Maison Martin Margiela; Somerset House

Visited 1/9/2010.

This is where it all comes from...truly, truly good stuff!
Seriously inspiring, innovative approaches to fashion with bucket loads of integrity. The perfect antidote to celebrity culture and all the nonsense that goes with it. This made me want to rush home, cut all my clothes up and do sew them back together again in unthinkable ways.    

Will write more on this but wanted to get it up on the blog sharpish!

http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/fashion/maison_martin_margiela_20/default.as

A Concise Dictionary of Fashion; Judith Clarke & Adam Philips

Visited 2/05/2010
http://www.artangel.org.uk//projects/2010/the_concise_dictionary_of_dress/about_the_project/the_concise_dictionary_of_dress

Went to see this fantastic installation at the weekend. Set within Blythe House, previously home to the post office savings bank, now the repository for the V & A archive. This is an hour long exploration of the building and its contents punctuated by a series of curatorial and psychoanalytical responses to the fashion collection.  These are presented in the form of site specific installations accompanied by definitions that provoke an idiosyncratic interpretation of the clothing in terms of 'anxiety, wish and desire'. The guide is not allowed to answer questions about interpretation but can assist with information about materials and practical matters concerning the conservation areas and stores that we pass through. Personal response and interpretation are everything and each visitor to the piece will notice a different set of details. The building is vast; a labyrinth of alarmed corridors on I can't remember how many floors. A warren of staircases, cavernous rooms containing racks, glass fronted cupboards, cabinets and rolls and rolls of textiles wrapped up in conservation white. You catch a glimpse of objects partially obscured by the glare of light on glass and have to pop back momentarily to confirm what you have seen. A spinning wheel, an Islamic vessel, the edge of, what looked like, a stunningly ornate Grinling Gibbons mirror. Stacks, rows, objects propped up against walls and the orderly labels, the labelling and organising of a vast collection of 'things', mostly hand written, some crossed out and updated. Instructions to staff... 'Do not  put anything on this surface or use it for rolling' and there are staff there on a Sunday, waiting patiently for us to move on so they can resume their work carefully shifting artifacts on a trolley. We start at the top of the building, on the roof with panoramic views over London and finish in the basement. I notice strange and seemingly unimportant things; three plastic bin liners of rubbish in a corridor, the surface of a wall, a piece of disused machinery, the thing about an 'Experience' like this is that you are always questioning what parts of the environment are manufactured?

The 'interventions' are whimsical, provocative, amusing, evocative, playful and challenging.

Fantastic Voyage; the human body is an alien landscape.

Our bodies are alien to us.

What we think it all looks like now
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/technique/tprojects/6850.html

Same animation with technical commentary
http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife_lo.html

What we thought it all looked like back in the 1960's when men were men, and women were beautiful girls!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o8vsU0Dw-4&feature=related

Review; Silver Wedding Dress with Bridal Bouquet by Victor & Rolf.

Ideas around this piece are currently feeding into my project proposal. Initially because of the materials and techniques that have been used, and the gender associations that relate to them. I need to research electro-plating and find out if/how I can organise/generate some samples. I think that it could be a way of preserving the detail and distressed qualities of my fabric pieces whilst turning them into metal. watch this space!

Review/Critical Presentation:
Strapless wedding dress and bridal bouquet, silver-plated;
‘Silver’ Autumn/Winter collection 2006/07.

Designed by Victor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren; Dutch fashion designers who have collaborated together as ‘Victor and Rolf’ since 1993. It featured in a retrospective of their work: The House of Viktor and Rolf’ presented at the Barbican Art Gallery in 2008.

‘For Viktor and Rolf, Couture is an artistic medium, a commodity, and a laboratory of ideas.’ (P6; Merrell) Renowned for collections that straddle the boundaries between ‘Art’ and ‘Design’ they critique the fashion industry while working within it, challenging preconceptions of what clothing can be, using materials in suprising and innovative ways and presenting their work through performance and site specific installation.

 Essentially nostalgic, the dress references a period in the 1940’s /50’s when fashion and femininity was being totally redefined following the launch of Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’.
The piece was presented in a number of ways; as a full size garment on a mannequin, in miniature on ‘Caroline,’ a doll within a doll’s house, and through footage of the catwalk show.
 To categorise this piece as a garment at all is questionable! Clearly it can be worn, but the movement of the wearer is restricted, the process of electroplating subverts the function of the garment transforming it into an object. Inspired by the Dutch custom of preserving a baby’s first shoe for posterity by electroplating it in silver, the dress is an exploration of ideas around the preservation of a memory or event through transformation of a perishable artefact into a resistant, durable momento. It has been described as ‘a metaphor for a desire to give permanence to fashion and still its fleeting nature.’ (P178; Merrell 2008) but also has other connotations.

