© 2024 Manic Metallic When we think of San Francisco, many of us think of radical protests, radical music, and radical acceptance of different cultures. But, the de Young Museum argues, San Francisco also has a radically good fashion history. In Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style, the Herzog & de Meuron-designed institution…
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@ 2024 Manic Metallic Who really holds power when it comes to creative professions? Is it the artists, with all of their trial-and-error over countless years to see what styles, media, and forms work best for the type of art they want to produce and the vision they wish to execute? Is it the…
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© 2024 Manic Metallic When we think of San Francisco, many of us think of radical protests, radical music, and radical acceptance of different cultures. But, the de Young Museum argues, San Francisco also has a radically good fashion history. In Fashioning San Francisco: A Century of Style, the Herzog & de Meuron-designed institution…
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@ 2024 Manic Metallic Who really holds power when it comes to creative professions? Is it the artists, with all of their trial-and-error over countless years to see what styles, media, and forms work best for the type of art they want to produce and the vision they wish to execute? Is it the…
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© 2024 Manic Metallic Did you know that creating a green dye for clothing used to be virtually impossible centuries ago - and that at one point in history, there was a version of the color's dye that was so toxic that it caused skin blistering, vomiting, and death? We're referring to Paris green,…
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Photo © 2023 Manic Metallic Couture is a fashion art form that is typically thought of as existing only inside of French borders; indeed, the French began to legally protect the practice of “haute couture” in 1945. Governed by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture (which also gets to decide what companies qualify…
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Much has been made about Gucci Garden since its opening in 2011 in Florence. Formerly known as the Gucci Museum, it was re-christened under its new name in 2018 by the Alessandro Michele-led Gucci. The Gucci Garden complex contains a host of exhibition spaces (the centerpiece of the museum), a boutique where one can…
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Tom Ford-designed exhibition vignette. (Benjamin Imhoff for Manic Metallic) “In America: An Anthology Of Fashion” - currently on display in the American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York - is the museum's second installment of a two-part series meant to shine a spotlight on American fashion and all that it…
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"Ravishing: The Rose In Fashion"; © Manic Metallic 2021 “Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? …O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By Any Other Name would smell as sweet" Romeo and Juliet, Act-II, Scene-II,…
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"In America: A Lexicon Of Fashion"; © Manic Metallic 2021 “America is not like a blanket- one piece of unbroken cloth. America is more like a quilt- many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven together by a common thread.” Rev. Jesse Jackson, 1984 Democratic National Convention It is from this speech…
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ILLUME exhibit, designer retail section; © Manic Metallic 2021 The Illume fashion exhibition, centered around the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator (PFI), is currently being hosted at the InLiquid Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. The exhibit is broken into two portions: the primary portion is a retrospective on the work of previous Philadelphia Fashion Incubator participants over…
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House of Schiaparelli headpiece. Photo © Manic Metallic 2019 Camp is an indefinable fashion concept. The 2019 Met Costume Institute spring exhibition sought to define it somewhat, which is no small task. Enter Susan Sontag. As a writer, she took on the herculean task of doing this in 1964; her work "Notes On 'Camp'"…
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