issue 20
issue 20
THE STAFF
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alexandra Pink
BUSINESS DIRECTOR Audrey Linden
CREATIVE DIRECTORS Lieyah Dagan Noah Chantos
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Megan Lee
LAYOUT DIRECTOR Adrienne Lee
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CONTRIBUTORS Photo Lab
issue 20 Factory 798 06 Bodies 08 Forgotten Pitfalls of Provocation 14 Architecture and Fashion 16 Environment 18 Fashion is Feeling the Vetements Effect 24 Materials 26 Sustainability in Fashion 32 Limitations 34 Form and Function 42
b a r e executives
Editor’s Note Ever y morning, I wake up at 7:30 to the sound of my alarm. I make it out of bed and go to prepare tea. Just as the Japanese have developed a traditional tea ceremony, I, too, have created my own tea ceremony within the confines of my kitchen. My process is meditative and ingrained muscle memor y; my body knows the rhythm of the ritual: 1. Set water to boil in kettle. a. If kettle is empty, refill. i. Right hand grips kettle, left hand pinches lid to open, left hand turns on right knob of kitchen sink , left hand turns off water, left hand pinches lid to close, right hand (still gripping kettle) returns it to its stand, right hand pushes down boil switch. b. If kettle is filled, boil. i. Right hand pushes down boil switch. 2. Get mug from cupboard. a. If mug is clearn and put away, take out of cupboard i. Open left-hand cupboard to right side of the kitchen sink with left hand, reach to uppermost level with right hand. If both mugs are clean, use “Attitude.” If only red mug is clean, use the red mug. Bump cupboard closed with right hand. b. If mug is clean but in dish rack , take it out. i. Lift mug out of dish rack onto counter using right hand. If the mug is upside down, turn it right side while placing it on the counter. If both mugs are clean, use “Attitude.” If only red mug is clean, use the red mug. c. If neither mug is clean, take a shared mug. i. Open right-handed cupboard directly above the kitchen sink with right hand. Pick either the large teal mug or the large black Philz mug. Feel slightly guilty about either choice, because they both belong to Katie. 3. Place tea bag into mug. a. If there is Earl Grey, use it. i. Open drawer below counter to the near right of the kitchen sink with right hand. Pull out Early Grey tea bag, gripping the box with left hand and pulling out tea with right . Rip open packet with right hand, holding packet with left . Put tea bag into mug with right hand. Open righthand cabinet directly below kitchen sink with right hand. Toss tea packet trash into trash can with left hand. Bump cupboard closed with hip. b. If there is no Earl Grey, pick from remaining teas. Repeat as noted above, but anticipate less satisfaction from this cup of tea. 4. Pour the tea water. a. If drinking with milk , leave room. i. Right hand grips kettle, pouring water over tea bag. Leave a quarter inch from rim of mug for milk . b. If drinking without milk , pour. i. Right hand grips kettle, pouring water over tea bag. 5. Add honey. a. If drinking with honey, add it in. i. Reach below counter and open left-hand
cabinet to the right of the kitchen sink with left hand. With right hand, grab honey. Bump cupboard closed with left knee while using left hand to flip open honey cap. With right hand, squeeze honey into cup for approximately three seconds. b. If no honey, drink quickly before the tea turns bitter. 6. Add milk . a. If 4a, pour milk . i. Pivot from the counter and walk left through the galley kitchen to the fridge. Open the fridge (bottom two -thirds of fridge) from left side using right hand. There is no handle, but instead a finger hold on the side of the door. Reach into fridge with right hand, using right hip to prop open the door. Pull out gallon of milk with right hand. Return to tea on the counter pour in milk until the tea threatens to spill over the brim of the mug. Return milk to fridge, reversing previous steps. Return to counter. With right hand, move tea bag up and down in mug by pulling on the tea bag’s string. Do not throw out tea bag until tea has been drunk . There is something to be said for starting your morning with a ritual that your body remembers, so that your mind doesn’t have to. A s human animals, we commit geographies to memor y based on the way we physically interact with a space. Conversely, we impress upon the spaces we inhabit with distinct markers of our daily existences, slowly molding where we are to the way we are. It is this interaction between what is constructed and what we construct that we hope to bring attention to in this 20th issue of BARE. We explore the relationships our bodies have with the things with which we interact : other bodies, our environments and limitations, and the materials that fuel and frustrate our creativity. A s you read, I urge you to be aware of how your body interacts with the space you are currently in. Take in your surroundings, take in what you are wearing, take in how you have shaped the space around you. Be alert, be awake, and be attuned to the impact you make!
PHOTOGRAPH Grace Schimmel
北京798艺术区
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Factory 798 The founding spirit of the Dashanzi Art District.
