006

Softness/
the imparted

I find that many of the images I am struck by when browsing the internet have elements of softness to them. Whether that softness is conveyed through film's grain, focus (and lack thereof), or color balance, there seems to be this sensuous, physical element that comes out in the photograph.

I'm not the only one drawn to this sensuousness. There's an element of dreaminess--of imparted hopes and dreams and identities. But paradoxically, for myself at least, it makes me feel a nostalgia for things I have not yet experienced.

Here, I will share a few images and give credit when I can.

Daria Werbowy for Celine SS 2013 shot by Juergen Teller

At first blush there are elements to her outfit and this photo that would

not necessarily make one think of softness (i.e. the geometric bracelets, 

the line of her shoulder), but there is something in her gaze and the curves of

her hair (echoed in the bag's loosely tied knot) that evokes some sort of

tristesse

In the world of film, I feel that many of the scenes in Joe Wright's 2007 adaptation of Atonement held this same softness to them. Here, with Keira Knightley smoking a cigarette while getting ready for a dinner. 

the same idea of softness can even be found in photographs of landscapes, such as this one by photographer Jake Stangel of Drakes Bay. I love the dispersion of light on the right hand side of the photo while the land in the far-off distance is shrouded in a haze.

Venetia Scott for Margaret Howell SS 2009

Like the Juergen Teller photograph of Werbowy, at first blush

this photo doesn't make one think of softness. However, there is something

in the model's gaze that evokes some kind of tenderness. I also think the

tent pole in the background that slices the photograph unevenly in two has something

to do with it. It adds a distinctive (partial) framing against the model's face

and a striking juxtaposition. 

pearls, 2012 by Lee Yun Ho

005

Fashion as Abstraction


My school has a student-run organization and publication devoted to fashion called MODA. Since I've been bopping around Paris for the past academic year, I haven't really been up to date on what's been going on in Hyde Park, but I did find myself flipping through the latest Spring issue the other day. (if "flipping" is even the word--what do you call it when you're electronically letting your computer do the fake flipping action on the cyber magazine? There needs to be a new term for that accurately conveys how millenial this action is, like talking to your phone when you're lost and ordering pizzas online).

I've already expressed my concern, or curiosity rather, that there doesn't seem to be a particular type of critical discourse with regards to fashion. So when I was looking through this issue I was seriously and pleasantly surprised to find an article ("The Declaration of Fashion" by RJ Gitter pgs. 10-11) that proffered the very same mélange of history and theory that I had been looking for and thinking about these past few weeks (though I shouldn't have been that surprised since the whole "life of the mind" environment at UChicago pretty much lends itself to intellectualizing anything and then talking about it in this really self-conscious way like within this super self-serving parenthetical statement).

In this article Gitter focuses on the trench coat, which was designed in 1901 by Thomas Burberry as utilitarian outerwear for the British army but has today come to be worn in many ways outside of that context (think: Emma Watson's Burberry campaign, or the whole sexy "naked under the trench coat bit" of which the only example I can give is Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith because I have super bad taste in movies. In the scene I'm thinking of she is actually wearing a super sexy dominatrix outfit under her trench coat as she proceeds to break this guy's neck with her bare hands and then escapes from a super tall NYC skyscraper by attaching the handles of her bag to a light and then shimmying all the way down. A scene that is much more impressive visually than it is written down).

Emma Watson for Burberry's 2009/10 Autumn/Winter campaign in a trench coat that I think sticks the most closely to the military original

early example of the original Burberry trench

While the piece posits that the trench coat came to symbolize the "disciplined masculinity of the trained British soldier," thus bringing upon itself a new, abstracted meaning for the civilian population (a conclusion that I can't quite agree with), I was most struck by the broader thesis posed, for which the trench coat served as a good example:

A given article of clothing can undergo abstraction multiple times, assuming new utilities and relinquishing them in favor of new abstracted meanings. Fashion, then, is to make a statement using a vocabulary of abstracted meanings--to construct a style using articles of clothing, or articles of clothing out of stylistic elements--and to relate it back to oneself. 

Such a definition gives me a good jumping off point to think of other current trends whose significance I wouldn't want to merely attribute to some sort of constant cyclical pattern (the 80s are in! the 90s are in!), but rather to a kind of movement toward something. What I mean is, when I think of the movement toward painting's abstraction that occurred during the 20th century I also think about the grand narratives of modernism and formalism at the time: notions of art's autonomy, how in paintings by Mondrian or Pollock one sees a working through of painting's limitations within the medium itself, etc. Similarly, when I think about how women wear trench coats today--in ways that makes use of its line, shape, and proportions in unconventional ways--the reasons for wearing a trench comes down to a real exploration of fashion as a medium.

