Furniture and Fashion, FIDM Chairing Styles and Aiveen Daly

FIDM, The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, is advertising its annual Chairing Styles exhibition, a collaboration between Textile Design, Fashion Design and Interior Design Students. The pieces will be on display in the FIDM Museum & Galleries. The exhibit contains original chairs designed by FIDM’s Interior Design students and coordinating gowns designed by FIDM’s Fashion Design students. The exhibit explores the relationship among three disciplines; furniture, fabric, and fashion.

The Textile Design Students design the fabric for the upholstery and the clothing. The Fashion Design Students design the outfit that matches the chair. The Interior Design Students design and construct a chair that incorporates the fabric designed by the Textile Design Students. Photo to the left is from FIDM's 2008 show.

Hearing about this reminded me of Aiveen Daly, and gave me an excuse to visit her site again. She is a UK upholsterer who's artistic and innovative work.

She gives chairs features such as the long slender lines of a stylish shoe (check out her Stiletto range) or the pleats or corseting of an evening gown for instance, are among her signature pieces and have helped to make her famous. I've heard that she is inspired by 1930's couture gowns and gentlemen's tailoring. That aesthetic comes out in her use of detail, color and fabric particularly.

"I started out at the peak of the trend for sleek Italian furniture, and found it all so boring and generic," Daly said in a 2008 interview with TimesOnline. "I saw the detailing and fabrics that were being used in fashion and decided my upholstery could go down that route."

She is also known for the ability to take an heirloom piece and bring it to life again or turn it into something you never thought it could be. This is what they mean when they say upcycling.