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Fashion and Anti-Fashion
The Peninsula Wearable Arts Guild (PenWAG), see http://www.penwag.org/index.htm, is an inspirational group of men and women who gather together on the second Saturday of every month to learn more about wearable art, and to share their accomplishments with each other. PenWAG members Arna Shefrin and Darcy Fowkes collaborated on outfit illustrated below.
The next meeting starts at 10:00 a.m. September 12th, at the Campbell Community Center. The featured guest speaker this month (speaker program starts at 1:00 p.m.) is Melissa Leventon, who was Curator of Textiles at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco from 1992 to 2002. Leventon curated her own exhibit, Fashion and Anti-Fashion, during her career with the museum. She is now an independent consultant specializing in costumes and textiles.
A historian by training, Leventon wrote a book by the same title, available in paperback at Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Artwear-Fashion-Anti-Fashion-Melissa-Leventon/dp/0500285373. The book features work by Yves Saint Laurent, Issey Miyake, Erté, K. Lee Manuel, Kansai Yamamoto, Ben Compton & Marian Clayden, Genevieve Dion, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Janet Lipkin, Kaisik Wong, Friends of the Rag, and many others. She brings a historical perspective to the subject of wearable art, documenting today’s current style of this kind of fashion as the latest in the long line of aesthetic dress reforms that began with the Arts and Crafts movement. Her book illustrates a range of pieces that include technically wearable art, as well as unique one-of-a-kind and limited-edition day or evening wear luxury clothing, some of which qualifies as wall art.
An internationally renowned show that features some of the most dramatic wearable art in the world is the Montana World of Wearable Art http://www.worldofwearableart.com/. This show originated in Nelson in 1987, on the south island of New Zealand, and moved to the capitol, Wellington, in 2005, to accommodate the popularity of the show. This two hour performance is now in its 10th season, performing to an audience of 35,000. If you’ve ever wanted to see this part of the world, it’s worth planning a trip around this show, as it truly is an inspiration in wearable art. .jpg)
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