With UNRAVEL. Knitwear in Fashion, MoMu presents an exhibition about a material that is very familiar to all of us: knitwear. The exhibition will challenge certain established ideas and show that far from being old-fashioned and dowdy- knitting is highly versatile, luxurious and a continuing source of inspiration for high end fashion.
The exhibition will address the important decades of knitwear in fashion, demonstrating knitwear’s popularity both on and off the catwalk, and unravelling the changing status of the relationship between knitwear and fashion. UNRAVEL. Knitwear in Fashion will introduce the visitor to a wide variety of exquisite knitted garments and accessories from across the last centuries, with a focus on high fashion pieces and their vernacular interpretations.
Thematically, it will showcase the various roles knitwear has played in social and fashion (r)evolutions and will address knitwear’s different and fluid association with comfort, wellbeing and chic.
For the scenography of the exhibition and the knitted elements in the entrance hall, the Fashion Museum collaborated with several partners in the knitwear industry. Rotterdambased Bauke Knottnerus, designer of the so-called Phat Knits (large-scale knitted design elements), designed a number of new, unique pieces for the scenography of the exhibition: an enlarged knitwork in dégradé in the entrance hall and an enlargement of one of his sitting elements in the exhibition. The circular forms in these pieces were entirely knitted by the East Flanders knitting firm Cousy, one of the last family companies in Belgium still active in the fashion sector. The yarns for these elements were produced by the Italian thread company Zegna, represented by Woolmark.
In addition to Bauke Knottnerus’ elements, the exhibition also includes large knitted surfaces, also produced by Cousy. Alongside the title of the exhibition, at the entrance to the museum, is the ‘unravelling’ of five large conical spools of wool, on loan from Cousy archives. These are wool leftovers, which many Belgian designers have used in creating fashions. In this way, they represent the collaborative relationships between various participants in the Belgian fashion and knitwear sector.
From 16 March till 14 August 2011 MoMu presents the exhibition UNRAVEL. Knitwear in Fashion
