Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

    My last post, we looked at the notion of clothing as a semiotic form that expresses, as a language of shapes, colors and patterns, the truths we wish to present about ourselves.  But, just like any language, falsehood and misdirection play an equal part in the picture.  Very often they play a larger role.
    Sure, we want others to know our truths; sometimes.  Other times we want them to know a carefully crafted fantasy of us that may have little to do with our day to day reality.  We may want them to see a vision of us as powerful, sexy, wealthy, or smart, when our personal view of ourselves may differ greatly.

    The fascinating thing about each one of these images, is that most of us have learned to create an instantaneous set of suppositions about the people we see, that may in fact have nothing whatever to do with who they truly are.

  Yes, its true that the man in the first picture is in fact Pope Benedict, but just as easily he could be someone in a costume, posing as such a man.  The two models in the second image have been so deeply sexualized that we almost don't notice the clothes they are hawking, and their individual personhood is totally off the table.  The two people is the third image are clearly actors, and as such have nothing whatever to do with the ridiculous display of overt wealth they carry on their backs.  And lastly, though the man is wearing a mortar board and graduation gown, he could just as easily be the idiot son of some wealthy parents who slid him through an ivy league school with their money and influence. 

   The real point here is that each and every one of us do exactly this sort of misdirection and prevarication on a daily basis.  We color our hair, go to the gym, get plastic surgery,  and purchase clothes that describe us as more urbane, sexy and accomplished than we may actually be.  We actively and routinely express, not our essential personal truth, but rather a fantasy we hold of ourselves, a higher, more perfected self.

    This image of MGM actress Norma Shearer, is by George Hurrell, and was part of series of images he shot in order to promote Norma to Irving Thalberg as a sexy siren, fully capable of playing something other than the sweet straightforward roles she had been getting.  Its a monument of craft.  Ms. Shearer was frankly a trifle cockeyed in the literal sense of that word, Hurrell made it a standard part of his process to essentially erase most of the face and paint what he thought was needed in.  And we, each of us in our own way, to greater or lesser extent, do the same thing.  We sell ourselves to the outside world, every day.

  I hope you don't misunderstand me.  I don't mean that this is a bad thing in the main.  By no means do I think so.  Who wants to purchase a new item at a store that is in torn or shoddy packaging if there is another like it with the packaging intact?  I can tell you from decades of experience in retail, no one will.  But I don't mean to imply that only the most perfect and flawless things sell off a shelf.  Each person has their own criteria. It is, at the end of things about presenting the image you want to, with as much authority as you can, in whatever way you can.

   In the final analysis, it is the intersection and cooperation of both our personal truth, and our fantasy of ourselves that makes all this stuff function.  Who would need fashion and attire if all we ever told of ourselves was the complete truth?  We need attire and fashion to help us delve into our dreams of ourselves, to make those dreams real for a short time, and to share those dreams with others who just might understand them as being close to their own. After all, almost none of us really dresses exclusively for ourselves. We want others to share our dreams, so we present those dreams in as intriguing and flattering a light as we may. And there is nothing at all wrong with that.

                                                 Dovima, wearing a gown by Jacques Fath, 1950

Silly? Not So Much

    Those of you who have followed me from the start of the facebook page Bay Area Bitter Kittens, know that I did a vid post there about the significance of attire in terms of the depth of its penetration into our global culture.  I want to expand on a notion I mentioned there; that being, that we both trivialize fashion as being silly and beneath our serious consideration, yet we simultaneously immerse ourselves in it 24/7/365.  What is the hidden mechanism in operation there?  Is it simply that on some deep seated level we must minimize anything that is so all encompassing to our lives in order to feel in control of it? Do we find it bewildering, and therefore try to dismiss it so we don't have to confront learning about its impact on us?  Are we threatened in some way by just how far attire intrudes into our daily lives?

  

    Of course the answer is, all of the above; and most likely myriad other reasons broad and personal that we haven't delineated yet.  As deeply curious a species as we are, we also have a seemingly hard wired system within us that makes sure we don't get overwhelmed by something strange or threatening.  In this case it manifests as a blanket trivialization of attire; and of fashion in particular.

    Where I'm going here though, is an attempt to partially answer those who routinely dismiss the importance of what goes in the world of attire.  If we can accept as an essential truth that one of the primary goals of attire is to create a symbolic set of communicative iconography, a language if you will of garments and accessory items that help us establish to ourselves and those viewing us some aspect of our nature, then this problem becomes slightly easier to address.

    If it is so that we wear clothes to communicate non-verbally to the world, then part of the goal, just as it is in language, is to express with clarity, so that those viewing us are not misled.  How does clothing express thought and emotion with more clarity?  It does so by creating greater and greater refinements of the words in use, and by creating new words as needed to express new thoughts. Simply replace word with design, and you see where we're heading.