In a painting such as this by Caravaggio, what is being represented is significant. Caravaggio's masterly technique of the medium is only secondary as enhancement to this allegorical scene of foul play. [The Cardsharps, Caravaggio. 1594. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth]

Over 300 years later Piet Mondrian painted this  abstract Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red and Gray in an exploration of painting's limitations and those elements (line, shape, color) that are inherent to painting itself. [1921. Art Institute of Chicago]

taken from the Sartorialist, November 2009 from his "Art of Trench" series for Burberry

This is a look I think woman turn to often with the trench/military coat--wearing shorter layers underneath that expose bare legs. In this instance the proportion and fabric of the coat are a more heavy, "masculine" counterpoint to the ruffled skirt and peep-toe heels. 

taken by The Sartorialist in July of 2010. I think this is right around the time when military jackets started to become a big trend. I remember seeing this photo some time in high school and really being struck by the play between the color, pattern, and cut of her floral dress against the jacket.

fashion director Taylor Tomasi Hill sporting a sleeveless trench coat. The cut of the wide lapels lined in black reinforce the trench's classic shape while the rest of her outfit complements the look in a way that really draws attention to the unconventionality of the trench itself.

I want to explore this idea of abstraction in fashion more in coming posts, as I can think of many singular items of clothing that have been transformed--or abstracted, rather--from their original uses, such as the men's Oxford shirt and racer track shoes (think: New Balances). More to come!

P.S. For more looks, Vogue.com has recently put up a slideshow of how trench coats have been styled throughout the years in their editorials. See it here.

004

Away We Go

(or: LET US BE UNDERGROUND AND SUBVERSIV(sic) !!!!)

My friend Alexa and I were invited by a mutual friend to go to BRUSSELS this coming weekend. We're both pretty stoked seeing as how neither of us have ever been and also because we will be "roughing it." Elsa, the friend who invited us, used to be our cool conversation assistant during the summer; she would take us to places by the Canal Saint Martin like Le Comptoir General (only for the hippest: a giant two-storied space housing a bar, a mini museum, and a thrift store), and her life generally occupies a place between grungy and Bohemian--working at the concert venue Olympia and throwing huge parties in her slightly dilapidated apartment off of Strasbourg Saint-Denis that get shut down by her ornery, older neighbors. 

She had mentioned to me a couple weeks ago that she had friends in Brussels who lived in a giant, what-used-to-be perfume factory that is now used to house "cute, nice musicians" who throw huge rager parties of 200 plus people during the weekend. But then she sent an email to Alexa and me inviting us for real to check this place out, and we couldn't really say no.

As a disclaimer I should say that I''m really, really not the type of person who would usually do this kind of thing. I get so freaked out by dirtiness that I will never wear my shoes inside my 2 foot by 2 foot room and sometimes I hold my breath while I'm making a transfer inside Chatelet because I feel my body slowly being eaten apart by all that mold and narstiness and what looks to be like asbestos (can't actually confirm). And while I harbor great dreams of being a groupie for Broken Social Scene (though they're all like thirty so maybe they're the go-to-sleep-by-11 o'clock type now?--not to bring the thirty-year olds down) or being a model in one of Ryan McGinley's photo shoots in the desert during which beautiful, lithe boys and girls sleep naked all 5 of them to one little cot and then smoke cigarettes and sustain themselves on Pop Tarts and travel around in a van with no seats, I am really not that type of person. 

This impending trip coincides really nicely with a TEDtalk I just watched of Amanda Palmer. I am not too familiar with her music (my friend Yunyi gave me What Ever Happened to Amanda Palmer sometime in high school, but I am a really sensitive person so I listened to about thirty seconds of AP's creepy, masculine singing voice and just kinda wigged out and never listened to her again), but this TEDtalk was really neat because Palmer put her couch-surfing, punk rockin' lifestyle into perspective. What I mean is: obviously, Amanda Palmer is a pretty different person than I am--I am prone to get grossed out by even the idea of sleeping on random people's couches (you don't know what's been there) or even more so crowd-surfing in random people's arms (you don't know what they'll do to you), but during the talk Palmer made a really great statement about trust and connection. About how during her entire career she has encountered so many incredible, gracious people just by opening up to them--by asking them for help and by giving them back music. A seriously beautiful exchange if you think about it. 

