April 21, 2016
#techstyle: An exhibit at the MFA, Boston
Fashion and technology meet in a new exhibit curated by Dr. Michelle Tolini Finamore ’91 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibit, called #techstyle, includes a dress embedded with LED panels that can receive and display tweets and a dress that responds to environmental conditions, changing color based on heat, light, and wind pressure.
Photographs, illustrations, and video are incorporated in the 60-piece exhibit, which highlights the museum’s collection of contemporary fashion — including a skirt and cape created on a 3-D printer. That outfit was designed by Iris van Herpen and Neri Oxman, a professor at MIT’s Media Lab, for Paris Fashion Week in 2013.
“It is a very cool object,” said Finamore.
“We’re in an exciting moment when it comes to fashion,” added Finamore. “Fashion designers are collaborating with computer technologists, with mathematicians, with code creators. There’s an incredible energy and dynamism. We’re working with known contemporary designers and some young designers who are really changing the way we approach fashion today.”
A previous exhibit curated by Finamore, Hollywood Glamour: Fashion and Jewelry from the Silver Screen, featuring dresses worn by Marlene Dietrich, Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo, and Joan Crawford, drew 102,000 visitors to the museum over six months in 2014 and 2015.
#techstyle opened March 6 and runs through July 10, 2016
