BIAS: Journal of Dress Practice Issue 6 - Fashion + Time

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J O U R N A L O F FA S H I O N S T U D I E S

FASHION + TIME


DRESS PRACTICE COLLECTIVE M I S S I O N S TAT E M E N T The Dress Practice Collective is a New School student-run organization aimed at joining elements of visual culture, fashion theory, design studies and personal practice through a variety of media. We hope to spark conversations and initiate collaborations between students, faculty and members of the greater community. The organization was founded in Spring 2013 for the purpose of presenting exhibitions, organizing workshops, and publishing original content.


FA S H O N T ME


CONTENTS

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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CONTRIBUTORS

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SOUL OF THINGS: ORIGINS ( 物の魂 MONO NO TAMASHI) Lilia Yip

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AN ORNAMENT IN TIME: INHERITING FAMILY JEWELRY AND THE TRANSFER OF MATERIAL MEMORY Nancy Satola

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THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEXTILES CIRCA 2019: DEFINING THE VISUAL AND FORMAL LANGUAGE Bethany Camarati

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FROM THE ARCHIVES Anthony Palliparambil, Jr.

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THE EVOLUTION OF PARISIAN FASHION SHOWS: A BOURDIEUIAN PERSPECTIVE Rocio Sanchez

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THE COLLABORATION OF ART AND FASHION IN DIOR: RAF SIMONS AND STERLING RUBY CHALLENGING THE TRADITIONAL WITH THE CONTEMPORARY Isha Nabar

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ANNI ALBERS X PAUL SMITH: FROM PUSHING LIMITS TO LIMITED EDITIONS Mina Warchavchik Hugerth

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FROM BOHÉME TO BOHO CHIC: THE FASHION EVOLUTION OF BOHEMIAN COUNTER-CULTURE Elena Baltzoglou

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FUNERAL FOR A FEELING: COMMERCIAL REINFORCEMENT OF PUNK BY PUNK ITSELF Nate Hoe

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CONSTRUCTION David Hopwood

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FOUNDATION OF A HARAJUKU GIRL Ruofei Rao

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THE TRUE COST & COMMODITY FETISHISM Meihan Hu

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REFERENCES AND CREDITS

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Managing Editor Emilia Jane Boulton Editors-At-Large Fei Lu Jeniffer Paola Varela Rodriguez Creative Director Shefali Judeline Jauhar Co Creative Director Mahsa Goodarzi Illustrator Alexia Papavasilakis Web Developer Navya Shivaram Social Media Editor Elan Rodman Editorial Staff Duhin Ganju, Nate Hoe, Madeleine Janz, Sabrina Romviel Maegan Stracy, Kristi Yang, Noel Yeong-An Liao Parsons Paris Editorial Staff Rocio Sanchez Faculty Advisor Maureen Brewster Founding Editors Sara Idacavage + Kim Jenkins + Rachel Kinnard + Laura Peach 4


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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Fashion’s premise is being ahead of time; fashion weeks dictate what we will wear in six months. Fashion is also synchronous with modernity; we yearn to be fashion forward. In recent years, however, the linear relationship between fashion and time has become more circuitous and contested. As Aurelie Van de Peer propounded on the politics of time in fashion, “[F]ashion is forced to produce continuously its own boundaries in the flow of time in relation to and dependent on what it does not wish to become: its own history…” (2015). Through their rich variety of work, our contributors have addressed identity formation, the effects of fast fashion, and the development of cultural and subcultural dress practices, all of which carry the notion that time plays a far more significant and complex role within fashion. Critical observations of how time and fashion can affect one another include the juxtaposition of what is “old” with what is “new,” altering our perception of modernity. We also had thoughtful reflections on how nostalgia and the appreciation of the past can shape fashion in new and exciting ways. There is the advancement of modern technology and manual techniques teaching us the way we can perceive time within clothes, and we must not forget how our perception of objects and clothes — even though they do not physically change themselves — are altered as the evolution of time influences our minds. We realized there was so much more to unpack, and we all hope that you will learn just as much as we did from our contributors. As a result of all the dedicated hard work from our team — the late-night reviews and the discussions of the wide variety of work from different parts of the world — you have in your hands our 6th issue of BIAS Journal of Fashion Studies. As we celebrate The New School’s Centennial year, we invite you to consider and question how fashion and time intersect with one another.

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CONTRIBUTORS Elena Baltzoglou is a Conceptual Innovator providing consulting services to emerging brands and fashion tech startups. Having worked for a global fashion retailer as well as a NY-based retail innovation accelerator, Elena has 5+ years of experience in marketing strategy, brand awareness and storytelling practices. She holds a BS in Management Science and Technology from Athens University of Economics and Business, and an MA in Fashion Studies with a focus on second-hand clothing markets and buy-sell-trade retail schemes. Her research encompasses many aspects of Fashion, Memory and Time throughout her academic years, such as Marking Time in Contemporary Fashion and Martin Margiela’s practice in defense of Slow Fashion among other papers. Bethany Camarati graduated from Parsons School of Design with a Masters in Fashion Studies in 2014. Since graduating, Bethany has had the honor of working with Alexander Wang and Derek Lam. Additionally she has completed independent design projects with Lee Savage, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. She now works at Parsons School of Design as the Manager for the School of Constructed Environments. Nate Hoe is currently pursuing a Masters in Fashion Studies at Parsons and is a member of the editorial staff at BIAS. His academic interests are disparate but largely center on subcultural studies, commodities, advertising, and history. In 2016 he received his bachelors in history and medieval studies, of all things. He loves German Shepherds, mud, birdsong, two wheeled vehicles, and any music at or above 200 beats per minute. He only recently started eating fruit regularly. David Hopwood is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in Fashion Womenswear. Ever since he can remember, he has continuously developed his knowledge of the fashion industry, both in the UK and Europe. David has worked for Bottega Veneta and Matthew Miller, and took on small projects with artists and other creatives such as Julie Verhoeven, POP Magazine, Spartacus Chetwynd, Baron Magazine and Marfa Journal. David is the Course Leader on the BA (Hons) Fashion Design and Development course at London College of Fashion in the U.K. Meihan Hu is a junior student in the BFA Fashion Design program with a Systems and Society pathway at Parsons School of Design at The New School in New York City. She specializes in supply chains studies, social entrepreneurship, political economy and Asian cultural studies. Her research includes but is not limited to a biological-based trickling filter system for textile industrial wastewater, multinational fast fashion brands’ supply chain management and improvement, and the import and export of goods from developing countries to developed countries. She was awarded the gold prize from “Scholastic Art & Writing Awards” and her work was exhibited in various venues in New York City and Washington, D.C. Ryan Hunt is a graphic designer and photographer living and working in Seattle, Washington. As a designer, he is interested in experimentation within design and process driven outcomes, and believes that design is about discovery and communication. He is particularly interested in print design and art books. 6


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Isha Nabar is a Fashion Design Major at the Parsons School of Design, New York. She has always considered herself an artist and a designer and this duality in her identity is what she approaches all her work with. Growing up in Mumbai, India and being surrounded with the epitome of diversity, she has always had a fond interest in capturing it’s natural beauty through the creative expressions of writing, photography, and painting. You can find her work at https://ishanabar22.wixsite.com/website . Anthony Palliparambil, Jr. is a visual artist and scholar who lives and works out of Brooklyn, NY and Bowie, MD. Palliparambil’s interests lie in exploring the bridge between technology and the arts. You can learn more about his work on: www.anthonyashwin.com Ruofei Rao is a sophomore student at Parsons The New School for Design, majoring in Communication Design. She was originally drawn to Parsons for its integrative design education that includes a wide range of studio and seminar programs. While she is passionate about designing in graphic arts, she is also fascinated by the strength that fashion possesses in telling stories. As an avid traveler and observer of different countries’ distinctive fashion trends, she is particularly interested in the way that fashion serves as a symbol of continual change for both an individual’s appearance as well as for a culture’s broader cultural and societal implications. Rocio Sanchez graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City in 2017 with a Bachelor of Science in Advertising and Marketing Communications and a minor in French. She is now a graduate student at Parsons, Paris. Before Parsons, Rocio worked as a digital analyst and marketer at a variety of companies including fashion brands and startups. Particularly interested in fashion writing and fashion museology, Rocio now takes full advantage of the world available to her in Paris. Rocio shadowed photographers of InDigital, a small company specializing in runway photography and video production for fashion conferences, which allowed her to attend the McQueen SS’19 show. Nancy Satola is a graduate of the MA Fashion Studies program at Parsons, The New School for Design with a research emphasis on the intersections of fashion, gender, and popular culture. Nancy is primarily interested in fashion and cultural studies and teaches courses across the Art and Design History and Theory department as well as the Parsons First Year Curriculum. As a former up-cycle fashion designer, Nancy is also invested in the field of slow fashion and works in production and sales for Brooklyn-based designer Christine Alcalay and is a member of the Kiwi Brooklyn team. Mina Warchavchik Hugerth is a second-year MA student in the History of Design and Curatorial Studies program at Parsons School of Design and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. She holds a previous Master’s degree in architecture history and theory from the School of Architecture and Urbanism, University of São Paulo. Mina’s main interests revolve around material culture history and theory, focusing on the relations between objects and space and their social implications. Lilia Yip is a fashion academic and designer and musician, threading the different strands into a creative practice that makes meaning with material. She graduated from the Royal College of Art MA Fashion Womenswear in 2008 and set up her studio in Brighton, UK. Lilia has collaborated with the British Council as their guest designer, showcasing work in the Philippines and running workshops in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. She has exhibited internationally in solo exhibitions and major group shows at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Victoria & Albert museum. Lilia is a Senior Lecturer in Fashion at the University of Brighton, and you can find her work at www.liliayip.com. 7


SOUL OF THINGS:

ORIGINS (物の魂 MONO NO TAMASHI) Lilia Yip

The Soul of Things : Origins (物の魂 Mono no Tamashi) is a fashion project by fashion designer / artist Lilia Yip. It explores our fundamental relationship with clothes, remembering a time when clothing was believed to be magical and endowed with the ability to protect the wearer. 8


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Rachel H. Kemper writes in her book A History of Costume: “Costume originated in the service of magic and although this motive no longer survives among us on a conscious level, it might be argued that in our subconscious it still reigns supreme.” [1]

The origin of clothing begins with a rectangular piece of cloth. Lilia taps into her subconscious connection with clothes by creating each garment from a rectangular piece of cloth that she 3D pattern-cuts on a stand. In this way, she creates a garment from its earliest starting point and responds directly to the cloth in front of her with each cut she makes.