A single factory in Beijing can explain the Chinese contemporary art scene’s birth, evolution, and current state of being—Factory 798 of the 718 District. For much of the 20th century, starting in the mid 1950s, Factory 798 was a Chinese-Soviet manufacturing plant. During the time of the factory’s active period, artistic practices in China were strictly limited to the mass-production of government propaganda with specific conventions of proportion, color, and content. In 1976, the end of the Cultural Revolution and the death of Mao Zedong allowed for Western influences to be introduced into Chinese artistic communities and practices. Concurrently, the need for Factory 798 dwindled, having suffered major financial strain in the 1980s thanks to Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms. By the early 1990s, the factories within the 718 District had laid off most of their workers and ceased production. Simultaneously, the avant-garde movement spurred by the opening of China’s cultural doors was rejected by both the Chinese government and the Chinese public. With no source of revenue and no support, the artists were essentially pushed into the slums of eastern Beijing. The real-estate agency in charge of Factory 798, called Seven-Star Huadian Science and Technology Group, leased spaces to the influx of social rejects. Soon, the area became a sort of artist’s colony, something equivalent to the East Village in the 80’s, or perhaps Chelsea; it became a community of the alternative sort, a place of creation. The work coming out of Factory 798 was an exploration of the position of the artist in a culture that looked away; it was a direct confrontation of the Chinese government of the 1990s. Predictably, the government was not pleased. The 718 District community was viewed as dirty, a smudge on Beijing, a disgrace to Chinese culture. On more than one occasion the government tried aggressively to shut down the district. The 2009 Olympics, however, revealed the factory as a possible source of tourist revenue. Investments poured in and the district’s vibe quickly turned from The East Village in the 1980s to present-day Venice Beach: touristy, trendy, manufactured. The art changed, too. Looking at it, one might notice a lamentation of the Cultural Revolution-era oppression
of the artistic community and absolutely no mention of the 90s. This is the kind of art more easily understood by potential buyers; people associate China with Communism. They want their “Chinese art” to be cohesive with their preconceived notions of China. The 718 District today is full of cafés, high-end boutiques, polished galleries, and lots and lots of tourists. In many ways, it suffered the same fate as anything counterculture: it became absorbed into the mainstream. Factory 798 is being taken advantage of by the very establishment it is a protest of. I, however, believe that the factory and the surrounding culture remains, at least in part, true to its counterculture roots thanks simply to the presence of Ai Weiwei. In 2015, the Tang Gallery (當代唐人藝術中心) of 798 put on a show called “Ai Weiwei.” There was nothing particularly revolutionary or political about the contents, so you might ask: Why does this matter? Mr. Ai had been banned since 2011 from exhibiting in China; his art, like early Factory 798 work, directly criticizes present-day Chinese government action. He photographed himself giving the middle finger to the portrait of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square; he arranged backpacks of Sichuan Earthquake victims to say “For seven years, she lived happily on this Earth;” he painted the Coca Cola logo onto ancient pottery. Essentially, he challenged the government until they put him under house-arrest, at which point he continued to challenge them via remote installation. His voice is heard around the world; he embodies genuine protest, genuine opposition. He stays true to the roots of contemporary Chinese art. Ai Weiwei is a superstar, an internationally recognized and renowned artist, and the government knows it. He, like the incarnation of Factory 798 during the 90s, opposes present day Chinese governmental practices. Though this particular exhibit was not representative of that conflict, he himself represents this opposition, and therefore the presence of his work in the space is enough to argue that the founding spirit of Factory 798 is still very much alive.
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Bodies
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PHOTOGRAPHER LIEYAH DAGAN PRODUCTION YASMINA HOBOLLAH, ALEXANDRA HAZELL, REBECCA FREED, MADDY ROTMAN MODELS SARA BOUTORABI, MICHAEL BUSTILLO-SAKHAI, MICHELLE CHEN, REOH DARWELL, HUNTER KETCHUM, TIA LAMORE
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MICHELLE WEARS PANTS EMPRESS VINTAGE, TOP MARS, BOOTS, COAT STYLIST’S OWN. SARA WEARS TOP, BOOTS STYLIST’S OWN, PANTS EMPRESS VINTAGE, CAPE MARS. TIA WEARS PANTS EMPRESS VINTAGE, UNDER TOP, OVER TOP, BOOTS STYLIST’S OWN. MICHAEL WEARS PANTS MARS, BOOTS, TOP STYLIST’S OWN.
