The Shape Of Things To Come

By George Epaminondas; Belinda Luscombe.

War changes everything, even the way things look. Charles Eames used a wood-shaping method developed to make better, lighter splints in World War II to create his iconic molded-plywood chair. Frank Gehry turned to Catia, the software used to design military aircraft, to help create his Guggenheim Bilbao. That chair and that museum were new, and looked new, in a way few things ever do. Design that is different in its elements, not just restyled or reinvented, arises from an almost chemical reaction that takes place when a person meets a material, a practice or a technology and sees through it to a whole new compound. On the following pages we survey some of the people, products and practices that will change the shape of the near future.

MIGUEL ADROVER

It's not easy being an iconoclast. Just ask Miguel Adrover, the New York City designer who has been hailed as a virtuoso since his debut three years ago but who lacks the requisite funding to show at Fashion Week this season.

Adrover, 37, regards clothes as a vector for social change. Trouble is, sometimes the message gets lost in the fray. After he showed a delicious meze of Middle Eastern--and African-inspired silhouettes in September 2001, two days before the Twin Towers fell, he says he was accused by the tabloids of sympathizing with the enemy. "No one says anything about [designers such as] Michael Kors except 'Great skirt,'" Adrover says. "We have great skirts too. For us they say, 'Maybe there's a Taliban connection.'" To make matters worse, the Leiber Group, the luxury-apparel conglomerate that had acquired Adrover in April 2000, withdrew its backing in early October 2001.

Adrover cobbled together the funding to show a spring line last September. It was couture lite, a witty and wearable riff on the New York immigrant experience, melding Hasidic, Latin, hip-hop and corporate styles.

Owing two months' back rent is a constant in his life, but so is resourcefulness; this is the person who turned a discarded mattress into a ravishing coat. It's just a question of where his pluck and ingenuity will take him next. --By George Epaminondas

DOMEAU & PERES

Sometimes the old can heave the new into the beyond. Old ways have hustled French furniture manufacturer Domeau & Peres into the vanguard of its field. Bruno Domeau is a trained saddlemaker who plied his trade in the luxury-automobile industry. Philippe Peres traveled France studying with master craftsmen as an apprentice upholsterer with the Compagnons du Devoir, a throwback to the craftsmen's guilds of the Middle Ages. Yet they have yoked their skills to the plowshare of contemporary design. "We're unusual because we're handcraftmen who've decided to work in the contemporary field," says Peres. "Producing contemporary design is usually left up to industrialists."

But the industrialists are often leery of things they haven't seen before. Designers' ideas are thus circumscribed by what manufacturing companies have the skill and inclination to produce. Domeau & Peres can and will produce almost anything. It has worked with established stars such as Andree Putman and such leading lights of the younger generation as Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Elodie Descoubes and Laurent Nicolas, and Christophe Pillet, whose Video Lounge recliner, left, has become the company's unofficial trademark.

Domeau & Peres makes about 300 copies of each of its pieces per year. "If we moved toward a more industrial style, we'd be falling into the same logic as everyone else," says Peres. Where's the vision in that? --By Belinda Luscombe. Reported by Nicholas Le Quesne/Paris

JUNYA WATANABE

In Tokyo, where fashion is taken as seriously as politics, Junya Watanabe's collections spark more scrutiny than the latest governmental bailout plan. Maybe it's because while the parliament mires the country in the same old, same old, Watanabe and the avant-garde designer pack he runs with--Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo--make Japan, and design aficionados worldwide, try to envision what is to come.

At 41, Watanabe is the wunderkind of the bunch. After graduating from Tokyo's renowned Bunka Fashion College in 1984, he joined Kawakubo's label, Comme des Garcons. In 1992 he designed his first eponymous collection for the house.

Variously described as understated and elusive, Watanabe nevertheless hasn't shied away from making bold, even shocking, statements on the runway. He famously bucked the minimalist lockstep of the mid-'90s to unleash a collection of clothing made of candy-colored polyvinyl chloride.

Just as likely to wield metal wires as he is gorgeous brocades, Watanabe deconstructs even his more traditional offerings--like beautifully tailored jackets--with unraveling hems and rough seams. "It's Scarlett O'Hara meets A Clockwork Orange," says Gene Krell, international fashion director for Vogue Japan and Vogue Korea. "Fashion is meant to advance the notion of what fashion is. And he does."

