Earlier today I attended an awesome event regarding metal as clothing called “Heavy metal”. As a group of 6, we got a a very personalized small tour from the exhibit curator herself, Samantha Stern. Samantha is very interested in metal as fashion, which stemmed from her interest in collecting metal purses while she was younger.

Before we began our tour of her exhibit, we got to see one of her pieces below. It is made from brass, and is extremely heavy. The fact that is is “unwearable” yet considered fashion was strange yet interesting for me.

Samantha Stern ‘Malevolent Empowerment’

After this piece, we got to see the real exhibit. I really enjoyed getting to see the various uses of metal in fashion throughout history. The first piece we saw was hidden metal, or metal beneath/in clothing used to shape apeparance. I thought this was pretty neat because of how prominent metal was to change appearance and how little it exists now. Although dangerous, it is hard to say if it is more or less dangerous than plastic surgery, which is used to alter appearance today.

Hidden Metal

Below are some early on pieces. What I really liked from this was the item 2nd from the left. It is a ‘throwaway’ dress made from aluminum foil. So, it would be worn several times, then just discarded and not washed. This idea was a new concept to me, and it seemed quite funny. It’s really no different from very cheaply made clothing today, but the fact that it was metal made it interesting.

Very early on Pieces

Below are are pieces made from gold. This was really cool to learn about that you could make something so delicate and intricate from a metal. Although very cool, the several thousand dollar price tag made it less appealing.

Pieces made from Gold

Lastly, the below was my favorite item because it was another unwearable dress. It looks like it was made from the tops of soda cans which seemed funny, and why I won’t ever understand fashion. Additionally, it ws extremelty heay, so it did not make sense to wear. However, that didn’t stop people from trying, as it was shown on the runway with a nude model underneath. Very different from today!

Unwearable soda dress

Overall, I thought this was a great even because of the personalized tour we received from Samantha. She was very friendly and took the time to tell us all of the interesting facts about each piece.