Los Angeles — Highlighting over one hundred examples of contemporary fashionable dress from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Permanent Collection examines the work of approximately fifty international designers who have challenged the traditional rules and conventions established by venerable European fashion houses. The exhibition examines radical ideas introduced in four areas of contemporary fashion: construction, materials, form, and concepts. Breaking the Mode opens at LACMA on September 17, 2006, and remains on view through January 7, 2007.
Co-curated by LACMA’s Costume and Textiles Department Senior Curator and Department Head, Sharon S. Takeda, and Curator Kaye D. Spilker, Breaking the Mode illustrates how designers of the 1980s and 1990s rebelled against the principles that ruled 1950s high fashion. The exhibition features designers Azzedine Alaïa, Hussein Chalayan, James Galanos, Rei Kawakubo, Christian Lacroix, Hervé Léger, Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Franco Moschino, Thierry Mugler, Junya Watanabe, Vivienne Westwood, and Yohji Yamamoto, among many others.
Throughout history, the ideal body and silhouette have changed, and so too have the clothes that adorned them. During the first half of the twentieth century, an hourglass figure was most coveted, and designers like Christian Dior used construction techniques—cutting, layering, boning, and stitching—to give a rigid form, and a narrow waistline to the garment. Decades later, designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Hussein Chalayan would be the new breed of fashion pioneers who redefined beauty in silhouette and technique.

Essential to this fashion revolution were advancements in textile technology. Rather than relying solely on tailoring techniques, designers could now create dimensional garment shapes utilizing synthetic fibers and innovative processing methods. No longer did they create garments to shape the contours of the body; now, the body would give shape to the dress, while still other clothes would be independent of the body’s form all together. This next generation of garments included Azzedine Alaïa’s Butterfly Dress (1992), made of fabric that molds to the individual wearer’s body, and Issey Miyake’s dramatic Pao Coat (1995), created from heat-and-pressure-set pleated polyester.

In addition to exploring modern technology, contemporary designers pushed the conceptual limits behind their creations by referencing historical fashion or creating fashion as art. Vivienne Westwood’s Mini-Crini collection from the 1980s was inspired by petticoats of the nineteenth century, while Christopher Bailey’s Cropped Trenchcoat (2003) for Burberry, Martin Margiela’s Dissolving Trenchcoat (2006), and Junya Watanabe’s Modified Trenchcoat Jacket and Skirt (2006) for Comme des Garçons all referenced the officer coats of World War I. Other designers illustrate the blurring lines between fashion and art, such as Issey Miyake, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, and installation artist Andrea Zittel.

The design of clothing—for protection, profession, or spectacle—has shifted dramatically throughout the past twenty-five years. Breaking the Mode presents those designers who were at the forefront of this movement—those who introduced subversive elements into the system, examined and deconstructed its entrenched conventions, and changed the rules about what is aesthetically pleasing and fashionable.

Program:
Lecture by Pamela Golbin, Musée de la Mode et du Textile, Palais du Louvre
Monday, October 9, 2006
7 pm, Bing Theater
Pamela Golbin, Curator of the Museum of Fashion and Textiles at the Louvre, Paris, will speak at LACMA in conjunction with Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Permanent Collection. Golbin is an expert on post-World War II fashion, especially French haute couture. Her recent books include Fashion Designers (2001) and Balenciaga (forthcoming, September 2006). Admission is free.

Credit:
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and was supported by the museum’s Costume Council. In-kind support was provided by Neiman Marcus.

Also on view in Los Angeles:
Skin + Bones: Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture will be on view at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) from November 19, 2006 through March 5, 2007 at MOCA Grand Avenue. The exhibition examines the many visual and conceptual principles that unite fashion and architecture from the period of 1980 to the present, and includes approximately forty architects and fashion designers from the United States, Europe, and Japan. Fashion designers include Hussein Chalayan, Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen, Olivier Theyskens for Rochas, Narciso Rodriguez, Ralph Rucci, and Yohji Yamamoto, among others. Architects include Shigeru Ban, Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Greg Lynn FORM, and Toyo Ito, among others. For press information at MOCA, contact John Hindman at 213 621-1750, jhindman@moca.org, or Rebecca Taylor at 213 621-1749, rtaylor@moca.org.

About LACMA: In April 2006, Michael Govan became CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He is the seventh person to hold the position of Director in the museum’s 41-year history. Established as an independent institution in 1965, LACMA has assembled a permanent collection that includes approximately 100,000 works of art spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present, making it the premier encyclopedic visual arts museum in the western United States. Located in the heart of one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, the museum uses its collection and resources to provide a variety of educational and cultural experiences for the people who live in, work in, and visit Los Angeles. LACMA offers an outstanding schedule of special exhibitions, as well as lectures, classes, family activities, film programs and world-class musical events.

LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles CA, 90036. For more information about LACMA and its programming, log on to www.lacma.org.

Museum Hours: Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, noon–8 pm; Friday, noon–9 pm; Saturday and Sunday, 11 am–8 pm; closed Wednesday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Call 323 857-6000, or www.lacma.org for more information.

General LACMA Admission: Adults $9; students 18+ with ID and senior citizens 62+ $5. Admission (except to specially ticketed exhibitions) is free every evening after 5 pm, the second Tuesday of every month, and for children 17 and under.

Please note: LACMA is free every evening after 5 pm.