It all started with Adam and Eve.

Unashamed to walk around in the nude until they learned the difference between right and wrong, these two fashion pioneers started the trend with fig leaves to cover their most shameful areas.

At the Krannert Art Museum, located at 500 E. Peabody Dr., the exhibition Pattern Language: Clothing as a Communicator, highlights the many functions of fashion from biblical times to today. One purpose of the exhibit, according to curator Judith Hoos Fox, is to show how clothing can be used to critique traditional ideas about clothing, fashion and society.

The idea for the exhibit came to Fox after looking around and noticing that so many artists were working with clothing.

“Clothing is a big part of life,” Fox said. “Something was going on here and I wanted to find out how fashion intersects with culture.”

One of the more interesting and functional pieces in the exhibit is a jacket that has a chessboard printed on the back of it. The inside of the jacket has pockets to hold all the chess pieces just in case the wearer has an urge to sit down and play.

There is also a black dress that is made of one continuous zipper that takes three minutes of zipping to completely form the whole dress. Because the entire dress is one zipper, the wearer can decide how long the dress should be merely by not zipping up the rest.

For Eryka Waggoner, freshman in LAS, this dress was just one part of the exhibit that opened her eyes to more ideas about fashion.

“Fashion is always changing and moving,” she said. “I thought it was really interesting how the artists can use words and fashion as their medium.”

Fox hopes that the exhibit, which is based on the world in which we live, will serve to inspire people to look and live in a more conscious and critical way.

“We really believe that an exhibition is more that just the objects sitting in a gallery,” she said.

Fox said she sees so many people wearing American Eagle Sweatshirts and carrying around Louis Vuitton bags without even considering why they are promoting one clothing brand over another.

“Fashion is meant to inform everyday life,” she said. “So you have to be thinking, why am I advertising this brand? What message am I trying to send out?”

Nicole Fauront, costume rental manager at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, agreed that fashion is all about communication. Fauront helped set up and participated in a Gallery Conversation about the exhibit.

She said that the common thread between fashion and costume design is that both mediums are attempting to communicate an idea, mood or personality through the clothing.

Waggoner said that there were lots of different ideas presented in the exhibit, like how one artist used garment bags to actually make garments. She also said it was interesting how some of the pieces in the exhibit brought together two different cultures to make one article of clothing.

Fauront also went on to say that the clothing in the exhibit is extremely conceptual.

“These clothes were not meant to be worn,” she said. “But they are ideas of what fashion can be.”

Fox said that people spend too much time in their life on automatic pilot or cruise control. She hopes the exhibit will wake people up to the world around them and allow them to steer off their normal, everyday path into something different and unique.

Even though the exhibit is focused on clothing and fashion, Fox said all interests can enjoy what the museum has to offer.

A museum is kind of like a library in a way, Fox said. It is not strictly focused on one discipline. With each exhibition we try to think of ways to make it come alive to a whole variety of people.

The exhibit opened Jan. 21 and will run through April 9. For more information about the exhibit and programs running in conjunction with the exhibit visit www.kam.uiuc.edu.