the bridge - cybercouture.com

CLOTHES AS PUBLISHING EDITION # 8
cybercouture
the bridge
The Contributors
Cybercouture.com presents the new edition of its publishing series
“The Bridge” in New York and Paris this fall, 2002. Pia Myrvold, the
founder, artistic director and head designer has put together an
incredible team for all the different aspects of this production.
The main collaboration is with Karim Rashid for a collection of
three parts: Hypermix, Slow Tech and Cyberware.
The music for the show is made together with Nile Rodgers,
and the three tracks correspond to the parts of the collection.
The music will be presented in the multimedia presentation and
videos in the editorial section of the site.
In this booklet author Bradley Quinn has written an article about
cybercouture; fashion and technolgy.
The development of the website’s Interactive Design Studio is made
together with Phil Wood and Spill of Paris; the animations are made in
collaboration with Nevins Duret.
The video images for the show and corresponding music clip is edited with
Obie Benz.
The graphic design of this booklet is by Laurent Laborie and Gunhild Vaaland.
The printing of this booklet is done in Norway by Bryne Offset.
edition # 8
the bridge
Editor’s note
In every edition of cybercouture I try to work on a concept
that unifies the differences and points of view of the
contributors. This time it is "The Bridge," a place or a space
I want to define where different past experiences are
gathered, in a moment, into a future we still do not
understand. What I seek is the creative potential, in culture,
in human kind, and the people that practice the search for
creative potential in their respective domains -- in their
own world and in our collective world. Two pillars of this
Bridge are Karim Rashid and Nile Rodgers, artists who
consistently show us the possibilities, and who are less
worried about limitations. They are working in and on
the communication and the sharing of ideas, across
boundaries, across nationality or opinion, they simply
believe in joy as a way to unify us all.
Virtually, this Bridge is open to everyone,
we just need to take part.
Pia Myrvold
THE NAVIGATION OF CYBERCOUTURE.COM IN INTUITIVE AND EXPLORATIVE.
COVER IMAGES: «THE MAKING OG EVE» BY PIA MYRVOLD / NEVINS DURET
Cybercouture.com Clothes as Publishing
CCyber
HYPERMIX
CYBERWARE
&
SLOW TECH
About the collection
Cybercouture Spring Summer 2003
is divided in three themes.
Hypermix and Cyberware are using
innovative tools and technologies to
produce highly complicated prints.
Break-throughs in small-batch
digital printing to fabric and
innovative methods of customization permit cybercouture’s
couturiers to assemble unique
garments. This allows for a
collection of highly individual prints,
draped on the body, like a sculpture
or art piece, which can be produced
on a per-order basis. It offers a
completely new level of quality to
consumers: one-of-a-kind couture
at ready-to-wear prices.
Slow Tech is called as such
because it uses normal production
techniques. It is a complementary
jeans collection, with details that
derive from Karim Rashid’s
Iconographs.
All cuts is designed by Pia Myrvold
CYBERCOUTURE BY PIA MYRVOLD / KARIM RASHID IMAGES: KARIM RASHID
Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid is an Industrial
Designer. His perspective and
clients are global and he
considers himself a pluralist
doing projects ranging from
products, interiors, fashion,
furniture, lighting, and art
installations. He received a
bachelor of Industrial Design in
Canada and Postgraduate
studies in Italy.
He worked for seven years at
KAN Industrial Design and
designed the Babel Fashion
Collection. In 1993 he opened
his own studio in New York City
with clients such as Prada,
Issey Miyake, YSL, Umbra,
Nambé, Magis, Edra, Frighetto,
Herman Miller, Sony, Idee,
Shiseido, Giorgio Armani, Leonardo,
Totem, Nienkamper, Yahoo,
Zerodisegno, among others. He has
won many awards including the 2001
Canadian Design Hero Award, 1999
George Nelson Award, Philadelphia
Museum of Art Collab Award 1999,
Daimler Chrysler Award 1999,
Brooklyn Museum of Art Designer
Award 1998.
His work is in Permanent collections
of 14 Museums and is published
internationally. He exhibits art at
Sandra Gering Gallery and Deitch
Projects in New York. He was an
associate Professor in Industrial
Design for 10 years and also writes
for many design periodicals. His new
monograph is ‘I Want to Change the
World‘ (Rizzoli, 2001).
DIGITAL FILES FROM THE HYPERMIX COLLECTION BY PIA MYRVOLD / KARIM RASHID.
DIGITAL FILES FROM THE HYPERMIX COLLECTION BY PIA MYRVOLD / KARIM RASHID.
Cybercouture.com is constantly researching new and innovative ways to produce and distribute
fashion, as well as ways to keep artistic and design qualities intact in each garment.
DIGITAL FILES FROM THE DIGITAL NATURE PROJECT: KARIM RASHID / WOLF GORDON.
DIGITAL FILES FROM THE CYBERWARE COLLECTION BY KARIM RASHID.