According to Joanne Entwistle, “The ubiquitous nature of dress would seem to point to the fact that dress or adornment is one of the means by which bodies are made social and given meaning and identity.” [2]

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Clothing has the ability to embody our histories, cultures and identities. It constantly intersects with our environment, and as such shapes our worldly experience from moment to moment.

The Soul of Things explores the merging of traditional clothing forms with modern sensibilities. This combines flat and form cutting techniques while constructing spatial and temporal meanings in relation to the body and its identity.

Shot in Iceland in collaboration with performance artist Mustafa Boga and photographer Tomasz Midgal, the volcanic landscape and raw natural elements bring to mind the birthing of our Earth and the need to reconnect with who we are, how we live and where we come from. 10


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AN ORNAMENT IN TIME:

INHERITING FAMILY JEWELRY AND THE TRANSFER OF MATERIAL MEMORY Nancy Satola

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ewelry is often passed down through generations within a family and seen as a materialized form of inheriting memory. Passing down jewelry can be used to acknowledge a significant occasion, which ultimately gives the piece of jewelry the agency to act as a material marker of a person, time, or place. In this paper, material memory is addressed in relation to family relationships. A number of researchers have attempted to understand the implications of material memory, especially in relation to clothing. Peter Stallybrass discussed the relationship between clothing and material memory specifically in the context of loss and grief. For Stallybrass, the various ways we are introduced to our own material memories suggests the multiple manifestations of material memory. He highlighted his personal experience with a jacket that initially belonged to a deceased friend and wrote, “[the] magic of cloth, I came to believe, is that it receives us.” [1] For him, the smell embedded in the jacket evoked the memory of his friend, Allon. “Clothing thus tends to be powerfully associated with memory. Or, to put it more strongly, cloth is a kind of memory.” [2] Stallybrass made strong connections between material culture and material memory and translated these concepts to the exchange of clothing between mother and daughter. He referenced generational gifting 12

as a “transmission of wealth, of genealogy… but also of memory and of the love of mother for daughter” and goes on to say that “identities are transferred from a mother to a daughter” through the idea of generational gifting [3]. Furthermore, Sophie Woodward expanded on specific familial relationships between mother and daughter and used wardrobe studies as a method for collecting narratives associated to the material memory embedded in objects exchanged between women. She noted “the quantity of clothing women possess that has been gifted to them by their mothers,” suggesting that this is a highly common practice among women [4]. Woodward observed specifically how fashion objects allowed women to “negotiate their sense of self…and their continued dependence and connection to family members and loved ones” in the construction of their own identities [5]. This suggests that there is an acute interplay between an individual’s autonomy and their ties to familial relationships, where clothing acts as a material object that inscribes powerful associations between individuals. Theresa, one of Woodward’s research subjects, shared that the majority of the clothing she has was once owned and worn by her mother [6]. She writes, “Theresa has clear remembrances of her mother wearing these items when she was younger” and discusses


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a specific jumper where the “very act of wearing it [brings] Theresa into physical contact with the item she so strongly associates with her mother.” [7] Wearing gifted items allow these women to perform a specific memory, which aids in the construction of their identity.

value of Nanna’s necklace as a fashion object. Lastly, the third phase of this study illustrates how value is accrued through storytelling, which ultimately reassigns the value of Nanna’s necklace to be a highly symbolic object in “Inheriting Material Memory.”

Attachments to these objects, whether physical or emotional, are prominently observed in the process of gifting and inheriting. It is clear here that generational gifting creates associations between giver and receiver, especially in the form of family heirlooms. Of course, passing on family heirlooms is not an arbitrary process, but one where the object, the receiver, and the occasion are carefully considered.

Rite of Passage

My Nanna’s Necklace Reflecting on this necklace, I noticed the multiple meanings represented in the necklace and the differing relationships I had over time. This study is divided into three temporal stages where each stage represents a unique relationship to the object considering fashion, time, and memory. “Rite of Passage” examines the object at the moment of inheritance and demonstrates the value of a gift as a marker of time. This is followed by “Fashion and Cultural Remembering,” where Arjun Appadurai’s notions of “nostalgia” are considered in the process of remembering and examines the

Particularly in the United States of America, a 21st birthday is considered a rite of passage; it symbolizes maturation and acts as a marker of one’s entry into adulthood. In 2012, I received this necklace on my 21st birthday as a gift from my Nanna who had been saving the necklace for a special occasion. My Nanna is the mother of my stepmother, who has been a part of my life and family for as long as I have been able to form memories. Doreen Pleming, or “Nanna” as I call her, is 80 years old and currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa. It is rare that I see Nanna, and on this particular birthday, she sent the necklace in the mail. The necklace is a gold snake-chain choker that lies just above the clavicle, highlighting the neck in a very sophisticated manner. Initially, I was touched by the gesture, but not sure if I would get much wear out of the piece of jewelry; at 21 years old, the style did not align with my youthful identity. Like many other family heirlooms I’ve inherited, I added the necklace to my jewelry box to collect dust for the next 3 years. Woodward wrote, “In choosing 13


what to wear, and what to simply keep, women are not just selecting which styles they like, but are considering the relationships and person these embody.” [8] This explains my decision to hold on to this particular piece of jewelry, as the necklace was inextricable from my Nanna. At this stage of my relationship with the object, this necklace was valued simply as a reminder of my 21st birthday as well as my Nanna. Fashion and Cultural Remembering May, 2015: I began working as a sales associate at Urban Outfitters during which fast fashion companies began exhibiting elements of the 1990s in the trends they were putting forth. Anthropologist, Arjun Appadurai explained the work of nostalgia in the fashion industry and described it as a “central feature of modern merchandising.” [9] In this case, the fashion industry used styles and trends from the 1990s with the desire to propel the fashion cycle forward. In Appadurai’s words, “[rummaging] through history has become a standard technique of advertising…to draw on the genuine nostalgia of agegroups for pasts they actually know.” [10] I was born in 1991, so these revived fashions were particularly personal and easily recalled from my childhood memories. As someone immersed in fashion by both studying the field of fashion and working in the industry 14

itself, I feel a slight concern with staying ‘on-trend’. Although I highly value my personal fashion autonomy, I am also interested in understanding what is considered to be stylish and trendy at a given time. In wanting to participate in the choker trend, I was thrilled to remember my Nanna’s necklace and began wearing it frequently. At this stage of my relationship with the necklace, I developed a liking for the fashionable attributes of the object. Here, the value is placed on the necklace as a fashionable object, assisting my identity as a stylish and up-todate woman. Inheriting Material Memory On a family trip to the beach, I inherited my Nanna’s material memory. Her material memory was evoked through the necklace’s visual presence, and she told me the story behind the jewelry. In June 1976, Nanna received the necklace as a gift for her 40th birthday from Poppa, and they had recently moved from Zambia to Johannesburg, South Africa. Poppa purchased the necklace from a jeweler that he knew personally. In hearing the story, particularly in person, I began to value this object a representation of Poppa’s affection for Nanna. For me, this was a site of the memory transferal that is now forever embedded within the necklace. It acted as a material representation of collective memory for both Nanna and me


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and is valued as a highly symbolic object representative of familial relationships. Sophie Woodward wrote that “as women mature, often their preferences start to converge with that of their mothers as a signifier of a redefined relationship with their family and their past.” [11] I have now owned my Nanna’s necklace for four years. In addition to its symbolic and familial value, this necklace is a reminder of past style identities and my own personal maturation over time. Through inheriting my Nanna’s material memory, this necklace has an “open and porous form of ownership;” a site where my Nanna and I converge [12].