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Pitfalls of Provocation Mapplethorpe, Kanye, Frank Ocean, and the Nuances of Provocative Art Artists throughout history have intertwined thought and feeling to get people talking. Feelings draw people in and get them to pay attention; the stronger you make someone feel, the more provocative you are, and the more fervently they’ll listen. In 1988, American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe released The Perfect Moment, a collection of prints featuring explicit images of homosexual sadomasochism. The travelling exhibition elicited significant backlash due to its “indecent” content and sparked a national debate over censorship and artistic freedom. Look at one of these photographs and you’ll surely react; it’s provocative art. The collection is viscerally impactful: a man inserting his finger into his urethra, a hand fully inserted into a man’s anus, one man urinating into another man’s mouth, a self portrait of Mapplethorpe himself, with the handle of a bullwhip inserted into his anus. But during the 1980s and 90s, an image portraying gay S&M wasn’t just provocative, but topically important. This was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and discourse around homosexuality and BDSM was in full swing. Mapplethorpe himself died due to AIDS complications in 1989, only months after the opening of The Perfect Moment. His work wasn’t just provocative; it spurred on discourse about a subject that was acutely important. Provocation isn’t hard. Find a cultural convention. Break it. Twist it. Say something others aren’t. By virtue of knowing what’s normal, we know what’s controversial. In the case of The Perfect Moment, it wasn’t important that you reacted, but that your reaction made you think. The genius of Mapplethorpe wasn’t that he created controversy; it was his ability to shape that controversy into an important message. Provocation itself seeks to find an issue, a topic. Without placing itself in the midst of discussion, provocative art ceases to be meaningful. It’s also important that the use of provocation is respectful and warranted. Provocation comes at an inherent cost; it often makes people feel uncomfortable, disturbed. It befits artists to explore this discomfort, and to ask a few questions about how they can put a viewer’s discomfort to 14 fall 2016 • baremagazine.org
work. Why does this topic make people feel uncomfortable? Is it because it breaks a cultural norm that shouldn’t be in place? Does it discuss a sensitive topic in a way that ultimately sends an ethical message? Is it respectful to the parties involved? Again, The Perfect Moment serves as a model example. In an attempt to destigmatize BDSM and homosexuality, Mapplethorpe used his images to make people question their discomfort. He made viewers u n co m f o r table, but only because they were exposed to something unfamiliar. As a result, they questioned whether or not their discomfort was warranted. And because Mapplethorpe had permission to take pictures of his models, the deeply intimate nature of these photos did not showcase anything that violated the models’ right to privacy. It’s essential that artists continue to distinguish provocation and discussion, that they separate the tool and the message. In July of 2016, rapper, designer, and cultural icon Kanye West released a music video for his song “Famous,” to widespread controversy. The video depicted lifelike wax figures of celebrities: politicians like George Bush, and Donald Trump, cultural icons like Anna Wintour, Amber
Rose, Kim Kardashian, and Caitlyn Jenner, musicians like Rihanna, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift, and Ray J, and of course, Kanye West himself. The wax display in Kanye’s video was based on was Sleep, a 24-foot long mural by contemporary artist Vincent Desiderio. And while the video is surely provocative, its meaning is left to the viewer’s interpretation. A common theory posits that the display is a commentary on how the public scrutinizes the famed, and how the famous are afforded little to no privacy. Other interpretations see the video making the point that the famous are just like everyone else. In their sleeping, naked states, the famous are not invincible and powerful, but real and vulnerable. Do these interpretations warrant the tool of provocation? That’s ultimately left up for debate. Provocation, when overused or used unnecessarily, is subject to a “boy who cries wolf”-esque issue, where it is no longer deemed special, or even provocative. Do issues of fame warrant a place among consequential cultural discussions, ones like the rhetoric surrounding gay BDSM in the 80s and 90s? Whether Kanye’s message diluted or strengthened the tool of provocation is a question for the masses to decide. And was the music video respectful and effective? Upon scrutiny, the video seems insensitive. The wax figures are eerily lifelike, and many viewers questioned whether or not the bodies were real when first watching “Famous.” As we now know, the figures aren’t real, but it seems like an invasion of privacy nonetheless. The public display of these wax bodies acts as an invitation to look at these people naked, but the invitation
is given by someone who has no right to dole it out. For an art piece that purportedly comments on the public obsession with fame, it does nothing to discourage it. Instead, it facilitates this voyeurism and violates the same rules of privacy broken by the everyone else, arguably to a greater degree. In August of 2016, singer, songwriter, and rapper Frank Ocean released a music video for his new song “Nikes.” Ostensibly, it was as mindless as any other gaudy and provocative music video. The scenes are undeniably provocative: a nude woman lies in a pile of money, another swims in a fish tank, a demon-like figure manically dances, a man is lit on fire, a glitter covered ass is smacked, a woman spreads her legs as a ray of blinding light emanates from her crotch. And while visually striking, the visuals immediately bring up the same critiques and questions that’ve been asked about provocative art thus far. Upon closer inspection, however, Ocean’s video begins to seem less like a failed provocation and more like a satirical critique. The song critiques materialism and hedonism, and by extension, questions the alluring provocation that comes with it. The over-the-top scenes are implemented as exaggerations of scenes found elsewhere in art and music. Ocean displays these tropes visually, only to denounce them with his lyrics, critiquing unnecessary provocation. In its satire, Ocean’s video acts as a foil to the meaningful provocation of Mapplethorpe. The images are striking, alluring, and “naughty.” But while Mapplethorpe was able to channel those feelings into a topical and important cultural discussion, Ocean’s video leaves the audience empty. Instead of his provocation finding a place in cultural discussion, the feelings provoked by Ocean’s video are left without a home. It provokes, but it stops there. Through his satirical, exaggeration in “Nikes,” this feeling of mindless shock is exactly what Ocean works to critique. It’s important, both as an artist and a consumer, to recognize both the value and pitfalls of provocation. While a powerful and effective tool, provocation needs to be wielded in a way that is meaningful and respectful. In a society where there is increasing pressure to be loud and bold, it’s easy for these core values to be lost. Kanye West’s “Famous” serves as an example of provocation that is questionable, and acts as an example of how the original values of provocation may have been diluted. Conversely, Frank Ocean’s “Nikes” is a call for a return to the art style of Mapplethorpe: uncompromisingly electric, but undeniably important. Matt Hilado Thomas, 1987. Photograph Robert Mapplethorpe issue 20 • baremagazine.org 15
