Exorcising spectres

Its been quite exciting for me to notice that one of the major trends to emerge from this season's fashion weeks has been the confrontation between fashion and feminism on the catwalk. Fashion for a long time has overlooked its problems and gone through each year pretending they dont exist. This season, things got more confrontational. Two long-haunting spectres of fashion have been raised up to walk on the catwalk and incite debate among the fashion reading public: the exploitation of female models and the promotion of gratuituous sexuality.




It happened first in London , with Mark Fast, who put a full stop at the end of his admittance that there is a problem with the way in which the fashion industry encourages a perfectly skinny image by using so called 'plus-size' models in his fashion show. His collection was bold and creative and in presenting a viable alternative- a real image of a fashion world without unhealthy models and unhealthy images, he brought the industry a small, but significant step closer to progress. If fat is a feminist issue, then Fast should be applauded for efforts to exorcise this ghost from the fashion industry.




Another haunting spectre, at least in feminism terms, has been the representation of the female figure in a gratutiously sexual display. This always happened at Milan. It was always gorgeous and totally self-aware, but it also presented fashion as a means of satisfying masculine desire. Success was achieved through curves- all tits and ass. This debate was paraded up and down the catwalk of Prada's A/W collection in fantastically parodic fashion. The one woman you dont expect to base a collection on tits and ass is Muccia Prada, but that was just the point.

The very basis of the collection was on 'how the idea of sexy is becoming a narrower one'and 'about the cliches that woman can't seem to give up'. Surrounded by a sea of fashion designers who have been obsessed for years with sexuality, Prada suggested, through these clothes, that the final barrier could be broached between feminism and fashion if woman abandoned their fixation with clothes as a means of satisfying men.

By exorcising these demons in a totally confrontational and honest way, Prada and Fast both signalled the possibility of abandoning old ideologies which render feminism incompatible with fashion and seeking new avenues, and new figures, through which female empowerment can be sought.

Why Rouge?

Yesterday I went shopping to buy something red. I didn't quite know what the specific item had to be, but I knew exactly the colour that I wanted; a burnt orange-y vibrant red and I knew that whatever this item of clothing would be (a shirt/ dress/bag/belt?), it would inject some life into my wardrobe. I also had the feeling that a slash of red would be a playful and rebellious challenge to the current 'sorbet' and pastel colours which have dominated my purchases of late. I didnt find anything, perhaps precisely because of the high-street's only selling spring's sorbet shades. Anyway, it didnt matter, but it got me thinking about colour. What is it that makes a certain colour feel 'right' at a certain time of year or for a certain mood? My current obsession with red might have something to do with the recent a/w 10 shows, where splashes of red really resonated on the catwalk, but even if this is the case- who are the people who decide which colours will be 'on trend' and how do these colour choices dictate how we shop and dress from season to season?

A brief foray into the history of colour made me a bit panicky about how little I understand about the whole weird process of how we conceptualise and view colour subjectively. (Can anyone explain Goethe's colour theory to me please?!) I had never even considered analysing sartorial codes and fashion from this scientific perspective, but it surely holds some promise? Pity I am I dont have any scientific grounding to explore this idea in a meaningful way.

On more solid ground, (for me at least), an article by Shinobu Majima in the Textile History journal, stated that the International Commission for Fashion and Textile Colors was established in Paris in 1963. A committee was held biannually before each fashion season. The same year, Pantone started to sell a book of standardised colours. It used computers to sort and numerically match coded colour data and to print out chemical formulae for reproducing the hues. I wonder if this development had more than a commercial results? Did it mark a turning point in our consumption of colour and the way in which it became more integrated into everyday living? Undoubtedly. Has anyone investigated the relationship between 'fashionable colours' (eg. browns and oranges in the 70s) and politics/ social system? Or indeed our subjective and internal relationship with colour in terms of gender, especially in the way in which we dress ourselves? I would be fascinated to know.