    And just like in any other art form fine or applied, the quest for excellence, and the pursuit of the perfect assists in the meaning that is finally delivered to the recipient.  So every time a designer fiddles with an established concept like that of a dress, as a basic word in the lexicon, she is helping to create a new word or phrase that someone out there will begin to use.

    Of course there will also be words that get created that will be rarely used, because they are so specific that only a few people would ever need them to say what needs saying. As a side note, perhaps that goes a long way towards explaining why garments are found ugly or inappropriate; because they either communicate ineptly, or they speak a word no one can understand.

      This process of design and refinement, this search for ever more precise and pointed expressive terms, is no less daunting a task than it is for a composer to find just the exact musical phrase, or for a dancer to rehearse until every movement is as it ought to be.  In fact, in some ways the process is more difficult, since the design of clothing is a collaborative effort.

     But the search for the perfect way to convey an idea of ourselves continues, and will never cease because we are in a continual state of change and growth.  So, hats off to all those out there who wrack their brains and ruin their eyes trying to come up with new and better ways that we can say, "This is who I am!" 

   

Here & Gone

    The words fashion and attire are often used interchangeably, but to my mind there is a significant, though subtle difference.  Just like a square is a rectangle, but not all rectangles are squares, all fashion is attire, but not all attire is fashion.

    And as in the above image, sometimes the lines between fashion and attire become very blurry indeed.  The denim shirt and denim pants concept is one that is staunchly a province of attire since both types of garments have been around for well over a century now;  but how those two garments are executed and presented is what defines it as fashion.
    Similarly, with the concept of a suit, we get these two opposing camps.

    The classic Chanel suit has been around for so long that it has left the fashion realm and is now its own vocabulary word in the lexicon of attire. So ubiquitous is it in the mind, that its very nearly the icon image we create in our head when we think, "women's suit".  This second suit is however, without question an item of fashion, though it too is a suit.  The color, cut and details all mark it as of a specific time, and for a specific person.

    Or, looking at it in another way, attire is the basic noun, and fashion is the modifier.  You can use the word dress, and that defines a basic concept, a non-bifurcated garment that covers the body over at least the middle third of its shape.  But as soon as we use that term modifiers are essential to understand what kind of dress we are speaking of.  Is the dress one or two pieces?  Is it long or short, formal or casual, patterned or solid? 

    So, for the purposes of the discussions here I will be using the words attire, and fashion very  specifically.  Even as I sit here right now, typing this post, I am struck by the intersection of these two terms.  I'm in lounge pants, (yes I do occasionally actually wear something besides kilts) a long sleeved vee neck tee, and a plaid overshirt.  Now, if I was out in the world wearing these garments, it would be fashion, because I would be communicating something significant about myself both superficially, and on deeper levels; but in solitude the garments all become attire, not fashion because I am not attempting to express anything other than, "I don't want to turn the heat on in the apartment."

    Where, when and how in your life does attire become fashion, and vice versa?  We all shift back and forth constantly.

Why Couture, After All?

    I find it intriguing that couture got birthed at all.  But when you look at it contextually, it makes a good deal of sense.  During the 1800s the rapid rise of mechanization, and the increasing availability of ready made garments changed how fashion and attire disseminated to the populace. Little dressmakers still abounded, of course, but their primacy was threatened.  Also threatened was the skill set, expertise and artistry that they brought not only to their work, but through that work, to the world.

    Enter Charles Frederick Worth, an English born, Paris living man who is credited aptly with the creation of the Couture.  In his able hands and from his facile mind sprang the notion that there had to be a place where only the very best of everything came together to make the most elevated and sublime of garments. And for a century thousands of women from all over the world accessed couture clothes regularly.   And we can see the results of that labor and commerce today in museums.

    Now, however, an increasing number of people question the validity of the couture in the 21st century.  What does such a rarefied craft contribute globally, when only a few hundred women can these days afford to dress in such clothes?  And the social backlash is so pronounced that the couture client lists have become guarded like secrets in the NSA.
    My answer to this question is a simple one.  When we allow the special and the extraordinary to die away, we diminish ourselves as a culture.  Losing the ability to create beauty at this level means that we also cut ourselves off from our own artistic history to a degree.
     Sure, garments like these are not something the majority of us will ever even get to see up close, let alone wear, but understanding that they exist at all, like paintings in a gallery, brightens our world a bit.

    Craftsmanship like that brought to bear on this amazing appliqued leather coat deserves to exist and be supported.  Whatever you might think of the design, the workmanship is simply without flaw.