Architecture and Fashion
Upon first mention it may seem that architecture and fashion are fundamentally different things, with just a few parallels. Thinking of architecture creates an image of rigid lines built on the structured foundation of monotonous and monochrome pencil sketches, the pencil following the rules as it traces a straight edge. Architecture is seen as a sound investment; it’s all about permanence, functionality, and sturdiness. Structures are built to last centuries, and even broken and imperfect architectural fossils continue to stand tall, never really dying. Meanwhile, thoughts of fashion draw to mind bright, sheer, and malleable fabrics, swinging in all their flashy, excessive glory on the runway. On a surface level, high fashion is ephemeral. Garments have a short life spanning mere seasons, their fragile fabrics pieced together, their sole purpose to be worn and to be seen. Clothes are destined to be replaced. They go extinct, collecting dust in the clearance bin, their only memory preserved in a two dimensional glossy photo. While the disciplines of architecture and fashion are often divided between the mathematical left brain and the creative right brain, this distinction actually goes to show just how similar the two are. Just like the brain, the two sides are intertwined at their core and work to inform one another. As humankind pushes on into an age where we lead increasingly fast-paced lives, the connections between the two fields have begun to fire more rapidly as well. Recently, as in the past, architecture and fashion are converging. Contemporary building design has adopted the same curving slopes as fabric, and a newfound importance has been put on a building’s personality and creativity. Dynamic designs are created utilizing a variety of materials, making unique the new uniform. Meanwhile, modern fashion has welcomed rigidity through the introduction of hard geometric shapes, sharp lines, and metallic 16 fall 2016 • baremagazine.org
MILLY SPRING 2016 READY-TO-WEAR COLLECTION PHOTOGRAPHIMAXTREE
A convergent evolution
structures. Additionally, the emerging emphasis on environmentalism has made once-fleeting fashion move toward being built to last. The conjugation between the two mediums is also seen in some of the biggest names of both industries. Tom Ford, Pierre Cardin, Gianni Versace, and Pierre Balmain— who described dressmaking as “the architecture of movement”—are just some of the individuals who studied architecture before embarking on immensely influential fashion careers. Meanwhile, the biggest names in architecture have also successfully dabbled with design. Zaha Hadid worked with brands like Lacoste, Louis Vuitton, Swarovski, and more to create a variety of products that exhibit the same iconic and revolutionary characteristics as her buildings. Meanwhile, Frank Gehry has collaborated with Tiffany and Co., creating jewelry just as beautiful and innovative as his architectural endeavors. The cross pollination of the two design arenas doesn’t stop there. Inspiration is reciprocal in nature: women’s brand Milly draws inspiration from Hadid’s large sloping architecture,
RENDERING OF HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER
and designer Yasutoshi Izumi notes drawing much inspiration from Gehry, even using a recording of the architect speaking about his own inspiration as the soundtrack for a show. And finally, the extent of the correlation between fashion and architecture can be visualized in Winde Rienstra’s work, a designer whose work utilizes space, wood materials, and 3-D printing to build modern, structured pieces using the same foundation as architecture. A common theme that has emerged from both fashion and architecture is minimalism. Straightforward, clean, and aesthetically pleasing, minimalism provides a soothing escape in this bustling day and age. Sleek, simple products that utilize only necessary elements promote creation rather than sterility. Simplicity creates a dialogue between creations and the environments they occupy. The lack of excess embellishments allows for a design to interact directly with the space, light, and nature around it. This increased harmony between the creation, its environment, and the user allows for increased functionality, helping make daily life as streamlined as the design itself. The practicality embedded in minimalistic design, be it in fashion or in architecture, caters to the basic needs of human life, and through this shared commitment to minimalism, fashion and architecture create calm and consistency, allowing for unnecessary excesses to fall away, leaving
room for more complex thought. At the base of their entangled roots, fashion and architecture meet. Both were built in order to fulfill basic human needs: clothing and shelter. Although the disciplines may seem to be about always creating something new and shocking, at their heart, they exist to maintain comfort. Both utilize various mediums to create spaces or environments for humans to occupy. As we move further into our modern age, the two continue to evolve in order to adapt to humans’ ever changing needs and desires. Overlap in the products we consume provides convenience and allows us to balance the creativity and structure we crave, thus letting us thrive in our various niches. And not to fret, the homologous and analogous features of two disciplines don’t spell the end of variety. In fact, architecture and fashion are rich with diversity in each respective field. Sharing inspirations and ideas is not pushing creators all in the same direction, but rather helps to broaden the horizons of differing design disciplines, encouraging the formation of new paths. The visionaries and tastemakers of these fields apply their own unique amalgamation of perspectives, experiences, backgrounds to their work, creating a product that inevitably become as unique as the person using it. Hanna Biabani issue 20 • baremagazine.org 17
Environment
PHOTOGRAPHER EVAN YOSHIMOTO PRODUCTION DOUG SCHOWENGERDT, SHELDON KAPLAN, AURORA JIMINEZ, ALEX CORDERO, CLEARY CHIZMAR MODELS ANNA BARCELLOS, KAËL TOWNSEND, NATALIE YU
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ANNA WEARS TOP EMPRESS VINTAGE, SHORTS MICHAEL BRAMBILA NATALIE WEARS COAT, WRIST CUFFS STYLIST’S OWN. KAËL WEARS GOWN ISSEY MIYAKE.
