When a book is called Radical Fashion Exercises, we may justifiably expect it to have a radical design, and the designers here live up to that expectation. With its innovative assignments, this workbook challenges not only fashion students, but everyone to think differently about fashion. It widens the focus towards a more futureproof fashion that has not only an economic, but also a historical and cultural character.
With brief contributions from almost one hundred different designers, curators, artists, educators and other creatives, Radical Fashion Exercises squares up to the complex design challenge to bring coherence to the whole. The decision to print the entirety of the interior exclusively in a purple Pantone colour tackles this in a convincing manner. At the same time, playful title typography and a language of form that differs between chapters, giving the visual material its place on the page in an idiosyncratic way, ensures that this uniformity never becomes boring – and stimulates us to give its suggestions a try ourselves. Finally, the book sits equally well both open and in the hand, which is a good service to the extremely inviting content: the whole book simply cries out to be used. This is an exemplary workbook.