Cut from a Different Cloth: Exploring the Rise and Importance of Non-Western Fashion I have a confession: I love fashion-based reality TV. Since I was young, I have watched every episode of Project Runway religiously. Something about the design process and the way different designers find wildly different inspiration within the same challenge is intoxicating to watch. It makes you feel as if you are in the workroom with them, trying to create a red carpet ball gown in an hour. However, most of these shows have a tendency to focus mainly on American designers, with maybe the rare UK designer thrown in to spice things up. However, when I learned that Netflix’s new take on the classic format Next In Fashion purposely chose to curate a cast from all over the world, how could I say no? The designers came from all over, which gave the show a more international feel and allowed for different fashion perspectives to be shown. While the show still has some of its first season kinks to work out and, in my opinion, I don’t think Tan France and Alexa Chung are the most qualified to judge a design competition of this nature, the show was, overall, an enjoyable experience. However, the most striking part of the show for me came from the designer team of Angel Chen and Minju Kim. These two designers from South Korea and China, respectively, were easily the fan favorites of this season. With their lovely spirit, innovative designs, and refusal to be anything other than 100% themselves, and, without spoiling too much, they do quite well for themselves within the show. For me, what struck these two designers as so fascinating is how different their designs were when compared to designers from the United States or Europe. From the fabric choices, colour, and silhouettes, their designs seemed to push against the preexisting “rules” of garment creation that many western designers use, but it worked. Something that did strike me as odd throughout the show is how the judges had to actively work to dismantle their bias for more traditional western design technique when judging these two designers in particular. Much of their critique from the show was centered on how structurally different their designs were. Alexa Chung, in particular, kept urging them to create something with more “sex appeal.” Interestingly enough, particularly in a lingerie themed challenge, it became clear that these two had a different interpretation of sexy and flattering that didn’t fit into the pre-existing western ideals. While these two did go very far in the competition, their criticism does raise questions on how we as society have created rules for fashion and how these rules tend to have a traditionally western standard in mind.
13