Watanabe's collection for spring/summer 2003 is a case in point. "I saw someone wearing a backpack, and I thought the silhouette was interesting," he tells TIME. Many of the pieces feature poufed pouches with straps wrapped around bunched-up skirts and ripped pants. Decked out in sporty flats and topped with giant, billowing hats, the models look as though they have parachuted in from rock-climbing--in garden-party florals. Shrugs Watanabe: "I don't follow rules." --By Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. With reporting by Michiko Toyama/Tokyo

YUGO NAKAMURA

Web pages want to be grids. They can't help it: the Web is based on a programming language called HTML, and HTML is designed to lock words and pictures into boring little rectangular boxes.

But what if you could smash that grid? What would the Web look like then?

Yugo Nakamura knows. Nakamura, 32, is a Tokyo Web designer, and the hammer he's using to smash the Web is a program called Flash: a simple, free browser plug-in that adds sound and movement to websites. "Since Flash appeared on the scene," says Nakamura, "the rules as to what a Web page should be no longer apply."

To see what Nakamura thinks a Web page should be, surf to his online gallery at www.yugop.com (Warning: don't do this on a day when you have to get anything else done. It's addictive.) The Web was designed by scientists as a way to share data, but Nakamura uses it to share something more profound: a sense of playfulness. Words and images float freely across the screen or follow the cursor like schools of curious minnows. Images bulge and distort or blow away as if in a high wind. A clock ticks off seconds with a hand frantically stacking and unstacking toy wooden blocks. Words shatter into their component letters at the click of a mouse or spontaneously organize themselves into flow charts on the fly. Nakamura's websites turn information into interactive art--and the great thing about them is you're never quite sure who the artist is: him or you. --By Lev Grossman. Reported by Michiko Toyama/Tokyo

NEOPRENE

Neoprene: Could it sound any less glamorous? Yet this synthetic rubber, used for fan belts, wire casings and hydraulic hoses, is making its way into the designs of some of the world's most prestigious fashion houses. For spring at Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs offers a white waistcoat and black floral miniskirt, and at Chanel, Lagerfeld weighs in with a gray fishnet jacket--all made of neoprene. At Balenciaga, Nicholas Ghesquiere uses a neoprene-like fabric to make surferesque tops. And where the big designers go, the rest will follow.

What's the appeal? Dupont scientists developed neoprene more than 70 years ago, but today it is perceived as the high-tech material of the future. "Neoprene has a '60s-plastic influence," says Ken Downing, fashion spokesman at Neiman Marcus, "but it's very modern and directional." Indeed, soon after manufacturers realized that the insulating "elastomer," a fancy name for a material that stretches, could actually be worn, it became a material of choice for wet suits and outdoor gear. Now couturiers are drawn to neoprene for its texture, form-hugging fit and, most of all, versatility.

Neoprene leaves the factory as little chips in 50-lb. bags, but depending on the resins it's mixed with, it can be made thick or thin or can be "foamed" with tiny air bubbles. So the possible shapes and silhouettes are endless. Patricia Fields, stylist for TV's Sex and the City, thinks that like down, neoprene ultimately will be prized for its ability to insulate and will be used for shoes and leg warmers. Another advantage: sheets of neoprene don't have to be stitched together but can easily be glued with adhesives made from--you guessed it--neoprene. --By Janice M. Horowitz

SANTONI CIRCULAR-KNITTING MACHINE

Most of us are members of a generation that barely remembers when stockings had seams up the legs. The next generation may not remember when any clothes had seams. And it will be largely because of one piece of machinery: the largely unsung Santoni.

Based in Brescia in northern Italy, Santoni manufactures circular-knitting machines on which more than 90% of seamless garments are made. Developed from the technology used to make socks, circular-knitting machines eliminate the need to produce and then sew together pieces of cloth, thus making the seam obsolete. "With the Santoni, you're knitting the garment on the machine," says Chuck Nesbit, CEO of Sara Lee's intimates business, which produces Hanes and Playtex. "You're designing in a 3D world instead of in the flat, which is how garments have been designed for 10,000 years."

