Marisia Lukaszewski of aestheticalliance reviews the ‘Future of Fashion’ exhibition by Stella McCartney and RE-CUT by Toogood x Carhartt, two shows proving fashion is a vital part of Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week.
Micro dosing the ‘Future of Fashion’ exhibition by Stella McCartney
As one approaches the venue of Caselli 11-12, a 1800s neo-classical tollbooth located near the Turati metro stop in Milan, a collection of resin mushroom statues herald the location for the latest preview of ‘Future of Fashion: An innovation conversation with Stella McCartney’.
Launched originally at the UN’s COP26 climate conference, the evolving and travelling installation aims to leverage UK fashion designer Stella McCartney’s past and present achievements to inspire future action. Salone del Mobile is a ‘laboratory’ for design experimentation, innovation, and cross-pollination, making it a natural platform to introduce the designer’s proposed construction and supply-chain solutions of our shared tomorrow.
A long-time advocate of vegan ware and sustainability production values, Stella’s showcase features a combination of lush interior mushroom landscapes, educational and fashion digital video demonstrations in a unique atelier revealing the delightful items on offer.
Inspired by the documentary Fantastic Fungi and the book An Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, is not only a range of desirable handbags, leisure wear and shoes but a dynamic collaboration with B&B Italia and heritage British wallpaper house, Cole & Son. ‘Future is Fashion’ allowed both design houses to debut the hand-drawn toile de Jouy print in rich burgundy of the ‘Fungi Forest’ print in both wallpaper and for B&B Italia, in a furnishing textile.
However, what is of some interest is the focus on the materiality of the objects and the ideology behind the making of them.
The Frame Mylo™ is the first ever luxury bag to be crafted from Mylo™, an innovative and incredibly realistic vegan alternative to animal leather made of mycelium, which are the root-like structures of fungi. The mycelium used in this pioneering material is grown in a lab by the company Bolt Threads. To make Mylo™, they have engineered a process to grow mycelium in a vertical farming facility powered by 100% renewable energy and transformed it into a material that looks and feels like animal leather. As soft and supple, yet far less harmful to the environment.
Stella McCartney is clearly not only championing the use of new animal cruelty-free technology in making her latest designs but is also celebrating the advancing science of using the magic of mushrooms in a variety of ways. An additional video room sits upstairs, adjacent to the delightful mirrored immersive infinity room. Entering you are greeted by illuminated layered mirrored sculptures of fungi, crafted from another future-forward material, the recycled and recyclable Green Cast® acrylic. Once this exhibit is over, these sculptures will be recycled to be used in another Stella project (pun intended). Also adding to the experience are the ‘bio electric sounds’ of Cosmo Sheldrake, who in turn is also related to the writer Melvin Sheldrake.
But it is the video next door to this, that surprised me. A medicinal/scientific documentary demonstrating the writings of a variety of medical researchers into the benefits and studies of micro dosing psilocybin. So. It seems that Stella wants more than our interest in her innovative fashion but more to develop an awareness to grow towards accepting the magic of mushrooms, which could expand our thinking not only on a personal wearable level but how we connect and interact with ourselves, each other and with our environment. Thus, Stella McCartney is dealing with not only the problems of contemporary design and materials but is perhaps also focused on putting a bit of magic back into us solving our personal ones.
More Stella McCartney’s ‘Future is Fashion’
RE-CUT Toogood x Carhartt WIP
Spazio Maiocchi is a social space where art, design and fashion blend to shape new cultural experiences and was the perfect location to demonstrate the breadth of UK designer Faye Toogood’s creative skill further supported in the collaboration with Carhartt WIP whose fashion designs she has admired for some years.
Originating from the collaboration of founding partners Carhartt WIP and Slam Jam, Spazio Maiocchi is a cross-disciplinary ideas aggregator, home to the studios and exhibition spaces of KALEIDOSCOPE, one of Milan’s most widely-recognised enterprises for contemporary art. Hosted in a building of over 1000 square meters in central Milan, it’s designed in accordance with contemporary modes of working, exhibiting and socialising, with an emphasis on flexibility and lightness.
This installation seeks to explore the development of the pairing of Toogood and Carhartt WIP and celebrates the brand’s shared design ethics and appreciation for well-made clothing that lasts. Faye Toogood, a self-professed lover and wearer of Carhartt overalls and pants, has re-fashioned the signature garments into both a homage to Carhartt WIP and a style of her own. The unisex capsule collection features a t-shirt, a trouser, an overall and two jackets combining elements from both brands – styles such as Carhartt WIP’s ‘Michigan Jacket’ and Toogood’s ‘Photographer jacket’ signifying the labels’ shared utilitarian aesthetic. The Carhartt WIP trademark use of the organic cotton Dearborn Canvas and the lighter Utah Canvas, are finished with co-branded buttons and labels.
The colour palette ensures the utilitarian vibe, focussed only on off-white, black and Hamilton brown which emphasises the everyday uniform aspect of the collection. Carhartt WIP gave Toogood permission to cut and remodel the archetypal utility products and let her shape them closer to her idea of a sculptural fit. To exemplify the cutting intervention, Toogood has made a series of one-off pieces described as ‘hacks’. By cutting open and patching the original pieces in contrast coloured fabric, the lines of the recut with the added volume and length, are laid bare.
The Toogood x Carhartt WIP collaboration alters the archetypal Carhartt WIP shapes and injects them with a sculptural volume and the puppets accompanying the install serve as literal metaphors for this grandiosity. Standing metres tall within the space, three giant sculptural puppets wear oversized versions of the garments made from the collaboration. These giant puppets were constructed in London and transported to Milan to accompany new furniture and the exclusive preview of Faye Toogood’s new book on her design creations and career Faye Toogood: Drawing, Material, Sculpture, Landscape published by Phaidon.
The book provides an in-depth-look into all aspects of her work from clothes, furniture, installations and interior design. It explores her unique approach to design through drawing, material, sculpture and landscape and links them all in ways to each other. Toogood thus combines her aesthetic and cutting style with Carhartt WIP’s construction skill & production capacity and in this exhibition reveals her design and artistic talent through the vehicle of Carhartt WIP but also, that it is definitely not limited to it.
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Marisia Lukaszewski of aestheticalliance, is a Melbourne born exhibition producer, curator and lover of all thing art, craft, and design.