I think this whole idea of trust--of letting go of that deeply distrustful and paranoid part of oneself--is something I admire a lot in people and is also what draws me towards the photos of the afore-mentioned photographer Ryan McGinley, or even to a certain type of casual, care-free aesthetic. It's the type of look that I attach to different identities: the adventurous, surfing, I'm-okay-with-never-showering identity or the adventurous, camping, I'm-okay-with-insects identity. Both identities exploited in any case by ad campaigns like Levi's "Go Forth" (for which Ryan McGinley provided the print and outdoor campaign photographs and Walt Whitman unwittingly provided the text).

Dakota Hair, 2004. Ryan McGinley

Levi's 2009 "Go Forth" ad campaign that feeds into this very same aesthetic

These are photos I snapped of the special edition "the journey is the destination" by Ryan McGinley for Purple magazine (no 19). Every issue the magazine dedicates a new booklet to a different artist, and the one I happened to pick up a month ago featured McGinley. After the hand-written introduction from McGinley the rest of the pages are spreads of behind-the-scene photos of many of the shoots he's had throughout the years. I particularly liked these two paragraphs as a summary of what the adventure was like for him, which also shows that McGinely is way, way more down than I will ever be. There's also something I admire in this type of lifestyle being the means for an end--McGinley was on a super tight budget before he achieved the fame he has today (youngest artist to ever be shown at the Whitney) and his photographs don't exist in some kind of vacuum; his most beautiful photos of naked youth running around in fireworks and leaping off of waterfalls really are the documentation of his unconventional life.

We called ourselves road warriors. Sleeping on garage floors, driving for hours on end. Navigating by GPS, our best friend and worst enemy. We ate over campfires, hand-rolling cigarettes. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each morning for everyone. We gave each other home made tattoos to commemorate each trip.

I've learned the art of shopping at Walmart for fifteen people on a tight budget. How to fit three people in a double bed at a Super 8 motel. How to identify poison ivy (I'm still not so good at that). 

It's only Monday so who's to say what will happen on my weekend trip to Brussels. In the meantime I'll have Amanda Palmer's words and Ryan McGinley's images reminding me of the magic that occurs when you learn to be open and gracious and trusting. I sign off with the same words Elsa used in her last email to me and Alexa about the trip, "LET US BE UNDERGROUND AND SUBVERSIV!!!" So let us.

003

All the critics in the house say heyooo! 
(or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Blog)

 I have been thinking a lot about fashion criticism, and more particularly about why it is a field that hardly exists. That statement might seem false at first blush, but only because of terminology. When putting it one way, criticism of fashion is the only thing that seems to exist both on the web, and in print (but mostly on the web). When magazines and fashion blogs put up content about shows and trends they are essentially providing a lot of commentary and criticism as well. Even image-based blogs--the biggest of those being The Sartorialist, but even for example, Jak & Jil blog--pull in their fair share of hubbub because those who follow the blog can leave comments expressing like or dislike--essentially little critiques on an outfit or a type of look or even on blogging culture itself. Then you also have people like Judith Thurman, writing for The New Yorker and Guy Trebay for The New York Times who focus on designers and trends in their larger roles as cultural critics.

On the other hand, when I think about the type of criticism I read for my Art History courses, it seems that very little fashion criticism exists. Who in the world of fashion can be seen as the equivalent of Clement Greenberg, Rosalind Krauss, or Hal Foster? Or in terms of cinema the equivalent of Eisenstein or Zizek? There are a lot of questions to be raised. Why does such critical discourse not yet exist?-- (especially when we consider the fact that humans have been dressing themselves far longer than they have been painting, writing literature, and making movies) Do we even need the equivalent of Krauss and Eisenstein? Which leads to the bigger question: is fashion even art? What would the implications be--if there were any at all--on the fashion industry if more literature was being written on race and gender and sustainability in relation to the industry? These are questions that I would like to see be answered by more people, but as for now I am merely a lowly undergrad who has neither the resources, the historical background, nor intellectual horsepower to tackle them all on my own. So instead I write on this blog.

                       

on the left Clement Greenberg: early champion of modernism and artists like Jackson Pollock. He was once punched in the face by Willem de Kooning (it was awesome!) on the right Slavoj Zizek: our generation's celebrity philosopher, who has written on film theory and "the gaze". But his most important writing is probably this text he wrote for an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue

What's your guys' response (yeah all of you out there in the ether of the internet)? Should we consider fashion an art? Is criticism even necessary? I'd love to hear more thoughts (other than my own) regarding these questions! 

