It makes sense that ‘SHOW OFF: Austrian Fashion Design’ is huge in scale. It is, after all, the first ever major exhibition of Austrian fashion. Hence, enormous, visually ambitious, displays show the work of 66 designers, 34 photographers, and 250 fashion objects. It’s not just a numbers game, though. Curators Ulrike Tschabitzer-Handler and Andreas Bergbaur balance size and audio and visual spectacle with historical sensitivity as they carefully guide the viewer through five themed spaces about the social and cultural factors shaping Austrian fashion since the 1970s, from fashion education, distribution, and publications to the garments themselves.
Upon entering, the viewer is confronted by talking heads, a video installation showing projections of interviews with agents, stylists, journalists, and managers about Vienna’s fashion scene. This, logically, leads to a look at the fashion department at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (‘die Angewandte’). Since the 1980s, guest professors like Karl Lagerfeld, Jil Sander, Raf Simon, and Vivien Westwood have informed the work of young Austrian designers. This information is blasted at you from either side as you walk a runway framed by two huge LCD screens by projection artists Lumine showing output from the school over the years.
SHOW OFF’s centrepiece is a huge scaffolding-like sculpture designed by architect Gregor Eichinger containing 40 years of clothing, shoes, bags, and jewellery from designers including Helmut Lang, Rudi Gernreich, Andreas Kronthaler, and newcomers like Kenneth Ize. It allows a 360-degree-view, accessible by stairs from several levels. Most importantly, since the Austrian state does not have a permanent fashion collection, the viewer has the unique chance to get close to garments without them being stuck behind glass like traditional museum pieces.
The exhibition ends with two neon-lit glass cases containing examples of fashion publications about or from Austria, including issues of Wallpaper* and i-D from the late 1990s and locally important magazines like Wiener, Take, and INDIE. This not only places Austrian fashion design in the wider context of style shifts in graphic design, photography, and typography, but shows that, though the Alpine republic isn’t the first place you think of when it comes to contemporary fashion, it is more than a museum for classic styles from the past.
INFORMATION
‘SHOW OFF: Austrian Fashion Design’, MAK (Museum of Applied Arts), until 12 July. mak.at
ADDRESS
Museum of Applied Arts
Stubenring 5, 1010 Wien
Austria
-
JW Anderson’s new London store is an inviting emporium of fashion, art and homewareThe idea of curation is at the heart of Jonathan Anderson’s refreshed vision for his eponymous label, one encapsulated in the new Sanchez Benton-designed store on Pimlico Road – a place where the designer’s passions and influences converge
-
Rent this dream desert house in Joshua Tree shaped by an LA-based artist and musicianCasamia is a modern pavilion on a desert site in California, designed by the motion graphic artist Giancarlo Rondani
-
The most comprehensive showing of Nan Goldin’s photographs and films is intense and emotionalNan Goldin's moving-image work makes a heavy impact in ‘This Will Not End Well’ at Milan’s Pirelli HangarBicocca
-
Inside Helmut Lang’s fashion archive in Vienna, which still defines how we dress todayNew exhibition ‘Séance de Travail 1986-2005’ at MAK in Vienna puts Helmut Lang’s extraordinary fashion archive on view for the first time, capturing the Austrian designer-turned-artist’s enduring legacy
-
Scene-stealing runway sets from A/W 2022 menswear showsA Kubrickian space odyssey at Prada; a recreation of the Pont Alexandre III in Paris at Dior; and colourful, artist-created flags at Loewe: explore the best runway sets from the A/W 2022 menswear shows
-
Scene-stealing runway sets from S/S 2022 womenswear showsFrom giant roulette wheels to Olympic diving boards and multi-city synchronized extravaganzas – our pick of the best fashion show sets from S/S 2022 womenswear
-
Milan Fashion Week S/S 2022: ‘Fendace' to FerragamoFashion Week returns to form in the Italian home of style and design. Here is everything you need to know about Milan Fashion Week S/S 2022
-
Jil Sander on the purist principles of her Uniqlo collaborationIn celebration of +J, Wallpaper's quality maniac-at-large Nick Vinson speaks to Jil Sander about her upcoming A/W 2020 collaboration with Uniqlo
-
The aesthetic intimacy of Jil Sander's S/S 2021 collectionCreative directors Lucie and Luke Meier on the ‘purity of image' behind the brand's pared-back spring film, directed by Stephen Kidd
-
Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons rove the digital realm for S/S 2021‘Technology is a part of humanity itself’ said the duo of their live streamed S/S 2021 show
-
Unseen nighttime portraits of Karl Lagerfeld showcased in BerlinCommemorating the one-year anniversary of the influential designer’s death, Hotel de Rome presents a series of unseen photographs exploring Lagerfeld's personal connection with the city
