Wearable art, also known asArtwear or"art to wear", refers to art pieces in the shape ofclothing orjewellery pieces.[1]: 12 These pieces are usually handmade, and are produced only once or as a very limited series. Pieces of clothing are often made with fibrous materials and traditional techniques such as crochet, knitting, quilting, but may also include plastic sheeting, metals, paper, and more. While the making of any article of clothing or other wearable object typically involves aesthetic considerations, the termwearable art implies that the work is intended to be accepted as an artistic creation or statement. Wearable art is meant to draw attention while it is being displayed, modeled or used inperformances.[2] Pieces may be sold and exhibited.
Wearable art sits at the crossroads of craft, fashion and art.[1]: 12 The modern idea of wearable art seems to have surfaced more than once in various forms. Jewellery historians identify a wearable art movement spanning roughly the years 1930 to 1960.[3] Textile and costume historians consider the wearable art movement to have burgeoned in the 1960s,[4] inheriting from the 1850sArts and Crafts.[1]
It grew in importance in the 1970s, fueled byhippie andmod subcultures, and alongsidecraftivism,fiber arts andfeminist art. Artists identifying with this movement are overwhelmingly women.[1]: 8 In the late 1990s, wearable art became difficult to distinguish from fashion,[5]: 142 and the 2000s-2010s began integrating new materials such as electronics.[6]
The wearable art movement inherits from the Arts and Crafts movement, which sought to integrate art in everyday life and objects. Carefully handmade clothing was considered as a device for self-articulation and furthermore, a strategy to avoid the disempowerment of fashion users and designers by large-scale manufacturing.
The term wearable art emerges around 1975 to distinguish artworks made to be worn frombody art and performance. It was used alongside the terms Artwear and "Art to Wear".[1]: 22 An artistic movement primarily based in the United States due to a combination of financial and educational support, it found echoes in fiber and feminist arts around the world.
In the United States, the Wearable Art movement can be traced to the early twentieth centuryAmerican Craft Revival. The American Craft Revival draws on different movements seeking to unify art and craft and empower craftspersons and artists such asJaponisme,Art Nouveau, theVienna Secession and later theBauhaus.[5]: 173 During and shortly after World War Two, wealthy patrons set up educational and museum institutions, in particular theAmerican Craft Council and theMuseum of Contemporary Crafts, to support the renewal of crafts education. It enabled artists focused on crafts to support themselves and train new generations. For instance, famed Bauhaus weaverAnni Albers taught weaving atBlack Mountain College from 1938, before chairing the craft department ofCalifornia College of Arts and Crafts from 1960 to 1976.[5]: 173
Art schools were essential to the development of the Art to Wear movement. In the late sixties, a group of students atCranbrook Academy of Art and thePratt Institute[5]: 2 began integrating textile techniques in their design projects. They counted among their ranks several major figures of the Art to Wear movement, including designerJean Cacicedo.[7] The best known galleries supporting Wearable Art wereObiko (founded in 1972 bySandra Sakata[8]) in San Francisco, andJulie: Artisans' Gallery (founded in 1973 byJulie Schafler-Dale) in New York.[5]
Crafts and art education being more separated outside of the United States, it is harder to identify wearable art as an independent artistic movement. However, renewed interest in traditional textile crafts such asshibori dyeing sparked the interest of artist worldwide.[1]
Wearable art declined as a distinct movement in the late 1990s due to competition from industry, which enabled customization at scale, the migration of artists towardshaute couture or the production of small series, and the broader availability of handcrafted garments from around the world.[5] Contemporary takes on wearable art may focus on integrating technologies in garments;[9] using new manufacturing technique to expand possible silhouettes, such asIris Van Herpen[10] andDamselfrau; revisiting motifs from the art world in couture such as the 2015 Fall couture showViktor and Rolf;[11] or works used in performance arts such asNick Cave's Soundsuits.[12] Moreover, works originating from fashion may question everyday wear with provocative pieces. One example istrashion, with artists creating outrageous art garments out of trash.[13][14]
While wearable art may use any materials or shapes that is worn, and an there are trends in the techniques and types of pieces produced due to their affordances for artists.
Crochet, embroidery, knitting, lace, quilting and felting are all commonly found in wearable art pieces. Crochet remained a homemaker's art until the late 1960s, as new artists began experimenting with free-handed crochet. This practice allowed artists to work in any shape and employ the use of colors freely, without the guidance of a pattern.[15] The work ofJanet Lipkin in the 1970s and 1980s is a good example of this technique.[16][17] Machine knitting, because it enabled the rapid creation of complex knitted designs, was similarly popular as exemplified by the work ofSusanna Lewis.
Aswearable computing technology develops, increasingly miniaturized and stylized equipment is starting to blend with wearable art esthetics. Low-power mobile computing allows light-emitting and color-changing flexible materials and high-tech fabrics to be used in complex and subtle ways. Some practitioners of theSteampunk movement have produced elaborate costumes and accessories which incorporate a pseudo-Victorian style with modern technology and materials.
Two recurring shapes in the Art to Wear movement were the kimono and the cape.[1] The kimono enables to rapidly turn a piece of custom fabric into a garment. The cape is similarly easy to assemble and opens many opportunities for performance. The book Cut my cote, presenting patterns from historical folk wear, had a strong influence on the 1970s Art to Wear.
Some 20th-century modern artists and architects sought to elevate bodily ornamentation — that is, jewellery — to the level of fine art and original design, rather than mere decoration, craft production of traditional designs, or conventional settings for showing off expensive stones or precious metals. Jewelry was used by surrealists, cubists, abstract expressionists, and other modernist artists working in the middle decades of the 20th century.[3]
Wearable artworks can be worn or designed for performances, while artists and sculptors working with fibers or other materials may create wearable pieces. The borders of wearable art are thus fuzzy, apart from artists' self-identification to a given movement or artistic community.
For instance,Electric Dress is aceremonial weddingkimono-like costume consisting mostly of variously colored electrified and painted light bulbs, enmeshed in a tangle of wires, created in 1956 by the JapaneseGutai artistAtsuko Tanaka. This extreme garment was something like a stage costume, designed only for performance.[18] Similarly, inNam June Paik's 1969 performance piece calledTV Bra for Living Sculpture,Charlotte Moorman played acello while wearing abrassiere made of two small operating television sets.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)| Headwear |
| ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neckwear | |||||||||
| Underwear andlingerie |
| ||||||||
| Tops | |||||||||
| Bottoms |
| ||||||||
| Full-body wear |
| ||||||||
| Outerwear and coats |
| ||||||||
| Legwear | |||||||||
| Footwear | |||||||||
| Accessories |
| ||||||||
| Specialized categories |
| ||||||||
| Dress codes |
| ||||||||
| Related | |||||||||
| Fundamentals |  | |
|---|---|---|
| History of ... | ||
| Regional and ethnic | ||
| Related | ||
| Glossaries | ||
