Designing Women exhibition in NGV is a design shows which focusing on the work, histories and achievements of designing women. This exhibition reveals that female designers, often overlooked in a male dominated industry, are producing sophisticated, iconic and thought provoking work. Though the exhibition, people may start concerning about design’s evolving history and  what does it role in shaping contemporary society (Simone LeAmon, 2018). Although women have contributed to the design and manufacture of the physical world, however the historical stories of women in design are far less prominent than men.The reason for it is social and professional biases typically, that the most rigid manifestation of this occurs when all domestic and caring work within the family is denoted as ‘women’s work’, whilst waged work in the public domain is classified as ‘men’s work'(Margaret Bruce and Jenny Lewis, 1990). This blog will discuss some design works from Designing Women exhibition to  analyzing the developmental status of women’s design, design concepts and design cases in recent years. Objectively analyze the achievements and shortcomings of women’s design from both positive and negative aspects, and try to explore the representational features and essential connotations of female design.

  This dress (see Fig.1) by Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen, it was designed for Icelandic Pop singer, which took several month to make. This dress combine fuses machine and hand work to create the exaggerated form (NGV). Sleeveless blue dress formed from semi-transparent acrylic sheets that have been hand and laser cut and mounted onto a tulle ground to create a shell-like shape. The dress fastens down centre back with a long metal zip. Depending on the angle of the light, the dress changes colour from a very dark blue to a reflective light blue. The design is based on Iris van Herpen’s 2011 spring−summer Escapism collection This collection drew conceptually from feelings of emptiness, the grotesque and the fantastic, and aesthetically from the work of American artist Kris Kuksi (NGV). This work as both organic and innovative, it is most prominent feature of Iris van Herpen’s works. As journalist Vanessa Friedman said that

   “It’s not that she rejects the heritage of the couture, she just redefines it with modern tools. Once upon a time the sewing machine did the same.”(Vanessa Friedman, 2018).

 The design of this dress was based off her Escapism S/S 2011 collection, the whole themed around escaping reality through digital devices and entertainment, the entire Escapism collection was 3D printed, fashioned from materials like coral-looking metal silk, burnt metal weave, and shiny yarn hairs (Iris van Herpen, 2015).

Iris Van Herpen was one of the first designers to adopt 3D-printing as a garment construction technique. Extremely precise printing technology combines flowing tulle material with sophisticated craftsmanship. Through the use of color and the different brilliance of fabrics at different angles, people can see the beautiful life of different worlds. Herpen finds that form can change and complete the body of model,even affect emotions. She disagree with forms follow function, she try to organize the form, structure, and materials in a new way to bringing the best tension and behavior (Iris van Herpen, 2015). Before 19th century, it was unacceptable for women to do industrial design or technology work and ‘architecture was considered an all-male province’. The ‘proper’ design domains for women suit be Embroidery, lace-making, miniature painting, dressmaking. However design is not essentially technological or managerial, which is more above all creative, involving exceptional visualization skills. Design research is both academic and practical, with designers investigating new processes, materials, systems and methods (Simone LeAmon, 2018). From Herpen’s design, it is combine fashion and high technology, using new techniques, not the re-invention of old ideas. The dress looking at the hidden beauty at the intersection of precision and chaos, art and science, the artificial and the organic, that are blending into infinite hybrids.

Herpen has been preoccupied with inventing new forms and methods of sartorial expression by combining the most traditional and the most radical materials and garment construction methods into her unique aesthetic vision. It can emphasize that the typically ‘feminine’ areas of design should not be disparaged in order to encourage more women into product and industrial design. The traditionally female skills involved in designing jewellery, textiles, ceramics and fashion clothing are highly creative, and just as important for our aesthetic and commercial futures (Margaret Bruce and Jenny Lewis, 1990).

Reference

1. Simone, L 2018, Designing women, The National Gallery of Victoria, accessed 5 April 2019, <https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/essay/designing-women/>.
2. Margaret, B and Jenny, L 1990, Women designers- Is there a gender trap?, Design Studies, vol.11, no.2, pp. 114-120.
3. The National Gallery of Victoria, 2019, Designing Women, <https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/>
4. Friedman, Vanessa,2018  “Moving the Goal Posts in Fashion”. The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
5. Herpen, Iris van,. Iris van Herpen : transforming fashion. Atlanta, Georgia : High Museum of Art ; Groningen, the Netherlands : Groninger Museum 2015, ISBN9780939802265. OCLC 931073158.
6. Figure.1, Installation view of Designing Women at NGV International – photo by Tom Ross.

According to  Dewey’s design ethics, public problems was relevant with the context of design studies, which links contemporary world conditions through its pluralistic stance, endorsing a public that is broad, inclusive, and multiple. Public influence is a significant part, which designer need to consider carefully before they are designing a work. As Dewey’s thought that the public can be a philosophical subject, and the grounded of it was base on the concrete situation, experience, and materiality of daily life. The philosophical investigation of the public should be divorced from the “facts” of everyday life(Carl DiSalvo, 2009). The design is an inherently ethical activity, especially in public design, which has a huge influence on how people behave and live their lives. Solving problems and making people’s lives better as a purpose for all the designer.