Anyway, my quest for rouge continues.

Is this progress?

Twice yearly in the cities of London, Paris, Milan and New York, the fashion industry paints a picture of the future. It provides a glimpse into what will be. To the uninitiated, this 'preview' of the fashion collections of next season might be described an image of progress- a visual display of the way in which designers have evolved from previous collections, ideas and concepts.

However this would be an inaccurate vision of fashion's role. On the contrary, it seems to me that one of the great oddities about fashion is that it changes, but it never progresses. Take for example the new collection by Christopher Kane. The visual shock of his a/w 10 collection, which marked a stark departure from the sexy sweet gingham look of s/s might subjectively be regarded as better, but it could never be said to be 'progress' in any real sense.

Walter Benjamin describes this aspect of fashion through the 'dialectical image', stating that to understand fashion, one must 'overcome the ideology of progress'. What a fascinating idea. Rather than improving or getting better, fashion is cyclical and is 'endlessly caught in a self-cancelling relationship with the other'.

Quite unlike any other industry of the superstructure, fashion never makes any claims to improvement. For me, it is this aspect of fashion that makes it a heroic art. Whereas the newest model of an ipod or a telephone may be considered more functional, more aesthetically pleasing, or more in tune with consumer demand, fashion makes no compromises. It's refusal to evolve, improve or conform makes it 'independent from the use value of the commodity'.

(For further reading on this idea, read Peter Wollen, 'The Concept of Fashion in the Arcades Project', Boundary 2, Spring 2003).

Review: The Beautiful Fall

In my immaturity, I have previously been known to be a little harsh and unforgiving in my review of fashion books. Embarrassingly for example, my review of The Thoughtful Dresser, by Linda Grant in the Financial Times last year, was a little tough and Im not sure why. Forgive me Linda!
Anyway, Im not going to be as harsh about this one, because I actually really enjoyed it.

The Beautiful Fall, by Alicia Drake, is about 'fashion, genius and glorious excess in 1970s Paris'. It stays pretty true to this objective throughout the book, stalking around figures of the Paris fashion world such as Loulou de la Falaise, Betty Catroux, Paloma Picasso and Jacques de Bascher. As muses and society people of 70s Paris, these people aren't studied for what they do, but rather for their very presence on the fashion scene as creative inspiration to the designers. The idolising and mythologising way in which Drake writes about these people is kind of silly- (she consistently reminds the reader that they were much more glamorous and effortlessly cool than our contemporary conception of 'celebrities' and fashion muses). In doing so, she sets them impossible standards of glamour which make their characters seem more imagined and dreamed than real. Still, it does make for fun reading.

These people serve as a glamorous backdrop to the main characters of the book: Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. Drake clearly sets out from the beginning to portray a rift between the two men. YSL is the troubled, artistic genius and Lagerfeld is the hard-working, clever brand manipulator. This simplified narrative gradually plays out to the end of the book, by which time the two apparantly hate one another so much that one can depends upon the other's death for success, (fitting into the image of Lagerfeld at Chanel rising up from Yve's ashes). Of course, i presume that this serves more as a powerful plot narrative than could possibly be true of reality. However, there was a lot in here about the creative tendencies of the two and their contrasting approaches to fashion design which I, perhaps foolishly, had never really picked up on before.

Lagerfeld's restlessness as a designer is one such aspect of his character I had never really considered. Drake cleverly gives the reader a glimpse into the designer's personal anxieties about death (he didnt go to his mother or fathers funeral for this reason) and his obsession with the 'now'. She suggests, subtly, that this may be one contributing factor to the failure of his own Lagerfeld brand, whilst his invigoration of Fendi and Chanel were so successful. It seems that there is a non-committal element to Lagerfeld's work where he would rather keep alive someone else's signature image than create his own.

