In Celebration of Couture

In celebration of the couture fashion weeks, here are TWO wonderful videos that transports one through the couture experience. Dior is really synonymous with Couture since it's inception. From the moment it opened it's doors in 1946, Christian Dior (now simply Dior) has amazed the world with their craft and attention to detail. Couture, or really Haute Couture translates from French for "high sewing". The "haute" translates as "high". It is the creation of exclusively custom-fitted clothing. It is hand made from start to finish. It is not mass produced but more like the female equivalent of men's bespoke. It is of the finest quality and done with attention to detail. It is only done by the most experienced of craftsmen and craftswomen. It is very TIME CONSUMING and very, very expensive. A couture dress can be as cost as much as a house. It is like purchasing a Monet. The clientele that buy it are in the upper stratosphere of economic privilege. The haute couture garment is made taking into account the wearers measurements, body stance and figure flaws. The designs may be deceptively simple to look at but often very painstakingly produced. Budget is not of consideration in couture. Artistic impact is of the utmost importance. Many garments utilize precious jewels, including diamonds, in the embroidery for maximum impact and reflectivity.

 

The Haute in the Haute

From a legal standpoint, the words Haute Couture are defined by the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie de Paris. This regulatory body determines which houses can be declared "haute couture". To be legally "haute", a designer must meet a few simple criteria. 

• Each design must be made-to-order for a private client and require more than one fitting.
• The workroom must have a staff of 15 employees working full time in Paris
• The workroom must also employ 20 technical staff working in at least one workroom
• The designer must produce 50 original designs for the public in a collection twice a year.

Few fashion houses have the mean to be considered "haute", however to be considered couture is another story. Couture gets slung around a lot and is often mistake for a luxury ready-to-wear. The two are very different. A high end, ready-to-wear (or pret-a-porter) is often misinterpreted as haute couture and many will align the term with couture. The two are not the same. Most, but not all, couture houses have a ready-to-wear collection that is available to the affluent public. However, that trend is really changing particularly in the last year. Economists take note. Two houses, most recently  Viktor and Rolf and Jean Paul Gaultier have dropped their lucrative ready-to-wear lines and to concentrate on couture. Other fashion houses like Versace have added couture lines to their ready to wear. Thus, there are uber rich shopping as the economic divide has widened. 

The two videos posted are from Dior. The garments are from two distinctly different creators. The first is under the creative vision of the current director Raf Simons. When one looks at it, it appear as a simple top with a striped poof skirt. Don't be deceived. Watch this creation being made and you will see, it is not so simple. 

The second video from Dior is under the creative leadership of John Galliano. A master is creative vision, he has re-entered the design world after a long absence. I can't express how much he was truly missed in his absence. The fashion world was a bit dull and bleak without something to look forward to each season. His new collection for Maison Martin Margiela Margiela was outstanding and showed off his creative talents.

Street influences

Influences in fashion can come from many places. Recently I have written about a few like films and art. But fashions influence can also come from everyday people. It can come in the from of a work uniform that is somehow appealing to the the masses. It can be a design element that is functional that somehow transcends and causes hysteria of copy-cat wearers. An example could be those sexy little spandex shorts that grace the behinds of bike messengers that suddenly cross over into club wearing kids. Perhaps it’s the legions of business women sporting Nikes with their Donna Karan or Armani business suit while toting a huge Fendi bag. These trends are usually born out of a combination of necessity, envy, a light touch of the practicality and a heavy dose of design flair. But these trends are also a movement that point or reflect where society is going and how it is reflected most often by youth as they, unlike their parents, have more disposible income. Below are a short list of some pretty cool trends that have boiled up from the populace and how they still influence design today.
The Zoot Suit.
A ethnic mixture of Puerto Rican, African, Filipino and Italian style that could only be mixed in America during the late 1930 and 1940s. The look which featured a generously cut, widely padded shoulder jacket with equally generously cut (almost baggy) pants that tapered in a the cuff. It gained a strong hold in Harlem and became synonymous with jazz.
It even spawned a play of the same name. In the 80’s MC Hammer brought a re-interpretation of the Zoot Suit with his Hammer pants. They were extremely popular in the gym with the weight lifters. They were everywhere. I must confess, I still have a pair (in fact I wear them a lot as pjs - they are so comfortable.) John Galliano used the Zoot suit as inspiration for his 2002 Spring Collection

