A new exhibition puts the spotlight on the contribution of black designers in British fashion. “A lot of what black creatives do is informed by some of those darker and negative experiences. It’s our secret weapon,” said Jason Jules, who curated The Missing Thread: Untold Stories of Black British Fashion, alongside Harris Elliott and Andrew Ibi. The exhibition at Somerset House looks at fashion, music, photography and art from the 1970s to present day, using four distinct themes: home, tailoring, performance and nightlife. It doesn’t shy away from the vivid experiences of racism and discrimination, and highlights how political yet liberating clothes can be for black communities. The exhibition features commissions from a new generation of black designers, including Bianca Saunders, Saul Nash and Nicholas Daley, as well as up-and-coming artists such as London-based couturier Ninivah Khomo and patternmaker Monisola Omotoso. There’s also the presence of design legends – such as Ozwald Boateng, Bruce Oldfield – who designed a red silk crepe dress worn by Diana, Princess of Wales – and Joe Casely-Hayford, a designer and tailor who started showing collections in the 1980s and died in 2019. “Joe was the starting point for this entire exhibition,” Jules said. “He is the most missing part of the narrative [of mainstream fashion]. Individually we’ve all worked with Joe. On one level he seemed like he was just constantly in fashion, very aspirational, elegant, a sophisticated and distant person. But beyond the surface, he was actually very social, non-judgemental, playful, fun – the whole lot. “And in a sense, we wanted to communicate the dichotomy between how we see people and ourselves. “For me, he was the best designer this country ever had, because when you put him back in his rightful place, he transforms the entire British and global landscape of how we understand fashion.” Ibi agreed: “To be able to sustain that level of tenacity for such a long period of time, when you are consistently overlooked, is just amazing. And not enough people know who he is, especially young black people. “This is why it’s never been just about fashion, because in the background, whether you were studying or trying to get to the club, taxis wouldn’t even stop for you. It didn’t matter if you were creative or not.” The curators hope that the immersive exhibition, which “references our lives, time, progress, and development”, Ibi said, will highlight that black people have always been in fashion. Elliott – who set up The Black Orientated Legacy Development Agency (BOLD) with Ibi and Jules – said: “Style was always inherently in our genes. We couldn’t leave our homes dressed in a certain way. You had to always look impeccable to get anywhere in life, when melanin is your best friend.” The Morgan Stanley Exhibition – The Missing Thread: Untold Stories of Black British Fashion exhibition opens on September 21, 2023 and will run until January 7, 2024 at Somerset House.

Researchers have successfully created a robotic hand with bones, ligaments and tendons using 3D printing for the first time. A team from ETH Zurich in Switzerland were able to accomplish the complex construction using a new technology that combines 3D printing with a laser scanner and feedback mechanism. The method opens up the possibility of building far more complex and durable robots in the future, according to the researchers. “We wouldn’t have been able to make this hand with the fast-curing polyacrylates we’ve been using in 3D printing so far,” said Robert Katzschmann, a professor of robotics at ETH Zurich and leader of the research into the next-generation robotic hand. It marks a breakthrough in both 3D printing – with all the hand’s components printed simultaneously rather than assembled separately – as well as the field of soft robotics, which shuns materials like metal that are typically used to construct robots. “Robots made of soft materials, such as the hand we developed, have advantages over conventional robots made of metal,” said Professor Katzschmann. “Because they’re soft, there is less risk of injury when they work with humans, and they are better suited to handling fragile goods.” Despite significant advances in industrial robots over the last decade, they still pose a considerable risk to humans working alongside them. Earlier this month, a South Korean man was crushed to death by a machine that mistook him for a box of vegetables. The latest soft robotic hand was detailed in a paper, titled ‘Vision-controlled jetting for composite systems and robots’, published in the scientific journal Nature on Wednesday. “Recreating complex structures and functions of natural organisms in a synthetic form is a long-standing goal for humanity,” the paper notes. “Our approach provides an automated, scalable, high-throughput process to manufacture high-resolution, functional multi material systems.” Read More MIT invents self-replicating AI robots Nasa spots collection of shocking materials on distant planet Ring to preview security features with abuse charity to boost safety WhatsApp users warned they will soon have to pay to keep old messages and photos

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