  In essence, the constitution of a public design did not rely on the design style, design model and genre of art, but on the spatial spirit of collective or group. It is the external condition for human beings to transform their living environment as a whole. While human history and culture determine the characteristics of public art, public art also has directly or subtly influenced and transforms on concepts of human cultural and aesthetic models (Carl DiSalvo, 2009). For example, some works on the Designing Women Exhibition, which are references design’s own mainland culture heritage and rituals. Lee Darrouch’s works(see, Fig.1) have single-handedly revived the sacred cultural practice of possum cloak making in Aboriginal Victoria. From the works, people can learn the story of identity, Yorta Yorta Country, and the Dhugula, Kaila, and Yalooka rivers, in addition to her compelling family history(NGV). The public design respects the natural original ecology and emphasizes the heterogeneous ecological and cultural experience. It is the most fundamental continuation of the cultural context and the extension of the public constitution. Genesy Lamp by Zaha Hadid(see, Fig.2), Zaha got design inspired by the growth patterns of trees within a forest. Zaha has used advanced design and manufacturing technology placed her at the forefront of architectural and design practice for nearly forty years. The characteristics of her design is a beauty, which is connected to innovation, future technologies, and social progress(NGV). The designer’s background history and culture determine the characteristics of their artworks. Furthermore, the tactic of tracing is characterized by the use of designerly forms to creatively express the histories, discourses, and techniques that constitute an issue; in ways that foster knowledge through engagement(Carl DiSalvo, 2009). Increasingly, these forms reach beyond the common artifacts of communication design. In this way, tracing both connect with and extends contemporary design, particularly the areas of participatory and service-oriented practices that embrace forms of engagement and exchange beyond the traditional object(Carl DiSalvo, 2009).

   As Dewey said:

  “Artists have always been the real purveyors of news, for it is not the outward happening itself which is new, but the kindling by it of emotion, perception, and appreciation(Carl DiSalvo, 2009).”

  The public design respects the natural original ecology and emphasizes the heterogeneous ecological and cultural experience. It is the most fundamental continuation of the cultural context and the extension of the public constitution (Matthew Holt, 2015).

  Any culture will provide individuals within the cultural circle with a cognitive model and behavioral model that deals with the relationship between people and people. At this level, culture itself can be understood as a specific cultural environment in which a particular natural environment in which humans adapt to a particular environment accumulates a specific cultural and ecological experience, thereby affecting individual thinking patterns and values within the cultural circle(Feldman and Roberta, 2003). At every level of social life, in the long-term survival and development process, specific social culture is gradually derived through the interaction between individuals and individuals, individuals and groups, groups and groups. It includes the knowledge, beliefs, customs, religions, art, laws, ethics, taboos, and the recognition of the material world and the technology of creation in the process of long-term survival and development of a region or nation, including people themselves in society. All the experiences, abilities, and customary habits gained in the operation are the sum of all the material and spiritual achievements created by mankind(Feldman and Roberta, 2003). Such as me, the traditional Chinese elements is an unchangeable theme of my design. People can clearly see a Chinese style in most of my artworks. Design is also a part of the cultural category and general theory. It is an organic part of human culture. Its public nature and its own urban cultural attributes determine that it must be influenced by specific social culture and mode of thinking.

Specifically, within The Public and Its Problems are leads to investigating and understanding the ways in which the products and processes of design intersect with the public. Of these leads, the notion that publics are “constructed” is perhaps most salient to contemporary design because it prompts a consideration of the means by which publics are assembled. For instance, the public art BLOOM(see, Fig.3), designed by Alisa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez. It staged as a dynamic installation; a swelling, neon pink structure, which is the official Olympics color, BLOOM is conceptualized as an urban toy, a distributed social game and collective “gardening” experience that seeks the engagement of people in order to construct fuzzy BLOOM formations(NGV). It considers a mode of assembly, disassembly, and re‐usability that challenges the notions of traditional construction. The lifespan of this work is undetermined as it allows the project to adapt and reappear in many different places and occasions. The collective act of coming to one place and building something becomes a shared memory for each person attending. The energy for this design construction is sourced from people’s interactions( RMIT).

Design ethics is an important issue that needs to be attending. A good design should bring a positive influence on the public. The subject of design ethics should go hand-in-hand with the construction of the public and have a significant place in future discourse. A good design with the public meaning can evoke people’s thinking and understanding of related issues and express the history and value of the community or city(Colebatch, 2018). Designer should not sever a connection with public life. They should communicate with the public, to discover the issues of social life and people’s feeling. In this sense, public art has a powerful force that changes the face of the city and can influence the public’s mental state and perception of the surrounding world for a long time. Even it will also become the icon of the city’s identity(Colebatch, 2018). So, design needs to be integrated into life, it plays an extremely important role in shaping the unique character of contemporary life.

Reference

1. Di Salvo, C 2009, Design and the Construction of Publics, Design Issue, vol.25, no.1, pp. 48-63.
3. Holt, M 2015, Transformation of the Aesthetic: Art as Participatory Design, Design and Culture, vol.7, no.2, pp. 143-165, DOI: 10.1080/17547075.2015.1051781.
4. The National Gallery of Victoria, 2019, Designing Women, <https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/>
5. Feldman, Roberta M. 2003. “Activist Practice: The Risky Business of Democratic Design.” In Good Deeds, Good Design: Community Service through Architecture, edited by Bryan Bell, 109–114. New York: Princeton Architectural Press.
6. Colebatch, H 2018,  The idea of policy design: Intention, process, outcome, meaning and validity, “Public Policy and Administration”, vol. 33, no. 4, pp.365–383.
7. RMIT DESIGN HUB, 2014, BLOOM: ALISA ANDRASEK, <http://designhub.rmit.edu.au/exhibitions-programs/bloom-alisa-andrasek>.
8. Figure.1, Installation view of Designing Women at NGV International – photo by Tom Ross.
9. Figure.2, Photo download from NGV website. Zaha Hadid (designer) ,Iraq 1950–2016, Artemide, Pregnano (manufacturer), Italy est. 1960,Genesy 2009, metal, lacquered polyurethane, light-emitting diode (LED).
10. Figure.3, Installation view of Designing Women at NGV International – photo by Tom Ross.