Commedia dell Arte – Couture Edition

Medieval market scenes, Batman, Minnie Mouse, Dior’s studio, David Bowie, and Buster Keaton – this book functions like a film, blending historical figures with pop art, the production of the finest porcelain figures with sensuous haute couture. But what is truly exceptional about this publication is more than the extraordinary objects it presents: the sixteen porcelain figures of the Commedia dell’arte created by Franz Anton Bustelli in 1760, which were newly released in a limited edition by the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory in 2009, redressed by sixteen internationally renowned fashion designers, including Vivienne Westwood, Christian Lacroix, Naoki Takizawa, Gareth Pugh, Victor & Rolf, and others. This lavish volume documents – regardless of costs – the making of this limited edition and the experimental process of updating objects like these for the world of today. The photographs taken and selected by the volume’s editor, Florian Böhm, depict scenes from the fashion designers’ studios and detail views of the manufactory. The effect is to bring to light the similarities between the handicrafts – based working methods of fashion design and porcelain design, similarities that are so characteristic of the contemporary trend of creating limited – edition syntheses of traditional arts and crafts and modern design.