+dressing in the 21st century
CROSS DRESSING IN A 21ST CENTURY
Photo: own sources ‘Turner Prize 2016’
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+dressing in the 21st century
SVETLANA SERPUHOVA W1610913 FASHION TRENDS AND CONSUMER CULTURE 4FAMN008W
Content Intro
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Normcore
4-5
Gopnik
6-7
Tacky
8-9
Catwalk
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Street
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Colour and Print
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Retailers
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Fashion cycle
14-15
Conclusion
16-17
Bibliography
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+dressing in the 21st century
Tigran Avystisisan
Boy 19th century
From
the primitive days of clothes handmade from fur to protect from the cold in the Stone Age, through the beautiful and refined elegance of the Renaissance, exaggerated outfits of the Baroque and the clothing revolution of 20 century we find ourselves in the 21st century and 2016. And as we ask what’s happened to the world, who we are and where we are going, we look to fashion, because every day each of us uses fashion say something about our place in our time, our relationship with history and where we think we are going.
Boys on the streets of Russia 1996
Boys 19th century
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+dressing in the 21st century
Gosha Rubchinskij
Look
around now and the use of fashion to speak in a language of time specific cultural references has been taken to an historical extreme, so that the actual fabric of an item of clothing has no current significance other than as a cipher to refer to another time and place. Gone are the days when wearing real fur or having a Prada bag was a sign of prosperity. The communication of luxury and wealth dominated the aesthetic. Today young girls buys cheap mass-produced copies of clothes from the Seventies and wear them as if they were art. Lacking any of the radiant virtues of quality, craftsmanship and natural fibres, these mass produced throw-away items exist only to represent an iconic design from the past that had those qualities. Do we call it a progress or degradation? Is it a contemporary fashion or anti fashion or maybe it is utilitarianism? They call
Christhopher Shannon
Christopher Shannon
it “NORMCORE”.
So who are this ‘normcore’ people, how would we describe them, is there any historical background behind the movement or it is pure internet and social media created ‘bubble’ with no forward momentum? What is the message and what will it bring tomorrow? ‘Normcore’ is a new kind of sub-culture, an evolution from punk, goth and grunge. It was identified by group of trend forecasters from Louis Vuitton
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+dressing in the 21st century
Normcore
Gosha Rubchinskij Tigran Avestisyan
K-Hole agency. However a previous sub-cultures had supportive cultural drivers and values, music which was tied to a specific dress code. Today it is more about megabytes of information youth can find about trends, style and the shopping information. As if the internet removed all connections between subcultures and styles. With style and shopping information available is no need anymore to commit to a set of values or believes and it doesn’t require any weighty cultural baggage.
Let’s
dig deeper and see where we will end up. We need to mention names like Gosha Rubchinsky, Demna Gvasalia - leader of Vetements and recently named Balenciaga’s creative director - and Miroslava Duma, Tigran Avystissian. The style they represent might be called ‘high-low’ wardrobes, which possibly was derived from working class and they represent perhaps the biggest unconscious style movement of recent times. The designers mentioned lived through the historical turning point of living under Soviet rule and the breakdown of the Soviet Union. This fact might explain the inspiration trickle up from Russian suburb to high street fashion.
So normcore tells us something about our age. We live in the age of digitization, the internet, of memes. But we knew that already. Language for languages sake doesn’t tell us anything about meaning, other than that many like us are struggling to find it. We need to look through the normcore and find the trends.
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Gosha Rubchinskij
+dressing in the 21st century
We
are looking at mainstream fashion of that time where possibly inspiration was taken from a societal sector which was till recently so openly derided. We are talking about Russian ‘Gopnik’, Eastern cousins of those called ‘Chavs’ in the UK, with a geographical difference and available fashion and financial sources at that time and location. There was a time for Britain, when British fashion market was ashamed of ‘chavs’ who for decades combined their wardrobes heavily filled with sportswear like Nike, Reebok, Fred Perry and Champion with items of luxury fashion (whether real or bootlegged) by brands like Moshino, Armani and Versace…
Gopnik
Gopnik
Plural
‘gopniki’, these are Russian white trash, commonly found on the outskirts of Moscow and in towns throughout Russia. Clothes and behaviour are remarkably similar to those of the British chav, i.e. tracksuits, baseball caps, outdoor drinking and petty criminality. The only difference is that they speak Russian. “Don’t go to Podmoskovje, for fuck’s sake. Nothing there but gopniki.” ( U R BA N D I C T I O NA RY. COM)
Chavs
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+dressing in the 21st century
They
have particular behaviour patterns: listening to tehno music but very, very loud, drinking beer or vodka on the streets, singing karaoke in cheap beer places, and eating sunflower seeds. They are thought of as a highly criminal, their behaviour appearing to harass people on empty streets. There are specific questions they usually ask on a streets to provoke their victims. A typical one is ‘YOU WHAT’.
