Abstract

The Italian Futurists participated actively in the areas of applied arts. However, due to the variety of their activities, each area has not been explored equally. The purpose of this study is to reveal the significance of clothes and fashion in the Futurism. The Futurists showed interest in fashion embodying the concept of speed, for they regarded the velocity as sacred. They had interest in clothes themselves as well. Giacomo Balla presented the new Futurist clothes in his manifestoes. The clothes are characterized by three concepts; "change", "functionality" and "influence upon spirit". For Balla, clothes were not works of art, but in fact were tools. His idea of clothes had importance for the Futurists in this respect, because the arts were tools to inform or realize their ideas. Only from this point of view, however, it is impossible to find differences between clothes and other applied arts. For this reason, it is necessary to consider the fact that Balla started with textile design when he made clothes. As understood from the discourses of the Futurists, they emphasized the significance of the Italian textile industry. Because of this industrial characteristic, the Futirists regarded the fashion as a priviledged domain