Breaking the Mode

The contemporary fashion collection from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art – \nPermanent Collection is now being featured at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The exhibition, titled “Breaking the Mode,” features more than 100 ensembles from many of the biggest names in fashion and is divided among four main themes: construction, materials, form and concept.\nThe exhibition will focus on changes to clothing designs that have occurred over the past 25 years. It focuses on designers who revolutionized the way the fashion industry constructs garments and the way the fashion industry sees the body’s form, proportion and silhouettes.\nNiloo Paydar, curator of textile and fashion arts at the IMA, said she thought the collection was a great exhibition with cutting-edge fashion.\nIn the “construction” section of the exhibition, traditional Western construction concepts are juxtaposed with Eastern concepts of asymmetry used by Japanese designers in the 1980s, according to an IMA press release.\n“(These designs) turned the Western fashion world upside down,” said Sharon Takeda, Los Angeles County Museum of Art curator and a guest speaker at the IMA. Takeda said the exhibition is all about “freedom of choice.”\nThe advances in textile technology that have altered traditional construction techniques are explored in the “materials” section of the exhibition. The form section focuses on the development from the idealized female form to the more natural female form. The last section explores concepts and how designers have used fashion to make cultural, political and economic associations. \n“(The collection) works well with the contemporary art that we already have here” said Petra Slinkard, assistant curator of textile and fashion arts at the IMA. \nCities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles are already established within the fashion industry and it is important to bring this type of fashion to the Midwest, or “pockets of cool,” Slinkard said. \nThe exhibit will be open from now until June 1 at the Clowes Gallery in the Wood Pavilion at the Indiana Museum of Art. The cost is $12 for adults and $6 for college students with IDs. The exhibition features more than 40 international designers and includes Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Dior, Johji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and many more. The exhibition will be accompanied by a 216-page illustrated catalogue, written in both English and Italian.