Flare - Is this Craft?
The big Craft vs Art Debate
Now aside from having the excuse to write about a dress (and more to the point, a dress that I don't just want, I need!) 
This dress has also identified the gaping difference between Craft and Art/Design that has previously been blocked from my mind.
The word 'Craft' has taken a knock of late. It conjures up images of thousands of identical soap-stone trinkets that you see at every possible spot frequented by tourists and 'Crafters' are perceived to be Guild members of the non-fashionable variety. South African, up-and-coming 'Somebodies' have adopted more flattering titles such as 'Fabric Artist' that shun 'Craft' in favour of 'design'.
Even the Oxford English Dictionary demonstrates the same elitism that is spreading through the industry:
- Art (n): production of something beautiful; skill or ability; paintings or sculptures etc
- Craft (n): skill, technique; occupation requiring this; cunning, deceit
Up until today I have stood in Craft's corner and championed loudly from my soapbox. Fighting for all the amazing artists and crafters that I know, that make amazing products and inspire me on a daily basis. I am usually the one at arty gatherings bristling at the 'designers' and telling anyone who will listen about the amazing craft that I am lucky enough to see every day.
Even now, I am loath to step onto the 'other side' and renounce my membership.
The love of a new dress can do that to a girl!
This particular dress is handmade, it is lovingly stitched by the designer from a pattern they have cut themselves but this is no different to any number of amazing seamstresses I know. It is made from silk in a warm golden tone and the quality of workmanship and style is excellent. Nothing new there either. Its still craft to me.
Not this dress. *Sigh* and so comes the time for me to step over to the design-side.
This dress is a work of art; design+fashion and not a whisper of 'craft'. Named Flare, the dress is embroidered with LED technology that detects wind so that poetically, when blown, the Dandelions light up. Fashioning Technology author Syuzi has more about it on her blog, but my mind has already imagined a romantic wedding at dusk and just as the breeze picks up your dress begins to twinkle...
For me, it is a clear example of the difference between craft and design/art. It has taken a simple, functional item - the dress, and re-invented it into something totally defined. And it is not just about the technology. Stijn Ossevoort, the designer needs to be commended not only for the concept and beauty but also for the symbolism behind the use of the fabric and most importantly that specific flower. For those who don't share my love of flowers, when Dandelion's go to seed they make the Dandelion Clocks of many a happy childhood. The wind (or enthusiastic child) blows and the little seeds are detached to be carried on the wind.
Intelligent, innovative, unique and handmade. The 'designers' are right. Craft just doesn't do it justice.
