Historical Styles

Elizabeth Peyton's Marc Jacobs, Spring 2009,Oil on Canvas

Within this assignment we have to compile 6 images of fashion designs that show influences from historical artistic styles....Now,for me that is a very hard task, as i view the influence of historical artistic styles in any and everything...slightest detail can be an object of my ''tracing back''and thinking through.

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Ok FOCUS...my choices must communicate...and explicit enough for others to grasp.

John Galliano for Dior seems an easy choice to start with...balancing between Baroque and Rococo styles, exploring the bounderies between the two. In the Dior Couture 2009 collection influence of the Dutch Baroque Painters  seems evident. But when one considers the show,  a mere theatre play, with the models taking an ''artistic pose'' at the end of the catwalk...before turning around.

Dior Spring 2009 

Jan Vermeer ,The Art of Painting c. 1666-73

When contemplating and reflecting on John Galliano's work for Dior. I eventually believe the spring show of 2009 was about''the art of painting'' itself....

or the '' technical mastering'' within creation of masterpieces. 

Where the Baroque paintings depict a kind of silence, or ''pose''....Dior's show seems all about movement, theatre and a certain joy of life...So in the end i would place John Galliano as an example of Roccoco Artistic style...

Dior  Fall  2009

Second Historical Artitic style i wanted to explore and track towards the fashion scene, was Impressionism....starting with Manet's painting being excluded of the Salon.This group was not as ''homogene''as i believed them to be , and even the ideas represented by impressionist artists did vary...

My favourite artist within this group of Impressionists was Paul Cezanne. (Cezanne's Doubt by Merleau Ponty is worth reading). For him living was by painting...

He was intrigued by human-perception, and gave this form by painting...He painted the world how he saw it...that being the only possible way...

Portrait of Gustave Geffroy,1895

The impressionists style tried to capture the way objects strike the eye...and Cezanne showed that ''capturing'' of this way, is dependent on the artist... 

Painting by Gustav Klimt

An artist that rejected naturalistic styles and made use of symbols and symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas was Gustav Klimt(1862-1918).His work emphasizes the ''freedom'' of art from traditional culture. The influence of this Symbolist Style can be seen in the work of the first fashion designer Charles Worth.

Decorative parts of garments where exclusively hand made by the House of Lesage and could be considered as works of art in themselves...The underneath image of a gown designed in 1923 by the house of Worth just captured my attention....in resemblence in colour, style and pose when looking at the work of Klimt...

Design of Gown, 1923 , House of Worth

And then  there was a guy that was called Duchamp, who shocked the artworld with his ready made's, and especially with a piece called ''Fountain'' in 1917. He changed the art-scene towards a new kind of art. An art that engages the mind instead of the eye, in ways that provoke the observer to participate and think....

Marcel Duchamp

Comme des Garcons Spring 2008

I think that Commes des Garcons shows the influences of this artistic ''style''. 

Its an Art-style referring and questioning herself....just as Commes des Garcon's fashion is referring to herself...questioning and suggesting...by means of creations.

Pop Art and Conceptual Art both carry the inheritence of Marcel Duchamp thoughts...

Famous artist within the Pop-Art style was Andy Warhol,

Silkscreen ink on painted wood,1964

With his Brillo boxes he showed that everything can be art...in principal...And in the opposite reasoning, everything can be merchandised, even art. The commercial aspect is entering the art-scene, and the art work becomes possible  as mere ''decoration'' or ''illustration''.

Influence of this artistic style can be seen in the ''mondrian dress'' created by Yves Saint Laurent in 1965. The plenarity of the dress seemed an ideal field for colour blocks. Whereas Mondrian's work was about the utopian ideal of ''spiritual harmony and order'' YSL's blocks in the dress become functional and serve the feat of dress making. The art-work is just a means...and semblance to the Mondrian order is aesthetic within the form of the dress.

