Friday, January 24, 2014

25 01 14

i always used to wonder why menswear was so traditional and moved really slowly whereas women's fashion was obsessed with a more out-there or extravagant approach, and there's probably heaps of reasons, i.e. gender politics re: traditionalism and frivolity, but it's sorta changing these days, i suppose partially because of the immense number of people doing/making fashion. (theres probably heaps of graduates doing similar things to when there was less exposure/globalization/dissemination of ideas, like maybe for every walter van beirendonck there's maybe 30+ labels doing similar things)

anyway, i never really pieced it together in terms of "the everyday"/ everyday living
A central problematic of the everyday - the relationship between valuing the latest styles on the one hand and valuing tradition on the other - is nevertheless intrinsic to it, as Sheringham argues: “What sets the tone is without a doubt the newest, but only where it emerges in the medium of the oldest, the longest past, the most ingrained”. Observing that “the everyday” typically is antithetical to the modern in that “everyday experience is what happens in typical form today as it has done yesterday and will do so tomorrow,” some theorists of the everyday have proposed that in the first part of the twentieth century, there was a conjunction of modernity and everydayness around the notion of consumption. Re-conceptualized as mass experience, “the everyday” is a construction of modernity that is “couched in terms of the commercialisation, trivialisation, and banalisation of experience as consequence of the new technologies of cultural (re)production and dissemination.” Commonality, mass-experience, and accelerated consumption have been fundamental to fashion at specific historical junctures - for example, in relation to female mass magazine readership in the 1920s and 1930s, Hollywood cinema in the 1930s, men’s magazines in the 1980s and 1990s, and Internet shopping in the 2000s. At the intersection of modernity and the everyday, mass-culture has contributed to both the ordinariness and the extraordinariness of fashion.
Conceptualizing Fashion in Everyday Lives, Cheryl Buckley & Hazel Clark 
i think this is really interesting cause people like to ogle at conceptual fashion, reblog it and post detail photos and things like that, but nobody wears it in public??? unless you are a celebrity known for those kind of shenanigans (see: anna dello russo)

also, people like to say things like, "ah yes, i really like the cut of this shirt, it's really traditional but with a contemporary twist", but things like a shirt that doesn't look like a shirt at all is all very disconcerting for people to accept into their 'everyday'. on another note this is really funny as well because i remember someone telling me that the scariest things (regarding people) is when it looks similar to a human face/body but it's been altered ever so slightly that it appears off in some way. i guess it fashion its more of a comfort thing though.

on the note of new collections/etc though, i read somewhere that apparently less bloggers will be given access to view runway shows (unless they have large consumer capital, i suppose), and the argument against it in the article is more or less that bloggers promote sales etc, but at the same time they could just sit at home and blog about the looks from style.com

i suppose the problem with that is that it promotes the idea of creating garments to be seen and not worn. in that regard, maybe that's why the fashion/traditionalism relationship is still very strong, as far as everyday life goes, wearing a polyester t-shirt sucks (sweaty). wearing neoprene is very impractical (sweaty). which isn't to say that you can't create a well designed, comfortable garment that is both practical and innovative. maybe that's one of the goals. i don't know

oh ps i dont even know who reads this stuff, but if you ever want articles/scans (that aren't like 100 pages long lol), feel free to message/e-mail me. im all for sharing is caring

5 comments:

  1. I think one of the things about conceptual/more avantgarde clothes is that often you actually have to think about how you'll wear them, as opposed to, say, jeans and a t-shirt because that's already accepted as sort of a standard (I'm not sure I'm getting my point across here, sorry, English is not my first language). What I mean is that there are certain ways that, say, a button-down shirt is "meant" to be worn, which are continually enforced on us by seeing them worn that way and that makes dressing a lot easier maybe? as opposed to having a garment that could be worn as a shirt or a dress where you don't only have to decide what clothes to wear but also how you wear them. or something with an unusual cut where you just don't have a "blueprint" for what to pair it with.
    sorry if this is a bit ramble-y and unclear but I like to think about this kind of stuff, especially since I sew some of my clothes and sometimes have to ask myself why I don't make them more interesting. (trying to change that, though, thanks to japanese pattern books)

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    1. That's true! I think though in certain cases some conceptual fashion is highly impractical outside of a editorial setting, e.g. Comme Des Garcons SS14.
      But definitely - the kind of way we perceive "dress" is very much ingrained (at least by Western standards), like what is tasteful dress or what is tacky.

      I think that's the liberating part about conceptual clothing though, that no limitation is presented about the body itself - the body still exists to wear the clothes, but is no longer limited by its physicality to create a silhouette.

      Have you used Pattern Magic? It's such an interesting way to think about how clothes are made!

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    2. Agreed. But really, it's not only conceptual fashion that can be impractical, when you think about it - on most runways there are quite a number of clothes that are unlikely to ever be worn on the street.

      That's part of why I'm trying to sew more "unusual" clothes actually. I'm kind of tired of how everything always has to be "flattering", ie close-fitting and/or hiding any "flaws" of your body. I'd rather the clothes speak for themselves instead of being there to show off my body (if that makes sense).

      I got Pattern Magic 1 and 3 for christmas and I love them. so far I only made the nejiri top which I really like but sadly can't wear yet because the fabric is fairly thin and it's too cold here. I am definitely planning on drafting a few more of the patterns once my exams are over. I have also sewn a few of the "drape drape" designs that I love wearing.

      (accidentally posted this before it was finished, sorry)

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