    Minds capable of devising and bringing to reality such fragile and mathematically challenging work deserve to be encouraged.  This dress which is created of gathered parallelograms of organza is a mathematical problem of high order.  The pieces must not only decrease in size, but arc around an irregular shape.  Yikes.
    And then there is embellishment and embroidery work, which can take the most mundane of materials and elevate them to art.

    All these pieces are from the House of Valentino from his fall 2014 collection.  I chose the work of Valentino, because in couture there is no established house with a greater reputation for excellence.
The expressivity of these garments cannot be denied, and should not be allowed to vanish utterly for our world.
     And finally, we must all be allowed to aspire, to dream, and to reach if we can, the heights of whatever calling we have.

Girls And Boys

    That we live in an age where there is a gaping disconnect between our standards for physical perfection, and the reality of the range of the human body's proportions, and requirements for health is no news whatever; and I don't plan to address that.  What I want to delve into is why and how this happened, and continues to get more extreme.
    Over the span of human recorded history, the ideal body shape has varied wildly, not only through time, but from culture to culture. 

    But somewhere around the time of the invention of the corset that ideal began to skew further and further from the functional reality of the human shape, and because we currently live in a dominantly patriarchal culture, the more profound effects were not felt by men, but by women.

    From that time, a woman's shape began to be manipulated away from its natural dimensions, through wildly tall heeled or platformed shoes, and a tight constriction of the waist. 
    Now, I have a notion about the why of corsets, or rather whys. First it was an obvious method of both physical and psychological confinement, keeping women incapable of full use of their own bodies.  The second, deeper meaning is that by compressing the waist artificially the hips become visually more pronounced, implying to the observer that this woman is a child bearer, and of course, that that is her right state of being.  And this second deeper reason is one that scrolls back so far in our history as a species as to nearly have hard wired status.  When procreation, and the furtherance of the human race was a prime concern, physical characteristics like ample breasts and broadly drawn hips were as good an indicator as we had at the time that a woman was fertile.  Men under observation needed physical strength and obvious vigor, and in particular this has translated nearly universally in art to narrow hips, broad shoulders, and a high round butt.

    But it was not till the early 20th century that things changed in a way that has manifested finally in the irrational state of affairs we live with today.  In the 20's we saw the beginnings of the youth culture that would change how we viewed ourselves. It was the first time that as a group, the young were effecting the dominant culture.  And this cultural focus on youth as being desirable over maturity began to change how we viewed beauty. Slimness was actively sought, and for the first time ever, women were going to health clubs and dieting to achieve the right reed-like slenderness.

    It would take decades, in fact not until the 60s, before the shift would take seemingly complete hold of our culture.  Idols like the model Twiggy, and the arrogantly sexy Mick Jagger, were emblems of that shift.  Since then we have not really let go of this notion.  In fact it has only deepened and broadened. 
    As we have moved further along, and technologies have permitted all manner of alterations to us to be done, the ideal has reached a point now where only the most diligent and heroic measures can achieve the goal.  Apart from those fortunate few who possess the genetics to get there with minimal effort, the rest of us must face extremes of diet, relentless hours of exercise, and possibly surgical changes, if we wish to pursue this dream.  Even those lovely stars we revere wear spanks under their clothes and slather their faces with makeup to create a level of perfection even they do not possess.
    Now, why is this so?  To my mind its because of another one of those hard wired pieces of us. We have an unending desire to manipulate our environment and ourselves, if for no other reason than because we can.  Throughout our history as a species, there has never been a time when a notion has occurred to us, no matter how foolish or wrongheaded, that we have not striven to achieve. And when coupled with our also innate desire always to step a little further, this inevitably results in a furtherance of the ideal of beauty.  Our boundless need to move forward and express in real time our wildest fantasies finally results in a collapse of that fantasy when technology can take us no further.
    So we end up having a cultural meme about attractiveness for women and men that is out of whack. Both sides of the aisle are expected to maintain a level of body fat that is not entirely healthy, and to do whatever they may to stave off the appearance of onrushing maturity.
    To finish up, for now, since this subject bears further discussion, I leave you with these images.
    These are all professional athletes, and to that end they are all in prime condition for their sport.  But nearly none of these highly trained people fits what we believe to be beautiful as a cultural norm.
It certainly gives me reason to think.

The Long Hibernation

    Up to the beginning of the 1800s men and women trod the path of sartorial magnificence and glamor together.  Shapes were different, it is true, but for sheer dazzle, they were on par with each other.  Then came the 19th century and out of nowhere men's fashion sputtered to a halt. It became hidebound, narrow and blandly colored.  There are myriad reasons put forward for this phenomenon, but no one will ever be able to get to the truth of it, I suspect.