http://www.stageandscreenwriters.com/Paul_Glitter.html
http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/Sleepy_Lagoon/SleepyLagCol.htm
http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/Sleepy_Lagoon/SleepyLagCol.htm
Teddy Boys
After WW2, Savile Row in London tried to reintroduce Edwardian period clothing. (Edwardian... aka Teddy - get it?) The style features a long frock coat, sometimes with a velvet or contrasting lapel. It is worn with tight formfit trousers (or currently jeans) accompanied with a vest and perhaps a skinny tie (maybe even a bolo tie). The hair is usually a overdone and big, gelled with aa duck tail cut in the back.
The style was picked up by rockers and became a subculture. A side note: It seems pretty apparent that most trends in clothing seem to stem from the young. Each generation tries to put a stamp or mark on fashion with it’s own unique joie de vivre. One could call this look classically now. Junya Watanabe also reintroduced this look in Spring 2007 Jen Laugesen trotted the Teddy Boy look out in early 2008 as did the Topshop in 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy
http://www.rockabilly.nl/general/teddyboys.htm
http://www.fashion-era.com/1950s/1950s_4_teenagers_teddy_boys.htm

Beatniks
Also in the 1950’s, but moving into the early 1960’s, the Beat or Beatnik generation was philosophically grounded and as partly a reaction to capitalism. The fashion movement was counter-cultural and lofty in idealism from many different and diverse viewpoints. It has a huge influence with the writings of Jack Kerouac and kind of a “F.U.” mentality.
One common thread however was dress… think a French beret, black turtlenecks, and very tight, skinny (usually cropped jeans). It was a symbol for years of intellectualism…. In fact, go on many college campuses today and you will see professors sporting the looks… at least the beret and the turtleneck. In 2006, Gap used original footage from the film Funny Face to introduce it’s reissuance of the skinny leg jean from that time period.
The film featured fashion icon Audrey Hepburn as a Beatnik.

http://www.backinskinnyjeans.com/2006/09/model_too_skinn.html
http://propagandica.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/knowles-hepburn/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_%28clothing_retailer%29
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-miller/audrey-hepburn-dead-is-th_b_29484.html

Mods
Running at the same time as the beatniks was the Mods. Like the decades previous Teddy Boys, the Mods were a British inspired movement. This movement is a bit more difficult to nail down as it was defined as anything believed to be Modern, fashionable and popular. It was a reaction to the early 50’s James Dean look of the greaser /rural town rocker. This was also a style that was more androgynous with women wearing men’s trousers and little makeup and men wearing black eyeliner.
This was also a subculture that had a noticeable use of amphetamines as a recreational drug. Twiggy was the visual spokerperson for this movement as was Mary Quant with her micro mini skirts. Giles in Spring 2006 and Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein in Spring 2009 took a huge stab at creating very modern clothing for today’s crowd. Both were very successful in something that is very difficult… modern can be hard without looking kitchy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_%28subculture%29
http://www.fiftiesweb.com/fashion/mod-fashion.htm
http://www.retrowow.co.uk/retro_style/60s/60s_mods.html

Hippies
Drugs, sex and rock and roll. The sixties hippies was a falling out of society in that fashion was anti-fashion. Jeans and t-shirts was the norm. Crochet and patchwork, the look of poverty mixed with the music of Janis Joplin and a few mild altering drugs, this subculture also brought us psychedelic clothing and the tie dyed t-shirt.
This generation, like our current one, was reacting to war and the ugliness of the world. The previous generations has a lot of economic problems as the result of war. This generation did not like the war from many grounds and thus checked out.
Sidenote #2 Not that I am a prude by any standard, but I do find it odd (and perhaps a little sad), each generation has found a new drug of choice.
Balmain brought tie dye into the collection in Sprint 2007 as well as a recent 2009 sexy collection by Proenza Schouler.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/1960s-hippies-fashion.html
http://www.syl.com/articles/thehippiesfashion.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Hippie-Fashion-Statement&id=743650

Punk
By the time the seventies hit, punk was a total reaction to society’s previous sentimentality of 1970’s rock. This mid 70’s trend, started with the followers of the bands the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. Design-wise, it was the brainchild of Vivienne Westwood in London.
The style was in-your-face, rough, tough and abrasive. Much like the original etymology of the word which ment “a young male hustler, a gangster, a hoodlum, or a ruffian.”
Like many of it’s predecessors, punk’s look featured tight pants but also heavy makeup, body piercings, Chuck Taylor shoes and at times, multicolored Mohawk hairstyles. Galliano brought out a punk collection in 2000. Vivienne Westwood always has a punk element in her collections… even when she isn’t even trying. Junya Watanabe got the vibe down in Spring 2006.
http://punkskamusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/punk_fashion
http://www.eightyeightynine.com/culture/80s-punk-hair.html
http://www.fastnbulbous.com/punk.htm