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THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEXTILES CIRCA 2019: DEFINING THE VISUAL AND FORMAL LANGUAGE WITHIN THE MATERIAL WORLD

Bethany Camarati

he current advancement of textiles begins to redress the imbalance between fashion, time and technology by foregrounding the materiality and modernity of fashion. Both fashion and advanced textiles synchronize together across a wide range of techniques and processes from constructing, forming, sculpturing, embellishing, patternmaking, treating, and even the mistreating of textiles [1]. Technology is now a necessity for crafting the physical form of fashion in contemporary fashion design. The invention, development and manipulation of fabrics remain the hidden art of fashion [2]. Fashion designers choose specific fabrics based on touch, handle, drape, and aesthetic along with the fabric’s behavior or potential to achieve a desired silhouette [3]. Working with a textile is crucial to discover its inherent characteristics, often not seen in fabrication until the first prototypes are constructed and produced [4]. Innovative and advanced textiles are a rich source of the inventive concepts and progressive developments within fashion design. Questions to consider 16

Vogue Runway, Iris van Herpen Fall 2016 Ready-to-Wear https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2016-ready-to-wear/ iris-van-herpen/slideshow/collection#13

when thinking further about technology and craft include: How might designers apply advanced craftsmanship such as 3D printing to redefine ideas of construction and production? How do designers change and


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redevelop the manufacturing processes and the creative process? How are designers incorporating innovative materials and textile advancement within 21st century fashion design? Digital morphogenesis is the natural way of forming growth, development and visual context within future design concepts. It is a process of garment development enabled by the usage of computational design. This process is mostly used in advanced architectural design, however 21st century creatives translate computational design to fashion design. This process is changing mass production. The blending of computational design techniques and emerging manufacturing technologies will advance groundbreaking and complex craftsmanship within the design fields—stretching the boundaries of what modern-day fashion is capable of. Contemporary designers have replaced mundane and traditional practices such as sewing in favor of sophisticated software programs, particularly Maya, Rhino, and ZBrush. These complex software programs introduce simulations that create tactile, physical results. Prototypes are produced instantly. The freedom of creativity offered by simulated fashion design and 3D printing pushes innovation forward. 3D printing contributes to the fabrication of entire ensembles. The usage of conductive fibers and blends

of synthetic textiles are being integrated into new fabrics such as flexible filament, a nylon-based material. The nylon-based material is then gradually transformed into a pliable, plastic-like consistency when the 3D print process is applied [5]. This blend of integration, now enables designers to redefine their own creative limits of fashion production, fashion branding and marketing, and introducing new materials to the consumer. Fashion and technology is pushing the modern, twenty-first-century shift of new potential creativity through reinventing the outline of bodies and changing the space surrounding the wearer. The new silhouette embraces technology and gives a sleek, sculptural silhouette that fits to the body like second skin. Will the second skin be a new form, a new term, a new material that will surface amongst current fashion? The term ‘second skin’ embodies a vision for the future of design in which a synthetic material similar to human skin is integrated into modern fashion. Skin repairs itself and grows back, and produces colors or logos on the skin itself, similar to how the synthetic materials have been processed within fashion design. Today, new materials already react to light, heat, touch and mechanical strain much like the human body. Flexible membranes can be digitally networked, folded, stretched and inflated with air to create a second skin in place of 17


actual textile clothing [6]. Recent advancement in textile design and fabrication allowed fashion to be defined as one’s second skin. Today, this term is more than just a metaphor. The second skin demonstrates the usage of the advancing textile designs racing against time. The concept of the second skin defines the space around the human body, redefining individual space through the usage of the garment. The term second skin is of significance when analyzing both fashion and advanced textiles. The second skin is a new twenty-first-century space that is now defining the human silhouette. The human silhouette is presently being communicated as a creative representation of new exploration and form of the human exterior [7]. In a metaphorical sense, that design is created through writing and communicating—there is an individual programming this language, another creating movement, and another removing all ability to sketch and create in an artistic, physical form [8]. A new dialogue between body and dress is unfolding in the current fashion design moment. Defining the visual and formal language through innovation in current fashion design is crucial. The innovative design process is essential to promoting equally innovative design thinking. Fashion and time define the visual and formal language for 18

our generation of designers by incorporating a unique blend of sophisticated computer driven techniques and cutting edge manufacturing technologies, as those mentioned earlier. These radical processes authenticate the creation of inventive fashions, objects and spaces. The introduction of contemporary textile technology and processes allows a serious alternative to traditional techniques. In order to advance into the future, incorporating the latest technology with traditional design techniques will give designers the ability to change and recreate fashion on an even more experimental and innovative level [9].


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FROM THE ARCHIVES

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr.

Conceived in early 2013, From the Archives, a series of manipulated photographs, revolves around the roles of rebirth, time, technology, and social media within the arts today. In a matter of seconds, any individual with a smartphone can take a photograph, apply a vintage filter, and post it for millions to see. Borrowing this approach to “fast art,” Palliparambil uses images from his personal archive of photographs, both personal and creative, and edits them using only the software found on an iPad. Over time, the series evolved into a carefully considered study in the ways in which memory can be revisited, modified, and explored in the arts.

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., At least you know you’re alive – edit, original 2010, 2013 19


Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., A girl just can’t go to Sing Sing with a green face – edit, original 2010, 2013

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., Untitled, original 2010, 2013 20


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Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., Untitled, original 2010, 2013

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., For Georgia – painters tape, original 2012, 2013 21


Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., Hipsters in Washington Square Park, original 2011, 2013

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., Insomnia, original 2009, 2013

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Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., Passage to India, original 2005, 2013

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., And then I met Geronimo, original 2010, 2013

Anthony Palliparambil, Jr., 1947, original 2005, 2013 23


THE EVOLUTION OF PARISIAN FASHION SHOWS: A BOURDIEUIAN PERSPECTIVE Rocio Sanchez

he history of the Parisian fashion show as we know it did not begin with a specific ‘first’ fashion show: it developed in many stages to become the spectacle that it is today. If it could be explained in one word, the fashion show began with movement – living, breathing movement. Couture houses began to send live models known as ‘mannequins’ to model their designs on the streets of Paris as early as the 1860s. The venue for this display of fashion movement progressed from the Champs-Elysées to the stages of the tango dance craze in the decade of the 1900s [1]. The racetrack was also a popular destination for upper classes during the late 19th century, thus a prime location for showing off designs 24

Mannequins at the Auteuil races on 6 June 1903. Image Credit: L’Illustration lillustration.com

in unofficial fashion défilés (parades), where English designer and often considered ‘Father of Haute Couture,’ Charles Frederick Worth dressed his wife as his unofficial mannequin to promote his designs in the 1860s [2]. The venue of the fashion show changed consistently over the beginnings of it, but it is not the only notable change: Management and audience are also evolving aspects to consider when addressing history of the fashion show in Paris. Using French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of capital, the displays of fashion on live models showed the well-to-do

people gallivanting the streets of Paris of their potential sartorial future of wearing something that conspicuously reflected their capital [3]. According to Bourdieu, there are at least three forms of capital (social, symbolic, and cultural), all of which can be derived from economic capital. “[A]ll three forms… can be converted into one or more of the other... including economic capital,” explains Agnès Rocamora [4]. In this sense, while the fashion show evolved over time, changing in some aspects but remaining the same in others, there is one


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Journalists clad in all-black attend the 1947 Dior Fashion Show. Image Credit: https://www.dior.com/couture/enhk/the-house-of-dior/the-story-of-dior/ the-new-look-revolution

aspect that it is still unexamined: the way capital, using Bourdieu’s terminology, functions in the microcosm of the fashion show. Couture houses usually determined where they would display their designs, but eventually this aspect came to be managed by a key institution in Paris fashion, the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, now Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, founded in 1868. The Fédération is an association that­ – since its inception – acts as gatekeeper for fashion shows, an agency against counterfeiting, and regulator of the Paris Fashion Week schedule [5]. The Fédération provides education, the form of which changed over time: providing apprenticeships to designers in its beginnings [6], and eventually establishing its own design schools by 1931 [7]. Bourdieu considers skill and education as a form of cultural

capital [8]. Therefore, the fashion show is the culmination of the education of the couturier on display, moving from the source institution, to the designer, the designs, and the runway itself, ultimately becoming subject to the peer approval of the audience of the show. It holds a characteristic that leads us to the most apparent form of capital in the fashion show: social capital. Bourdieu defines social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to…membership in a group…which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectively-owned capital.” [9] The audience of the fashion show includes elites with social capital that adds value to a designer and their work, thus a continuous cycle of social capital exchange. Caroline Evans says, the audiences in early fashion shows included, “private clients, trade buyers and 25


Celebrities sit in front row alongside journalists in the 21st century. Shailene Woodley, Urassaya Sperbund, Amandla vStenberg and Nina Dobrev sitting front row at Louis Vuitton SS19. Image Credit: Getty Images

commissionaires, journalists, copyists and pirates.” [10] In the 21st century, some things have changed, and others have not. Celebrities are more valuable now, while pirates are nowhere to be seen, thanks to Chambre Syndicale’s strong-arm. While still an exclusive event, anyone from anywhere in the world can access the looks immediately as they happen through social media. This validation from other elites and massive online followings allows for the reproduction of social capital, which is a “continuous series of exchanges in which recognition is endlessly affirmed and reaffirmed,” according to Bourdieu [11]. In the past, this validation would have come from private clients and journalists. The difference now is that there are different types of people providing validation. A defining characteristic of the fashion show is movement, apparent in the tracing of capital conversion 26

in the context of the Paris fashion show. The advent of the mannequin (living model) in Paris was the first turning point towards setting fashion in motion and setting the stage for fashion shows to become a staple in the industry worldwide. While the nature of fashion shows regarding venues, management, and audience has evolved, the movement of fashion and the fundamental function of capital conversion has not changed. The fashion show began as a business tactic to ultimately attain economic capital, and it quickly evolved into the perfect setting for social capital accumulation, all stemming from the skill and education of the couturier, a component of their cultural capital. The fashion show, through its actors and display, shows how capital converts from one form to another: the cultural and symbolic capital of a designer culminating into a spectacle meant for social capital accumulation.


