Futurismo Now: a Conceptual Menswear Fashion Collection Exploring Masculinity through Futurist Aesthetics, an Exhibition of Conceptual Fashion Collection

The Futurism Art movement and its manifestoes had a crucial impact on European literature, art, and fashion. This practice-based research project is an exploration of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, Donaldson…) through the lens of the Italian Futurism movement. My goal was to produce a conceptual menswear collection using Giacomo Balla’s “The Futurist Manifesto of Men’s Clothing” as the main design framework. This research dissects aspects of hegemonic masculinity and compares them with masculine tendencies that characterized the work of the Futurism movement. Through this study I meant to investigate if, by applying design elements and themes promoted by futurist artists, my menswear designs could reflect contemporary masculinities.