These files show how all the graphics are designed before being printed to fabric in small and
customizable batches. Adjustment to patterns and size are done digitally before the fabric is printed.
PALETTE CITY IDENTITY BY PIA MYRVOLD
: the interactive design studio
The Interactive Design Studio is
a fashion tool created by Pia
Myrvold as part of her work as
a fashion designer. Pia Myrvold
believes that clients today see a
reason to be involved in the creative process of design, and
she links the content of the art
projects developed in cybercouture as palettes, where a client
can pick their favorite artist or
contributor and co-sign their
own design. In this edition,
there is one dress, with 3
palettes, 5 sizes, two necklines
and two dress lengths. All in all
that offers about 18,000 unique
possibilities in the atelier. The
ambition of cybercouture is to
add more shapes and palettes
from diverse talents and to
incorporate smart, electronic or
intelligent fibers. It is not hautecouture, it’s cybercouture!
PALETTE HYPERMIX BY KARIM RASHID
Cybercouture.com
Cybercouture: Fashion and Technology
feature several different motifs - the sleeves
can be made in one print and the body in
another. Once the selections have been
made, clients include their measurements and
email their orders to the Cybercouture workshop, where skilled craftspeople make the
garments according to specification and ship
them almost immediately. As Cybercouture
expands to include a selection of ready-towear separates in the beginning of 2003,
these will be available in the boutique section
of the website.
by Bradley Quinn
The manifesto of fashion’s future could have
been written by Pia Myrvold, whose collections turn the icons of modern technology into
wearable couture. For her spring/summer
2003 collection, ‘The Bridge’, Myrvold collaborates with Karim Rashid to launch three prêta-porter labels: Hypermix, Slow Tech and
Cyberware. ‘The Bridge’ is the eighth edition
of Myrvold’s ongoing ‘Clothes as Publishing’
project and features a range of Rashid’s
design motifs against a quadraphonic background of Nile Rodger’s sound compositions.
Myrvold is originally from Norway and established her interactive design studio in Paris;
‘The Bridge’ is characterised by the
Scandinavian simplicity and Parisian tailoring
that have become her design signature. The
collection features a distinctive utilitarian and
futuristic prêt-a-porter line that blurs the
boundaries between street style and formal
attire, meeting the needs of the everyday
casual wardrobe.
The interactive possibilities of the Internet and
the multi-media potentials of fashion inspired
Myrvold to inject clothing with the technological innovations of the twenty-first century
lifestyle. Through exploring the synergy
between digital video, electronic music and
computer-aided design, Myrvold pioneers new
relationships between fashion and technology
that creates new information-based approaches to clothing. This departure from conventional fashion circulates the concepts behind
each collection simultaneously with the
clothes, generating an understanding of each
garment’s value beyond the wearability of its
design.
Myrvold is best known in North America for
her Cybercouture collection, launched at the
autumn/winter 2001 New York Fashion Week.
Cybercouture will go online this fall at
www.cybercouture.com, an interactive website
where fashionistas can select prototype garments and create their own customised
wardrobes. Each Cybercouture garment is initially displayed in white for visitors to drag fabric prints onto, rendering a scaled view of how
the pattern will appear. Garments can even
Cybercouture is a fashion collection, but it is
also interactive project. Through cybercouture.com Myrvold has established a platform
in which to merge fashion with ideas reflecting
art, architecture, theory and music. The website’s editorial space encourages a critical dialogue reflecting a wide range of issues, creating a forum where prominent artists, writers,
musicians and theorists can communicate
their ideas visually through the patterns and
This method draws the wearer closer into the
design process, reducing the traditional
degree of separation between designer and
consumer. The wearer’s direct involvement in
the garment’s construction turns the interactive platform into a hands-on creative process,
inverting the traditional principle of authorship
as the designer no longer assumes full
responsibility for the finished product. Part of
this process dislocates the immediacy that
characterises contemporary fashion, giving
the wearer a means of gradually customising
their wardrobe according to specific tastes.
While conventional fashion restricts the wearer to a few ranges of mass-produced looks
and limited sizing, Myrvold’s approach
emphasises individuality. Cybercouture
designs are made to suit a broader range of
body types and shapes than those currently
dictated by conventional beauty ideals.
Internet technology and digital design are the
newest and perhaps the most innovative manifestations of fashion to take shape in the contemporary world. Cyberspace holds the potential to be an extraordinary landscape of
designer collections that lead the fashion
establishment in a fresh direction. Though it
may take time to transcend traditional design
methods and presentation platforms, the
future direction for fashion seems destined to
unfold in an interactive environment. As technology evolves, visionaries like Pia Myrvold
continue to engineer connections and interfaces that promise to bring the fashion world
online for good.
Bradley Quinn is a British writer and journalist who has
worked as a contributing editor for publications on both
sides of the Atlantic. He is the author of ‘Chinese Style’
and his books ‘Techno Fashion’ and ‘The Fashion of
Architecture’ will be released by Berg Publishers in
2003.