In 1999 Santoni came out with its biggest model to date, enabling whole T shirts to spew forth from its whirling-dervish arms, as well as seamless workout gear and sportswear. Business is good; sales have been growing 25% a year. But Santoni's future looks even brighter. Plans are under way for seamless coats and jackets. And who knows what some visionary could do with a machine that upends the manufacturing process? Wanted: one fashion designer who can think in 3D, to change the way we dress. --By Desa Philadelphia

JONATHAN IVE

Given the buzz attached to his name in the hallowed halls of Apple, Jonathan Ive might be expected to be something of an egomaniac. In fact, this shaved-headed, soft-spoken Brit is anything but. The only time you'll hear him use the word "I" is when he's naming some of the products he helped make famous: iMac, iBook, iPod.

Yet for all Ive's attempts to give away the credit to a design team he assembled, his fingerprints are all over Apple's five-year-long radical shift in hardware design. When the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker hired Ive in 1992, it was still cranking out beige-box desktops and creaky black plastic PowerBooks. When Steve Jobs appointed Ive vice president of industrial design in 1997, everything changed.

Ive began using materials, shapes and colors that had never been seen in the industry before. The original iMac broke the beige-box mold with curves, candy colors and a carrying handle. No one else has even tried to build a computer like the latest iMac, with a flat screen on a movable metal stalk. No one else has made inch-thin laptops out of titanium or aircraft-grade aluminum. Or a keyboard, now on the latest PowerBooks, that knows when it gets dark and lights up accordingly.

It's not as if Ive were trying to be radical--he's just sweating the details. "You deal with the needs and problems the product has," he says. "The result is often something you didn't expect." Unlike some designers, Ive uses his own products after they're finished. Doing so gives him ideas for updates to later models. Tweaks like making the movable track wheel on the iPod sensitive only to touch, so it doesn't jog when you do, are all the more successful because even though they're incredibly complex, we barely notice them. You could say the same for the self-effacing Ive. --By Chris Taylor/Cupertino

PAT MCGRATH

Judging from her work at certain fashion shows, it can sometimes seem as though makeup artist Pat McGrath learned her trade at a carnival. She has applied enough paint and glitter to render models' faces unrecognizable, put false eyelashes on eyebrows and used fake petals on eyelashes.

In fact, the English-born McGrath, 35, absorbed the lessons of a makeup-loving mother, who regularly dragged her young daughter on cosmetics-buying sprees. "She was always mixing up colors because there wasn't anything out there for black skin," says McGrath. After graduating from art school, McGrath began her professional career in the mid-'90s, advancing a minimalist no-makeup look in avant-garde music and fashion publications like i-D and later in mainstream periodicals such as the U.S. and Italian Vogue.

McGrath's range is as varied as the colors she uses. Four years ago, Giorgio Armani, the master of understated elegance, tapped McGrath to help create his namesake cosmetics line. That's an assignment head snappingly different from her runway work, particularly with designer John Galliano. At his spring 2003 ready-to-wear collections, an homage in part to India's Bollywood film industry, Galliano created an outrageous, exuberant circus with models in sky-high headdresses and 6-in. platform heels. McGrath drew on the deep pigments associated with India, covering models' faces--and any body part not concealed by clothing--in opaque washes of cobalt blue, right, or marigold yellow. Red glitter formed exaggeratedly large lips.

At the couture show that Galliano designed for Christian Dior in January, inspired by a recent trip to China and Japan, McGrath took Kabuki to its outer reaches, left, painting faces white, blue and pink. "Every designer takes you on a different journey," she says. "It's great when they let you into their fantasy." --By Michele Orecklin

PREFAB (YES, PREFAB)

Why don't we build our houses the way we build our cars? Why do we ship every little and large thing needed for a building to one spot and then employ expensive skilled laborers and machinery to put it all together there--aside from the raw visual spectacle? it's a process that makes no economic or design sense. It would be smarter, surely, to have parts of the house made where craftsmen, raw materials or factories are and then shipped and assembled on site.

Builders realized this a while ago. "Most housing that's built in america today has some prefabricated component," says david sloan, managing editor of this old house magazine, "from i beams made out of recycled wood scraps to whole walls with windows already installed."

