Comparing Fashion and Architecture: Languages, Techniques and Design Strategies

Over the centuries, fashion and architecture have established themselves as rele-vant expressions of thought, both historical and cultural, united by a continuous search for innovative and aesthetic solutions, which have continuously tried to find adequate answers to society's needs and desires. In the contemporary world, collaborations between architects and fashion designers are numerous and have carried the research and experimentation of the two sectors beyond traditional boundaries. In particular, since the 1980s, the combination of fashion and architecture has been the subject of many initiatives, focusing on common themes and differences, such as the “Skin + Bones” exhibition held in 2008 in London, which is one of the most successful cases in interpreting the similarities between the two worlds. In particular, two themes emerge that can be declined in parallel for both: the first is related to the categories of design thinking, the second to the techniques of real-ization for the production of artifacts. As part of this exhibition, the works of architects and fashion designers have been subdivided according to the interpretation of common concepts and are therefore arranged according to categories of thought and techniques of realiza-tion. By means of a concise analysis of some of the themes dealt with in the exhi-bition, this contribution aims to draw attention to the different design declinations that represent common thoughts that profoundly connect fashion and architecture in their conception.