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Fashion is Feeling the Vetements Effect How a Parisian design collective fetishized the mundane and caught an industry’s attention
Vetements Paris Spring 2017 Ready-To-Wear (look 18), 2016. Vogue.
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It’s February in Paris and the facades of the neo-classical buildings are indistinguishable from the greyish skies. It’s fashion week too, which, unlike the city camouflaged in a lingering winter, means there should be an assemblage of eccentrically-clad people among the understated locals. Fashion people stick out like sore thumbs: sequins and bows; dangerously high heels and intarsia detailing. Only not recently. Instead, over the past several seasons, many show-goers have replaced their elaborate displays of style with ensembles that look at once banal and revolutionary. This means sagging sweatshirts, tracksuits, tarp-like overcoats, and denim that looks as if it’s been carelessly resewn at the hems. Of course, the fashion industry has a history of co-opting everyday clothing items that are generally regarded as anti-fashion. In the late 70s and 80s, when Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo presented durable, factory laborer garments with odd and hyperbolic modifications, we saw this phenomenon more or less consolidate into the aesthetics of the Japanese avant-garde. Still, the prevalent style choices of today, the ones that have entirely reframed the industry’s impulse to make the street a runway, seem to bypass the artful renderings of the runway altogether. If this transition seems abrupt and sourceless, it’s because it is. Well, almost. There are theories that chalk this radicalized mundanity up to the Death of StreetStyle, and still others that suggest it’s all a matter of creative burnout. All of this may be true. In fact, it most likely is. But the culprit may be more ambivalent, impulsive, and ironically inquisitive than that. Fashion’s current climate and attitude towards personal style is feeling The Vetements Effect. Vetements, which means “clothes” in French, is a design collective that emerged suddenly and without context in 2014. Its first presentation, which showed in Paris during the spring-summer show cycle, was an assortment of too-baggy sweatpants, self-aware shirts (they read “collar”), and trompe l’oeil dresses. In two years — and only a handful of fashion collections — the brand has enjoyed meteoric commercial success. This is thanks in part to Vetements’ populist-cum-luxury attitude and aesthetic, which is highlighted in the show notes from their S/S 15 show. They read: “Skirts you don’t wear... A Trench that is not there. Vetements welcomes you to no man’s land population 1- You. This is not Normcore.” (source: nowfashion) This relationship between regularity and singularity that the Vetements brand purports makes particular sense when considering the relative anonymity of the design collective. There may be an upward of five other designers involved, but the team creates and communicates through a single voice. That voice is, of course, that of 35 year-old Georgian designer, Demna Gvasalia. Gvasalia, who has worked for the large luxury houses such as Louis Vuitton and Margiela, graduated in 2006 from the prestigious Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Gvasalia’s brother, Gurum, is the chief executive of the brand, which means he facilitates and executes the collective’s business side. With $800 sweatshirts and other Vetements items consistently selling out at full price, Gurum Gvaslia’s exacting understanding of fashion’s supply-demand chain — how customer emotions work, how the timing of showcasing a collection influences manufacturing and buying — the company has been able to reap maximum profit. But what, exactly, is so appealing about Vetements’ oversized sweatshirts, kitschy floral dresses, and one-off Star Wars merchandise? Why do the garments, decidedly ill-fitting and utilitarian, embolden the same desire within consumers as, say, Christian Louboutin’s red-soled heels or Chanel’s 2.55 bag once did? The answer is not clear-cut and when the products in question are neither revolutionary (think Dior’s ‘New Look’) or conventionally beautiful (think Delpozo), it makes it harder to chalk up any consumer habits to a mere interest in aesthetics. In this way, Vetements’ innovations come not necessarily through the reconfiguration of silhouette or through a cutting-edge use of fabrics. Rather, the brand has uprooted traditional notions of what is desirable versus not, and what is luxury versus not, in a time where the fashion industry feels particularly existential. The collective has risen in a climate where fashion houses are producing more collections and pre-collections
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Vetements Paris Spring 2017 Ready-To-Wear (look 41), 2016. Vogue.
