Extreme Textiles

Matilda McQuaid

back to short view

Technical textiles are the favourite subject of curator Matilda McQuaid. The present book, published for an exhibition of the same title shown at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York, classifies textiles by their properties (strong, fast, light-weight, safe and "smart").

Review

The exhibition “Extreme Textiles - Designing for High Performance” was shown at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, from 8th April until 23rd October 2005. It was the first exhibition to present contemporary design concerns specifically through the “lens” of textile fibres and structures. In putting the show together, curator Matilda McQuaid was fulfilling a dream of more than thirteen years’ standing, since she believes that technical textiles are some of the most innovative and purest examples of design today. She writes in the exhibition catalogue: “Industrial fabrics, rarely if ever, are designed for aesthetic effects yet they seem beautiful largely because they share the precision, delicacy, pronounced texture, and exact repetition of detail characteristic of twentieth century machine art.”
The catalogue is subdivided into five themed sections representing characteristics: stronger, faster, lighter, smarter and safer. The catalogue is edited by Matilda McQuaid, with contributions by Susan Brown, John W.S. Hearle, Alyssa Becker, Philip Beesly & Sean Hanna, Cara McCarty, Amanda Young and Patricia Wilson.
The chapter “Stronger” goes into the old basic textile techniques of weaving, braiding, knitting and embroidery, although new fibres and processes are used. The craft of embroidery, for instance, serves as model for custom-made implants used in medicine because this technology allows any direction to be chosen, and implants to be reinforced in different places depending on their function. An example of braiding technique is the Festo fluidic muscle whose full strength unfolds when the braided structure is wetted.
The chapter “Faster” includes an interview with a manufacturer of sailboats who uses composite materials (carbon fibre and polyester resin composites). The company employs carbon fibre twill weaves to give materials greater flexibility.
The chapter “Lighter” describes an ultrasonically welded tubular fabric of stretched yarn, produced on a three-dimensional braiding machine. The multi-axial, multi-ply tubular fabrics are suitable for composite materials required to withstand extremely high loads.
The chapter “Safer” primarily focuses on space clothing, explained by Amanda Young, the curator of space history at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
A particularly interesting chapter is “Smarter” because it includes artists’ work. Maggie Orth, the founder of International Fashion Machines (IFM), is dealing with flexible electronic art. (Maggie Orth was already mentioned in Suzanne Lee's article "High-Technology Textiles" in TF 1/03, page 20) Textile artist Laurie Carlson works with optical fibres and light effects. Rachel Wingfield also works with light, using it in bedlinen and cushions in order to provide new treatments for patients requiring light therapy. Sheila Kennedy integrates light into architecture.
The concluding remark of the exhibition curator is very apt: “Textiles are causing a quiet revolution.” It should be added that this revolution is quiet because it largely takes place behind closed doors in space and military research.

back to short view