Aitor Throup designs uniforms for ITS Arcademy – Museum of Art in Fashion

UK-based creative director and artist Aitor Throup has designed the official uniforms for the ITS Arcademy – Museum of Art in Fashion, the first museum of contemporary fashion in Italy and the only one in the world entirely dedicated to the early works of emerging and established designers.

Throup was once one of the emerging talents the museum is dedicated to. He competed at ITS Contest in 2006, fresh from the Royal College of Art, and won Collection of the Year and the i-D Styling Award, which provided a springboard for his career.

For the museum, Throup has designed a practical and utilitarian three-based garment uniform consisting of a top, apron and trousers, which can be worn like a protective layer over the museum staff’s own clothing.

Commenting on the uniforms, Throup said in a statement: “The work that Barbara Franchin and her team do has always resonated with my own practice… their approach is consistently deep, considered and uncompromising; whilst their commitment to support new talent is inspiring and exemplary. I wanted to express these values through my uniform designs by refusing to conform to standardised tropes of utility garments or conventional uniform aesthetics.

“I wanted the uniforms to be of service to future generations of designers, templates that can on one level – through their considered minimalism – serve as educational pieces to teach young designers how to construct their first garment; whilst on a more advanced level can serve as a constant archetypal template for ITS to invite new and established collaborators to re-create and re-interpret them through completely different creative lenses – in the hope of ITS building a self-contained sartorial iconography of its own.”

ITS Foundation president Barbara Franchin, added: “The circularity of talent and skills is part of the foundations of ITS Arcademy. It’s home to thousands of designers who got their start here and we hope will keep coming back and collaborating with us on design and educational projects.

“We have followed Aitor’s career from the beginning and it was and is clear that he is one of the most talented conceptual utilitarian designers of his generation. It’s a real pleasure to have him back and an honour to provide a new blueprint for uniforms that can contribute to the creative dialogue and future design practice.”

The ITS Arcademy – Museum of Art in Fashion, which opened in April in Trieste, Italy, is home to more than 15000 items, including garments, accessories, jewellery, photographs and project portfolios from the most exciting emerging designers of the last twenty years who have entered the ITS Contest. This includes the early works from Demna, Matthieu Blazy, as well as Throup.