Paristown, Louisville, KY

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Chaired by: Lee Middendorf & Chris Welsh

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"One for the Books"

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KMAC is thrilled to embark on another year of KMAC Couture, the Museum’s annual fundraising event that celebrates the electrifying juxtaposition of fashion, art, design and performance. Over the past ten years, KMAC Couture has rapidly evolved from a small, but unique fundraising event, to one of the most exciting annual displays of innovative fashion in the state. Each year, artists challenge the boundaries that exist between costume, sculpture, ready-to-wear fashion and couture design and enchant audiences with garments that explore the full range of artistic expression. 

 

As KMAC Couture turns the page on the story of its first decade and embarks a new chapter, the curatorial committee is calling on artists to find inspiration within the pages of a treasured book or piece of literature. Books are fundamental to our humanity. They communicate our shared experience of the human condition and exist as a record of how our civilization has evolved. The possibilities for creative inspiration are as endless as the number of books there are to reference as your source material. 

 

Perhaps beloved characters from fictional novels or historical figures immortalized in famed biographies will inspire your look. Epic poems and oral histories from ancient societies are also suitable as a guide for your design. 

 

The influence for your biggest fashion fantasy could also be drawn from comic book superheroes like Thor, Wonder Woman, or Black Panther, as well as the eccentric personalities in graphic novels from The Watchmen to Ghost World. From Southern Gothic surroundings to Jazz Age ambience, inspiration could come from any literary theme and from any time period that has captured your imagination. 

 

After 10 years of incredible creativity, the curatorial committee will be looking for unique ideas that tell a story and elevate the narrative of KMAC Couture as an event that champions wearable art and spectacle. Stand out proposals will be those that activate the crowd, contain a performative element or transition in some way as they walk down the runway. We look forward to receiving proposals that successfully translate themes from the page to the runway and hope you will help us make KMAC Couture 2023 one for the books!