“Trend-ology” Exhibition
The Museum at FIT
This event has ended.
Trend-ology examines the vast array of sources from which fashion trends have developed over the past 250 years. Trends have emerged from high fashion runways and urban street style, but they have also derived from art, music, novels, and socio-political movements. Particular trends change every season, but the phenomenon of the trend has come to define the modern fashion system itself.
The word “trend” first arose as an economic term, used to describe shifts in financial markets. Today, “trend” appears on the cover of almost every fashion magazine each month, and seemingly anything can be said to be “trending” on Twitter and other social media websites. Trend-forecasting companies such as WGSN have made researching and predicting trends a profitable business, and are now integral to the fashion industry. Yet as we move further into the 21st century, specific trends seem increasingly hard to define. The advent of fast-fashion, the internet, and social media have created a global environment where fashion trends emerge and disseminate in faster and more complex ways than ever before. By looking back at the multifaceted and dynamic history of trends, Trend-ology aims to help visitors gain insight into the current state of the trend cycle.
Curated by Emma McClendon and Ariele Elia, the exhibition features over 100 objects from the Museum’s costume, accessory, and textile collections. Themes highlighted include 18th-century court dress, the rise of the couturier in 19th-century Paris, hip hop fashion, and more recent developments related to blogging, fast fashion, and social-media networking. The show features designs by Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Rei Kawakubo, Jean Paul Gaultier, Helmut Lang, Martin Margiela, and Opening Ceremony, to name a few. Also on view is a video produced exclusively for Trend-ology, featuring interviews with fashion insiders Simon Doonan, Carol Lim of Opening Ceremony, and Kenzo, Saul Lopez Silva of WGSN, and many others.
Media
Schedule
from December 03, 2013 to April 30, 2014