Surviving trends

An exhibition called Expedition: Fashion from the Extreme, now showing at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, examines high fashion inspired by clothes made to keep people alive in the most inhospitable environments on earth and beyond. We learn that the luxurious parkas of today have their roots in the heroic era of polar exploration between 1890 and 1922. Down-filled puffer coats and rucksacks were perfected for the mountaineers that conquered the highest peaks in the world in the middle of the last century. Garments from history are displayed side-by-side with a range of fantastically outrageous fashions from the 1960s onwards. The exhibition runs until January 6.

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