inspiration infusion

After many months of postponing, I finally carved out time to go see the Manus x Machina exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday. It closes September 5th, so run, don't walk and see it! It's beautifully put together of course.

Pictures of all the splendor are all over the internet. Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat are overflowing. So just a few closeups of my favorite textures here and some lovely shadows for your enjoyment. I feel rejuvenated and inspired by all this creativity and can't wait to get back to my stitching!

Iris van Herpen is the star of this exhibit! What an inventive designer! This is black cotton twill hand painted with grey and purple polyurethane resin and iron filings, and then hand sculpted with magnets!

These dresses by Nicolas Ghesquiere are made from celluloid sequins cut into strips by lasers and glued onto tulle, and then hand spray painted after shaping the fabric.

I love the shadows this dress made (costume really). It a dress by Gareth Pugh and it is made from plastic straws, each hand cut and attached individually.

Here's the full creation, see why I think of it more as a costume? It's like some strange bird!

This is the clear straw version of the dress. I love the chevron like pattern that the cuts of the straws create.

This is a close up of a dress by Karl Lagerfeld for the House of Chanel. It is black duck feathers mixed with cellophane.

This is a Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton dress. The flowers are laser cut plastic sewn onto white polyester organdy embroidered with machine made broderie anglaise flowers.

I love the shadow of that skirt combined with the dress form shadow.

This is a close up of the duck dress by Hussein Chalayan. It's pale pink polyester tulle hand gathered and sculpted into tufts. Hussein was inspired by the way in which mountains are formed by erosion and tectonic forces.

I adored the shadows formed by this jacket made from hand cut and hand pieced white leather by John Galliano for the House of Dior. 

This was a truly inspired design by the genius of Issey Miyake. It's custom software-rendered pattern, heat pressed on black recycled polyester, heat stamped with gold metallic foil. This is the start.

Then it unfolds like this.

And is worn like this!

a close up of the gold foil 

And lastly, the only photo I shared on Instagram in my complete overwhelm... It is a close up of another Iris van Herpen dress, this one is hand embroidered with clear thermoformed laser cut acrylic and hand joined with clear silicone connectors.

Here's an article worth reading from the New York Times about the exhibit. I hope the exhibit travels to be seen in other cities!