Opinion Fashioned anew
Fashion has held out against the proles. Times up
Fashion speaks a language that transcends boundaries. Look beyond the glossy magazines and over-priced labels. Its a medium of expression yet somehow comment on fashion is manifestly missing.
As the recession gripped world economies the fashion world was quick to adjust. Born were catchphrases recessionista magazines were darker,outlook gloomier. But now British Vogues January 2010 issue has injected a burst of colour,adjusting perhaps to the recovery. Surely some readers have noticed but failed to express an opinion.
Why is that? Is it because fashion the type that is more art than prêt-a-porter (ready to wear) is considered a commodity for the elite? After all,look at a runway,look at the pictures in your tabloid.
What do you see?
Familiar faces,the celebrities: the usual suspects,the mega-rich.
Designers that identify with a celebrity and born is the muse,who will define a new line.
The web can grow even more complex. Enter the PR agencies.
Those,with their hyper-controlled guest lists and tightly vetted entrants nurture a clique and so a circle is born the so-called fashion crowd. The fashion crowd is notoriously incestuous so,should a collection not cut the mark,the observers choose
to remain silent. Because the saving grace of bad fashion is its own planned obsolescence. A collection lasts only a few months and the designer can be forgiven. He is an artist. Artists are allowed slip-ups next time round they quietly murmur to each other.
This set-up is blatantly unnatural and in it,one fails to grasp the importance of fashion as a medium of expression. I believe that art should carry with it a powerful message,a message whose function is to inform or convey knowledge to those who can access it. Is this not what painted art and literature strive to achieve? Is this not what the creative process is all about?
Why not the fashion world too?
Those who view fashion as a good only for a certain class and their ilk are,ironically,out of date. Maison couture or fashion houses such as Chanel,YSL,Bvlgari were born at a specific point in the development of the fashion industry,coinciding with the peak of the old-style industrial economy. The robes were passed from the old aristocracy to industrialists but this is all changing now.
The muse has broken her shackles and is now a creator.
Look at Kate Moss. It took a fixture of the fashion crowd to create momentum towards the democratisation of fashion. Her lines for H&M and Topshop the high street option have done the previously unthinkable by taking couture to the masses. So,again the question: If fashion is edging towards a more open and critical public,where is the corresponding debate on it?
With the onslaught of magazines and countless websites dedicated to it,fashion is now more accessible than ever. Designers are more willing to engage with their public and are more open to a trickling-down fashion industry.
Other forms of expression be it art,cinema or literature have
created for themselves and allowed for forums for discussion. If an art exhibition disappoints it is lambasted by the (over-)abundant bunch of critics. Any person,no matter how clued-in,knows they can derive or not aesthetic value from a painted canvas. Technology has created the space for critical evaluation anyone with a blog can be a movie critic. This type of engagement between the public and the fashion designers is unfortunately narrow.
Fashion is one of the most coded,visual forms of expression,the kind of thing that should make of everyone a critic. (And it can be more personal: when judging fiction the author merely provides context the written text is allowed to speak for itself. But for fashion this tendency is not so much the design and designer become intrinsically
intertwined.) If other arts have harnessed a critical following,why has the Vogue-dominated fashion world not?
Because of the internal politics of the fashion world. Newspapers no longer serve as primary critical centres,passing the task down to magazine editors and stylists. As the filters of a collection and backers of a fashion house,
appraisal takes a back seat.
But this too will change in the coming decade.
With the increased relevance of new media the tight grip on comment will undoubtedly loosen. The fashion world is conscious of this look at the decision by Anna Wintour (the devil in The Devil Wears Prada) to replace the uber-skinny model with a fuller,realer woman on January 2010s American Vogue.
As the fashion world adjusts to our reality,isnt it time we start poking their creations a bit?
alia.allana@expressindia.com
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