creative industries; fashion

vivienne westwood
semiotics - a system of signs that communicate meaning.

the juxtaposition of fetish clothing in the laundrette with a shopping trolley. To me it says drunken students. Unconventional because i know what the 'convention' is.

what is fashion design? What is fashion design NOT? What is clothers v fashion? More than function - product design? Fashion says something.  Massively challenged by breaking convention - changing the languare. e.g. turning hems inside out (a wave of japanese designers turned everything on it's head - wabi-sabi, a peice of cloth, de-constructed)
fashion - the visual zeitgheist - in art, music, politics, theatre.... who leads who? who's most influntial? which crosses over most successfully?
Charles Fredrick Worth 1826-1895, the first 'fashion designer'. tapped into advances in printing - drawings, printed, marketed.
Very much centred on the figure of the monarch. When fashion moved out from the royal court it was only to women.

It was hollywood that expanded fashion from just toffs - it became artists too.* this is the time that seems to linger as 'classic'. must be because that's where it gets harder to trace things back, hollywood firsts are sill relatively easily available. At this time the pace started to change. (could go to the old pictures for inspiration - search for hand tinted photos: http://goldenagepaintings.blogspot.com/2009/08/victorian-romance.html)
charls fredrick worth, classic artist with beret, cravat and tash :o)
His work was very decorative, lots of embellishment. the colours were probaby bright but the colours have degraded.

social & gender issues - needing someone to dress you. functional clothing.
orientalism. paul poiret.

fashion & american money returning to Paris after the war.

the origin of species - we're not decended from god! Charles Darwin + travel. time of massive change.

unisex - new concept
1900 - women in mens clothing - scandal. Not really so new as there have always been women dressing up as men, to get into the army for example.

Lady Gaga's 'meat dress' - shocking as it's acutally degrading as she wears it - new ideas.

Orientalism - different perspecdtives on perspective. we mostly mimic a scientific view - linear perspective. in  Australian art it's looking down, mapping. In the orient it's scrolls - if it's further away, it's higher up. travel changed our ways of thinking. I like it.

paul poiret is known as the picasso of fashion. - stunning, bold, oriental. fashion and surface pattern. 1911 evening cape, working with artist Raoul Duffy

fashion and photography and music and celebrity. all working together.

comme de garcon - fine art or fashion design? which is higher status? and to who? branding.
hussain charlean?

Vodka advert with puff daddy - It was hard to see what it was advertising - i thought it was perfume but it could have been clothes or other... not the usual conventions. a man. a black man. not a posh white woman. vodka not perfume.

lovely wide leg trouser advert from the 50's. fashion illustration was big business then til the 60's when photos became easyer to print.

WW1 - exuberant fashion was seen as distateful. meterials were harder to get. 20s sillhouette, less talilored, straight up and down. shorter hem.

ww2 - war cutting - tweed - supporting war effort. no embellishment.

frech revolution - after that they said - 'we shall all wear the same!' never gonna happen as people like to express their individuality;

Ford - industrial revolution - 1930;s/40's - mechanisation, production line.

fashion plates from 50's but only haute couture.

nazi's tried t move fashion to berlin coz it's powerful.  that prompted a mass exodus to the US. From then onwards the US has been more dominant.

1957 ' teenage' appears. girls only department.
th who fear death or the parents who fear for their young? I don't see any youngsters being especially fearful of the war's we've been part of these days. The only reaction i've seen amongst the youth (because of the circles i mix with) is one of disenchantment with politics and even a dissilusionment with activism as the politicians do what they want anyway. And so they turn to booze or they give up on their morals - which i predict leads to depression and then booze.


war creates a lot of space in which social change can take place. A lot of fashion becomes about the youth finding their tribe. Teddy boys, mods, rockers. Emo, plastics, anarchists. Goth, crusty, townie.
1970's flowers, guns. long hair, contrast with uniforms of hippy/civilian/squaddie.

Conspicuous consumption is a term used to describe the lavish spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status. A very similar but more colloquial term is "keeping up with the Joneses". (from wikipedia page 'conspicuous consumption' 12/12/10) Thorstein Veblen published the 'theory of the leisure classes' in 1899. In it he criticises capitalism, business and the needless production of waste purely for ostentation.

x roads. virgina.edu/HYPER/VEBLEN/veb_toc.html - or something similar!

fashion as a barometer of cultural changes - I'll say! Tribe... belonging...
circus - sport/20's/classic eccentric.


thorstein veblen