Disco
Thank god we have arrived at something I can relate to… dancing on a box til dawn. Disco was all about just that… dancing. It was sexy nightclub gear almost painted on tight. Can clothing get any tighter? Spandex was in full reign in this decade of non-stop dancing, and of course, cocaine (the drug which kept you dancing until all hours of the morning.) Fabrics were shiny, often times metallic. Quianna knit was a fiber that Dupont had developed and it was everywhere. Body hugging but with drape, this clothing allowed movement but showed the body to it’s best advantage…. Ok, this design trend I miss. Unfortunately, Rafael Lopez in Spring 2002 did a really hack job at trying to bring it back. It was as pretty as a bad acid flashback.
http://www.fashion-era.com/1970s.htm
http://coutureallure.blogspot.com/2009/09/disco-fever-fashion-1978.html
http://www.life123.com/beauty/fashion/disco/disco-fashion.shtml

Hiphop
As distinctive as the music, hip hop style has an African American origin. It was an urban dress that started with a mix of track suits, heavy jewelry, leather jackets and Puma or Adidas running shoes. Over time, this has morphed into throwback jerseys and baggy pants and jewelry. There is lots of bling, layers and layers of bling in this fashion movement. This movement has also been very long lasting. It has also spawned many, many fashion designer who were rappers and music celebrities like Baby Phat and, Queen Latifah. This style movement really is celebrity and musician-based and developed. Other designers have tried really hard to catch this bandwagon.
Everyone from Louis Vuitton, Prada, True Religion, Rock & Republic, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren have worked really hard to cash in on this phenomena. Thus it has become a very lucrative target market and design style for many design companies. Many hip hop artists have since come out against all the commercialism that is so prevalent in this genre of dress. To that point, this is a design trend that seems to be fading as the rappers age and become more lucrative in their own right. The most recent collection that was rapper/hiphop inspired seems to be Chirstian Dior in 2000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_fashion
http://www.kingice.com/hip-hop-fashion.aspx
http://24hourhiphop.com/features/Fashion/

The next trend?
Skinny jeans and skin tight clothing…. What a surprise. Less jewelry – I think the recession and a backlash against the bling of Hiphop I think will be the cure. On a more serious note, I think this will take more research to find a real clear trend. Trends in clothing, particularly street trends, grow from the ground on up and are not dictated by someone in Paris on a runway. Today's youth seem to be quiet. Like preceeding generations, they have found their own drug of choice it seems in CristalMeth as it is readily available and cheap to make. This may change with the legalization of pot in California. The last time I heard, pot was the number one perscription drug in the state now.
I would think the younger trend setter would be feeling a bit more disenfranchised similar to the folks of the early 70's. I think there is some anger their with regards to the state of the economy and lack of jobs. The 70's was a huge time of inflation and a time of war...hmmmm. Sounds familiar. I am seeing some more tie dye garb. But I haven't seen any evidence of a new design trend. Music is more downloaded than bought in a store. Monitoring music trends could be a source to point to but with the pluralism that is now in the music market, everyone has a chance to 15 seconds of fame. There are no clear trend setters... except Lady Gaga whom I see as a flash in the pan.
With that, the music of Evanescence, with it's gothic overtone, that seems more of the direction and style I see coming down the road. This would explain the huge growth in her business in the past few years. But that could also be the result of the museum exhibition that has been traveling the world and the subsequent book. Even so, those two events also point me into the direction of a more punk oriented urban trend coming down the pike.
I will keep you abreast of any new trends I see.

Influences in Fashion – Art

One instantly thinks of art and fashion and probably recalls Yves Saint Laurent’s homage collections to different contemporary artists. He exquisitely reproduced painting as walking canvases of clothing inspired by Matisse. He found inspiration in art and reproduced that in many collections. A younger fashionista may instantly recall Galliano’s collections of couture inspired by Baroque painters Van Dyk and Vermeer from the 2007 Dior Collection. This is really just scratching the surface. It also opens up a Pandora’s Box.

Many designers from the very early 20^th century have been struggling with this question of how art applies to fashion.

