The Powerhouse Museum here in Sydney is hosting a lace competition with a prize pool worth $40,000! Entries close on the 30th of April, I am still considering entering something that could become part of my major project this year.
To get the ball rolling here is some trend research from Textile View. I'm not a big fan of these forecasting magazines but some of the details in these shots are quite extraordinary...
Textile View Issue # 89 Spring 2010The Powerhouse are defining lace for the exhibit as "as an openwork structure whose pattern of spaces is as important as the solid areas". This is great as I have no patience for traditional lace making, not that I've tried it, but really I would rather starve for a week than go through this kind of torture:
Johanson, S 1964 Traditional Lace Making, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, pg 43.Having said that, the possibilities for contemporary design work using traditional methods is largely under utilised, and I guess this is due to the time and therefore the cost associated with hand made lacework.
I'm not sure if the lace on this McQueen dress is done by machine or hand, but I'm assuming it would of had to be done by machine to create the pattern so precisly and have it in stores on time:
Nieuwhoff, C 1974, Contemporary Lace Making, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, pg 63
Sudjic, D 1990 Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons, Rizzoli International Publications, NY, page 92. (Photographer uncredited)
I'm not sure if the lace on this McQueen dress is done by machine or hand, but I'm assuming it would of had to be done by machine to create the pattern so precisly and have it in stores on time:
This piece is done by hand, inspired by organic sea forms:
Nieuwhoff, C 1974, Contemporary Lace Making, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, pg 63Rei Kawakubo knitted a sweater with dropped stitches and called it lace back in 1982, this is a form of lace making that moves away from traditional approaches and intersects two crafts, knit and lace, to create at the time quite a controversial garment that commented on the redundance of handicrafts. 28 years later this design is still a contemporary peice of fashion.
Sudjic, D 1990 Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons, Rizzoli International Publications, NY, page 92. (Photographer uncredited)I plan to visit the lace workshop at the Powerhouse sometime next week to do some more research, in the meantime here is one last inspiration image:
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