When fashion borders on art - PUBLIC/PRIVE
February 24, 2004
That beautiful organisation that responds to the name of IFM - Institut Francais de la Mode struck again: the exhibition PUBLIC-PRIVE’ took place at the prestigious Musee Galliera in Paris and the itinerant EVErs were lucky enough to peep in at it: on the cold opening night, January the 28th, we walked in the suggestive location and opened widely our eyes and souls? we felt immediately at home: there was suddenly out there somebody else with the same values: concrete projects supported by an infinite passion: the holy fire of searching beauty and light in a sustainable way: keeping in mind that fashion is as well business (most of us still have to pay for rent and food, until the reincarnation of Lorenzo De Medici shows up) but still fighting all compromises that this normally implies.
The 2003X9 designers (Natalia Brilli, Gaetan Colbert, Andy Liu, Yoko Miyake, Marine Nallet, Victoria Nudelman, Francisco Javier Santamaria, Ynan Shen and EmilyWilliams) are the core of last year International Fashion Design Post-Graduate Program; the aim of the program is synergizing designers, managers and industry through crossover projects; the ultimate attempt to balance left and right brain, boosting the imagination with a shoot of rationality, structuring the expression of emotions. Creator and inspiring sparkle, Franc’Pairon, founder and former director of the atelier La Cambre-Mode(s) in Brussels. She came to IFM in September 1999 to found this new fashion design program at the Master’s level. To date, the program has welcomed 43 designers, more than 300 visiting lecturers and prototypes were developed with 115 French partners companies.
At the Musee Galliera the 9 talented students showcased their prototypes made by 38 partner companies (you see, our same aim, filling the gap between schools and the industry..) : the main hall hosted a long line of floating horizontal corpses bearing differently inspired outfit beneath a high marvellous ceiling and under an everchanging harsh light (beautiful atmosphere, but a real pain to take photos…); very Parisian bartenders were servings drinks in another room where accessories were served as delicatessen on silver platters: gloves pointing at the sky like phallic symbols or praying the god of fashion, lonely boots lying or standing on black shiny gravel and more; the welcome to the exhibition was offered by the video-projection of a beautiful naked woman cast on a longlongblondhaired mannequin (= tailor’s dummy) with a soundtrack of traffic noises; the introduction/explanation of the exhibition was given by the sharply enlighted pages of the catalogue with the comments of the deep, full and meaningful voice of Franc’Pairon. The Catalogue of the exhibition is another strong medium to support the 9 designers, full of information about them, their inspiration, their style, their creativity and a detailed and complete overview of their projects for the MA, as well as many fantastic images (for a copy you can contact Segolene Ferrand, responsible for the IFM communication sferrand@ifm-paris.org )
Walking out of the location, after turning a couple of corners, the Eiffel Tower was facing us in a unusual red gloom: if the Eiffel Tower can change against tradition, the Fashion System might as well: the IFM and the EVErs will keep helping this process…
