Tradition und Moderne - Mode in der Tracht

In the organizer's words:

Tradition and modernity - fashion and costume

Tradition is often connoted as static, backward-looking, conservative or retrospective. We want to explicitly contradict this in the context of the exhibition! We believe it is important to engage with tradition in order to learn about the history and techniques of a trade and to familiarize oneself with it thoroughly. However, this must be directly followed by a transfer of these traditions into the present in order to keep them alive - tradition is not something that has stood still. Using selected examples, we want to show how tradition can be seen as something living and how it is always freshly adapted to contemporary circumstances and new positions.

We show works by artists and craftspeople who create extraordinary pieces for the world of fashion and jewelry and adapt the artisanal traditions of their trade to the present using current materials, new technology, their own imagination and contemporary aesthetics. This also includes aspects such as repairing, exploring alternative materials or bringing together and overlapping different regional cultures.

In addition, works from the field of "traditional costume" will be presented. We want to show that traditional costume should not be seen as something unchangeable and static. Rather, it is the case that individual elements of clothing are not only linked to the past or have become firmly established in certain regions and social groups, but that they are just as subject to change and adaptation to the respective present as they are to the stylistic will of individual designers.

Fashion and traditional costume actually seem to be opposing concepts: "Tracht" is often associated with the retention of forms of clothing in certain regions or occupational groups, thus embodying consistency. In contrast, fashion is characterized by constant change and "renewal". At the same time, fashion is constantly reaching back into the past, whether by varying certain historical silhouettes or by drawing on more recent stylistic elements. While the term "traditional costume" is often associated with a backward-looking approach, concepts such as homeland and tradition, fashion tends to stand for openness, looking to the future, curiosity and experimentation.

The exhibition will show that both the fields of traditional costume and fashion are important carriers for branches of craftsmanship that might have long been forgotten without the interest in regional clothing of the past with its highly specialized trimmings and cut elements, as well as fashion, especially the field of couture, with its elaborate, imaginative, highly creative surface decorations that complete the silhouette of the fashion designer. Without the demand and continued use in these two highly specialized groups of garments, many of the trades would have died out completely and an important area of craft heritage and tradition would have been lost. In view of all the imagination, creativity and joy of design, it is to be hoped that fashion, traditional costume and jewelry will continue to be needed and kept alive for a long time to come.

Program

Saturday, October 4, 2025, 11 a.m., Zugspitze Room, Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria

Celia Pym from London explains her thoughts on the subject of repair and her technical and artistic approach in a lecture and on the basis of her exhibits

Thursday, October 9, 2025, 6.30 pm

Margarete Grandjot explains the techniques of white embroidery with a focus on Schwalm white embroidery (German Federal Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage)

Thursday, October 16, 2025, 6 p.m., Zugspitze Room, Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria

Nadia Albertini from Paris talks about French embroidery techniques, famous embroidery studios and their collaboration with fashion houses as well as the importance of embroidery archives for contemporary design

Saturday, October 18, starting at 6 p.m.

As part of the Long Night of Munich Museums

7 and 9 p.m. Trimming button workshop with Sandra-Janine Müller from "Trachtenpunk" Only on binding registration

Thursday, October 23, 6:30 p.m.

Kerstin Bienert from the Abenberg Lace Museum and Ute Klug give an introduction to the technique of lace-making and the importance of lace-making in Abenberg

Thursday, November 6, 6:30 p.m.

Talk with Alexander Wandinger from the district of Upper Bavaria: "Why traditional costume is (not) a fashion - questions and answers about a fascinating phenomenon"

Max-Joseph-Straße 4, entrance Ottostraße

80333 Munich

Tel. 089 5119 296

galerie@hwk-muenchen.de

Homepage Galerie Handwerk

Galerie Handwerk is sponsored by the Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy.

Free admission.

Access is barrier-free.

Exhibition period

October 4 to November 8, 2025

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Next exhibition opening

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

Artistic toys - playful art

(Cover picture: Marion Chopineau, design for a dress, silk organza ribbons on tulle)