An Analysis on the Formative Features of Walter Gropius’s 「Formlehre」(Form Training) in Modern Fashion Design : Focusing on Fashion Design from the 1920s to the 1960s

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the formative features of Walter Gropius’s Formlehre theory as manifested in fashion design from the 1920s to the 1960s. The questions driving the research are as follows. First, what are the concepts underlying Walter Gropius’s Formlehre theory, and what forms the core of Formlehre theory, the Bauhaus masters’ extension of Gropius’s theory? Second, how do the formative features of the Formlehre theory manifest themselves? Third, which formative features of Formlehre theory are displayed in fashion design from the 1920s through to the 1960s? The research methods used are literature review and content analysis. The research examines the essential features of the Formlehre theory to address its research questions by analyzing books on Bauhaus, the Bauhaus declarations containing its aim and direction, and magazine columns. Additionally, the paper identifies articles on Paris, Rome, New York, and London collections and designer boutiques that Vogue published in New York from the 1920s to the 1960s. It then analyzes 646 pieces from the articles featuring the dual forms of modularity and geometric shapes. The analysis of the Bauhaus masters’ theory reveals that the Formlehre theory has the following formative features: defined abstractness, simplicity, balance, transcendence, inevitability, motility, synesthesia, fusion, dynamics, objectivity, relativity, and harmony. Moreover, many of these seminal features of the Formlehre theory exhibited in fashion designs from the 1920s to the 1960s. Fashion design in the 1920s showed formative simplicity, abstract flat structures, and modular decoration, while the 1930s introduced playful color contrasts, the continuity of geometric modules, and fluid voluminous shapes. Fashion in the 1940s presented moderate forms and decorations, unity in shapes and colors, and concisely prescribed volume. 1950s fashion experimented with flat and 3D modules, structural dynamics, and relative balance, whereas the 1960s displayed planar three-dimensionality, playful motility, and fused synesthesia attributes.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 1 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.