Fashion Fridays--Monday edition!

Right, it's Monday. This is supposed to be a wellness day, but I didn't have the time, and since I missed Friday's post all together, I will share with you what I would have posted, which is actually just a reposting of a livejournal entry I made a couple of years ago, discussing the philosophies of art vs. fashion, and why they've started to diverge. I wrote this two years ago, and as I've started to learn more about the fashion industry, as well as the actual process of fashion design and production, some of my opinions have changed--or are at least better informed. But I still think this is an interesting piece, and a good place to start a conversation. Enjoy!

From livejournal.com/users/violet_light, August 26, 2008

I'm researching famous designers and I'm learning something that I'd already had a sense of but couldn't quite pinpoint. I was actually pretty surprised with myself when I'd decided I wanted to go into fashion design because really, up to this point I've always kind of hated the fashion industry. Things that have been hailed as haute couture in the last 30 years have been elaborate, intentionally provoking, often comical. And the models are so often the poorest examples of human beauty in my opinion, but I think I get it now. Classic fashion, in the era of Chanel, Christian Dior, Katherine and Audrey Hepburn, was all about elevating a woman's natural beauty through the manipulation of color, tailoring, and accents, and the responsibility of the design was to bring unexpected elements or details to make it unique.

Modern fashion is only about the art. These days clothing design is no less an artistic medium than sculpture or painting, but many designers create the kind of art I hate the most--things that are overtly ugly or shocking, with the presumption that the true beauty lies in the manipulation of the senses, not the stimulation of them. If the idea of of pairing huge swags of plaid with a delicate tulle pointed hat and a leather corset doesn't thrill you, then you're not enlightened enough to see whats really happening. It's theatrical. Practicality is not the issue here.

It explains why the ideal fashion model won't ruin the creation by adding her own body's dimensions to the piece, but instead is a blank shapeless canvas for it to hang on. Even their hair and makeup is specifically designed to be something other than pretty. I wouldn't necessarily want my art pieces to be "pretty" either. Like with this one, it's almost as if they don't want you to look at the model, only the dress.

But the issue is: fashion is two things. It really has to be both things in order to be affective. It has to be original, well made, observant of the culture, and challenging to our expectations. But it also has to be clothing. Clothing that people can, and will wear. People of different heights, weights, proportion, complexion and aesthetics. And it has to make those people look their best. This is the reason fashion exists and we don't all wear standard issue potato sacks everyday, because people seek out fashion to improve their appearance and express their own creativity, and I think most "haute couture" designers these days are ignoring that facet of the industry. It's all about what boundries you can break, the persuit of challenging what society will accept as beauty, what surprising twists they can make to something terrible and make it something else that is incredible. And that has a place, I do respect that. But as an art form, it's not the same thing as "clothing design." In fact, outside of the specific genre of "Haute Couture" which is only applicable to like, 12 designers, this art form does exist in another form known as "fiber arts." Which is accurate, and doesn't try to confuse things by turning apparel design into something its not.

Another thing, the designers of the mid-20th century who really set the bar as far as meaningful, original fashion weren't caught up on the idea of practicality either, and were often known for being quite decadent and elaborate, but never without the important principle of flattering a woman's form. That's why so many celebrities wear Chanel and Dior to events because they can be unusual, unexpected, but also beautiful, which I feel is a prerequisite in fashion.

So it's not such a big surprise then that I developed a love of fine couture from the perspective of the classics, but that I've always been unimpressed, and sometimes even contemptful, of modern designers like Gauthier and Versace. It's a totally different philosophy as to what the purpose of the creation is. For me, it's creating something beautiful that doesn't distract the observer from seeing the wearer, but instead elevates her beyond what neither she nor the dress could do on their own.