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THE COLLABORATION OF ART AND FASHION IN DIOR: RAF SIMONS AND STERLING RUBY CHALLENGING THE TRADITIONAL WITH THE CONTEMPORARY Isha Nabar

he power of two. One can have a vision but two can create the visionary. Both at the pinnacle of creative brilliance, the intermingling of the identities of artists and designers in Sterling Ruby and Raf Simons has succeeded at something almost unexpected: a true, collaborative brotherhood. They are the true visionaries of the 21st century. In 2005, among his myriad of naïve studio visits, Belgian fashion designer Simons set up an informal meeting with Ruby [1], an artist whose work with its unprecedented strokes and colour-saturated motion lingered through his subconscious, boasting aesthetic and technical revolution all at once. Simons was

moved. And for someone like him, the creative director of Dior, who obsessed over movement, in light of romanticizing the future, not simply the past, the idea of something refreshing and new was intriguing. “I always think future is better, in the first place. I have to. If I don’t think that, I cannot move on anymore.” [2] Over the past decade, the worlds of art and fashion have become increasingly correlated, stoked by a rather common fascination with the luxury consumer. However, as documented in the motion-picture Dior and I, Ruby and Simons’ pioneering experiments boastfully articulate the marriage of art and fashion as a practice that was now ‘fashionable’. Four looks that not only interjected the fashion runway, but largely changed the 27


fashion world, paved the path to my thesis statement: Raf Simon’s collaboration of art with fashion on the runway challenges the use of traditional with contemporary in the film Dior and I. Concept materializes to creation, as seen at one point in the film when Simons brings out an old Nokia flip phone to record a revolutionary moment of innovation. Keeping true to Dior’s historically celebrated confident and timeless feminine aesthetic, the garment’s silhouette showcases his attempt to juxtapose the textiles with Sterling’s boldly hued abstracted paintings on silk taffeta. It respects a legacy in its truest form — preservation through evolution. Nonetheless, the intention of inclusion is sustained at the very core. Whether through FedEx, texting, sending emails or a cell phone click of a print-out

wrapped around a model (Fig.1), the inclusion and trading of a shared imagination is in itself the fashion system, or as Kawamura suggests in Designers: The Personification of Fashion, “All parts, each with specific latent and manifest functions within the institution are interdependent. These cooperative networks make fashion happen.” [3] Simons, a former industrial designer born in Neerpelt, Belgium, his mother a cleaner and his father in the army, had observed Ruby’s art but rarely noticed the artist himself [4]. Ruby, who was a professional skateboarder, construction worker and college drop-out, born in a military base in Germany, knew even less about the designer himself [5]. Both men started elsewhere but found where they truly belonged. Both certainly valued labor by hand and balanced a taught craft with elevated conceptualization.

Figure 1

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They carry the same sentiments, and in the words of Ruby, “... so many discussions about culture, geographies, everything, we both recognise and know our work. We respect one another as people.” [6] With a bonded vision, as Kaiser quotes, “Part of having subjectivity or agency in the world means making sense not only of who we are becoming but also where we are going.” [7] If Simons had a precise eye with minimalist sci-fi tendencies, Ruby’s work was almost a binary opposition: spray-painted canvases that imitate sprawling landscapes. Most prevalent were highly-glazed ceramics donning a dripping technique and skillfully crafted mixed-media collages. Sitting the works of Simons and Ruby, down next to each other, would make the aesthetic difference simply palpable. But it is this tension, coupled with a shared interest in subcultures, music and an art-obsessed intellect that has made their stylistic collaboration feel so alive, and crucially, new. After all, Simons designs clothes that lend the wearer agency to feel both modern as well as nostalgic, gamine and ladylike. Evident at various points in the film, especially through the research phases wherein Simons presents archived Dior imagery of iconic looks to his creative teams, sketchers and ateliers, it is clear that Simons intends to revive “a legacy which is so gigantic and is

so sublime.” [8] Yet, as a man in touch with women as real rather than fictional creatures, he takes the position of a designer rather than an entertainer, his research leading him to investigate what today’s woman desires to wear. While material fabrications don’t solely define creativity, “the concept of newness must be integrated into the discussion of creativity as these two are the opposite sides of the same coin”. [9] Simons manages to insinuate this desire for newness, embedded in an implicit historical overview; he creates attire with references that endow past notions of style— for instance, Dior’s signature themes: the bubble silhouette, a degree of embellishment, or the Bar jackets’ buttoned motif—with an exhilarating sense of contemporaneity. Whether this contrast arises from the manipulations of an all-white piqué and white cotton jersey for dresses, or the reliance on boldly colored satin coats, and clean lines thrown over quilted Bermuda shorts, each look radiates lightness, even ephemerality that refuses to be otherworldly. Deeply involved with spatial environments and interiors, it is not only this ideation of recontextualizing the familiar to a place of divine unfamiliarity but also Simon’s architectural background that leads him to reinvention. Simons has a keen interest in finding pieces and bringing them back to another area, where “people relook at 29


things” [10] that marries with his dimensional and spatial values to permeate his initial process of investigation. While Simons is shown making high tech ‘files’ and tactile mood boards, one of his primary channels of inspiration lay in his impromptu visits to the sacred retreats of art galleries, which inspired the use of Ruby’s paintings in his collection in the first place. Ruby’s work can be epic in scale, translating to his clothes that often bear an outsized feel, cinched at certain points retaining essential femininity and personifying the challenging boundaries of traditionalism and modernity. Simons is one of the first fashion designers to orchestrate a shift, authentically translating pop

culture allusions and styles, originally evoked by the energy of Belgian club kids to now, be not just appropriative but cerebral on the runway. In a way, he directs youth culture, rather than echoing it. Simons goes the extra mile, infusing visceral youthful visuals with Ruby’s paintings, yet employs the classically famed Dior warp printing technique to aptly express its attributes that vacillate between fluid and static, minimalist and expressionist, pristine and filthy. Challenging his textile team to recreate these remarkable blurred motifs where the warp threads are printed before weaving [11] in a limited timeframe, with no testing and trials of fabrics, attests to this new wave of bold, experimental design. Above all, collaboration in itself

Dior, Fall 2012 Couture

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connotes a sense of unpredictable genius, whether this demands the coming together of two distinct personalities, styles or times. Simons believes in change because that is how he maintains a dialogue with the changing Dior woman. He emotionally articulates, “I want to stay connected to them rather than to an abstract brand. I don’t see Dior as something that could become mine.” [12] Perhaps it is this exact wish to share his genius that lends itself to Dior’s success in collaboration. While inhibitions ran high with Ruby’s doubts of commodifying art, and Simon’s innate introverted nature studio visits could be “uncomfortable,” somehow Simons finds an instant bond with Ruby and a natural collaboration was created. “If I think I have a great idea, if I can share it with someone whose work and person I admire, and it comes together, it’s a greater idea. It’s a better idea. If we both love it, it must be even better than when I love it.” [13] The introduction of Simons as creative director in this documentary detailed the ways in which he reinvented couture, but most importantly reinvented Dior to Dior and I. In Ruby and Simons, the traditional and contemporary came together and “it simply was sublime.”

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ANNI ALBERS X PAUL SMITH:

FROM PUSHING LIMITS TO LIMITED EDITIONS Mina Warchavchik Hugerth

n September 2018, English fashion designer, Paul Smith launched Anni Albers x Paul Smith, a limited edition capsule collection of knitwear in partnership with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Based on a wall hanging created by Albers in 1925, while she was a student at the Bauhaus, the collection was developed to coincide with the first major exhibition of the artist’s work in the United Kingdom [1], at once enjoying the public attention given to Albers and taking her name beyond museum walls. In doing so as a market-oriented and thus lucrative endeavor, however, Smith’s work inevitably transforms the character of Albers’ piece, falling under a longer tradition of fashion looking at art and its inherent risks. Notwithstanding, Anni Albers x Paul Smith can be considered successful as it creates a dialogue between two worlds, albeit almost a century apart, overcoming perceptions of volatility. It is not easy to place Anni Albers’s textile work within a single category but, taking into account the contemplative nature of wallhangings, here Albers is viewed as an artist. In the modernist project, however, fashion was seen as the antagonist of art, with the latter situated in the sphere of the mind 32

and the psyche and opposing the former’s alleged frivolous and sensual nature [2]. This understanding would therefore place Albers in direct opposition with Smith, yet weaving lies somewhere in between these limits. Recent history has placed it as a lesser occupation, as its use refers to interiors and decoration.


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Even Albers did not initially wish to go to the weaving workshop at the Bauhaus, considering it futile [3]. Nonetheless, that workshop soon became one of the most productive in the school and Albers would find there a source for decades of groundbreaking experimentation. Still, Albers remarked that she was only taken seriously as an artist after she began producing prints on paper, a more traditional art medium, which approximates her textile work to fashion through not only material but also its cultural reception [4].

rhythm to the piece. The Anni Albers x Paul Smith collection, in turn, is comprised of four items: a man’s and a woman’s sweater in cashmere from traditional Scottish spinners Todd & Duncan, and a scarf and a blanket in lambswool, woven in Yorkshire, England. One hundred units of each sweater were made, accompanied by 150 scarfs and 75 blankets. The formal relation between the pieces and Albers’ work is immediately apparent, but a closer look reveals significant differences. In the sweaters, Smith maintained the horizontality of the stripes in varying

The Albers wall hanging that inspired Smith’s collection was likely done as an exercise, handwoven by the artist in wool, silk, chenille, and bouclé yarn, and it is 93 x 37 x 3⁄4 inches in size. The piece is organized as a non-repeating horizontally striped pattern of various heights, in black, yellow, brown, green, and four shades of beige. The lines are sometimes interrupted by a green, red, yellow, or blue rectangle. This color scheme is perpendicularly juxtaposed by a beige warp that gives a regular

widths but introduced thinner consecutive lines in tune with his design identity. He also included two new colors: pink and maroon. While the women’s sweater is predominantly pink and maroon, the men’s is maroon and black, with its darkness emphasized further by the pinstripes done in green. The scarf and blanket distance themselves more from Albers’s work, with new shades coming into play and vertical lines transforming the pattern into a checkerboard. 33


