From 5 to 7 June the MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome hosted Critical Fashiona project to highlight the potential of the educational sphere in the development of a critical fashion, using cutting-edge curatorial and artistic works as a means of expression. The conference has become a fertile territory for the discussion of prominent experimental and conceptual practices, thanks to the curatorship of the art historian and curator Dobrila Denegri.
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Mixed media, dimensions variable Conference Critical Fashion, MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome, 2024 Photo by: Natascha Unkart
Fashion criticism at the MACRO in Rome
From 2002 to 2008 Denegri directed the organization of numerous events and exhibitions at MACRO, and today she decides to return here with an idea that she herself defines as courageous: “critical fashion is the title I chose for this conference. More than a defined area of study and set of real practices, it represents a continuously evolving field. From sustainability to inclusiveness and consideration of new technologies. The participants in the talks themselves offered their own definition of the term. Matthew Linde talked about uneducated fashion, a kind of fashion that cannot be dominated through the application of rules”.
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Activism for a critical and distinctive fashion
The curator has brought together international figures in one place to offer new points of view on how to approach fashion, through the added value of art, curatorial experiences and the educational system. During the organization of this conference, Denegri realized the existence of a sort of rhizomatic structure, as if all the disciplines involved worked in their areas without connecting with each other: “the challenge, therefore, was to bring each of them together here in Rome, with the aim of untangling this tangle of varied approaches and formalizations. In the educational environment there is a strong tendency to support extremely conceptual artistic projects, which however, once outside the academic framework, do not find full acceptance and valorisation at an industrial level”. As a result, anything interesting finds it difficult to thrive: “we talked about how these practices can be supported, how the approach in schools can be changed in their favor through new methodologies of teaching fashion, and finally how contexts such as contemporary art museums can become spaces of welcome and flourishing for the codification and reading of these practices. MACRO itself, through their Preventive Imagination project, is demonstrating how all this is possible.”
The designer Yuima Nakazato at the “Critical Fashion” conference at the MACRO in Rome
The Japanese designer Yuima Nakazato it showed how in the fashion industry there are figures who practice this approach at very high levels and bring about a structural change in thinking and producing fashion, while at the same time committing to giving space to young people. Together with a group of supporters, he is creating a foundation that aims to help school leavers become the next Alexander McQueen or Yohji Yamamoto, through a period of training and launch on the path to success that gives a protagonist identity and bearers of the new.
The future of fashion according to Dobrila Denegri
Emerging practitioners are a force that must be supported, because they are capable of moving the system. Otherwise, the risk is to remain stuck in obsolete and conventional mechanisms: “it’s all about changing paradigm, attitude and mindset,” says Dobrila Denegri, “For But it was more interesting and exciting to see these young people, an integral part of this idea of future fashion. One of them said that, through the types of very innovative programs that push outside the usual canons, he understood that a fashion designer is not the one who produces clothes but the one who gives life to a new paradigm of how we must face the world even through clothes. There’s a big difference.” And at a time when finance seems to take over fashion, “we must free our spaces from economic pressure which, although necessary, should not represent the primary parameter during the creation process so as not to stifle freedom of experiment and expression”. There are many paradoxes. We desire innovation, but when it arrives we are not always ready to welcome it as it should.
Towards a critical fashion. The report of the conference at the Macro in Rome
To arrive at real critical fashion, an international and multilevel point of view is fundamental. It must be a synergy of operational areas, from cultural and educational to productive ones: “this is a project that wanted to start with the following quote: ‘Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT)’. For me it represented one of the most beautiful pages of art. A large American telecommunications industry decided to open its doors to the creatives of the time, uniting some of the figures who brought about a substantial change in art in the 60s and 70s. Billy Klüver was the engineer behind this collaborative project. So I asked myself, can we find a new Billy Klüver in the fashion industry? Until we embrace a full idea of collaboration between different types of intelligence”, continuesDenegri, “that humanistic gaze is lost. Based on my experience, I believe that the most progressive ideas in education come from building interdisciplinary teams. I don’t know if we will be able to achieve this, but the intention is to create a sort of think tank based on the same principles as this conference, creating a larger project with greater institutional support for next year.”
Giulia Bracaloni
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