• Some choose to replicate the art like YSL, others view it as a leaping off point in how the fabric applies to the body.
• Some then look at the body, what is it and how much do we cover it as the body is art?
• Other designers view the body as limiting and grapple with the idea of changing the body shape or what is the essence of clothing. These designers view fashion as their media, or body as their media or the body as the canvas on which to place “A” media and make art from the wearer and the object they are wearing.

Ya see why this opens up a Pandora’s Box? There is no right or wrong as fashion, like art is subjective. AND one person’s fashion is another person’s art?

And some painters looked at fashion and made it art which inspired other artists to create as well. So let’s start here as it is the most convoluted place to start.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – Seurat’s wonder. It plays with light and color. Breaking it down into components of basic color. A huge canvas viewed from a distance, it is a painting. When viewed from up close it is nothing more than dots of color and light. They play with the eye. He took the shape of women at the time and placed them as fundimental shapes. It is basic yet detailed at the same time. This was Impressionism changing how light reflected and refracted and looked to the eye. The question of light and the challenge of how the viewer sees light inspired many.

Jean Dunard was inspired by how light reflects and experimented with lacquer. She had seen Japanese lacquered objects and pondered the refractability of the light. She came up with Lamé — a cloth with a lacquered texture that reflects light. It glitters and sparkles. It inspired Vionnet to drape. She used it in garments where Cubism (where objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an abstracted form) was applied to the body. She broke the fabric in to geometric forms or cut the fabric into cubes and based her design theories on a treatice of geometry and cubism.

Cubism was intensely popular. It was modern and new. It presented the viewer with a new visual construct of how to view things. Sonia Delaunay a painter, also designed textiles and adapted her abstract paintings into textiles and then into simple, easy garments. So this question of “art and clothing” really starts to dance and take hold. Other designers like Schiaparelli liked to dapple with this question as well. She enlisted Dadaists and Surrealists perspectives to help expand the vocabulary of fashion/art. Sometimes it was embracing the work of artists like Christian Bernard to creative a design. Other times, she converted conventional objects into new ways of wearing clothing like a shoe as a hat. (Dadaism was at it’s root an artistic expression of a rejection of an ideology that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality.) Thus a shoe as a hat, gloves as sleeves or accentuating the ribcage instead of hiding it supported the “theory” of dadasm. It was a new way to express art and clothing.

An extension of this could be seen through the work of designer Rei Kawadubo. She looked at the body from a new viewpoint: that is to free the body of it’s shape. She was inspired to recreate what people view as “the body” and rearrange the standard idea of what the body looks like in clothing. She tried to “deform” the body in a new way.

Other artists like Martin Margeila take a different approach in molding the body into a ‘standard’ shape that is obviously not real for the wearer, thus the body of the wearer is secondary in the garment… No matter what shape the body is in.

Take this a step further… Hussein Chalayan made a nifty little top made of wood and bolts. This challenged the concept not only the body, but what is the fabric that the body is wearing. One could look at early armor as a similar answer to this question but answered many years prior… but in this case, the garment requirement answered the question as the requirement of the garment was to be used in warfare. Chalayan later expanded this wearer requirement to include the question warmth in answering “what is the purpose of the garment to be worn?” He proposed a coat made of blankets.

With this in mind, the question of what is the purpose of the clothing can be taken and spun around. The new question is “what is the message the wearer or designer is wanting to give?” Opening up an artistic response almost similar to abstract expressionism where the action of the creation is the expression of art and fashion, not necessarily the garment itself. I put Yoshi Yamamoto’s more controversial work in line with abstract expressionism. It is not fabric, is is not really wearable. It is less an expression of clothing as it is more art.

One could say also say the expression of graffiti in cloth is perhaps also an solution to this question of expressionism. Vivienne Westwood has taken this expressionism and moved it into the realm of topical subjects with slogans of environmental protection and anti-consumerism printed on her clothing.

It is here that I must stop to pause. First to reflect on all of this as art really does inspire clothing on many levels. And secondly, I pause to this last entry of fashion and clothing as a sounding board or billboard for a message. I have never been a major fan of consumerism with trends of miscellaneously inspired/concocted clothing styles demanding purchase. I do have to take note with Westwood and her placing anti-consumerism slogans on clothing. Is this somehow supposed to provoke consumers to be inspired to buy? It is kind of a little bit oxymoronic or at least hypocritical.