ICONOGRAPHICS BY KARIM RASHID
motifs that feature on the clothing. The garment’s manufacturers work in state-of-the-art
design studios rather than in the sweatshop
conditions known throughout most of the
industry, also contributing to the design
process by engaging with the ideas behind
each collection’s theme.
Even a fixed bridge is not static, it vibrates
from the motion of those who dare
venture across.
My bridge has crossed me over into an inner world of
self reflection with endless questions and infinite answers.
What's on the other side? Are we there yet?
How long is it? How many died building it?
How many thrive because of it?
One day I crossed a bridge to
the world of Pia Myrvold.
Let's see where this takes me.
Nile Rodgers
DIGITAL IMAGE «THE MAKING OF THE EYE» BY PIA MYRVOLD / NEVINS DURET
Music is my bridge to a world that has become
greater than the wildest fantasies of my youth.
Like in the film "el Topo" I learned what was in the
souls of great masters through music. It's shown me the soul of
Nelson Mandela in a SOHO restaurant as well as Screaming Jay Hawkins
backstage at the Apollo theater. I've felt the misery of impoverished
peoples and decimated cultures revive their spirits
through the simple act of song.
GLOBAL BRIDGING
I travel everyday
Whether I leave or not,
ENGAGING the world
Like a virtual astronaut
I talk in my language
a visual rappinghood,
a very secretive argot,
that I try to make understood
To bring meaning to
everyone, To design
democratic, Words create
objects. Objects speak words
THAT ARE NOT AUTOMATIC
I see a non-stop amorphous
plastiscape that denotes a world
with no boundary, fluid and transforming,
evolving, morphing, an alchemic foundry
The freedom of material
The metals of fission Transformable,
A digital vision
Space extends itself via organic
modules of repetition,
a continuum of surface
based on an voxel composition
All the notions of objects as singular
are dispelled replaced by an
environment rising out of the ground,
tomorrow??s world is gelled
The continuous white field
surrounded by an aura of fluorescence, to allude to the world of
technology from a digital excrescence,
new vistas form our daily
convalescence Inevitably our entire
landscape will merge and connect
body and space fuse, Object and
environment, No obstacles, just a
collective muse City and town,
Water and ground,
Highway to highway, being to being.
A world worth seeing
I communicate with the ether
I talk with all my mates,
I shape the scape, the Pleasurscape
And connect the virtual gates
London, Tokyo, Milan, New York
All the cites are one in my eyes,
People, places, nature, things
It is a single cultural paradise
Beauty in the cites, Flexible inside,
Soft and colorful, A RAPTUROUS place
to hide I want to love all the time, Love
everyone in our biosphere Keep the
thought powerful Without shedding a tear
Sensual romantic world,
a physical and digital rebirth,
elevating our collective pleasure
One church, one mirth A casual world
we will be, Like Atlantis in the sky and
the sea,One global BRIDGE
we will see
Karim Rashid
Special thanks to the Norwegian Consulate in New York
and the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their
loyal support. Heia Norge!
A very special thanks to Jeffrey Deitch at Deitch Projects for
hosting the show.
Our catwalk sponsor in New York is Wolf Gordon, who gave
us the “Digital Nature” wallpaper by Karim Rashid for the
catwalk runway.
The sponsor for Hypermix and Cyberware is Scanachrome,
Paris, who has worked with cybercouture.com with all digital
prining processes.
Pia Myrvold is a multimedia artist, born in Norway.
She has worked with painting, installation, sculpture, music
and video, beside using fashion as a media among her
other expressions. In 1994 she was invited to show her first
collection on the Official Calendar of Syndicale des
Createurs des Modes, in Paris, and has since shown 14
collections in Paris, exploring fashion and it’s possibilities
as a new media and cultural and artistic expression.
In 1997 she registered the domain name cybercouture.com
as a result of her project “Clothes as Publishing”.
She has since launched the first interactive design collection
“Dada Memory” in 1998 and the first interactive design
studio in cybercouture.com in 1999 with “Dream
Sequences.” Her various works with video, painting,
installation and cybercouture has frequently been exhibited
in major museums and galleries around the world.
She wrote and staged an interactive children play;
“Paintbox” in Norway, 2001 and is currently working on a
new stage play “Female Interfaces” based on interactive
clothes and programmation of space.
Thanks to our sponsors
Pia Myrvold
Entering
In between
Neither here
Not there
Time Suspence
Folds or drapes
Youthful mind
Visit the Ephemeral Body
Futurasmic Intelligence
It is in The interface
Coolness Ocean
Washes Of chemicals
Dissolutions
Dissolvents
Erasing The fixed
Inspiring Movement
Liquid Interpretations
Lucidity
Culture the bridge
Seeing the invisible
being the visible
it is in the crossing
Pia Myrvold
cybercouture.com