Unlike most appropriations of art in the fashion world, Smith was already dealing with a textile and not a work on paper. The wall hanging, like the items in the fashion collection, does not have a backside. That reversibility is replicated directly in the case of the scarf and the blanket, and more subtly in the sweaters, through two planes of fabric with different designs stitched together. Even so, the wall hanging was not meant to be worn or reproduced, and Smith did not choose Albers’ piece because of the specific moment in her career, but rather for its visual qualities [5]. The new colors, initially aesthetic additions, have been distributed in such a way that enhances the fact that there is a sweater for men and another for women, which have gendered the wall hanging. Granted that both men and women can theoretically wear both designs, the indication is still there and cannot be justified in Albers’ work. The effect of the distortions made by Paul Smith to insert the wall hanging in the fashion market can nevertheless be mitigated when considering the collection’s possible social impact. Smith is conspicuously not at Tate Modern’s gift shop nor in the exhibition’s promotional materials. Anni Albers x Paul Smith is thus not just a commodifying process, as its symbolic values do not derive from a purely financial perspective but also an associational one. Smith’s name may be better known in popular culture, but Albers is 34

arguably the most important textile artist of the 20th century. Smith’s endeavor may then have the power to extend the artist’s history through material culture, while the fashion brand is enriched by having Albers’ name attached to it. One of the most poignant differences between fashion and art is their relationship with time and the implication of change. If fashion is layered on Albers, she could be at risk of becoming fashionable herself, and therefore go out of fashion. As a limited edition, however, Anni Albers x Paul Smith flirts with a

“Paul Smith’s name may be better known in popular culture, but Anni Albers is arguably the most important textile artist of the 20th century.” mode of production commonly associated with prints and artists, which changes its desirability. Especially as the collection is a close translation of Albers’ work, the pieces approximate themselves to the artistic realm. Smith’s definition of his work as “classic with a twist” (“classic,” implying overcoming the passage of time) might be a useful cliché here, and we can complement this notion by borrowing Albers’ words about timeless design: “The imprint of a time is unavoidable. It will occur without our purposely fashioning it. And it will outlast fashions only if it embodies lasting, together with transitory, qualities.” [6]


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FROM BOHÉME TO BOHO CHIC:

THE FASHION EVOLUTION OF BOHEMIAN COUNTER-CULTURE Elena Baltzoglou y the 18th century, being part of the ‘beaux-arts’ was often a matter of class and classification. French artists tended to come from the middle class, sharing the aspirations of upward social mobility, typical of the bourgeoisie at the time. Eager to please and desiring to succeed, these artists were disciplined by the long-standing academic training under the auspices of the state of France and evaluated based on their response to patronage and prizes. Yet the new conditions of economic and social change following the French Revolution placed artists and intellectuals into poverty, forcing them to adopt a nomadic, minimalistic lifestyle in the lower-rent neighborhoods of Paris, similar to that of the immigrant gypsies (or else Romani,) coming from the so-called ‘Bohemia,’ a region in Czech Republic. In their most prevalent public perceptions, artists and gypsies shared a vagabond life in merry poverty. Renouncing wealth and social status for the pursuit of music, color, and relationships, they had different priorities than the dominant culture, provoking the disdain and envy of the

French society. Based on the writer, Arthur Bartlett Maurice, “Bohemia is less a region of definite situation and boundaries than a state of mind, a memory of youth and of the glamour of youth.” [1] In consequence, the term “bohemian” became indicative of a lifestyle rather than a nationality, and defined a person who lived in an artistic, anarchistic way, often in the company of like-minded people, placing freedom and self-expression above all other desires, including the upwardly mobile bourgeoisie. Associated with unorthodox political and social viewpoints, their lives were carefree events filled with the arcane enlightenment, sexual freedom, and poor personal hygiene. Having moved from the Quartier Latin (Latin Quarter), an area on the Left Bank of the Seine, into shabby houses of Montmartre and Montparnasse, the strolling flâneurs and the infamous maquis took joy in good conversations with friends, “attached to their habits of strolls, billiard rooms, and endless smokes in taverns, or walks in noisy groups in the Luxembourg Gardens.” [2] It was in these communal regions of Paris 35


Group photograph, ‘Hungarian Gypsies all of whom were deported’ in The New York Times, Sunday Feb. 12, 1905. Sherman, Augustus F. (Augustus Francis) Photographer. 1902-1905, New York Public Library Archive.

where the bohemian movement was convened and thus the general look of dishevelment in fashion and arts was perceived as modes of expression and a cultural practice. Loose, flowing hair; colorful scarves worn at the neck, on the head, or instead of a belt; peasant style clothing including tunics, loose trousers, boots, and sandals; and a general performative disregard for tidiness and uniformity both in dress and art, were brought within the province of bohemian lifestyle. Mary Gluck traces how the bohemians in their alternate roles — that of the ‘melodramatic hero,’ 36

the ‘urban flâneur,’ the ‘female hysteric,’ the ‘tribal primitive’ — expressed their opposition to the increasingly repressive and conformist bourgeois norms in close alliance with the commercial popular culture of the 1830s. “It was in the mass circulation newspapers just coming into their own after 1830, in chatty prefaces attached to popular novels, in hastily written salons about art exhibitions, in colloquial essays about everyday life, and in collections of caricatures and humor magazines that the tangled questions of artistic modernity and the artist’s life were first formulated and fought out.” [3] Meaning that, contrary to the conventional views


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of a private self-retreating, the bohemian artist was represented as a public persona parodying the stereotypes of commercial mass culture. Being portrayed as vagabonds, philosophers and narcissists, the lifestyle and outlook of the bohemians were associated with idleness and carelessness, becoming eccentric attractions to the dominant outsiders, who were horrified and fascinated at the same time. This fluctuation between fear and enchantment of the dominant society was

“Consequently, becoming ‘hip’ and ‘mainstream’ leads to loss of originality in a society concentrated around commercial media and consumer identities.” reinforced by portraits, books of poetry, novels, and plays in the opera released in the mid-19th century. While the French authors, George Sand and Honore de Balzac used the word ‘bohemian’ to describe someone who lived an unregimented life without assured resources and any worries about tomorrow, the public opinion seems to be solidified after the launch of the best-selling novels: Les Miserables, Scenes de la Vie de Boheme, and Trilby. As Hebdige has underlined, it is the “ideological effect” of the incorporation process, where the

cultural productions compose a specific image through the elaboration of the values and the ‘anti-social’ acts of the subordinates and position the respective subcultures as more or less exotic towards other groups and classes. As a result, the marginal culture is redefined, appropriated and normalized to co-exist with the dominants achieving hegemony in the society and retaining the sustainability of the dominant class. The Romantic ideal, the image of the starving artist in his empty garret who sacrificed everything he had for his art was now being appreciated. Therefore, bohemians were gradually switched from ‘misfits and drunks’ to ‘artistic geniuses’ and became part of everyday life and of hegemonic normality. Granted that “the cycle leading from opposition to defusion, from resistance to incorporation encloses each successive subculture,” [4] it is a matter of time subcultures are co-opted by consumerism and disarmed by discourse, losing their authentic resistance and certain powers of speech, and eventually be a matter of lifestyle. Consequently, becoming ‘hip’ and ‘mainstream’ leads to loss of originality in a society concentrated around commercial media and consumer identities. Now, fashion houses such as Isabel Marant, Alberta Ferretti, and Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, embrace bohemian aesthetics to their 37


contemporary designs and jewelry, and fast fashion brands produce boho-feel products in mass scale, like flowing maxi skirts and lightweight fabrics, making it accessible to everyone. New music genres like indie would hardly exist today without the influential energy and attitude of hippie-bohemian counter cultures. Curatorial music and

art festivals like Coachella, still appropriate the visual and symbolic, swoon-worthy silhouettes of bohemians. They also recuperate that imaginary authenticity and free spirituality, contributing to media’s news feed, only to become the most anticipated and most profitable productions of today’s popular industry.

From left to right: Alberta Ferretti, Spring 2016, ready-to-wear, Vogue; Isabel Marant Spring/Summer 2013; Philosophy di Lorenzo Serafini, Milan fashion week, Spring 2019, Vogue.

