Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology

New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016. A few scuffs to the cloth binding but generally in near-fine condition. Folio. The complete set of items in the limited edition: cloth-bound edition of the book (black cloth), paperback pamphlet of interviews; and folded poster. Together in the original laser cut, high-density polyethylene box, outer black paper sleeve, and in the original folding cardboard box from the publisher. One of 600 copies of this limited edition that was available only at The Met and is now long out-of-print. The poster shows 600 images of ensembles featured in the publication. "Manus x Machina features more than 170 examples of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear, dating from the early 1900s to the present. The exhibition addresses the founding of the haute couture in the 19th century, when the sewing machine was invented, and the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production" (the Met).