This 'thrill and fear' of fashion is a prevalent theme in the book, which works well when placed in the context of 80s Paris with the emergence of HIV and rise of socialism in France, threatening the absurdly indulgent nature of the fashion world at this time (where designers lived in hotels and ordered flowers every day by the lorry load). Drake successfully evokes a sense fashion teetering on the edge of disaster, but at the same time being engaged in creating something very beautiful. This fits in well with the metaphor evoked throughout the book by Yves Saint Laurent of decadence as a beautiful way of dying and not purely nihilistic or destrucitve.
The desperation of an industry grappling with these social changes- aids/socialism being the only two really dealt with here- is evoked well through the image of the two lagerfeld/ysl 'cliques' , or social camps, which are portrayed as little insecure families of narcissism.

The book is very successful in capturing a sense of time. This timeframe is not merely just the years 1960-80, but rather fashion's own independent timeframe, which consists of the sense of the moment and a fixation on the constant generation of 'now'. Drake states that a defining characteristic of the fashion industry in general is that 'every editor/designer/model and manager' is obsessed that time is slipping through their fingers. This is an aspect of fashion that I would very much like to explore in greater detail.

Hand-me-down

"We think back through our mothers, if we are women"

-Virginia Woolf, A room of ones own

Today Radio 4 Woman's Hour, which often tickles my ever so geekish, yet feminine fancies, hosted a special programme on fashion. Fantastique! A number of thrilling subjects were broached, each of which Im sure I will regurgitate in my own inadequate way at some later point on this blog.

What really struck me about the program, was a theme which each of the guests kept returning to: their mothers. Justine somebody, who has written (one of the many) biographies of Coco Chanel, said that she thought fashion was so popular because it relates to our 'eternal search to understand your mother'. This idea really hit home for me.

It is not exaggeration to state that the way I remember is through clothes. Clothing for me is a sensory experience and nothing brings back the sensation of being a littl'un quite like the memory of watching my mother get dressed for a night out with my dad. I can hear the brush comb through her hair, feel the red velvet jacket and smell the chanel no 5. Its an almost unsettlingly powerful memory.

I wonder then, if the fact that many women turn to fashion as a means through which to 'understand their mothers' could in fact be read as our attempt to understand femininity in general. I think it might. T B C.

Consumption

I read recently an angry piece of writing in the observer magazine, which lamented the release of the 'American Fashion Cookbook'. The writer, yummy-mummy Rachel Cooke, argued that the fashion industry had no right to be simultaneously sending 'starving girls' down the catwalk whilst crystallising their love for cakes and treats in this book (which includes a collection of recipes from US designers such as Caroline Hererra and Izaac Mizrahi).

Both industries, cookery and fashion, are towering 'cultures of consumption', which have escalating popularity among the middle classes today. Both carry connotations of luxury; excess; money. The pairing does not seem as unlikely as Cooke proclaims.

But, there is something alarmingly vulgar about this collaboration. Britain's greedy fad for cookery programmes, cookery books and celebrity chefs is far too senseless and lacking in moderation for my delicate fashion disposition. Our industry is more controlled and restrained in it's passions. It doesn't surprise me that the american fashion council have banked in on the rise of the two trends. Cupcake sellers in London have been also doing so for a long time. But I dont think it should be encouraged to develop any further.

No, a designers place is not in the kitchen, but not for any reasons associated with size zero. Rather, us fashion types value a certain subtlety, delicacy and restraint which is incompatible with anything that includes the words 500g butter, eggs, milk and flour.

Leaping tiger

"History is the subject of a construction whose setting is not homogenous, empty time, rather a setting filled by the presence of nowtime. So for Robespierre ancient Rome was a past charged with nowtime. The French Revolution understood itself as the recurrence of Rome. It cited ancient Rome the way fashion cites the dress of the past. Fashion has a sense for the actual present, no matter where it moves in the thickets of the past. It is a tigers leap into the past. Only to find itself in an arena where the ruling class gives the commands."

Thesis XIV, Walter Benjamin