Dressing Ourselves

by Alessandro Guerriero (Editor), Alessandro Guerriero

Conceiving a "self-portrait dress" was the charge given to world-famous architects, designers, musicians and artists by Alessandro Guerriero, and the results were an exercise in cross-genre creativity that would stun a traditional runway front row. A winner of Italy's highest award for industrial design, the Compasso d'Oro, Guerriero received sketches from 30 of the most innovative minds in a variety of fields, then recruited design students from Milan's Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti to realize the fashions. A touring exhibition of the clothes, on view originally at the Triennale di Milano and moving to New York, London and Tokyo, displayed the outfits on glass resin sculptures representing the creator in real scale. There are dresses that evoke memories, dresses using reflective materials that change with the light, dresses that explode in waterfalls of multicolored threads, and dresses that dissolve into invisibility. Among the participants were musicians Antony, the Aluminum Group, Jimi Tenor and Devendra Banhart; architects Johanna Grawunder, Hariri & Hariri, Ettore Sottsass, Peter Wilson and Makoto Sei Watanabe; and artists William Alsop, Meschac Gaba, Choi Jeong-Hwa, Mimmo Paladino and Enrica Borghi.

120 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2005