YSL ''mondrian dress' 1965

Conceptual Art is an Artistic Style that has been viewed as the end of''traditional'' art, when art turns into philosophy ( Danto). Although when one considers the artworks, which function as mere symbols within a system of ''meaning''...they become crucial to communicate this meaning. Conceptual Art is a symbolic language expressing a theme the artist wants to communicate. The work of Kosuth is interesting within this Artistic Style, he takes you along a ''mental travel'', along objects and definitions in order to ''(re/de)construct'' a meaning in the mind of the observer...

Art as an Idea:Nothing, Joseph Kosuth 1968

The influence of the Conceptual Art can be seen in the work of Viktor&Rolf always working within a conceptual framework, and every element of the collection,is a representation of thought, thought within concept...their creations are symbols of a language typical for their own style...

Viktor&Rolf Fall RTW 2008

And atlast the Belgians. Within the Contemporary Painting (and i just love paintings...) Scene, the Belgians have developed special style, maybe due to culture, the ''un-identity'' of ''Belgians'', I have experienced in 9 years of living and studying, there is a special ''open'' environment, or maybe a kind of ''nothing-ness'' out of which the most elevated ideas come...

I just think its intriguing that both within Fashion (Antwerp 6) and within Art, the belgians seem to just do their thing, and in that...have their own style...

Underneath a painting by Luc Tuymans, and a garment of  Maison Martin Margiela

The Worshipper , 2005

GENEALOGY OF A GARMENT: powersuits

So for this assignment, i finally choose the Power Suit

Ralph Lauren is considered to be the first designer to have introduced the Power Suit. Georgo Armani claims differently....

Although the term Power Suit might not been used before the 1980's, research througout history shows that the suit functioned, as a so called ''power'' suit, a century before its formal introduction by Ralph Lauren.

A contemporary Power Suit by Ralph Lauren. 

Oscar Wilde 1882

The image of Oscar Wilde, above was taken in New York in 1882. Oscar Wild was part of a art- movement called Aestheticism, which was a reaction upon their perceived ugliness due to Industrial Revolution. Their aim was Beauty in Art, detached from any other notion. 

Oscar Wilde was very aware of the social functions of dress, decoration not only as aesthetic purpose, but enhancing all social functions... Hence my choice of these images of him in ''Power Suit'',as the Power of the Suit has to do with the awareness of the one who wears it...and his concept of Power.

Charming power of the suit ... 1950's

Photo from the Webmaster's Collection

Army wear can be seen as the ultimate ''Power Suit''. I like the content of above image of Marlene Dietrich,in 1945, wearing pants, pushing an Army man. Showing the Zeitgeist of end 40's beginning 50's,time was ready for the first women's suit. 

In Yves Saint Laurent, 1950 introduced ''le smoking'', could be considered first real 'Power Suit'' for women. At that time focus was on gender(in)difference.Power Suit was symbol for the power of women in general.

''Almost anything can be worn by both men and women. The clothes themselves have no gender. What is considered feminine today was masculine before, and vice versa. All my career, I have tried to make men equal to women: a woman can be feminine in a pantsuit and a man very masculine in a skirt. ''
                                                                   - Jean Paul Gaultier

Power Suit icon 007,Roger Moore in 1960's 

 

As mentioned Ralph Lauren  is considered to have introduced first the Power Suit into the fashion scene in the 1980's.Characteristic where its wide shoulderpads, symbolising Power. During 1980's this was especially economical power.The Power Suit got connotated with business(men/women), and was symbol of flourishing capitalist system.

The connotation became individualistic, where as YSL Power Suit 1950 was referring to a group, Ralph  Lauren is referring to the individual wearing the suit, and by that showing his personal(economic) power. This is a different attitude and shows the individualistic&capitalistic values of modern culture.

Now we are in the 21th century, Power Suit seems to be shifting between all sort of connotations. Capitalism has failed to supply ultimate Power...crisis is the turn soil for new meanings of 1980's Power Suit....

Vision of Power Suit, by  Jean Paul Gaultier, SS 2010 mens collection