Back
Back
ITALY / Milan: Textile Vivant Vision, Experience and Research in Textile Design
by Modem
© Modem

until Sunday November 09 2014

Tuesday - Sunday 10.30 AM - 8.30 PM Thursday 10.30 AM - 11.00 PM

Triennale di Milano
T : +39 02 724341
Viale Alemagna, 6,
20121 Milan
Italy

Curated by Maria Grazia Soldati, Giovanni Maria Conti, Barbara Del Curto, Eleonora Fiorani

The exhibition examines the role of innovation and the uniqueness of the “Made in Italy” label in the world of textiles. In a variety of ways, this experience-based exhibition offers an overview of innovation and of the most interesting aspects of scientific research in the field of textiles in the modern and contemporary age.

This means exploring the interaction between the cognitive and expressive potential of fabrics and the increasingly important role of design and of materials engineering in the creation of new fabrics and strategies to promote know-how on the ground – and thus in industrial districts and in leading companies in fashion textiles and other sectors.

Fabrics are the outer skin of culture and “living” bodies capable of releasing an energy that attracts us. They can inspire design processes that involve the ways we inhabit our bodies and our world, taking us on a cognitive exploration by means of sensory and emotional introspection. The astonishing properties of these new fabrics are combined with values that are not just symbolic but also poetic and sensuous. This makes for the creation of objects with powerful narratives of their own. They constitute an ideal observation point for the latest scenarios and for future developments in the interactions between design and fashion, art and design, design and architecture and textile engineering.

The very latest in the world of textiles can be seen in the selection and display of fabrics, and in installations by textile and fashion designers and artists, which appear alongside the display of individual fabrics. Technology plays a decisive role in research into multi-functional fibres and technical fabrics, changing the very concept of fabric as well as of natural and artificial, and bringing out the essence of fabric design in all its various forms.

The display design by Peter Bottazzi, with graphic design by Rossana Gaddi, plays a key role in the construction of the exhibition, forming an integral part of its curatorship. The display not only gives prominence to the fabrics and to the companies that design them, but also explore their spirit, taking us in spatial terms right into the world of textiles. It does so even in the floors and walls, as well as recreating the typical elements of the world in which textiles are designed. And it makes them interact with the installations by designers in the textiles and fashion sector, as well as with those of artists, coupled with technological products. The graphic element brings about a narrative that leads all the way from yarn to finished product, giving an understanding of fabrics and the way they are processed. Weave, weft, warp, yarn and knot are at the heart of bringing ideas and philosophy into the world.

The display design and graphics accompany the exhibition of individual fabrics and the most advanced experiments in the textile sector. With their ability to give shape to the demands, the imagination and the sensibilities of a particular culture and age, manufacturing and utilisation techniques and processes are accompanied by perceptive and cognitive maps as well as aesthetic sensitivity. They reveal the technological potential of orthogonal fabrics and traditional and digital printing, of laser cutting, knitwear, three-dimensional fabrics and innovative fibres for technical and functional purposes, as well as high-performance and high-grade finishing using enzymatic and plasma treatments, materials for comfort and the climatic pleasure of breathable, thermo-regulating and sustainable textile materials. There are fabrics that expand our field of perception, and our senses and imagination, and fabrics with technical, technological or decorative features that constitute an absolute novelty on the international scene. In some cases, future projects are being previewed here before appearing on the market.

Fabrics are also viewed as a presence making its return to the contemporary world in new areas of design. The exhibition thus also includes maps that illustrate some significant moments in the amazing story that leads from yarn to end product, linking the territory to its production. This ranges from the introduction of the first mechanisation processes and the development of products that were to become typical of the industrial age through to an increasingly close bond with the world of fashion, design, architecture and art. The exhibition presents a number of Italian companies in the sector: Candiani, Canepa, Dainese (also in the designer installation section), Eurojersey, Forza Giovane Art, Gavazzi, Lurex NextMaterials, RadiciGroup, Res, Slam, Stone Island, Zegna Baruffa Lane Borgosesia, and ZIP GFD. The exhibition includes some videos, which tell the story of particular textile technologies, kindly lent by INSTM, the National Interuniversity Consortium of Materials Science and Technology, AIMAT, the Italian association of materials engineering, and the Department of Chemistry at the Aldo Moro University of Bari, and LIPP, the Apulian Industrial Plasma Laboratory.

Lastly, the exhibition will also include archival materials relating to fabrics (the Gianni Bologna archive), books and magazines on textile technologies (Biblioteca Tremelloni archive) and installations by designers Nanni Strada, Carlo Rivetti and artists Deda Deda Barattini, Ivana Margherita Cerisara, Ilaria Beretta, Afran. with the collaboration of Base, Fibretec, and Texpoint, these retrace and reinterpret the world of textiles and weaving.

© Modem