As
a culture it formed in the 1990s. As a Russian blogger describes ‘Gopnic’, they don’t have self irony, they are purely authentic. In the time when authentity is such a valuable and rare quality, ‘Gopnik’ remain in the highest position take first place. It is a strong sub culture which gets supported by particular behaviour and traditions as any other sub culture in the past like punk or emo. Proof of their authenticity is their incredibly brave and sophisticated taste: a mixture of non-taste, loud boohoo shtick and danger. Typical description of their look and behaviour: Tracksuit or track jacket with compulsory white stripes on the side and sleeves, flatcap (often leather), non sleeve t-shirt, all coming in combination with classy black pointed shoes and of course a cross-body or handbag called ‘Barsetka’. The most successful have a golden chain on.
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+dressing in the 21st century
Just
take a look at this video, a song by the famous Russian vulgar rock band called ‘Leningrad’. The band stray from a traditional approach to conservative lyrics, incorporating vulgar language, gritty and subtle jabs at contemporary Russian society and it past influence. https://w w w.youtub e.com/ watch?v=qP79zHALbH4 (video link) The characters in this music video , are traditional ‘chavs’ of the post-Soviet area, with their traditional outfits. 8
+dressing in the 21st century
‘Trendy
Lithuanian fashion ex-
pert Ieva Zu, who runs a fashion blog, agrees that there is an eastern European movement-but that it’s success now feels random: that these designers are famous now is sort of coincidental, even luck. “It has become one of the main looks of the season, is based on something we grew up with back home”
is a last stage before tacky’ (Karl Lagerfeld)
What brought us to such changes? Why has a style of dress looked so down upon, now became a trend of the season? There is always an element of authenticity, that appears with trends trickled up from the streets, as opposed to from something abstract. Especially today when society is craving for something edgy and sincere, close to their inheritance.
And, I guess that’s might sound like irony, but on a big picture this statement describes the trend of the 21st century. Rick Owen
It can be that fashion is about‘dressing an image’. And this particular one is a theatrical act of those who never experienced living through social hardship themselves, who can act like they did and feel cooler about it.
Boris Bedjan
Tigran Avistisjan
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+dressing in the 21st century
Catwalk
Lucio Vanotti
There is an obvious cross
over in contemporary fashion with that times. Lets look on some catwalk examples from well known top end designers like Prada and Versace with sandals or flip flops combined with socks or even updated catwalk version for men S/S 17 ribbed socks or Louise Vuitton with cross body men’s bag. Oversized fashion (Vetements, Balenciaga), is a recent coolest trend which reminds us that with the first fashion pieces that were available after the Soviet Union start importing fashion from overseas, the quantity and size availability was limited, therefore it was part of the experience for young people to buy bigger sizes.
Each & Other
Prada
Louis Vuitton
Vetements
Rochas
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+dressing in the 21st century
Own sources
Street
The
tracksuit is a key item over the last couple of seasons and will be translated for the next Autumn/Winter. Ever more, the track-suit is not only a sportswear piece, but also part of ‘boohoo-sport’ trend ‘sportlux’. It is combination of sportswear with casual/smart wear. So fashion forwarded people are free to combine sport trousers smart high-heel shoes, blouses and smart looking jackets. Own sources
Paris London
Own sources
Paris
Own sources
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New York
+dressing in the 21st century
Colour
and Print
Modern
designers who work in ‘post-Soviet Union style’ use prints linked to that time as well. They are very graphic and like a bold colour patches. Or we can find slogans printed on them. Some garments just have stripes or no graphic at all. The fabric varies as long as its synthetic - polyester, nylon, lycra - just as it was back in the day. However as soon as high end brand wants to make a range more smart, the fabric changes to cotton or wool.
There
are particular colour palates and prints which reflect the substance of a trend whether there is a ‘gopnic’ or ‘normcore influence. Brightness and colour deepness can vary dependent on the designer and its collection message, whether designer encourages period irony, reflects positivism and humour like Gosha Rubchinskij, or prefers dramatic grotesque like Off White, Vetements or Tigran Avestysian.
The Vetements
Gosha Rubchinskij
original colours of a ‘Gopnic ‘style are usually dull and dark, very simplistic with not much personality: almost night sky blue, black, pavements grey, dirty brown. As secondary colours come red and white and the other colours of the Russian flag, as a sign of patriotism. These colours not only reflect style but vibes, place and time.