002

on the left: taken from The Sartorialist in 2009; on the right: from tumblr, date unknown

First let me preface this post by saying that though fashion may seem like a frivolous thing to write about, it's not. I'm tired of people dismissing fashion as something frivolous. After having spent six months in France, I wholeheartedly agree with Susan Sontag's point of view that France is one of the few countries in the world that doesn't demean fashion as mere women's play but rather holds it up as an accessible and important means to self-expression and creativity. I mention this because it is at times refreshing to be in the dressing room of some bougie store in the Marais and hear a man giving his opinion on the dress his wife is trying on--something more than a mere "Oh that looks nice." This goes along with how the French hold beauty and beautiful things in the highest regard, but anyway I digress.

I stumbled upon the first photo (posted on The Sartorialist in December of 2009) yesterday while I was clicking through his "Random Posts" section, and instantly recognized it as a favorite that I had saved to my hard drive some time in high school. The second image is one that came up on tumblr, and I "liked" it so that I could remember it for later.

It's still surprising to me that the first photo was taken more four years ago because that mix of boyish silhouettes is still relevant today. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if that first photo had been taken just a couple days ago somewhere in New York or Paris. There are a lot of elements to this outfit that I love. There's the layering of the shirt, sweater, and blazer that was seen as a bit unconventional (if you scroll through the lengthy comments section you can see that this was right around the time when this type of look started to make its way onto the street style scene and there were both staunch supporters and opposers); the blazer and sweater and shirt all hit in a way that is proportional and complementary despite the blazer's short length in comparison to the shirt. Then there are her jeans, whose holes nicely counterbalance her uneven pant rolling. The masculine brogues are still such a classic shape and color. Her Miu Miu bag, so functional and chic. I want to say I am drawn to it because of how the smaller handles work in relation to the bag's vertical shape, creating a really elegant line when it's held just that way on the crook of her elbow instead of being hung from her shoulder.

And finally, I want to speculate that this was taken at a time before the whole disengaged, "I'm very busy on my phone being important" look became way more superfluous in every street style blog ever. Even so, there's still something elegant about the way her phone is being held in her hands that keeps me looking.

The second photo works in a similar way, I think. There is something reminiscent here of Matisse's idea that "one square inch of blue is not the same as one square foot of blue" in that this all white look is really constructed by the different shades' proportions. The sweater, a tiny bit too small, hits above the waist in a way that the bright white t-shirt underneath billows out and creates a silhouette above the hips. The look doesn't become too top-heavy with the cropped pants hitting at the ankles, and the flat line otherwise created by her Converse. The look is boyish, but once again there is still something so elegant. What is it? Does she only pull it off by being thin and (ostensibly) beautiful, or is there something else?

These photos make a good pair because both of these women possess a style both masculine and elegant. Is it our changed notion of femininity--of what "feminine" can be and mean--that allows women to claim masculine pieces and silhouettes for their own? I think yes. However, I think the real draw in looks like this is their sense of irony: the look becomes sexy and appealing when shapes and cuts that are traditionally not seen as flattering on a women are worn anyway with a sense of playfulness and recognition.

001

Fashion Studies

This blog is a means to publish my thoughts on fashion and visual culture. I'm an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago in Art History who has otherwise been interested in fashion and dress since an early age (I would use my allowance money to buy issues of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar from my neighborhood bookstore and then hide them under my bed so my mom wouldn't think I was wasting my money on frivolities). As of late, it has struck me as interesting that there is no real critical discourse on fashion as there is for painting, photograph, and film. I think fashion's time will come, and in the meantime I'll use this space to write about what's intriguing me in the world of fashion as well as in the world of art.

On a personal level I also want to take the time and reflect upon images that prick me, that make me stop and pause for a little big longer. Tumblr and Pinterest and similar platforms make it so easy to become inundated and overwhelmed, to mindlessly scroll and "like" in the most detached way. At worst, looking becomes unconscious. But at best--truly at their best--these platforms feed into the cultural zeitgeist and give us good clues onto what kind of images--and the kinds of aesthetics--that are relevant today. So this blog is also an exploration of my own tastes and sense of style.

Real progress can only come about through discourse and dialogue, so I welcome all comments and questions!