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FUNERAL FOR A FEELING:

COMMERCIAL REINFORCEMENT OF PUNK BY PUNK ITSELF Nate Hoe

he genre’s narrative is likely familiar: Punk, bursting from the fringes of New York and London, irreversibly changes music and pop culture in the late 1970s. Yet the subculture is a victim of its own success and is quickly robbed of its bite by the new genres it helped create and commercialization of its “look.” This commercialization is often framed in the context of the “punk look,” incorporating into both high and mass-market fashion, and this certainly occurred[1]. H o w e v e r , this essay is concerned with how punk’s own actors have worked to essentialize the look of their own

scene, specifically the webstores Interpunk and Angry Young and Poor, which emerged in the late 1990s along with a derivative of punk labeled “Street Punk.” These forces have worked together to reinforce and proliferate an

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essentialized brand of punk that is ironically rooted in nostalgia and fiercely averse to innovation. I will focus on this segment of punk’s commercial reinforcement of its own mythical ideal, rooted in referencing a twenty-year-old subgenre’s aesthetic ideal, which was itself a decades-old ghost by the 1990s.

revolution punk, had introduced the emergence of the new wave, post-punk, and grunge among others. However, there was still a desire among many to isolate the definition of punk to what it was in earlier years. This sentiment resulted in the advent of Street Punk, an almost cartoonish subculture that sought to reclaim

By the mid-1990s, “punk” was no longer a singular genre or aesthetic but had spawned countless new musical genres and forms of expression. Many of the original characters that defined the movement had gone on to play in bands that expanded on the punk sound or had left music altogether. The sonic

punk for what was truly believed to be: bright-colored mohawks, studs, leather, snarling faces, and a heaping dose of self-destruction. This attitude was reflected in the genre’s band names as well: The Casualties, The Unseen, Lower Class Brats, Anti-Flag, Rancid, etc. The same themes of class struggle, resentment of authority,


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and national ambivalence of punk’s early days had been distilled, and in some ways, amplified and essentialized to a primal rallying cry barked over those familiar three chords [2]. Whether or not members of these groups—and their fans—actually experienced the hardships they yelled about, had little to do with

While subcultural lifestyles were mass-marketed, they were also promoted by subcultural entrepreneurs within their scenes who were able to sell increasingly graphic-heavy commodities that served to immediately declare subcultural allegiance [3]. Punk saw the advent of a similar entrepreneur around this time:

it. Street Punk was, and is, about these themes as an aesthetic, both sonically and visually.

stores, ostensibly by punks for punks, that sold the look of punk along with the sound. This is not a new phenomenon, as these types of businesses had existed for decades. However, there is a contextual difference with this crop of entrepreneurs; they emerged during a sea change in commerce, with the Internet and

The turn of the millennium also saw increasing commercialization of subcultural lifestyle, its existence was no longer considered a rejection of larger society but a component of it.

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rapid printing processes allowing to the bands that make up the for a subcultural business to genre’s 1990’s pantheon as those reach a much broader audience, bands did for punk’s first wave. in turn affecting what they sell. This is particularly evident in which Interpunk, for example, sells over band’s logos grace the torsos of 50 pages of simple band-branded punks today. A quick search of merchandise that it has the what t-shirts sell best on Interpunk license to produce. It is not a yields some answers: some older Westwood/McClaren shop of ’77, bands—with particularly timeless aligning itself to a local art and iconography—the likes of The music scene. Interpunk, founded Ramones and The Germs, but in 1993, has the stated mission also bands of the 90s such as of being the “Ultimate Music & Rancid, The Casualties, NOFX, Merch Store” and has achieved and Leftover Crack. How are that through these tees its ability to selling just as reach a wide “The turn of the millennium well as they audience not did a decade also saw increasing introduced ago? They commercialization of to the genre still serve as a subcultural lifestyle, its through a physical entry existence was no longer fledgling art into what it considered a rejection movement in means to be of larger society but a the late 1970s, “punk” to many, component of it.” but as a socially an ideal constructed reinforced by a n d subcultural understood alternative lifestyle [4]. actors like Interpunk among many This disparate audience looks others. for entrance into this subculture not through a geographically When Googling the term “street anchored hub such as SEX or punk,” you are more likely to see New York’s CBGB, but through images of these twenty-year-old an accessible online retailer bands or modern punks who through which they can acquire look just like them. Angry Young commodities that enhance their and Poor, a store that focuses subcultural capital. more on “cut & sew” garments, interestingly divides its clothing Street Punk is defined by its options into subcultural styles. essentialization of what it means Within the “Street Punk” section to be “punk”; it is an anachronistic there lies a wide assortment of vision that rejects the genre’s tight, plaid, zipper-clad pants, modularity. However, modern bullet belts, studded wristbands, punks that subscribe to this a tellingly-anachronistic “Disco derivative have a similar reverence Sucks” patch, motorcycle jackets, 42


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and brothel creepers. Not only have these garments that were once quite rare and difficult to purchase been mass-produced and marketed by those within the scene, but they give a visual explanation of street punk’s core aesthetic tenants. It is a sartorial

Street Punk is defined by its essentialization of what it means to be “punk”; it is an anachronistic vision that rejects the genre’s modularity. blend that assimilates stylistic additions from the ’70s, ’90s, and the present into something that it still deems “classic” or “true” punk. It is an apparently static concept that, as with many honorific subcultural styles, is not entirely static after all yet seeks to flatten its history, all the same.

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CONSTRUCTION David Hopwood

“If there is to be an ‘identity’, it will be a personal identity made in relation to a collective one.” Didier Eribon [1] ashion can be defined as aesthetics. This is about coming out as gay with aesthetics. How we can locate ourselves amongst all of the “freedom” that fashion brings, and in turn “coming out” in 3D and not a 2D collaged mock-up. James Baldwin has reflected on the creation of identity before. As time progresses, we constantly find ourselves in this creation or that creation that has no reference to us. Our identity and history can also be influenced by the inheritance bestowed upon us by society, our brothers and sisters [2]. COMING OUT is a metaphor. We self-disclose our sexual orientation and an aspect of our identity. We then free ourselves from one oppression into another (if you agree with Judith Butler) [3]. It is the act of taking the invisible and making it visible, instilling ourselves with a sense of worth and pride. CONSTRUCTION, the title to this piece, references the process where we explore aesthetics, 44

influences and postmodern experiments. We test what is and what is not authentic to ourselves. Therefore, we “come out constructed”. “The same words, gestures, or characteristics can have different meanings in different contexts, and thus can only be understood if they are reinserted into their proper historical ‘sites.’” [4] All of our coming out stories are different and all of our wardrobes are different. What we wear today is because our past is in our present, playing an important role in how we present our clothed selves. When we “come out” with reference to fashion, is it about portraying our knowledge and needs? The tone, the aesthetics, the content of how we have constructed our wardrobes often does not change. New pieces introduced are thought through and curated to show how we considered new directions, new influences, aspirations, experiments and edits of our familiar construct.


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“Authenticity” can be a “battered” word when we relate it to our clothed selves. On Serpentwithfeet’s remix of Bjork’s Blissing Me, he sings about not having “enough clothes to dress all of the people [he has] become.” [5] Fashion almost forces us to be a biological “cut ‘n’ paste” human who wants to broadcast knowledge, understanding and allegiance. The wardrobes, which mix the current with yesterday’s zeitgeist and tributes to the past decades, feel exhausted. They should just “come out”. How many times have we found ourselves, sucked into the allure and promise of being able to pull-off versions of a midnight cowboy in our mid-thirties? Or our best acquaintances’ styles who are 10 years our junior. Aren’t we scared that we are unable to pull-off these styles? Eventually exhausted, we untuck our shirts, taking all of our history and come out. Our coming out has enabled us to observe. Remembering one holiday evening sitting at the pool bar, there were

an army of butch, fem, hetero individuals in a crowd of high end to terrestrial television personalities. Everyone was wearing variations of the same look. Like a uniform, they were dressed in: Shirt, shorts, no socks, sandals or trainers (many variations) All our looks showcased our social identities and cultural references. They had depth, personality, intellect and transmitted codes of social order. Those holiday evenings became about recognising the similarity in our wardrobes. And this, was comforting. Some who perceive themselves as “current style leaders” may judge these individuals’ pressed shirts (buttoned to the top), as irrelevant and forgettable. But let us question, are they not more constructed than those who judge? These individuals are fully out, and they are proud of their dress. Let us take inspiration from their style and observe how they present themselves. They can teach us how to know ourselves and to understand that collectively and subsequently we all sculpt our visual identity. 45


FOUNDATIONS OF A HARAJUKU GIRL Ruofei Rao

any people today are often offended, and repulsed of the borrowing and adopting of cultural dress from other countries. Yet if we look back into fashion history, we can find circumstances in which societies adopted styles from others and positively changed the way fashion has become today. Take for example, Harajuku. Renowned for its bright colors, pop culture, youth population, and a highly influential teenage fashion scene, the Harajuku district of Tokyo, Japan, is filled with rows of trendy clothing stores, upscale fashion boutiques and other exciting stores that attract both tourists and local fashion-conscious teenagers alike. While Japanese fashion, particularly that of Harajuku, seems relatively unique and distinct from Western fashion at a glance, in reality, if we look back into history, we are able to see that Japanese fashion arose considerably out of Western influence and trends, only to break away with a unique caliber during recent decades. Seeing these young Japanese girls dressed in the most stylish, unique and eccentric Japanese styles, which are now the sources 46

Harajuku, Summer 2012.

of inspiration for fashion today, it is hard to imagine that the country was once filled with women who only wore kimonos for hundreds of years for both formal and informal occasions. So, when and how did this drastic historical shift in fashion from traditional Japanese dress to Western-influenced dress happen for Japanese young women, and why is it important? There was a photo I saw, which


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was taken on April 16, 1968 in Harajuku, Tokyo. There was a young girl on the left wearing a plain and loose short dress with heeled shoes, while carrying a peculiar-looking, roll-up bag. In drastic contrast, the older woman in the center of that photo wears a traditional plain Japanese kimono with matching geta sandals, while the middle-aged woman on the right, much like the young girl, wears a simple mid-length dress.