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Own source ‘Camden market
+dressing in the 21st century
Retailers
When I looked at a high
street fashion retailers to find a steps of a trend trend. At least 40% of retailers offers statement piece like sportlux style trousers in combination with casual items. Top Shop, TopMan, Urban Outfitters, Zara are mass/mid market, but very fashion forwarded brands which offer a wide variety of stock related to mentioned style. And of course places like Camden market and Brick Lane are full of statement pieces. However even top end brands like rag&bone and Reiss aren’t above including single piece’s of this style in recent smart/casual collections.
To mention a prices for a top end fashion it is surprising how catwalk designers manage to bring a price point for ‘low-high’ street fashion up to $300 for a simple t-shirt with a print, making the style very unique (Vetement)
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+dressing in the 21st century
Nazhir Mashar
19th century
Fashion
Russian streets 20th century
cycle
All
this makes one wonder whether a fashion world which is so obsessed with reconsidering retro values has nowhere left to go anymore. Today’s fashion and trend movement looks like an explosion of old fashion street wear in to high fashion. Some trends have already been recycled multiple times. Any of contemprerary attire comes originally from the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth centuries: the flat hat, golden chain, cropped trousers, socks‌.
Off White
18th century
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+dressing in the 21st century
In
fact in just a couple of years some pieces, after slight transformation, are here again.
There was an article pub-
lished in metro.co.uk – ‘17 naughtiest trends you don’t want to come back into fashion from 90-00 th’ published in 2014.
MSGM
Adeam
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Zimmermann
+dressing in the 21st century
The
youth of today has taken pastel colours from the late 1920s, combined them with the straight lines of the early 1990s, added the anti-establishment style of the late Seventies punks and then added deconstructed realism. The recycling of vintage trends is possibly a sign of an awareness amongst the ‘future generation’ that there is a need to reuse that what we already have, as opposed to creating anew. It is hard to stand out in the world where everything is ‘normcore’ and there are not many mountains and peaks to reach, not many threats of defeat. There is a saying that to move forward and achieve goals, sometimes you need to breakthrough your comfort zone. But there is a huge ‘umbrella’ of protection and comfort nowadays, so there is often no motivation to move out of it. We are attached to believes and patterns. We still think that we are different, innovative and in a ‘fringe stage’, simply forgetting about life cycles. It brings us back to the same point with only different circumstances and new opportunities to make it better and interesting.
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Photo:own sources ‘Turner prize 2016’
Photo:own sources ‘Turner prize 2016’
+dressing in the 21st century
The
fact that there was a golden 5 metre long posterior nominated for the Turner prize this year rises some unanswerable questions with regards to how the current world views global values. As an answer to this, there is a silence‌. The zeitgeist is to fly in the face of what large fashion companies have dictated we should or should not purchase. This is possibly a result of there being no driving ideology behind our age. However, it should not be taken as a definitive statement, because there is nothing tangible in this universe. 17
+dressing in the 21st century
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3166130/Kylie-Jenner-rocks-ice-blue-tresses-shows-sporty-ensembles.html By Dailymail.com Reporter PUBLISHED: 07:35, 18 July 2015 | UPDATED: 16:02, 18 July 2015 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qP79zHALbH4 ‘Leningrad’ music video http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/03/18/working-class-fashion-subculture/ By AJ Gwilliam in Highsnobiety Op-EdMar 18, 2015 http://www.highsnobiety.com/2015/03/04/normcore/ By Alec Leach in Highsnobiety CommentaryMar 4, 2015 http://www.racked.com/2016/3/2/11139622/what-is-vetements NICOLA FUMO Mar 2, 2016 http://www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/16922/1/introducing-tigran-avetisyan Chloe Sexton 3, 2013 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/part-1-fashion-in-the-21st-century-2001-a-style-odyssey-1134667.html Joan Juliet Buck Monday 27 December 1999 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gopnik by PaddyJ May 15, 2007 http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/30/17-noughties-trends-you-dont-want-to-come-back-into-fashion-4705842/ Kristabel Plummer for Metro.co.uk Wednesday 30 Apr 2014 http://www.prospektmag.com/2016/10/notorious-russian-band-leningrad-releases-the-glasses-of-sobchak/ By Aron Ouzilevski News & Events October 21, 2016 http://oblicomorale.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/blog-post_10.html?m=1 30 March 2014 http://www.buro247.kz/fashion/our-choice/intervyu-buro-24-7-tigran-avetisyan.html Artjem Pliss 11 November 2013
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