Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology

Accompanying a 2016 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, this catalog explains and illustrates the dialectical thesis of the Costume Institute's dramatic display of garments from a broad range of international designers, including fashion houses as illustrious as Chanel, Dior, Balenciaga, and Prada. The premise of the show is to document how the techniques of haute couture (handmade garments) and pr%C3%AAt-%C3%A0-porter (primarily machine-made garments) are more powerful in combination. The dramatic opening photograph shows the train from a wedding dress designed by Karl Lagerfeld that Bolton explains "was sketched by hand and then manipulated on the computer to give a randomized, pixelated %E2%80%98baroque pattern'.... initially painted by hand with gold metallic pigment, machine-printed (transfer printed) with rhinestones, and finally hand embroidered with pearls and gemstones." This process required 450 hours of work, according to Bolton, the exhibit's curator. Throughout the book, full-page photographs of each garment are juxtaposed with close-ups of the details, allowing readers to appreciate the overall beauty of the design and the extraordinary skill required to make it. The compendium also includes a glossary of terms and a 32-page separate pamphlet of interviews with designers in the show. For those who can't attend the exhibit in person, this book is both beautiful and practical; for those who do, it will underscore the unlimited possibilities that result from the hybridity of hand and machine in 21st-century fashion. Color illus. (June)