=advance thumbnailsize=40 showcaps=true]

At the press preview this morning, Andrew Bolton, Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, shared that one of the inspirations behind the exhibit was Fritz Lang’s sci-fi film Metropolis, with its themes of technology, separation, and love — where the mediator between opposing forces is the heart.

One of the inspirations behind the exhibit was Fritz Lang’s sci-fi film Metropolis

The exhibit will present an opportunity to observe the oppositional relationship between haute couture and ready-to-wear, both separately and as a blended approach.

Viewers will get a close-up look at how the industrial revolution created a marked difference between the hand and the machine. With more than 100 pieces dating from the 1880s to 2015, the story of tech in fashion will be told, but also pushed forward.

 
Collection Preview

[portfolio_slideshow id=11410 align=center width=499 click=advance thumbnailsize=40 showcaps=true]

So where has fashion been … and where does it go from here? Come to the exhibit May 5 and decide for yourself.

(from left) FWO Editor-in-Chief Chris Collie, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour
(from left) FWO Editor-in-Chief Chris Collie, Vogue Editor-in-Chief and Artistic Director of Condé Nast Anna Wintour

Learn more

metmuseum.org

 
Share with

#ManusxMachina
#CostumeInstitute
#MetMuseum

 
With love,

FWO

Photos Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art/BFA.com

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