Madeleine Vionnet Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA 1998

Valerie Mendes, Amy De La Haye. 20^th Century Fashion. Thames & Hudson London/New York 2005

Kay Durland Spilker, Sharon Sadako Takeda. Breaking the Mode Skira Editore S.p.A. 2007

Akiko Fukai, Tamami Suoh, Miki Iwagami, Reiko Koga, Rii Nie. Fashion. A History from the 18^th to the 20^th Century. The Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute. Taschen London, LA, Madrid, Paris, Tokyo 2006

History as inspiration

Movies are a wonderful escape from the everyday work life. A really good film transports a viewer away from the theater and into a world that can be charming or scary, plain or beautiful. The plot crafts a sense of wonder and anticipation with a conclusion that leave one satisfied. I prefer films with panoramic vistas and intense visual beauty. Moulin Rouge and Phantom of the Opera caught my attention. I was captivated and saw each of them multiple times just for the visual stimulation factor alone. One scene in Phantom had the main character singing in a most captivating gown with stars in her hair.

Years later, I happened upon the source for the costume designer’s inspiration. It was a painting of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, (a.k.a., Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Hungary, or simply, Princess Sissi) as depicted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter in 1865. The costume designer had taken liberties with some aspect of the costume (as did the painter I am sure). Both painter and costumer were able to capture the essence of a feeling/mood that they wanted to convey visually through the clothing. Fashion designers work to do that as well.

Many designers scour the libraries, art galleries and museums to find sources for inspiration for their next collections. Historical dress is one area of that is an unending fountain of rich inspiration. This is particularly true in high end ready to wear and couture. These area of garment sales offer the opportunity to use custom beading, embroidery and unique and special fibers. Many of these supplies are too expensive for mass-market garments. The luxury market offers more opportunity to use these supplies but also they demand more creativity and artistic liscense so one does not seem to be wearing a costume. Here are some recent collections and how they leveraged a source garment to make it usable for today’s wearer.

The Maharaja’s of India come immediately to mind in the collection by Alexander McQueen. His Ready-to-wear collection for Fall 2008 was a mix of embroidey and beading fit for royalty. I was actually quite surprised at the price point on some of these garments. The dress red dress on the right was only $3500 at Saks. OK – while not exactly a bargain, it did not require the princely sums that one would think.

His pre-fall 2009 collection was no less over the top, but took inspiration from the Dickens area of the industrial revolution. It has fiercely tailored suits and jackets but also some fun vest paired with leggings.

The collection was not so much a collection inspired by Oliver Twist’s orphan boys but more inspired by the wealthier citizens of London. Broken apart, the pieces could be also mixed with jeans or other business wear to make a practical addition to a wardrobe.

Also part of his Fall 2009 collection was a homage to the everyday blacksmith. The garments used in blacksmithing go back hundreds of years. These garments could of easlity been around in the 1760’s all the way to the 1950… perhaps even today. Leather vests and aprons were a practical way to prevent getting burned, Today’s foundries utilize modern day flame and heat resistant textile discoveries.

Jean Paul Gaulter Fall 07 Couture and Haider Ackerman Fall 2009 must have gone to the same source library. Both seems to have discovered the collection of Coachmen uniforms at the V&A This one in particular is Russian and from the 1850’s. Both seemed to pick the garment apart either utilizing its incredible fringe detail or the chest/cuff embroidery.

Both collections seem to have a historical reference but fall way short of making the appear as part of costume. Any of these pieces would be a happy addition to a wardrobe but also because it is undated, be worn for years,

1725 opera singer costumers were a source of inspiration for Alexander McQueen in this RTW 2008 garment. The source garment was originally worn by a man but this reincarnation was more suitable for a woman. 300 years later, the garment still works minus the arias.

Haider Ackerman presented a fall 2009 collection that was punctuated by embroidery and draped leather. Originally from the workrooms of John Galliano, Ackerman has a unique design flair that comes from being a Frenchmen living in Columbia and other parts of the world. He takes a very draped approach to fashion but has been exposed to many sources of ethnic and historical dress. This collection takes inspiration from vintage and contemporary matador outfits.

One sad note about doing the research on this collection: it has always been on my bucket list to actually try my hand at bullfighting. I’ve been to Rondo, I like the suit and am actually on a wait-list for matador school… yes there really is such a thing. There actually happened to be a very good school in Salamanca – the pretty town just northwest of Madrid.

But after finding a rather large collection of images including a videos of matadors being trampled/pummeled or pierced by bulls during a match, I have decided to nix the idea of going to bullfighting school. One site in particular noted how one (ahem… 50 year old) amateur bullfighter was punctured and tossed around by a bull… It was so not pretty.