Welcome to Fashion as Design
a course brought to you by The Museum of Modern Art.
I am Paola Antonelli.
I'm a senior curator in Architecture and Design at MoMA.
I'm Michelle Millar Fisher.
I'm a curatorial assistant at MoMA.
Stephanie Kramer, research assistant at MoMA.
And we're all brought here together by a great project
which is the exhibition
"Items: Is Fashion Modern?"
It’s a very ambitious project because it
brings together 111 items of clothing and
accessories that had a strong influence on the world in the past 100 years.
We believe strongly that fashion is a form
of design, we believe strongly that no true
design history can be told without discussing also garments and everything that they encompass
from aesthetics and technology to economy, sociology, anthropology, labor practices,
the whole world.
That's what we believe that design is, a way to understand more deeply and with more awareness
the world in which we live.
So we have these two realms we have design,
we have fashion, we have the larger world
of the Museum of Modern Art that has traditionally
the fine arts and architecture.
And with this course we would like to try
and position them together.
When we go through this course, we're going
to see pairings of humble masterpieces like
the white t-shirt, like perhaps the Panama
hat with things that are perhaps more entrenched
in a designer led mode of fashion that isn't
necessarily humble, but when we take them
together, we really see that they're no different
from one another in terms of providing lenses
through which we can really uncover some of
these larger issues that both fashion and
design allow us to explore.
We've played a game during the exhibition
preparation where, as we've been walking through
the city, we've looked at people who are walking
by us and thought what are they wearing that's
on our checklist of 111.
If you look around you on a daily basis, you
see someone wearing a turtleneck, a white
t-shirt, a biker jacket, a pair of jeans,
etc. and you realize that the subjects that
you'll see in this course, the items that
you'll see in this course really are from
the very esoteric to the very quotidien things
that really do affect us on a day-to-day basis.
It really is about not only playing the game
and looking what other people are wearing.
But rather playing the game, which is a serious
game, and look at what you are wearing and
understand in delight and also in like, really
sense of responsibility, understand what you're
putting on yourself.
This is not about punishing people or about
taking the fun out of things, quite the opposite.
We believe that by knowing what is contained
in every single garment is going to be just
a fuller life presented in front of you and
also a more... how can I say, a more aware
stance as a serious citizen to be able to
push back, accept and celebrate good deeds.
And instead, also push the industry towards
a more ethical stance when necessary.
We hope you enjoy the material in the weeks
to come, and we look forward to hearing what
you have to say in the discussion forums.