“...it begs the question, why should or shouldn’t the fashion world move forward by having more fashion be birthed out of cultural collaboration?” Japan’s World War II defeat in 1945 was a major factor for the proliferation of Western culture into the country, but Western culture itself had been in Japan’s culture even prior to the war. Ever since the Meiji-era of Japan, there had been a slow but gradual buildup of Western ideals and adjustments into the country [1]. With the new Meiji government anxious to lead Japan into the future as a highly cultivated and technically advanced country, the country opened up to Western ideals and traditions after the Edo period [2]. While the kimono had been a longestablished piece of both formal and casual wear, the shift from kimonos to Western styles became a new sign of sophistication and

modernity [3]. However, significant changes in society such as those take time, thus kimono remained standard apparel for the majority of Japanese women for the next several decades. After 1945, with the introduction of American army headquarters, Western-style lifestyles became truly en vogue and Japanese people embraced this idea with open arms. Up-to-date fashion information from the United States and Europe was gladly and readily spread through Japan through radio and magazines, leading to reproduced local pieces in similar styles [4]. While many Japanese mothers who grew up in kimono chose to stay in kimono, they dressed their own children in Western clothing [5], and thus the 1960s became the first generation to grow up without the kimono. As advances in technology took place, additional fashion information began to appear through the television. Starting in the 1950s, the appeal of Western fashion in Japanese society heightened. For example, in 1950 when the English film The Red Shoes was first screened in Japan, red shoes became fashionable among young people, and in 1954 when the film Sabrina was shown, tight-fitted ‘Sabrina pants’ became equally trendy [6]. Afterward, the youth culture of the ‘Swinging Sixties’ in London during the late 1960s influenced young Japanese teenagers 47


to dress — for the first time in Japanese fashion history — in short dresses and mini-skirts. After Twiggy’s pivotal visit to Japan in 1967, the mini-skirt became a particularly coveted style [7]. In the 1950s and even into the 1960s, while postwar prohibitions on extravagance may have been lifted, practicality was still a fundamental objective for kimono producers when it came to fabrics and designs [8]. Unlike pre-war kimonos, which celebrated traditional flowers and colorful bold designs, many kimonos now appeared as if they could have been produced from Western dressmaking fabric, using large stripes or abstract designs and in black, white, or other plain colors [9]. In fact, many kimonos of this period resembled Western clothing, but were only differentiated by their kimono shape [10]. A large number of synthetic fiber manufacturers prevailed during this time, and until 1970, rayon and synthetic cloths dominated the apparel industry [11]. They could be cheaply produced on a large scale to accommodate this new era of Western ready-towear after the country’s recovery from the devastations of war. With the country gradually accepting and idealizing Western fashion from film, technology, and the American occupation, this period of time in Japanese fashion history undoubtedly characterized the pivotal shift 48

of kimono to Western clothing that has shaped the booming Japanese fashion scene to what it is today. The three women on that particular photo exemplified the crucial contrasts of fashion between generations, whether it was an older woman choosing to stay in a kimono, a young girl in the latest trending Western youth fashion, or a woman who changed out of traditional or war-related clothing to Western dress. The 1960s in Japan was indeed a time that fashion grasped onto new concepts as society became more familiar with Western media, culture, and fashion. Even today, Western images can still be found in large numbers in the Japanese media. So, what would Japanese fashion be like today if 1960s Japan hadn’t momentously derived from Western fashion? Would women still be scurrying around in their tight kimonos while dangerously trying to cross roads? Would Japan have such a remarkable name in the fashion world as it does now? Would Harajuku be such a vibrant and notorious fashion, and travel destination as we know it today? To such questions, we may never know the answer, but we cannot argue that this crossing of cultural dress has shown us that great things can happen to the growth of modern fashion when we are open to and in favor of the embrace of


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fashion trends from other cultures. The kimono, while no longer worn as an everyday item today, is undoubtedly still alive and worn on appropriate occasions and times of the year such as tea and flower-arranging ceremonies as well as during summer festivals where young girls wear yukata, a thinner version of the kimono. In Japanese society today, both Western-influenced and traditional Japanese dress exist; the latter has not been shrouded by today’s contemporary fashion that ultimately stemmed from the Western world’s inspiration. So far, no harm has been done to Japanese traditional dress.

As we’ve seen, Western designers benefit from looking towards Japan for inspiration, and Japan’s economy benefits from the flourishing fashion industry and tourism. The mixing and matching of cultural inspiration and influences have proven to not only push societies towards interesting new styles but also inspire new generations to start liberating and influential ways we consume fashion — as we can see through the Harajuku girl. And so, it begs the question, why should or shouldn’t the fashion world move forward by having more fashion be birthed out of cultural collaboration? 49


& COMMODITY FETISHISM Meihan Hu

he 2015 documentary film The True Cost focuses on the fashion industry’s oppression in the third world. The film unmasks a significant part of fashion businesses, particularly fast fashion pressure factories, which cause a number of accidents by over-compressing costs. It discloses one of the biggest issues in today’s world by conveying the true living conditions of laborers and throwing out queries on consumerism and consumption. Though these problems are also prevalent among other industries, they impact the fashion industry to the greatest extent. The phenomenon reveals a long-standing issue behind our society discussed by economists and philosophers, 50

hundreds of years ago, known as commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism, first named by Karl Marx in Das Kapital in 1867, describes the ideology of social relations in a capitalist market society, which could refer to the commercialization of labor and alienation [1]. In simpler terms, social relations between people become object relations based on commodity and currency. Due to the market’s role in capitalism, social relations are embodied in its intermediary: goods. The power of man and society is reflected in the power of goods, and all kinds of social relations, especially the relations of exploitation, are included in this power. This is also a reason why


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problems in the fashion industry, as discussed in The True Cost, are difficult to solve; the root issue is not in the upper classes in the hierarchy of the fashion industry, but rather in the structure of the fashion system, made from a capitalist market ideology. These problems in the fashion industry have existed for a long time, and Andrew Morgan, director of The True Cost, is not the only one to discuss it. Acclaimed fashion designer, Raf Simons, an industry native, points out that the state of fashion now is “the noise, the crowded multiplex of brands, the rise of bluntly c o m m e rc i a l clothes.” [2] Unfortunately, besides cutting the head off of the snake

otherwise known as capitalism, there is no solution that can completely change this dilemma. Even designers themselves are forced to melt in the system and become marionettes. Viewers of The True Cost may have varying degrees of interest in the fashion industry, but all should realize that a capitalist society is the inevitable result of the development of civilization, and attempting to destroy it is therefore impractical and unrealistic. In the commodity, goods are not produced for use but for exchange, a weightier position that makes the cult of commodity fetishism — the worship of goods and the exchange of goods —

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inevitable. As long as there is a commodity, commodity fetishism will not stop, and all we can do is attempt to slow negative impacts on the system. The suffering we see in The True Cost is real. There are numbers of people absorbing the drawbacks of the system, as is the natural environment surrounding them. It is clear that we cannot solve the issue at the moment, but discussion around it should remain open. We can only marvel at Marx’s profound insight into modern society, in which multiple fetishes obscure the relationship between people. However, we should still hope for a world beyond fetishism: Instead of defining

our worth in terms of our level of wealth and ability to own capital, we should recognize the extent of our own worth. In my understanding, and as Raymond Williams stated, consumers are perceived as channels “along which the product flows and disappears.” [3] The point of The True Cost is to make consumers rethink their spending habits and try to recognize the ideology that consumerism has instilled in them. For people who are in or will enter the fashion world, it is necessary to be aware of its shortcomings and maintain a prudent and responsible attitude in order to improve, and even change, the problems behind the industry.

“Instead of defining our worth in terms of our level of wealth and ability to own capital, we should recognize the extent of our own worth.”

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REFERENCES AND CREDITS COVER ILLUSTRATION by Alexia Papavasilakis SOUL OF THINGS: ORIGINS (物の魂 MONO NO TAMASHI) Kotoba red coat made from dyed organic cotton. Shot in Iceland. Clothing and Styling: Lilia Yip Model: Mustafa Boga Photographer: Tomasz Midgal [1] Kemper, Rachel H. A History of Costume. New York: Newsweek Books, 1977, p 9. [2] Entwistle, Joanne. The Fashioned Body. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015, p 7 AN ORNAMENT IN TIME: INHERITING FAMILY JEWELRY AND THE TRANSFER OF MATERIAL MEMORY Illustration courtesy of Alexia Papavasilakis Image courtesy of Nancy Satola [1] Peter Stallybrass, “Worn Worlds: Clothes, Mourning, and the Life of Things,” in Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, edited by Dan Ben-Amos and Liliane Weissberg (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999), 28. [2] Ibid., 30. [3] Ibid., 38. [4] Sophie Woodward, Why Women Wear What They Wear (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 101. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid., 103. [7] Ibid. [8] Ibid., 116. [9] Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 76. [10] Ibid., 78. [11] Sophie Woodward, Why Women Wear What They Wear, (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 104. [12] Staffan Appelgren and Anna Bohlin, “Growing in Motion: The Circulation of Used Things on Second-hand Markets,” Culture Unbound, 7, no. 1 (2015): 156. THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEXTILES CIRCA 2019: DEFINING THE VISUAL AND FORMAL LANGUAGE WITHIN THE MATERIAL WORLD [1] Sandy Black. Fashioning Fabrics: Contemporary Textiles in Fashion. (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2006), 6. [2] Ibid. [3] Ibid. [4] Ibid. [5] Bradley Quinn. Textiles Futures: Fashion, Design, and Technology. (New York: Berg Publisher, 2012), 7. 53


