9. Knitting is an emotion, my emotion

16 ~ Increasingly fashion and art are getting closer, often wearing clothes means wearing an artwork, wearing the imagination of a designer. I think complex thoughts can be developed and expressed in fashion. Soon fashion will be something to experience like reading books and seeing art are now.” ~ Tadanori Yokoo 49

Knitting is an emotion, my emotion.

Something that has not been given its due in fashion research, arguably (and ironically) is its most important feature, namely, ‘the aesthetic.’ What intrigues me most about the complicated relationship of fashion with art, is that it makes me question my own style of work. Do I proclaim myself a fashion designer, more specifically a knitwear designer and risk being ostracised by artists? Or does my work fall under the artistic bracket, only to be shunned as ‘old-fashioned’ by designers? If so, how do I tune my project to meet the current (and urgent) needs of the fashion industry, and subsequently the rest of the world?

Many historians argue that industrialisation ushered out the production of craft and prompted our current conception of design. 50 Mechanisation of the knitting processes in the late 18th and 19th century resulted in the near extinction of hand-knitting; this in turn saw the rise in the status of the hand-made community, it soared. The main reason that drew an audience for the same, is that the objects made by hand became rarer and more importantly, bore the touch of the maker instead of the machine. In the textile domain, there was a backlash against machine-made products as they were perceived to be inferior to the more luxurious handmade fabrics of previous centuries. The craft product thus not only gained in status through its actual quality but in this time of social mobility, the consumption of someone else’s time became a valuable trading point and a marker of distinction. 51

Diana Vreeland defines fashion as “the whim of the public” and as “ornamentation for the human body,” which “involves craftsmanship”. 52 Due to knitwear almost always being associated with either being a hobby, as something feminine, a craft or a combination of all three, it is often brushed off that it can be something highly fashionable, experimental and a daring choice for designers.

Speaking of ornamentation, here I attempt to understand if people might be satisfied with adorning themselves with imperfection. Increasingly disposable income levels over recent generations means there is less need to “make do and mend”, as it’s often cheaper and more convenient to buy new than have an item repaired. Busy lifestyles make many people more time-poor than previous generations, and with the loss of sewing and mending skills over time, there is less impetus to repair our garments. The rise of supermarket fashion that can be purchased alongside the weekly shop and the regular occurrence of seasonal sales make clothing seem “disposable” in a way it didn’t used to be. 53 Can people be convinced to accept the idea that they do not need per- fection in their lives?

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49 Koren, New Fashion Japan, p.12.

50 Clark, Hazel, and David Eric Brody, eds., Design Studies: A Reader, p.336.

51 Martin Lambert,, Hilary Alexander, and Provinz Antwerpen, UNRAVEL: Knitwear in Fashion,p.12.

52 ‘Diana.Vreeland-the.Eye.Has.to.Travel’, Vimeo <https://vimeo.com/153660328> [accessed 2 April 2019].

53 Patsy Perry, ’Read This before You Go Sales Shopping: The Environmental Costs of Fast Fashion’, Read This before You Go Sales Shopping: The Environmental Costs of Fast Fashion, 2017 <https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/read-this-before-you-go-sales-shopping-the-environmental-costs-of-fast-fashion/> [accessed 7 December 2018].