than ever, and designers are dropping rapidly from head positions at the world’s most prestigious brands due to intolerably high expectations of output. Plus, buyers have shown distress for the way in which social media has changed the nature of shopping: consumers can see and post about collections instantaneously, so by the time the collections have been manufactured, interest has waned. Harnessing an image that is almost trivially simplistic in an era where “sensory overload” is deemed the crux of fashion’s issues, is a smart way of breeding monopoly out of industry fatigue. If expectations are low and burnout is high, then perhaps it only takes a gimmick to get disgruntled consumers on board. Many critics have shared these thoughts, including the legendary Cathy Horyn, the critic-at-large at The Cut, who writes: “my problem with Vetements is that it basically seems a next-stage Margiela, though without Martin Margiela’s remarkable vision and ability to present clothes that altered your view of fashion — much as the Japanese designers did in the 1980s.” Still, trying to figure out what Vetements is “doing,” or its place in fashion, or its ability to tell a narrative or develop a concept through aesthetics, seems to be beside the point. Vetements is an exercise in impulse, the parameters of taste, and decontextualization, in a business that seeks to intellectualize and contextualize to destabilize accusations of frivolity; the innovations are less tangible and the clothes are merely conduits. As Gvasalia told Horyn of the collective, “we think of ourselves as a supermarket of products.” Clothes are clothes are clothes—who knew? Vetements’ exercise in consumerism, branding, and taste came about most clearly in its S/S 17 show, which the house showed during haute couture week in Paris. Couture week is the most erudite of the fashion experiences: a select few fashion houses showcase one-of-a-kind garments
Vetements has uprooted traditional notions of what is desirable versus not, and what is luxury versus not, in a time where the fashion industry feels particularly existential.
that can cost as much as a few hundred thousand dollars. As such, it was the perfect venue for the Vetements to demystify the too-precious world of designer collaborations. For the collection, Gvasalia and his team collaborated with upwards of seventeen brands, from Juicy Couture and Carhartt, to Comme des Garcons and Manolo Blahnik. Usually, collaborations happen between a “high” brand (Lanvin, Rodarte) and a “low” brand (H&M, for example) just once every couple of years. Vetements’ handful of collaborations, condensed into one show, again calls into the question the “rules” of luxury. As in, what can be considered high-fashion and what, by seemingly ambiguous but set-in-stone rules, cannot? If Carhartt, a traditionally utilitarian, “workin’ man’s” brand, is making the most straightforward pair of overalls, isn’t that luxury, rather than, say, overalls the velvet overalls that appear frequently on the Gucci runway? The collection does not answer this question, but inquiring in itself points out that specialization is the tenet that unites the supposedly disparate worlds of couture and work wear. Vetements’ meteoric rise and transformation, from no-name collective to one of the most talked-about brands in fashion, inevitably blurs its true degree of influence. It can be hard to discern where the hype ends and the revolution begins. Vetements’ designs do not push the limits of wearability in the way that Hussein Chalayan’s “Table Dress” did in 2000. Nor do Vetements’ designs theorize about the existence of contemporary women in that Miuccia Prada’s do. Rather, Vetements is a question: Why is this so popular? What is this saying about fashion? Its very existence and the questions that surround it are the brand’s exact importance. Sometimes, it’s the seemingly smaller modifications that more profoundly disrupt the comfortable habits of fashion. A baggy sweatshirt might do just that. Emma Hager issue 20 • baremagazine.org 25
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Materials
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PHOTOGRAPHER LIEYAH DAGAN PRODUCTION KYLIE CHERIN, MICHELLE CHEN, SARA BOUTORABI, JAKE TRAMBERT, ABBY BLAINE MODELS RYAN ALEXANDER, ANDREW KUZNETZOV, NICOLE MIURA, ADRIAN PHU ALL MODELS WEAR STYLIST’S DESIGNS.
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IM AG E AD R I E NNE L E E
Where to Go Fashion’s new direction in the age of environmentalism.
When fashion mogul Eileen Fischer lifted the veil on fashion manufacturing and declared it “the second most polluting industry...only behind oil,” people were shocked. How could such a statement be true? Yet this is the reality of industrial clothing production. The brands that fill malls and high streets across the globe are ruthlessly competitive; attention to the environment only impedes profit and production. Brands such as Zara, Nike, and H&M contribute to a culture of waste by churning out clothing as quickly and cheaply as possible to sell for the next seasonal trend. A single cotton t-shirt requires 5,000 gallons of water to make and the average American throws away 70 pounds of clothing a year. Even the brands and designers that claim to focus on sustainability do not make much of an impact. H&M insists that they use recycled cotton, but only 14% of their clothes are made from the material. Regrettably, sustainable fashion is not the top priority for most fashion designers. Some designers, however, have taken note of Fischer’s statement and the importance of sustainable fashion. A new wave of brands with a different perspective on fashion are coming to the forefront of the industry, taking new approaches to design and sustainability in the age of climate change.