The problem is that in the past, this process was associated with, well, ugliness. But designers are now putting the fab in prefab. Two books out last year, Pre Fab and the Spanish publication Arquitectura Alternativa, celebrate entirely or partially prefabricated houses around the world. Many architects are adapting some of the systems builders use. Others are more fanciful. Computerized drawing and cutting methods enable designers to create the most uncommon houses they can dream up. And one Austrian designer claims his dwelling, right, can be put together on site in as little as two hours. --By Belinda Luscombe

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

Alexander McQueen has spent a decade wiping the smiles off fashion-industry faces. In 1993, when the Londoner--now one of international fashion's great talents--launched himself, it was with a tiny fashion collection in an upstairs room. He showed a sensible skirt--printed with images of an electric chair.

The 34-year-old remains edgy, untamed. What makes him a pioneer is the grimness of his vision. At times it reveals too much of the backstory of the gay son of a London taxi driver who grew up in welfare housing and whose sister would run home when she had been battered by her husband. No wonder McQueen's creativity has always reeked not of the innocence of youth or joyful fripperies but of brutal experience.

He posed for a portrait with a plastic bag over his face. He took a bow with his butt hanging out of his pants. He made models walk over pebbles while gripping spiked dental braces in their mouths. The front-row set at his shows is as tense as cats.

That this macabre imagination is coupled with dazzling craftsmanship gives the designer his heat. Beneath the shock of his antics is a natural talent coupled with technique acquired as a teenage trainee on Savile Row, the London street celebrated for handmade suits. After an apprenticeship of Dickensian harshness, McQueen harnessed his skills to the construction of cunning jackets, curved to just conceal the breasts, and trousers, called "bumsters," slung so low as to be rude.

When Hollywood calls--Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and Cameron Diaz have worn his clothes--McQueen can provide glamour on request. Recently his creations have revealed great sensitivity to the feel and fall of fabric. The word pretty could even be used--but not to his face. Although McQueen now has his first fragrance and even a property portfolio, don't expect this uncompromising frontiersman to go soft. --By Marion Hume

NATICK LABS

In the lobby of the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., a mannequin models timeless military fashion: black beret, battle-dress uniform and lace-up boots. But elsewhere within the 50-year-old cinder-block buildings, plans are afoot to clothe the future warrior--and perhaps us--in the stuff of science fiction.

Since the close of World War II, the center--better known as Natick Labs--has coaxed teams of scientists to dream up ways to outfit and feed U.S. soldiers. Much of the research and development conducted here has found its way into civilian use in products such as energy bars, freeze-dried coffee and water-repellent fabrics.

Increasingly, the military is spreading around its R.-and-D. prowess in exchange for the commercial sector's speedy production and ability to make the research pay for itself. To rush the creation of clothing suitable for Afghan winters, for instance, Natick came up with a way to weatherproof even the thinnest fabric by baking silicone into it, then collaborated with the design house for North Face to create battle gear as light as a nylon jogging suit. The new technology should someday help civilians achieve a sleeker winter silhouette.

Drawing boards at Natick currently feature chameleon-like camouflage clothes that change colors to match the environment, vests and glasses with embedded computers, and electrospun clothing. The last involves a process in which a solution is charged with high-voltage electricity and spun, like cotton candy, onto a form. Military scientists want to use the process to custom-make instant haz-mat suits by spraying sealants onto clothing. But the prospects for nonwoven, seamless civilian clothing are tantalizing.

The Natick research perhaps most coveted by designers--of underwear or SUVs or recliners--is also the most prosaic: its reams of data on soldiers' body dimensions. Claire Gordon, a biological anthropologist and senior scientist at Natick, says she fields up to 300 requests a year for her database of 133 measurements of each of 10,000 soldiers. In battle as in life, after all, fashion is nothing without fit. --By Lisa Takeuchi Cullen/Natick

With reporting by Nicholas Le Quesne/Paris; Lisa Takeuchi Cullen., Michiko Toyama/Tokyo; Lev Grossman., Michiko Toyama/Tokyo; Janice M. Horowitz; Desa Philadelphia; Chris Taylor/Cupertino; Michele Orecklin; Marion Hume; Lisa Takeuchi Cullen/Natick