Output details

Sport et Mode enfantine : jeux de vestiaire

Le Guennec was Commissariat Scientifique for this presentation of Museum’s collections and prototypes from fashion brands, organised with the City of Calais, the EEC, Pasold Funds and Novachild in the context of the Olympic Games, this original exhibition explores the influence of sport in the evolution of children’s fashion. For the first time, the impact of sport practice on the design of children’s wardrobes is clearly demonstrated. This exhibition is based on a methodology focused on the study of artefacts on technical, sociological, moral and symbolic levels (Artistic Anthropology, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Prof. Balut, www.anthropologiedelart.org). This approach helps to understand the links between fashion and the society and finds all its accuracy in the study of childhood. Thanks to this method, this exhibition emphasizes the influence of children’s fashion on adult wardrobes and the role played by active wear in the design of a mixed style for children at an early period. Showing the design development of contemporary brands, this exhibition explores the influence of sports techniques and design on the new technologies, graphics, and forms in casual and also formal wardrobes and shows the interactions between sports fashion and children’s clothes.

Through a technical, design and anthropological approach, the exhibition book (of which le Guennec was Director) emphasizes these outputs and presents the mechanisms of children’s fashion. As an original development of my academic research, part of an Art Anthropology PhD (Paris-Sorbonne), this publication focuses on a very interesting and unknown aspect of children’s wardrobes and aims at offering a toolbox to designers, researchers and parents, to understand the importance of fashion in the education and the social development of children.

Print run of 5000 copies; with the contribution of researchers in education studies, designers and historians; bilingual; ISBN: 978-2-911716-24-9, 88p.; exhibition: 25000 visitors; reviewed in Textile History (2011).

This original exhibition explores the influence of sport clothes in children’s fashion and its evolution from the 19th century onwards. For the first time, through the presentation of museum's collections and fashion prototypes, the impact of sport practice on the design and evolution of children’s wardrobes in Europe is clearly demonstrated. This presentation emphasizes the influence of children’s fashion on adult’s wardrobes and the role played by active wear in the design of a mixed style which appears firstly in the playgrounds.