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One designer in this new cohort is Griffin Vanze, a graduate of Haverford College and a lifelong environmentalist. His project, Aeon Row, creates sustainable and stylish womenswear from recycled fabrics to reduce overproduction and overconsumption in the fashion industry. He focuses on making solid wardrobe basics that he hopes will stand the test of time and trend, focusing on the detail and versatility of his clothes. Griffin crowd sources his materials from consumers, making his production more sustainable by using “revived” fabrics. You, the customer, provide Vanze and his staff with fabric and he repurposes it for new designs. Additionally, if you donate some of your clothing you will receive a discount on any items purchased. I was struck by the novelty of this method of production, so I sat down with Griffin to discuss his take on the market for sustainable fashion.
Why do you feel that sustainability in fashion i s i m p o r ta n t? I t f e e l s s e l f e x p l a n a t o r y , b u t i t ’s i m p o r t a n t t o g i ve t h e rea s o n w h y. T h e fa s h i o n i n d u st r y h a s s u c h a n e n o r m o u s e n v i r o n m e n t a l i m p a c t . I t ’s the most wasteful industr y and the second highest polluting one. Eleven million tons of textiles were thrown away this year alone and with climate change becoming so immediate, we have to do ever ything we can to reduce our impact. How did you become interested in sustainable fashion? I work to prevent ocean trash build-up for a n o n p ro f i t , O cea n C o n s e r va n c y. W h e n we go o u t for an ocean cleanup, I find so much discarded clothing. We do inventories of ever ything we find and there was so much clothing piling up on the data cards! I wanted to make my wardrobe more sustainable after seeing all that, but I couldn’t afford to pay for sustainably sourced c l ot h i n g o n m y n o n p ro f i t s a l a r y. I b ega n d o i n g research and I was captivated by eco-fabrics, both design-wise and cost-wise. How is sustainability ingrained in your business model and clothing design? At Aeon Row we tr y to strive for what we call timeless design. We want a look that won’t seem dated in one or two years. We’re really tr ying to avoid microtrends. When I was looking to s t a r t u p A e o n R o w, I a n d a f e w o t h e r s w e r e l o o king for inspiration and landed on Mies van der Rohe, who went by the ideas of less is more and t h e d e v i l ’s i n t h e d e t a i l s . W e ’ v e a d o p t e d t h e s e ideas to make clothes that will last in terms of style and fabric.
Where do you think sustainable fashion will be in 20 years? Do you think that upcycling fabric will become standard practice? I hope so. I think that companies need to consider the second and third lives of their clothing and also not look at sustainability as a marketing ploy because it can be so much more than that. What do you see as the primary barrier to sustainable fashion being the standard model of clothing production? The main issue right now is definitely price. For example, organic cotton is 30% more expensive than regular cotton. We at Aeon Row are able to save on production costs by using revived fabrics, but for major fashion companies with high o u t p u t , t h a t ’s n o t a n o p t i o n . S o c o s t i s t h e b i g i s s u e r i g h t n o w. What advice do you have for people looking to shop more sustainably? My advice would be to not throw clothing away when you’re done with it. Recycle it instead! Donate clothes to thrift stores or resale shops like Buffalo Exchange if you have those near y o u . Yo u c a n a l s o r e d u c e y o u r c o n s u m p t i o n b y not giving in to trends. When I go to shop I always think about if I’ll still have that item in 10 y e a r s . I f n o t , i t ’s p r o b a b l y n o t w o r t h b u y i n g . Thank you so much for talking with BARE, Griffin. Thanks for having me!
Griffin, while a gifted designer, is an environmentalist first. He never went to fashion school, never shadowed designers, never had a runway show. He’s just a man who decided to take fashion production into his own hands, which speaks to the troubling resistance to change in the fashion industry. If the fashion industry will not respond to the increased pressure put upon them by consumers and the reality of the planet we live on, then it seems it is up to us to create our own clothes and make our own decisions as Griffin has. Theo Snow issue 20 • baremagazine.org 33
Limitations
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PHOTOGRAPHER MADDY ROTMAN PRODUCTION NOELLE FOROUGI, NATALIE ABBER, SARA KERSTING, LEE TULCHIN, LEAH HOTCHKISS, CELESTINE GRIFFIN MODELS AVA MORA, JESSICA MORGAN, SARAH NORDAHL, MOLLY SIMON
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SARAH WEARS BLOOMERS COMME DES GARÇONS MAC SF, JUMPSUIT, SANDALS EMPRES VINTAGE, BELT MARS. JESSICA WEARS WEARS BRA MARS, COAT, PANTS, BOOTS, CAPE, JEWELRY, SUNGLASSES STYLIST’S OWN. AVA WEARS TUNIC TOWNCLOTHES, PANTS DEMA MAC SF, SCARF TOP EMPRESS VINTAGE. MOLLY WEARS DRESS MARS, COAT EVELYN MUIR, TIGHTS, JEWELRY STYLIST’S OWN.