    Some claim that the political revolutions that sprang up near the end of the 18th century spawned a desire to distance oneself from the relentless extravagance of royal court life.  There are those who credit the start of the industrial revolution, with the concomitant need for more practical clothes suited to business.  Some blame Beau Brummel. I suspect that the truth of it involves both these and many other unknown factors. 
    But the result was that the color, and variety drained out of menswear, almost entirely.  A man was shortly only able to wear significant color in a vest or cravat.

    Shapes and cuts kept getting more select. Options disappeared in  droves.  And by the start of the 20th century men were left with this.

    This creeping ossification of style and variation continued through the 20th century, until the rise of sportswear as a category began to make inroads, chipping away at the icy block that men's attire had become.  By the 1950's men's sportswear as a section of men's fashion had become strong enough to exert a real influence.

   
    Then, in the later 50's we had to add the growing youthquake into the mix, and the burgeoning sexual revolution. All at once the desire to dress in coat and tie began to be challenged in a significant way.  Sure the suit still held primacy, and even now is still a major player.  No designer would send out a collection without at least a few suits.   But with the continuance of a desire for color, and comfort, the suit is continuing its slow fade into the distance.  In another 50 years, possibly sooner, the suit will be a kind of specialized gear for only the most formal of occasions, like a wedding.

   The vast army of gray, navy and black is being supplanted.  And different ways for men to dress are emerging.

    Where this is all likely to lead, who can say?  I have some notion in my own head, but we have seen enough times already what happens when people try to predict fashions.  The results are usually pretty funny.

A Curious, Exotic Ugliness

    With a grateful nod to Sissydude, for that title,  I want to look at our current state of design affairs.

   We all understand that part of the point and purpose of art is to challenge, to test, to unsettle and discomfort us. Design in fashion has that as part of its hidden manifesto as well.  If we are not routinely brought face to face with the unexpected and the difficult, we do not grow, not in any respect.  So it is then very much worthwhile to stop and ponder these things when they get presented to us.

    The most recent couture collections in Paris had among them many creations that do just that.  They address our notions of beauty, proportion, and functionality. It remains up to each of us as viewers, to form our own opinions about the fitness, and success of the work in those senses.

    Now, superficially you could look at this work and think that it belongs to a very wealthy woman who is clinically insane, but part of that is simply to get your attention, in a world that is fairly drowning in visual input, this very blog included.

  

    On closer inspection, of course, individual pieces of this ensemble are well able to be understood and considered wearable.  Its only the aggregate that becomes deliberately disjointed.  But what is this saying about us, that we need and want to manifest it in the first place?  Perhaps some of it is simply as I said previously, the desire to get, and hold our attention in a surging sea of input. Or is there something more here, both deeper seated, and darker?

   

    Part of the question is where does this disturbing vision come from?  Is it seated entirely in the designer's realm, or is the obvious angst on display merely an interpretation of a larger cultural trend?  For myself, I would tend to believe the latter.  As we all struggle to keep up, and at the same time try to find a way to be seen and heard in the now globe spanning conversations we routinely engage in, a desire to in some way shout our need grows stronger.  If I cannot get your attention with harmonious beauty and flawless construction, I will command your gaze in other ways. 

    This garment seems to in a single stroke embody the whole subject at issue here.  Both the screaming desire to be seen, a lack of freedom, and a curious inward focus that is at odds with it all.
The model cannot use her arms and hands, so she is restrained from expressing herself.  The coiling shapes seem to be literally consuming her.  But the color is bland and retreats from the eye.  All quite purposeful, I have no doubt.  And it speaks volumes about our personal social discomforts.

    This "notice me at all costs, but leave me alone" feeling is adroitly expressed in these works.  The huge padded volume both inevitably grabs our eye, but that same volume keeps us at a literal remove from the wearer.  The mass of the garments also impedes, to a good degree, a person's mobility, which is another manifestation of that constraint I mentioned before.

    The clashing colors and patterns too, express something of this social disjunction that we live with today.  Yes, disparate patterns can work harmoniously together, and there are elements of that here.  But the disconnect is real, deliberate and challenging.

    In the end we all have to find our way somehow through the difficulties and confusions; and apparel can sometimes help us both to express that problematic state, and alleviate it.  As a societal marker, avant garde looks of this sort present a unique opportunity to look inside ourselves.  We get an occasion to ask ourselves about what beauty means, what harmony encompasses, how we require our society to function, and what to do about it, if and when it doesn't.  Shall we navel gaze, and attempt to ignore the outer issues?  Shall we protest? Or shall we merely soldier on, hoping for other, better things another day? 

    Clothing design can and does contribute to the discussion of our inner conflicts and changes. Your assignment?  Study these, and let me know what you glean from them that is apropos of this post. Who knows what we might discover?