Crafting Anatomies: Archives, Dialogues, Fabrications

Description

The human body lies at the centre of our relationship to fashion and textiles. Crafting Anatomies explores how the body has become a catalyst for archival research, creative dialogues and hybrid fabrications in fashion design. Focusing on how our response to the corporeal has shifted over time, the book looks at how it is currently influencing design and socio-material practices. With contributions from a multidisciplinary range of scholars and researchers, Crafting Anatomies examines how new technologies have become integrated with traditional fashion and textiles techniques, bringing together art, science and biomedical approaches. Traversing the cutting-edge of design research, the chapters take us from the forgotten lives of historical garments to the potential of biofabrication to cross the boundaries between skin and textile. Illustrated with 120 images visualising original research, the book reveals how the human body continues to inspire future design, from historical wearables to prosthetic limbs and 3D-printed footwear. In doing so, it provides an inspiring account of how fashion and textile culture now impacts socio-creativity and the formation of contemporary identity.

Katherine Townsend is Associate Professor of Fashion and Textile Crafts at Nottingham Trent University, UK, and co-editor of the Craft Research journal. Rhian Solomon is a Visual Artist questioning materialities of the human body through socially engaged arts practice. Her work draws parallels between skin and cloth, the body and dress to inspire future design innovation. Amanda Briggs-Goode is Head of Department for Fashion, Textiles and Knitwear Design and Professor of Textiles at Nottingham Trent University, UK, and author of several books including Textile Design (2013).

Crafting Anatomies pushes the reader to think about what a body is, what it can do, how it can adapt, and how fashion and textiles supply creative ways to explore such lines of inquiry; and for such reasons, the book should serve as inspiration to those familiar with multidisciplinary methodologies and those looking to challenge the margins of their fields. * Journal of Dress History * This anthology poses a critical, creative, stimulating and timely challenge to textile designers, makers and consumers in the 21st century It is essential reading for students and researchers. Crafting Anatomies provokes, probes and gets inside the tensions that often exist when individuals cross disciplinary boundaries but emerge the richer in all aspects of practice. Crafting methodologies and reflective analysis are celebrated as a form of material intelligence through a series of case studies, archives, exhibition reviews, collaborative science based labs and studios, examining in detail the archived body, the body in dialogue and the fabricated body. Great stuff. * Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK * Crafting Anatomies is a welcome addition to the discourse surrounding the relationship between skin, body and fashion. The editors have successfully brought together an interesting variety of different voices in order to form a stimulating and satisfying bridge between the archive and future technologies. * Lesley Millar, University of the Creative Arts, UK *