 The wedding dress with it’s associations; a rite of passage into adult life, the fulfilment of romantic aspiration and social norms, is loaded with significance. Other garments within the collection have individual components that are plated with silver; a cuff, a bow, the hem of a skirt, but the wedding dress is totally covered in precious metal! It is therefore possible to interpret this as a commentary on the value given to marriage culturally and/or the extravagance and consumerism that now dominate the marriage industry.

 Presented as installation in the Greek Revival ‘pillar hall’ (Belsay Hall, Northumberland 2007) the dress becomes classical sculpture; elevated goddess like on a plinth, it alludes to antiquity and the representation of idealised beauty. It is both ‘an ode fashion’ (P178 Merrell 2008) and an indication of Viktor and Rolf’s aspirations.
When viewed closely at the Barbican, the intricate edges of its lace skirt imply the delicate qualities of the fabrics used. The preservation of construction detail and form indicate the level of craftsmanship required in realising this piece, a technical triumph! However, metal surfaces strongly lit from above in a darkened space made the dress look vulgar, like a massive silver charm that will inevitably tarnish as time passes. A critique of the ephemeral nature fashion industry or a comment on the state of matrimony? One thing is clear, heralded as the climax to the 2006/07 Autumn/Winter collection the cultural importance of the wedding dress is maintained and reinforced, both as the ultimate aspirational garment and a pinnacle of the creative process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEvp9jkErmo&NR=1&amp:featur=fvwp

Bibliography:
The House of Viktor & Rolf: Merrell; 2008.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEvp9jkErmo&NR=1&feature=fvwp
http://www.showstudio.com/contributor1363 25/19/2009.
Inside the House of Viktor & Rolf – Symposium; Viktor & Rolf in conversation with Penny Martin (Barbican Centre, 13 Sept 2008) http://www.showstudio.com/contributor1363 25/10/2009.

The Golden Age of Couture; Paris and London 1947-57.

Edited by Claire Wilcox. V&A 2007.

Picture sources:

http://www.styleskilling.com/

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPNbGWqo9TUa9PE4lt8x5se7KbbhK7rvFFTbw4a3lqcgTYwzEPxnlveviUMancQcWqJ6P4w1HpRPmEyNBF-eVJPzKilUInO8bF8QLJd_oyRWWoxh0rT3Qzax8ORFOeIMCXDybT5aZ52VC/s400/the-house-of-viktor-rolf7.jpg

Christian Dior ‘New Look’ 1947.

http://choubelle.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/fashion-that-even-hetero-man-fashion-dunces-understand/

http://www.sensationalcolor.com/liveinfullcolor/wp-content/uploads/LiveInFullColor/JulieHoylen/Ray_Ban/15matter_650.jpg

Junya Wantanabe: Radical Fashion Exhibition at the V&A (2001)

I thought it would be a good idea to post some of the influences that have impacted on me, my work and visual preoccupations so far.

The Radical Fashion Exhibition at The Victoria and Albert Museum back in 2001 was the start of this particular journey. As always with the V&A Fashion work; the exhibition was brilliantly curated and displayed. Packed with stunning ideas and extraordinary fabric manipulation.
An evening dress made from sweatshirt fabric constructed using a single continuous seam by Vivienne Westwood. Tightly fitting architectural precision in silk jersey and black silk faille by Azzedine Alaia, and a cheeky subversion of materials from Jean Paul Gaultier in both his evening dress fashioned out of Cable knitted grey wool and a beautifully tailored denim coat encrusted with thousands of jet beads. These were all highlights for me.

However, I was really captivated by the Junya Wantanabe installation. Glowing fabric forms engineered out of layers of semi-transparent organza stitched together at strategic points to create these sculptural dresses that enveloped the body of the wearer. Like giant Christmas decorations, each had apparently emerged from a flat box. I can imagine the forms and structures gradually being revealed as gravity did its work, and spent a long time in the exhibition trying to figure out the mechanics of how these garments had been made.
Reminiscent of floating jelly fish, the absence of colour gave these pieces a ghostly, ethereal quality.

The idea of transition/transformation from 2D to 3D explored by Wantanabe in these garments has continued to inform my work. I have used stitching, construction and piercing techniques, exploring possibilities of shape, structure and transparency to create both free standing and hanging forms, some of which are featured above.

I am still in love with the simplicity/purity of the white on white aesthetic; it allows the complexities and textures of the fabric structures to be seen clearly. I also enjoy the way that directional light can be used to explore the visual possibilities of my fabric sculptures.

In short, the impact of seeing these pieces from Junya Wantanabe's Autumn/Winter 2000/2001 collection for Comme des Garcons was very significant and still continues to resonate in my work.
I know that I will want to revisit their structural and material qualities again and again in the future!