Metallurgic Fashion Sartorial Transformations in Changing Techno-Mediated Worlds

This essay investigates the concept of metallurgic fashion by looking at three designers who have all worked with metals and metallurgic principles: Paco Rabanne’s metal dresses in the 1960s, Alexander McQueen’s harnessed models in the 1990s, and the high-tech alchemical designs of Iris van Herpen since 2007. While ‘following the metals’ in their sartorial transformations, I will investigate the specific techno-media context in which the specific metallurgic designs could come about. I will argue that these fashion designers and the specific metallurgic characteristics of their creations should be read in relation to the technological and media developments in, respectively, the Space Age and the optimism of conquering the future, the darker sides of the collective unconscious explored in the Video Age, and the alchemical transmutations of media and materials in the Digital Age. The fashion designers whose work is explored here demonstrate how their creative work is linked to, investigates and comments on their time.