AFTER COMB
The present-day revisitation of the 1985 exhibition closes with the Comb installation – so named because its dividers resemble the teeth of a comb. The installation involves visitors in the sequence of steps leading to the finished result, as described in the original accompanying text: from the first sketch, which serves a detailed guide for organizing the various stages of production, through to the finished piece. But the installation also aims to show how these objects, spectacular in both form and material, take on a narrative dimension. Every garment, however perfect or accomplished, needs a body to interpret it and bring it to life, so that it may become an image capable of revealing its full potential when worn
The 1985 installation featured a giant reproduction of Abito di scena (Stage Costume), an editorial published in issue no. 12 (1984) of “Vanity”, the magazine edited by Anna Piaggi, a friend and creative accomplice of Lagerfeld. Here, however, we have chosen to exhibit the original issue of the magazine, a publication that has achieved near-legendary status within contemporary fashion narratives
(2026)
Concluding this section on craftsmanship, treatments and color is a summary of the creative process itself. The image of a garment which arrives in our homes in the pages of a fashion magazine is gradually traced back to its original conception. A photograph of a golden mole fur jacket gives way to the garment itself, then to a single detail: an unfinished sleeve, tacked in place and awaiting further work. From there, the process retraces its steps to the pattern from which it was made, then to the full toile, already marked out in preparation for the final effect, and finally to K.L.’s original sketch. Between that first drawing and the finished photograph unfolds an entire process of creation, invention, technique and execution
(1985)
