Akris: St.Gallen, selbstverständlich
Textilmuseum St.Gallen, CH
06.10.2023 – 10.03.2024

If there is a fashion house where fabric and city are rooted, it is at Akris in St.Gallen, the city of embroidery. For 100 years, the only Swiss fashion company with membership in the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode has cultivated its geographical origins. The exhibition "Akris: St.Gallen, of course" locates the house's own signature in this, provides insight into the close collaboration between the fashion house and the St.Gallen textile industry and presents those collections in which the local becomes a reference.

 

THE ST.GALLER COLLECTIONS

When worldwide lockdowns put the shows in Paris on pause and the focus shifts to the near, Akris celebrates its hometown with collections in which designer Albert Kriemler translates St.Gallen's cultural heritage in a surprising way: with St.Gallen embroidery in which the graphic of the roof of the St. Laurenzen church appears. Or with modern patchwork dresses composed of reused archive embroideries from the house. In particular, the collection "A woman on a walk" (autumn/winter 2021), inspired by Robert Walser's story "Der Spaziergang" (1917), becomes a reference in the exhibition.

 

EMBROIDERY WALK

Walking combines moments of reflection and muse, of freedom and escape from fullness. It is only while walking that we think, write poetry and design; this was also the view of the great writer of Swiss literature. The scenography of the exhibition plays with the leitmotif of the walk and those discoveries and sensory stimuli that are a recurring source of inspiration for Albert Kriemler: nature, architecture and the engagement with art - they have all become part of his signature. Based on these worlds of inspiration, "Akris: St.Gallen, of course" stages the most diverse embroidery looks; specifically, for example, designs that translate honeycomb structures onto feather-light guipure parkas or whose embroidered amulets on nude-coloured tulle evoke the delicate mood of light by the Italian painter Giorgio Morandi.

 

THAT IS EMBROIDERY!

Great craftsmanship and uncompromising avant-garde, clean lines and fine fabric are often not mutually exclusive at Akris. This is particularly evident in those looks in which the close collaboration between the Swiss fashion house and the renowned St.Gallen textile cluster becomes visible. How can a starry sky effect be created with LED embroidery? What processes are needed to make an embroidery fabric look like asphalt? The exhibition also explores these questions with insights into textile innovations and their craftsmanship.

 

TEXTILE HERITAGE AS A PLAYGROUND FOR INNOVATION

For the first time, "Akris: St.Gallen, of course" also provides an insight into the house's embroidery archive, founded by Alice Kriemler-Schoch and dating back to the 1940s. Surprising colours, fragile materials and endlessly rich, three-dimensional patterns - even today, the archive is the starting point for creation and ever new processing and craft techniques, a collective fabric memory of the house and an indicator of how naturally St.Gallen embroidery is an essential element in the refined minimalism of Akris.

 

Duration: 06 October 2023 - 10 March 2024
Location: Textilmuseum St.Gallen, Vadianstrasse 2, 9000 St.Gallen, Switzerland
Media tour: Friday, 06 October 2023, 11 am
Exhibition coordination: Team Textilmuseum St.Gallen
Curation: Albert Kriemler, Creative Director Akris
Scenography: Atelier Oï / Patrick Reymond, La Neuveville

 

More information: https://www.textilmuseum.ch/akris/