Advertisement

Lifestyle

Print it!

Fashion stays the same. It’s just the prints that change. If you’re looking for evolution on the retro-grade carousel of style, forget silhouette and construction and look to textiles.

Take the recent round of Fall 2011 menswear shows for example. There was nothing revolutionary about the shrunken, cutaway shape of Junya Watanabe’s blazers but their Fair Isle knits made them must-have fresh. Or how about the mohair coat in the collection of print master-plus Dries Van Noten? Its royal blue shoulders Rothko-bleeding into a base of grey makes you want to frame it and hang it if only you didn’t want to wear it threadbare.

The power of the print is part of a new fashion exhibit in the Royal Ontario Museum‘s Patricia Harris Gallery.

Riotous Colour, Daring Patterns displays over 120 clothing pieces and swatches from the 18th though the 21st centuries and, according to curator Alexandra Palmer, demonstrates that “the desire to look smart has driven many of humankind’s technical advances.”

The opening vignette is my favourite. Long before Joe Fresh was pushing fast fashion at your local Loblaws, supermarkets and

drugstores were selling paper clothing. These flat-packed, shrink-wrapped, sack-like frocks with labels like “Fling Things” made

up for their disposable material with bold prints. The examples at the ROM feature op-art patterns and photo-transfers of killer sharks and cityscapes. The pieces are playfully arranged next to a newsprint dress from John Galliano’s Fall 2000 collection for Dior.

Another display focuses on the evolution from screen-printing to digital textiles. Kudos to Palmer for placing a Jean Paul Gaultier

sheer dress screened with Fouquet’s Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels next to a pair of Trudeau print knickers by Victoria B.C.’s Smoking Lily Studio.

There are also pattern-dyed kimonos and dresses from Africa and Asia and 19th century day dresses printed with wood blocks and engraved rollers. And there’s yardage of the mineral specimen silk Jeremy Laing created for Fall 2007, which satisfyingly

suggests that when it comes to textiles, Canadians can print with the best of them.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.