Thursday, January 7, 2010

Museum Trip: De Pont & Audax Textielmuseum - Part II

Het Audax Textielmuseum, textilemuseum:
I wanted to go to the Audax Textielmuseum because we were in de neighbourhood anyway (it being only a short walk from De Pont) and there was this little exhibition about Minä Perhonen, a Japanese Fashionlabel.
We weren't allowed to take pictures, so unfortunately I can't really show you much about this exhibtion. I did lend a few pictures from the world wide web, though.
I regret not having bought the catalogue... But then again, since I recently quit my studies because of medical reasons (Yes, it’s true, I did.), I'm not really in the position of buying lots of stuff.

Anyway, to continue with my 'review' of this lovely day-trip...

Even though it was small, I really loved it. Minä Perhonen is a fashionlabel by designer Akira Minagawa, that stands for clothes that are timeless, delicate, playfull and full of little details. Old and new techniques of making fabric, prints and clothes in general are combined in a wayward manner. Also, they are of the opinion clothes should be able to last more than just one season (as usually is the case in regular fashion), and their designs are of such quality (and detail) that they last.

A little fact about Minä Perhonen: The name is Finnish for I, Butterfly and refers to Akira Minagawa's passion for Scandinavian culture and the symbol of the butterfly in the wild.

The exhibition itself consisted of a room with various dresses on plastic models. On the walls lots of squares hung, showing a great lot of fabric samples. in another room there was a low display window (think of a long, low table) displaying drawings and samples of (and for) fabric/print designs. In another room there was a table with some books, flyers, postcards on it (not to be touched) and two videos were being projected on the walls. One showing the label's studio and the other showing a fashion show featuring Minä Perhonen's designs.

In the show one particular outfit caught my eye. I adored it so much. It consisted of a white shirt, a black top over it (it was cut very high, so it only covered the breasts, or stopped above that... the memory is already fading! :(), with black sleeves that started puffy and then continued tightly until the wrists. The model was also wearing a lovely bright yellow skirt. I just can't seem to find a picture of it :(

Some other things I saw at the exhibition:
This coat was on display, I thought it absolutely gorgeous. I was sold the minute I took my eyes from a fabric sample (the white version of the lower parts of this black coat), and looked at this.
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Notice the print on the fabric used in this dress, it are sketched horses and little blue dots! A part of the exhibiton was dedicated to fabric/print design, and that's where I saw the print the first time. Only when I saw the dress I realised they actually use the lovely quality of sketches in their actual dresses!
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Pretty deep blue coat with lovely white circles. It's maybe not a big deal, but I love the button holes being carefully placed right in the middle of the circles.
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During the fashion show projected on the wall of one of the rooms, as mentioned earlier, I also saw this dress, the sleeves are very elegant, the print very playful. Note the edge of the skirt? It's interesting to see that not everything is neatly sown etc, which might also be considered boring, but kept 'rough', 'unfinished', to add to that playful look and make the dress a little less formal, more cheerful.
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Also, I saw this lovely fabric design, featuring white seagulls in a bright blue sky. Isn't it just wonderful? I absolutely adore Minä Perhonen for (literally) using lovely sketches like these for prints....
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I saw the paper design for the print used in this dress. It's like a mozaik of tiny pieces of paper.
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While searching the internet for pictures of Minä Perhonen's designs, I came across this bag. Isn't it just fabulous? Every girl should have a handbag in the shape of a bird.
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Or a rabbit one.
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And, last but not least. All hail sharpies.
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These pictures are all copyright of Minä Perhonen.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for visiting the Textile Museum and writing about our exhibition on Mina Perhonen!

    ReplyDelete