Poiret: King of Fashion New York, NY 2007

We’ve created two animations commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the exhibition “Poiret: King of Fashion”. The animations use fabric simulation to show how Paul Poiret’s used simple patterns, but used folding and draping to great volumetrically complex pieces. Each animation showing how the pattern was cut out of flat material and then folded is projected on a scrim and then backlit so the actual piece on a mannequin emerges behind the animation is the same alignment.

We worked closely with Christopher Noey and The Costume Institute (Harold Koda – Curator in Charge and Andrew Bolton -Curator) to develop the animations, which show the way in which some of Poiret’s dresses are constructed through very minimalistic means, yet reaching highly complex outcomes.