An outfit by designer Adam Arnold (photo by Christy Klep)
The design awards have been handed out. The jurors have departed from Portland International Airport, most all of the events have come and gone, and the AIA staff is ready for a nap. But don't turn out the overhead lights just yet. Or if you do, note the mood lighting coming on in its place, for the Form Function Fashion show.
Scheduled for 7PM this Friday, October 29 at the Center for Architecture (403 NW Flanders), the show focuses on how we compose the immediate space around our bodies. It is about structure of built space regardless of scale. Taking its cue from other design disciplines, the show will explore a broader understanding of how the human form and proportion influence design. Does fashion build upon Louis Sullivan's notion that form follows function or does ornamentation have its rightful place enveloping our bodies as we move through architectural space?
"Architecture’s utilitarian focus is on built space to house objects, everyday items and people. It is multifunctional. Clothing, conversely, has one key purpose: to cover the body," says the event's promotional materials. "The way in which it can be done varies from designer to designer as well as from user to user. Here there is an equal interest in the individual and the collection. They only need a human form to bring them to life in everyday wearing."
Form Function Fashion was co-created by Carrie Schilling, one of the two founding principals of award-winning Portland architecture firm Works Partnership, along with Christine Taylor, Josh Elliott, and Lisa Kuhnhausen. "As part of a larger picture, I worked with the AIA this year to broaden the types of events for the A+D festival to include a collection of events that showcase different design disciplines - a film series, a photography event, a written narrative exhibit, and the fashion show," Schilling explains. "I felt that the A+D festival could start to speak to the larger creative industry in Portland if we were open to understanding the cross discipline design influences that occur between fields."
Flyer image from Form Function Fashion show
"There are quite a few parallels between fashion and architecture, but I think the most inspiring is that both fields are so intimately connected to the human form and how we move through and experience the world around us," Schilling adds. "As the schedule took shape, I was thrilled that the fashion show happened to end up as the final festival event. "
Form Function Fashion sought designers like Adam Arnold, Liza Rietz, Dawn Sharp, Emily Ryan and Sword+Fern, all of whom Schilling says have "a strong 'architectural' style to their work: clean lines, strong forms, visual structure, etc. When the designers were contacted, we asked them to look to their collections to find pieces that they felt were the most architectural. In a way, it became a retrospective collection, not necessarily that they needed to create new pieces for this show - though I know a few of the designers are in fact, doing a few pieces just for this event."
Artists Damien Gilley and William Beck has also created a special runway for the show that acts as a spatially and structurally inspired art piece.
Tickets for Form Function Fashion are $20 ($10 for students), part of a fundraising effort for AIA/Portland's Center for Architecture, are available online or at the Center at 403 NW 11th Avenue in the Pearl District.
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