Wearable art, also known as Artwear or "art to wear", refers to art pieces in the shape of clothing or jewellery pieces. These pieces are usually handmade, and are produced only once or as a very limited series. Pieces of clothing are often made with fibrous materials and traditional techniques such as crochet, knitting, quilting, but may also include plastic sheeting, metals, paper, and more. While the making of any article of clothing or other wearable object typically involves aesthetic considerations, the term wearable art implies that the work is intended to be accepted as an artistic creation or statement. Wearable art is meant to draw attention while it is being displayed, modeled or used in performances. Pieces may be sold and exhibited.
Wearable art sits at the crossroads of craft, fashion and art. The modern idea of wearable art seems to have surfaced more than once in various forms. Jewellery historians identify a wearable art movement spanning roughly the years 1930 to 1960. Textile and costume historians consider the wearable art movement to have burgeoned in the 1960s, inheriting from the 1850s Arts and Crafts.
It grew in importance in the 1970s, fueled by hippie and mod subcultures, and alongside craftivism, fiber arts and feminist art. Artists identifying with this movement are overwhelmingly women. In the late 1990s, wearable art becomes difficult to distinguish from fashion, and in the 2000s-2010s begins integrating new materials such as electronics.
History
Origins
The wearable art movement inherits from the Arts and Crafts movement, which sought to integrate art in everyday life and objects. Carefully handmade clothing was considered as a device for self-articulation and furthermore, a strategy to avoid the disempowerment of fashion users and designers by large-scale manufacturing.
The term wearable art emerges around 1975 to distinguish artworks made to be worn from body art and performance. It was used alongside the terms Artwear and "Art to Wear". An artistic movement primarily based in the United States due to a combination of financial and educational support, it found echoes in fiber and feminist arts around the world.
In the United States
In the United States, the Wearable Art movement can be traced to the early twentieth century American Craft Revival. The American Craft Revival draws on different movements seeking to unify art and craft and empower craftspersons and artists such as Japonisme, Art Nouveau, the Vienna Secession and later the Bauhaus. During and shortly after World War Two, wealthy patrons set up educational and museum institutions, in particular the American Craft Council and the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, to support the renewal of crafts education. It enabled artists focused on crafts to support themselves and train new generations. For instance, famed Bauhaus weaver Anni Albers taught weaving at Black Mountain College from 1938, before chairing the craft department of California College of Arts and Crafts from 1960 to 1976.
Art schools were essential to the development of the Art to Wear movement. In the late sixties, a group of students at Cranbrook Academy of Art and the Pratt Institute began integrating textile techniques in their design projects. They counted among their ranks several major figures of the Art to Wear movement, including designer Jean Cacicedo. The best known galleries supporting Wearable Art were Obiko (founded in 1972 by Sandra Sakata) in San Francisco, and Julie: Artisans' Gallery (founded in 1973 by Julie Schafler-Dale) in New York.
Outside the United States
Crafts and art education being more separated outside of the United States, it is harder to identify wearable art as an independent artistic movement. However, renewed interest in traditional textile crafts such as shibori dyeing sparked the interest of artist worldwide.