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PHOTOGRAPHER SHELDON KAPLAN MODEL DOUG SCHOWENGERDT DOUG WEARS VEST ISSEY MIYAKE, PANTS STYLIST’S OWN.
Form and Function Transhumanism and the fashion of the future We are all human. Born of haploid cells, developed into embr yos, grown into infants, then toddlers, then big kids, then teens, then adults, then slightly more responsible adults, then old people, then smelly old people, then smelly dead people, then dust. We’re all in the same boat, stuck in these dumb clumsy fragile flesh shells until they fall apart slowly, painfully, and without fanfare. But, then again, maybe not? Transhumanism is the idea that we’re not merely products of the current form of our bodies. Those who earnestly endorse transhumanist ideas believe that the current state of the human species is just a stepping stone towards the next, more evolved form of humanity. No, transhumanists ensure, they’re not talking about eugenics. They just want to live indefinitely, to eliminate disease, to enhance physical, intellectual, and psychological abilities by so much that the abilities break the barriers of what’s considered “human.” That’s all. Transhumanists see humanity eventually becoming “post-human,” with functional capacities so far beyond the current form of humanity that these post-humans will effectively be a new species altogether. And they’re pretty much down to use whatever scientific advances necessar y to accomplish this as quickly as possible. After all, what do we pathetic mortals have to lose by tr ying? Obviously, there are a lot of problems with these ideas. Transhumanism skirts around deeply unsettling philosophical questions about life, death, happiness, and the place of humanity in the universe, all with little more explanation than “It’s for the greater good! Why would you not want a better life?” as an answer. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that transhumanism tends to appeal to delusional Silicon Valley types more than it does to the average person. You know the character, the person who believes technolog y is the panacea of ever y problem faced by humanity, that apps will save the world and that you should let algorithms make all decisions for you. Likely due to the influence of this tech-savvy crowd, many of the practical interpretations of transhumanist philosophy veer towards awful, embarrassing sci-fi influenced tech practices, the most prominent of which is experimental body modification. “Body-mod” is when people tr y to become proto-cyborgs by implanting magnets into their fingers, wires into their skin, or other dumb, disgusting pieces of janky biotech that I’m too scared to look at in a Google image search. It’s important and necessar y to question the core ideas behind transhumanism. However, its ideas applied to fashion have produced some unquestionably fascinating works of design. Maybe it’s because fashion has always been amenable to ideas about transcending the human form, or maybe it’s just because concepts in futuristic fashion were getting stale and designers needed the
fresh inspiration. Either way, both up-and-coming and established designers are adopting transhumanist ideas at an increasing rate, and they’re pulling the entire fashion world along with them. Foremost among these designers is Hussein Chalayan, whose legendar y work on and off the runway explicitly deals with themes of evolution and species transcendence. His breakthrough 2000 A/W runway included the famous “coffee table dress,” in which a model stepped into the middle of a wooden table on the runway, pulled the edges of the intricately designed table upwards, and it transformed into a dress around her. Though it was a bit of a cheesy moment, it was a precursor to later implementations of transhumanist ideas, like the functionalization of the human body in relation to external objects, and the blurring of boundaries as to what qualifies as part of the self. In Chalayan’s 2007 S/S show, the human evolution symbolism got a little heavy handed when models entered the runway from behind a huge, infinitely spinning hands of a clock , and their clothing morphed on the runway in real time. In a truly remarkable feat of design, pieces rose and fell into perfected final positions as the models walked down the runway; hats completely sucked up entire dresses, entirely new garments appeared and then disappeared. In 2011, Chalayan designed the giant egg from which Lady Gaga emerged during her Grammys performance of “Born this Way.” During the performance, she was decked out in Chalayan-designed latex garments meant to accentuate the alien quality of her look, and pointy shoulder augmentations that resembled transhumanist body modification. Most recently, Hussein Chalayan made headlines for his 2016 S/S show, which featured models in polygonal, bulky clothing standing under falling water. The water dramatically dissolved the garments’ outer layers to reveal sleek pieces underneath, to the joy of the crowd seeking another trademark morphing design from Chalayan. Yes, maybe his work has begun to rely a bit too much on the stunt and grand reveal, but Chalayan’s recent work more than ever represents the transhumanist ideas of uncomfortable rebirth, the shedding of excess in a search for perfection, and the inherent value of this transformation. A s its influence in fashion grows and human advances in technolog y brings ever yday people closer to living like actual posthumans, the future of creative transhumanist design looks bright. Special thanks to Sidney Le for the pockets and fashion consulting. Matthew Sater issue 20 • baremagazine.org 43