[6] Ingrid Loschek. When Clothes become Fashion Design: Design Innovation and Systems. (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009), 75. [7] Bradley Quinn. Textiles Futures: Fashion, Design, and Technology. (New York: Berg Publisher, 2012), 153. [8] Ingrid Loschek. When Clothes become Fashion Design: Design Innovation and Systems. (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009), 79. [9] Ibid, 87. [10] “CARLA VAN DE PUTTELAAR FOR MOAM”. Iris van Herpen, Media Mogul, 2019, www.irisvanherpen.com. THE EVOLUTION OF PARISIAN FASHION SHOWS: A BOURDIEUIAN PERSPECTIVE [1] Caroline Evans, The Mechanical Smile: Modernism and the First Fashion Shows in France and America: 1900-1929, 6; 21. [2] Ibid., 59. [3] Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital”, Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education (1986), 243. [4] Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik, Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists (London: I.B. Tauris, 2016), 240. [5] Véronique Pouillard, “Managing Fashion Creativity. The History of the Chambre Syndicale De La Couture Parisienne during the Interwar Period,” Investigaciones De Historia Económica - Economic History Research 12, no. 2 (2016): 79, doi:10.1016/j.ihe.2015.05.002. [6] Ibid., 79. [7] Pouillard, 82., “History,” Fédération De La Haute Couture Et De La Mode, accessed December 13, 2018, https://fhcm.paris/en/the-federation/history/. [8] Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital”, Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education (1986), 245. [9] Ibid., 248. [10] Caroline Evans, The Mechanical Smile: Modernism and the First Fashion Shows in France and America: 1900-1929, 164. [11] Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital”, Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education (1986), 246-7. THE COLLABORATION OF ART AND FASHION IN DIOR: RAF SIMONS AND STERLING RUBY CHALLENGING THE TRADITIONAL WITH THE CONTEMPORARY Illustration courtesy of Alexia Papavasilakis Image ifrom the documentary Dior and I (2014) [1] Sarah Nicole Prickett, “Raf & Ruby,” The New York Times Style Magazine, June 10, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/t-magazine/raf-simons-sterling-rubydior-hauser-wirth.html [2] Rachel Tashjian, “Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby on Collaboration: “This Was a Way To Fuck with Americana”,” Garage, April 24, 2018, https://garage.vice. com/en_us/article/a3y9bg/raf-simons-sterling-ruby-harvard. [3] Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 60. [4] Charlotte Cowles, “Five Things to Know About Raf Simons’s Dear Old Mom 54


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and Dad,” The Cut, November 15, 2012, https://www.thecut.com/2012/11/5things-to-know-about-raf-simonss-mom-and-dad.html [5] Prickett, “Raf & Ruby,” The New York Times Style Magazine, June 10, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/t-magazine/raf-simons-sterling-rubydior-hauser-wirth.html [6] Isabella Burley, “Raf Simons vs Sterling Ruby,” Dazed Digital, January 16, 2014, http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/18463/1/raf-simons-vssterling-ruby [7] Susan B. Kaiser, Fashion and Cultural Studies (Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2011), 73. [8] “When Historic Codes Meet Modernity: Raf Simons for Dior,” Thorns Have Roses, October 31, 2015, https://bettysroses.wordpress.com/2015/10/23/ raf-simons-dior/. [9] Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 62. [10] Stephanie Eckardt, “Raf Simons on His New Textile Designs, Massive Art Collection, Beloved Dog, and Stuffed Animals,” W Magazine,https://www. wmagazine.com/story/raf-simons-kvadrat-2017-collection-new-york-art-dog. [11] FR-One | Fire Retardant Furnishing Fabrics, , accessed December 11, 2018, https://www.fr-one.com/en/blog/2016/08/the-silkwarp-printing-technique. [12] Daphne Merkin, “Dior’s Raf Simons on Fashion Today: ‘The Mystique Is Gone’,” Elle, October 11, 2017, https://www.elle.com/fashion/a26768/masterof-the-house-raf-simons/. [13] Tashjian, “Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby on Collaboration: “This Was a Way To Fuck with Americana”,” Garage, April 24, 2018, https://garage.vice. com/en_us/article/a3y9bg/raf-simons-sterling-ruby-harvard. ANNI ALBERS X PAUL SMITH: FROM PUSHING LIMITS TO LIMITED EDITIONS Image courtesy of Paul Smith Illustration courtesy of Mahsa Goodarzi [1] On view at Tate Modern between October and January 2019. [2] Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas, “Fashion and Art: Critical Crossovers,” in Fashion and Art, ed. Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas (London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2012), 12. [3] Gene Baro, “A Conversation,” in Anni Albers, ed. Anni Albers and Gene Baro (New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1977), 6. [4] Baro, “A Conversation,” 8. [5] “Anni Albers x Paul Smith,” Paul Smith, accessed October 28, 2018, https://www.paulsmith.com/us/stories/aw18/anni-albers. [6] Anni Albers, “Design: Anonymous and Timeless,” in On Designing (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), 7. Originally published in Magazine of Art 40:2 (February 1947): 51–53. FROM BOHEME TO BOHO CHIC: THE FASHION EVOLUTION OF BOHEMIAN COUNTER-CULTURE [1] Arthur Bartlett Maurice, The Paris of the Novelists, (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1919), 107.

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[2] George Sand, and Zack Rogow, Horace, (San Francisco, CA: Mercury House, 1995), 51. [3] Mary Gluck, Popular Bohemia: Modernism and Urban Culture in Nineteenth-century Paris, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 1. [4] Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, (London, 1979), 100. FUNERAL FOR A FEELING: COMMERCIAL REINFORCEMENT OF PUNK BY PUNK ITSELF Images courtesy of Ryan Hunt. [1] There is ample material on this subject, both scholarly and less so, and much of it lacking a critical view of entrepreneurship within punk. For the scholarly, refer to Dick Hebdige’s Subculture, the Meaning of Style (Harper Collins, 1976) For the popular history, there are abundant sources. The most famous being Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me: the Uncensored Oral History of Punk and John Robb’s Punk Rock: An Oral History. [2] Much of this was learned through personal experience and countless adolescent years spent combing through racks of cds and magazines. However, a decent overview of the subject can be found in Ian Glasper’s Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-84 (Cherry Red Books, 2004). [3] An appropriate subcultural parallel here is “action sports,” namely skateboarding. For further reading I recommend Sean Dice’s “‘Flexible Opposition’: Skateboarding Subcultures under the Rubric of Late Capitalism.” In The International Journal of the History of Sport, 2011 along with Andy Bennet and Brady Robards “MyTribe: Post-subcultural Manifestations of Belonging on Social Network Sites.” in Sociology, 2011. [4] These points concerning subculture as a lifestyle and less a political practice are largely informed by Sarah Thornton’s Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (Wesleyan University Press, 1996) and Gary Clarke’s “Defending Ski-Jumpers: A crtique of theories of youth subcultures.” in The Subcultures Reader, 2005. CONSTRUCTION [1] Didier Eribon, Insult and the Making of the Gay Self. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004) p 112. [2] James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) p ix. [3] Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination,” in Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, ed. John Storey. (Harlow: Pearson, 2006), 255-270. [4] Didier Eribon, Insult and the Making of the Gay Self. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004) p 5. [5] Bjork featuring Serpentwithfeet, Blissing Me (Remix), released December 13, 2017, One Little Indian Records Ltd. FOUNDATIONS OF A HARAJUKU GIRL Images courtesy of Emilia Jane Boulton. [1] Kawamura, Yuniya. “Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map: From Catwalk to Streetstyle.” Fashion’s World Cities . Edited by Christopher Breward and David Gilbert, 55–68. Cultures of Consumption Series. Oxford: Berg, 2006. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.newschool.edu/10.2752/9780857854117/ 56


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FASHWRLDCIT0011 . [2] Cliffe, Sheila. The Social Life of Kimono: Japanese Fashion Past and Present . London: Bloomsbury, 2017. [3] Ibid [4] Kawamura, Yuniya. “Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map: From Catwalk to Streetstyle.” Fashion’s World Cities . Edited by Christopher Breward and David Gilbert, 55–68. Cultures of Consumption Series. Oxford: Berg, 2006. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.newschool.edu/10.2752/9780857854117/ FASHWRLDCIT0011 . [5] Cliffe, Sheila. The Social Life of Kimono: Japanese Fashion Past and Present . London: Bloomsbury, 2017. [6] Kawamura, Yuniya. “Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map: From Catwalk to Streetstyle.” Fashion’s World Cities . Edited by Christopher Breward and David Gilbert, 55–68. Cultures of Consumption Series. Oxford: Berg, 2006. Accessed November 03, 2018. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.newschool. edu/10.2752/9780857854117/FASHWRLDCIT0011 . [7] Darling-Wolf, Fabienne. “Sites of Attractiveness: Japanese Women and Westernized Representations of Feminine Beauty.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2004): 325-45. doi:10.1080/0739318 042000245354. [8] Cliffe, Sheila. The Social Life of Kimono: Japanese Fashion Past and Present . London: Bloomsbury, 2017. [9] Ibid [10] Ibid [11] Kim, Hye-Shin, Eunah Yoh, and Eun-Young Shin. “Garment Manufacture and Retailing in Japan.” Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion: East Asia, edited by Joanne B. Eicher, 380–389. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2010. http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.newschool.edu/10.2752/BEWDF/EDch6061. THE TRUE COST & COMMODITY FETISHISM Images courtesy of https://truecostmovie.com [1] Karl Marx. The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof in Capital Vol. 1: A Critique of Political Economy, Chapter 1 Section 4. Penguin. 1867. [2] “BoF Exclusive | Raf Simons Speaks to Cathy Horyn on the Speed of Fashion.” The Business of Fashion. November 06, 2015. Accessed December 09, 2018. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/bof- exclusive/ bof-exclusive-raf-simons-i-dont-want-to-do-collections-where-im-not-thinking. [3] Williams, Raymond. 1980. “The Magic of Advertising.” In Problems in Materialism and Culture, ed. Raymond Williams, 170-95. London: Verso.

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© BIAS: Journal of Fashion Studies 2019 ISSN 2333-7362


THANKS Parsons School of Design School of Art & Design History & Theory Parsons MA Fashion Studies Program Student Leadership and Involvement Dean Sarah Lawrence Dr. Heike Jenss Dr. Hazel Clark Dr. Francesca Granata Dr. Marco Pecorari Maureen Brewster



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