PRESS RELEASE
07.05.2014
Between illusion and reality: The stocking
ATELIER BRÜCKNER designs exhibition 'Maschen Mode Macher'
The tim | State Textile and Industry Museum Augsburg, Germany, is showing a special exhibition entitled 'Maschen Mode Macher – Deutsche Strumpfdynastien' (Meshes Fashion Makers – German Stocking Dynasties) from 7th May to 26th October. In an exhibition space of 1,000 square metres, ATELIER BRÜCKNER designed a setting for the stocking as a highly erotic product. The show provides an informative insight into the development of the stocking industry and, with the help of machines that are actually running, illustrates the industry's production techniques and methods. 50 large-format pairs of legs enclosed in silky nylon accompany the visitor on a walk through the exhibition. Illusion and reality are rarely found so close together as in these extremely thin pieces of art worn on female skin.
At the centre of the exhibition is a gallery room displaying high-quality fine-meshed stockings from 100 years of fashion history. They are framed as if they were works of art. Large-format topical photographs that show the desired product garnishing the leg feature as background imagery. Shop windows provide a glimpse of past epochs – from the 1920s to the 1990s – with historical clothes and advertising used to convey the spirit of those times.
Via the gallery, the visitor reaches individual cabinets dedicated to the production methods, social history and dynasties of the German stocking industry, which emerged at a time when trade gained increasing importance. Especially at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century they made their names widely known. The family-run companies Esche, Bahner (elbeo), Kunert and Falke are presented as examples, with each one being assigned their own expressive narrative space.
The Esche family set up business in Chemnitz and left behind a villa, a masterpiece of art nouveau designed by Henry van de Velde. The exhibition area, in which original furniture of this villa and pictures of family ancestors are integrated, reverberates the residential milieu of the upper classes. The narrative space portraying the Bahner stocking dynasty shows the company's split production course, which was first taking place in East Germany but then continued very successfully in West Germany after the Second World War. In the Kunert cabinet, the packed-in office furniture of Julius Kunert is a reminder of this significant personality who left a strong mark on the firm, which still exists today as a public limited company. Falke is still owned by the family. Since the 1950s, this energetic brand has drawn attention to itself with prominent advertising campaigns that are addressed by photos from the past, interviews with the managing directors and a stage-managed photo-shooting.
The special exhibition is being shown on the first floor of the museum. On the ground floor, visitors can see the permanent exhibition, which was opened in 2010. Here, ATELIER BRÜCKNER has designed a setting covering 2,500 square metres that tells the history of textile manufacturing in Bavaria as well as the story of the production process from the raw materials to the finished product.
CONTACT
ATELIER BRÜCKNER GmbH
Claudia Luxbacher
Press and Public Relations
T. +49 711 5000 77 126
F. +49 711 5000 77 22
presse(at)atelier-brueckner.com
tim | Staatliches Textil- und Industriemuseum
Provinostr. 46, 86153 Augsburg
Robert Allmann
Press and Public Relations
T. +49 821 81001 512
M. +49 171 788 27 47
robert.allmann(at)tim.bayern.de
www.timbayern.de