Manus x Machina

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's is getting ready to present the spring 2016 exhibition, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology.

Dress, Nicolas Ghesquière for House of Balenciaga spring/summer 2003 prêt- à-porter

The exhibition explores how designers are reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of Haute Couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear.

Upper Level Gallery View: Case Study Wedding ensemble, Karl Lagerfeld for House of Chanel, autumn/winter 2014–15 haute couture, back view

Manus x Machina features more than 170 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from the early 1900s to the present. The exhibition adresses the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production.

Ensemble, Raf Simons for House of Dior spring/summer 2015 haute couture

For this special ocassion the Robert Lehman Wing galleries, on the Museum's first floor and ground level, have been transformed into a building-whithin-a-building using white scrims. The space houses a series of case studies in which haute couture and ready-to-wear ensembles are decoded to reval their handmade DNA.

Ensemble, Iris van Herpen spring/summer 2010 haute couture

The exhibition is structures around the traditional métiers of haute couture. The first floor unfold as series of alcoves, examining the petites mains workshops of embroidery, featherwork, and artificial flowers; the ground floor space is arranged as an enfilade, examining pleating, lacework, and leatherwork.

Upper Level Gallery View: Embroidery Case Study “L’Eléphant Blanc” Evening Dress, Yves Saint Laurent for House of Dior spring/summer 1958, haute couture

Also a room dedicated to toiles and the ateliers of tailoring (tailleur) and dressmaking (flou) - the tradition division of a maison de couture - anchrs the ground floor-floor gallery. On both floors, traditional hand techniques are discussed alongside innovative technologies such as 3-D printing, computer modeling, bonding and laminating, laser cutting, and ultrasonic welding.

Dress, Iris van Herpen autumn/winter 2013– 14 haute couture

Designers in the exhibition include Cristobal Balenciaga, Boué Soeurs, Sarah Burton (Alexander McQueen), Pierre Cardin, Marc Jacobs, Karl Lagerfeld, Miuccia Prada, and others.