From the Writer's Desk: Mechanical Couture at Israel's Holon Museum

Since embarking on the saga that has been the writing of my next book, Culture to Catwalk, I have learned a hell of a lot. And when it comes to the Middle East, I've learned that bird ain't the word, it's couture. The various wardrobe impediments that come alongside strict Islamic dress played off against deep pockets has created an emerging design culture in which detail is everything--the glitzier the better. So I was not all too surprised when an email announcing the opening of an intriguing exhibit at Israel's Holon Design Museum: Mechanical Couture.

We all know that the term "haute couture" denotes a hand-crafted, ultra-luxury, ultra-restricted tiny sect of high fashion. If it ain't made by hand, it's off the rack, the premise being based on the traditional notion that machines are for mass production, mass availability and mass standards. However, US-based curatorial double act, CuratorSquared now seek to expose a shift taking place at the heart of the fashion industry's most exclusive corner. According to them, and the designers involved in the exhibit, we are now witnessing a fascinating phenomenon of "mechanical luxury," utterly seduced by the sleekness of technology--designers are reinterpreting couture as a hybrid of both customised craftsmanship and the mechanised process.

For example, shoe designer Marloes ten Bhömer works with mechanical engineers to develop prototypes and create her designs, which would not otherwise be within her technical means to realize. Another designer included in the exhibition, Brit Shelley Fox  uses technology to explore society’s obsession with body size and manifest this modern psychological anxiety physically with her clothes. Working with volunteers undergoing a weight loss programme, she uses their MRI scans as "fat-maps" or blueprints to design a collection of dresses. Vintage garments are ripped, stitched and sketched on – reminiscent of the markings made by a plastic surgeon on the body before operating.

Issey Miyake Creative Director, Dai Fujiwara has teamed with vacuum cleaner designer James Dyson to create A-POC (a piece of cloth) which combines the idea of mass-production with customisation. Thread is fed into industrial knitting machines, programmed by a computer, and re-emerges as an innovative fabric with various shapes and patterns. In this way the wearer can determine the final shape of their material. 

 “The machine is not simply a means to an end, but the driving force behind the process and design. This exhibition will feature designers who employ machines and technology not for their streamlining capabilities or to boost production, but as a means to realise completely new forms and products – so signalling a completely new interpretation of luxury design. These designers are inspired by machines as concepts, turning to the machine as collaborator in the design process.” explain Curatorsquared’s Ginger Gregg Duggan and Judith Hoos Fox.

 Open from October 14 at the Holon Design Museum, Israel