In Metropolis, the phrase "The mediator between the hand and the brain must be the heart" has become a classic. Given Lang's dystopian hopes for technological progress, it's natural to paraphrase the phrase: 'The mediator between man and machine must be the human heart.' '" Bolton added.

"Manus x Machina: Fashionin an Age of Technology" fits the zeitgeist perfectly. Now, just as people think that all clothing methods have been obsolete by experiments, the emergence of new technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting has brought people hope. Designers such as Nicolas Ghesquiere and Iris Van Herpen are constantly pushing for new technologies to be incorporated into the global ready-to-wear production.

On the other hand, even the haute couture creation, which has always been proud of handmade, has begun to borrow from it frequently. Chanel's fall/winter 2014 haute couture collection is a case in point: the final wedding dress appeared to be made of synthetic materials, without any obvious stitches; The pattern on the floor is full of patterns, but also through the computer synthesis of disorderly patterns, and then time-consuming manual sewing decorative gems, to achieve a pixelated Baroque style effect.

In other words, thanks to new technologies, the distinction between manual creation and mechanical manufacturing is no longer as clear as it used to be; The distinction between haute couture and ready-to-wear is beginning to blur.

"In fact, almost any artistic production creation since the Industrial Revolution has been influenced by this kind of manual/mechanical dualism," Bolton further explains. "Barthelemy Thimonnier from France invented the first sewing machine in 1829, which helped move clothing production from manual to mechanical; Coincidentally, haute couture, the symbol of the highest level of clothing production, was born not long after the mid-19th century. "While couture is all about handwork, houses like Charles Frederic Worth's have developed an international reputation because of the full mechanisation of their production."

The exploration of such dualism forms the main purpose of this exhibition.

Curator Andrew Bolton collects a group of haute couture uniforms and haute couture garments from the 20th and 21st centuries by means of visual comparison. The haute couture uniforms and haute couture garments with similar design forms are divided into a group and classified according to different fashion decoration design techniques. It is convenient for the audience to carefully compare the similar and distant final effects between different types of creation.

The exhibition is divided into the following themes.

In The middle of The Robert Lehman Wing exhibition hall, a group of installations composed of grey cloth samples are placed, symbolizing the initial stage of clothing creation.

In the production of clothing, designers often use less expensive grey cloth to make a preliminary sample, in order to have a clearer understanding of the transformation of the garment from a flat sketch to a solid object.

However, for advanced customization (in the case of asymmetric morphology), the grey cloth sample required by it needs to be a complete piece; The blank fabric of symmetrical garments, however, only needs the right half.

The four sides of the exhibition hall are divided into categories according to the method of garment making: Pleating, lace weaving, feather or leather craftsmanship, embroidery and fake flower decoration, which often appear in the creation of clothing, play the role of embellishment and beautification of the technical means, whether it is haute couture or haute couture design must rely on tools, but different technologies for the interpretation of these concepts and presentation effects, but often vary.

The other exhibition hall, Anna Wintour Costume Center, is designed to look like a traditional haute couture fashion house, focusing on the aspects of tailoring and tailoring, leading the audience to have a glimpse of the handicraft workshop that is difficult for ordinary people to access.

There are more than ten exhibits under each theme, and most of the choices are more reasonable. In the grey cloth sample clothing unit, there is naturally Martin Margiela's spring/summer 1997 "Semi-couture" series, which blurred the boundary between clothing and human form, and Dior's autumn/winter 2005 haute couture series, which symbolizes the appearance of tailor-made deconstructed design.

In the pleating unit, Mariano Fortuny, MadameGres, MaryMcFadden, Issey Miyake such designers who are known for creating fine pleats have appeared, and Helmut Lang, Dior and other designers or brands have a different look.

And some of the exhibits seem a little out of place. Hussein Chalayan's "LED" dress was included by the curators in a group of embroidery, featherwork and fake flower decorations.

While we can vaguely understand Bolton's message about the evolution of dress finish from tradition to the future, Chalayan's luminous dress is clearly out of place compared to the more obvious texture of the surrounding design; In the unit that reproduces the workshop of the haute couture house, Dior's "New Look" suit is placed together with the electrically controlled mechanical skirt from Chalayan's spring/Summer 2007 collection, but the direct connection between the two seems to be only the extremely thin waist supported by the hemline - so that the discussion of the silhouette of the dress, It was not part of the original theme of the exhibition.

Of course, the audience can still learn something new.

For example, there are striking similarities between Pierre Cardin's 1968 uniform and Junya Watanabe's Autumn/Winter 2015 collection: Both have embossed, raised lattice-like decorations, and the creation method is the same - through high heat, the synthetic fabric containing polyester can be twisted and deformed at will. The two dresses are compared with each other, and we can realize that many clothing styles that seem avant-garde to us at present have actually been designed by predecessors.

The biggest challenge of the exhibition is how to persuade the audience to understand the entanglement between the hand and the machine, and the cultural connotations behind each, without letting people simply understand the exhibition as a show of beautiful clothes.

To this end, Andrew Bolton draws on The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, written by theorist Walter Benjamin in the 1930s.

In this article, Benjamin takes the photography and film works of the early 20th century as an example, pointing out that the emergence of new technologies has made mechanized reproduction possible, and as a result, the previous video art has lost some "aura", and the halo here, It refers to the authority, originality and authenticity of the work when it is not easily copied.

We live in a society where there are often contradictory comments about handmade and mechanical creation: handmade creation is often noble and personal, but also difficult to determine and not very neat; Mechanical manufacturing is neat and efficient, but it is also dehumanized and homogenized.

But should the existence of technology be the limit of people's cognition of creation? Most visitors to the exhibition will be impressed by Yves Saint Laurent's authentic feather suit and IrisVan Herpen's laser-cut silicon feather dress. Also admire Prada's handmade lace dress and threeASFOUR's 3D printing.

So shouldn't people focus more on perfecting the end result and less on the middle?

Andrew Bolton thinks the same thing. In the introduction to the exhibition catalogue of the same name, he goes out of his way to trace the origins of the rule that haute couture must be made by hand: "With the formation of the Chambre Syndicale de laCouture in 1910, the distinction between hand and machine not only became more entrenched in the modern fashion creation system, it became even more institutionalized. This became particularly evident in 1945, when the Guild introduced explicit rules for haute couture handmade creations."

The implication of looking back at history seems to be that the rules on haute couture handmade creations are more of an artificial move to protect France's economic interests and industrial production, and there are specific historical factors in it, but they should not be rigid and unchanged over time.

However, it seems that contemporary designers have long since exceeded this limit. In a follow-up interview with designers on the list, Sarah Burton, Hussein Chalayan, Iris Van Herpen and others discussed their views on how ready-to-wear is becoming more and more like uniforms.

As Karl Lagerfeld puts it: "In the creative process, I never take the initiative to consider whether I follow the same logical laws when designing clothes and uniforms. For me, I'm just constantly looking for what the next new idea is."