Bridge#2:Investigating Authentic Materials

-Project Intro-

This Bridge project instructs us to write a reflection on our visit to 2 exhibitions at the Museum at FIT: “Fabric in fashion” and “Exhibitionism: 50 years of the Museum at FIT”. The reflection should include 3 stages of the visit (description, deduction, speculation), answering 4 questions:

• How/what was the overall experience like of investigating an authentic material?
• What type of information did you gain from viewing your object (as opposed to reading about it or experiencing it as a secondary source)?
• How could you potentially continue research on this object?
• What type of research project(s) could you form around the study of this object?

-Reflection-

• General Impression after entry:
  • The overall experience for me is utterly astonishing. When I first step into the “Fabric in fashion” exhibition, I was amazed and deeply attracted by the shining, varying fabric. As I walk deeper into both exhibitions, I can feel a sense of dense in the room with its dark background and fortunately with the contrast black, as a color, forms, the audience can focus more on the materiality of different garments.
• Description:
  • Substantial Analysis: an account of the physical aspects of the object
    • The object of mine is the dark gold garment created by Issey Miyake in 1982, ensembles with a synthetic metallic ruffled cape. The cape is shaped by adding different layers of ruffled metallic synthetic fabric while the rest of the body is weaved of polyester and cotton. This garment is reflecting the light around due to its dark gold surface while even though the cape is asymmetric, the whole garment gives people an impression of dense and sacredness.
  • Content: an examination that is limited to subject matter/overt representations
    • This object applies the same technic of making pleats, which can also work as a motif throughout the whole garment. The pleats are so delicate that I even think it looks like a Japanese warrior’s armor. The mannequin choosing is extraordinary, the brown matt plastic body form contrasts itself from the garment in metallic gloss while blends itself into garment due to the similar tone of color.
  • Formal Analysis: an analysis of the object’s form and configuration(or visual character)
    • The texture of the garment is both metallic due to the gold color but also wooden due to its delicate pattern of lines. With the light shed from the top, the outer shell of this “armor” is shining while the other part remains matt and dark; overlapped layers putting shadows on each other, creating room for the trousers part of the garment. As for color, the dark gold is cohesive to black and the whole piece looks harmonic, exhibiting a harmony of Zen, which means deep meditation.
• Deduction
  • Sensory Engagement: an examination of physical experience with the object
    • We are not even allowed to get close the garments but I imagine if I can touch the garment, I would have a feeling of touching a mixture of cardboard and metal sheet. The edge seems to be made of leather to fix the layer, making it flat. The whole piece really gives me an impression of Asian warrior’s armor especially the one in Japanese Shogunate time. Each piece of garment has vertical lines on it while horizontally it overlaps on each other, creating density for the whole piece.
  • Intellectual Engagement: representational aspects, design and functional performance.
    • It, as I mentioned above, is not only a representation of warrior’s armor but also a philosophy of Chinese ink drawing. The whole piece does not focus on the color, but the pattern, the construction of the whole piece and the dynamics. For the back, those wave-like metallic pleats are caped downward while at the front, those pleats are more like the motion of a flower blossom.
  • Emotional Response: the viewer’s reaction
    • I would say for this piece, the dark gold color, the asymmetric shape, and the spacial design gives the piece a sense of sacredness. The shape, as I said, looks like Asian warriors’ armor but in the ancient time, their armors usually are in more saturated color to help identify allies. It has a sense of death from the dusty battlefield but also a sense of monk doing Zen in the temple, the whole piece is harmonically in one color, even but unique.
• Speculation
  • Theories and Hypotheses: developing questions (and potential answers) about the object and its purpose or meaning
    • What kinds of materials did Issey Miyake applied to make such a color-evened, easy-constructed fabric? What was that reflective metallic surface serving to?
    • Metal and polyesters are probably two main elements. The purpose of applying that ,I guess, is to help portray the heavenly body in an Asian way. The color match has a sense of sacredness while the straight lines on the “armor” is concise and in-order, this garment probably has a ritual or religious theme
  • Program of Research: a scholarly approach to filling in the blanks (e.g. object history, value, use) and proving/ disproving formulated theories
    • “The Concepts and Work of Issey Miyake.” Issey Miyake | 三宅一生. Accessed March 06, 2019. http://mds.isseymiyake.com/im/en/work/.
    • In the article I found above about Issey Miyake and his fashion career, I found he arrived at New York in 1982, and this belongs to his collection that year. So my speculation about expressing Asian culture is right since he did make a whole collection that fits Asian traditions but his theme is not about something religious but challenges himself with body motion and form.  “In the 1980s, Miyake furthered his exploration of the body’s motions and form, enthusiastically taking on the challenge of designing garments using materials other than cloth: plastic, paper, and wire.”