Labor of Luxury displays more than 20 high-fashion pieces made and embroidered in India
Tucked around a corner inside the BU College of Fine Arts building on Comm Ave is a room full of colorful fabrics, bedazzled gowns, and high fashion. The beads, sequins, colors, and materials in Labor of Luxury: Embroidery from India to the World, the current exhibition at the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery, reflect the light and fill the space.
Exhibition curator Annette Becker, director of the Texas Fashion Collection, says one of the exhibition’s themes is to highlight and give credit to artisans in India who have created some of the garments that make global high fashion possible. She says most of the hand beading and embroidery seen on famous designers in fashion capitals like New York, Paris, London, and Milan are often work that’s done in India.
According to a sign in the exhibition: “While many luxury designers have developed followings based on these sophisticated techniques, few people realize the cultural and geographic origin of most fashion surface design: India.”
“We really want people to think a step deeper about what they’re seeing with this exhibition,” Becker says. “Not just appreciating the beautiful hand beading and embroidery that make these evening designs really special, but thinking about who executed that work, where they’re based, and how those systems and productions came to be.”
The show features 25 pieces created by Indian and Euro-American fashion artists, including ASHISH, Oscar de la Renta, Naeem Khan, Mary McFadden, Told Oldham, Dries Van Noten, and Vera Wang. Viewers are invited to “explore the creativity, craftsmanship, and labor behind these luxurious creations,” according to the exhibition’s website.
Specific pieces include a dress made from colorful granny squares, a sequined jumpsuit, a pleated and beaded dress, and a bedazzled “USA” sweater.
The show features 25 pieces created by Indian and Euro-American fashion artists, including ASHISH, Oscar de la Renta, Naeem Khan, Mary McFadden, Told Oldham, Dries Van Noten, and Vera Wang.
The items come from the Texas Fashion Collection at the University of North Texas, an archive of about 20,000 high-fashion pieces spanning five continents. The exhibition includes materials from the first Indian designer to be featured in a Paris Fashion Week show, Manish Arora, who also donated some of his runway archive to the show, Becker says.
Lissa Cramer (MET’18), director of BU Art Galleries, is thrilled to host the show, she says, and sees it as an opportunity to bring attention to artistry from Indian design and artists, beyond the name of the designer.
“Everybody knows the name Vera Wang, and we have pieces from [her] in the show,” Cramer says. “But these pieces were made and embroidered, and the sequins were put on in India. So it’s really highlighting that Indian artistry has a real impact on the clothes we wear.”
This jumpsuit by ASHISH, created for the designer’s Fall 2019 collection, appears to be made of crocheted granny squares, with their signature nubby texture created from twisted wool yarns. However, upon closer inspection, each cluster of color is composed of densely stitched sequins on the surface of a woven textile.
The Texas Fashion Collection has purchased some pieces previously presented at Paris Fashion Week, which they did with their modest budget, according to Becker. Compared to American and European creators, Indian makers are not often celebrated in high culture spaces, she adds, which is part of the reason the collection was able to make these purchases.
“It’s really important for me to think strategically about being left out and not just celebrating the Chanels and Diors of the world,” Becker says.
A challenge she encountered when choosing specific pieces for the exhibition was balancing how to challenge visitors intellectually while still considering their expectations for a show. “Getting to work with such an incredibly rich and deep collection is very rewarding,” she says, “but trying to figure out what stories to tell from that can be a real challenge.”
Another aspect of the show: addressing the perception people may have, of India and other countries, about how clothes are made, like using sweatshop labor, which is just “one model of production that could really happen almost anywhere,” Becker says.
“Historically, India has really had a centuries-long tradition of really beautiful hand beading and embroidery, which has really primed it to be the sort of embroidery workshop for the world,” Becker says. “So while there certainly are fast fashion production spaces in India, this elevated production is also happening in that space.”
The exhibition is an exchange between the BU and the University of North Texas art galleries. While BU now has the Labor of Luxury collection, UNT has Victor King’s Ni e Aquí, Ni de Allá (Not from Here, Not from There) exhibition, which BU displayed in the fall. Becker says BU and UNT now have a steady history of trading exhibitions, and the relationship between the two is symbiotic and “benefits everyone.”
“It’s just one way that we can share resources with other universities,” Cramer says. “We’re not building the exhibition from zero. We’re able to share and swap and also share ideas.”
This dress of the New York skyline was created in 1985 by designer Zandra Rhodes.
In the future, Cramer says she hopes to keep any sort of textile exhibition in the rotation of exhibitions that come through. “The really delightful part of exhibitions, and especially ones that feature beading and embroidery like this, is that seeing them in person is something truly special,” Becker says. “So if ever there were an exhibition to see in person, this would be the one to do it.”
Labor of Luxury: Embroidery from India to the World will be at the Faye G., Jo, and James Stone Gallery, 855 Comm Ave, through March 6. After that, students’ pieces will be displayed in the gallery for their thesis shows.