How we dress influences how we are perceived. The exhibition UNLABEL - Fashion beyond categories, conceived and realized by ZHdK students, uses current positions of fashion designers to encourage us to question stereotypical gender identities.
Clothes make the man: for a long time now, people have no longer just wrapped themselves in fabrics to cover their bodies or protect themselves from the wind and weather. Fashion is also always a means of self-expression, a means of demarcation and a projection surface for social constructs. The understanding of "gender" is therefore subject to social, political and cultural attributions. Corresponding norms - which become visible in fashion - change over time and develop differently depending on the social context. What clothing is considered masculine or feminine and how can such attributions be rethought? The exhibition UNLABEL - Fashion beyond categories examines this on the basis of current works by eight fashion designers and artists who confront conventional gender norms with alternative designs and concepts.
Deconstruct, analyze, try out
The accompanying educational program invites visitors to explore the topic in greater depth: Zurich fashion designer Sandra Kuratle designs skirts together with visitors and examines these designs for gender-specific characteristics. Participants will also experience for themselves how clothing influences their relationship to their own bodies: in the movement workshop with performance artist Miriam Coretta Schulte or by trying on selected items of clothing in the exhibition. In a panel discussion, the cultural, historical and economic background to the exhibition will be explained with invited guests on the basis of a market analysis of the fashion industry.
Details of the educational program with workshops and talks can be found on the website of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich.
museum-gestaltung.ch
