GLOBAL MAPPING OF FASHION

Mika Tse (OHS)

Maps may dictate borders, but they don’t prevent people from travelling across the globe. Cultural globalisation describes the transmission of cultures, products, values and attitudes of people across the world, and this concept is further accelerated by today’s consumer society and technology, with the quickness and ease of social media and the internet. The fashion world in particular has become international, as we are becoming heavily influenced by the clothes of people from all cultures, ages and classes. Fashion is playing a huge role in cultural globalisation to change and shape the dreams, thoughts and environments of people across the world. However, this leads us to consider the challenges of cultural identity that this can bring – is this creating a global monoculture where everyone is becoming more homogenised and local cultures are getting lost?

In 1912, millionaire French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn created a project called Les Archives de la Planète (Archives of the Planet) where he travelled around the world to record “the aspects and the practices of human activity which will inevitably disappear over time”.1 Les Archives de la Planète includes 72,000 autochrome plates and many black and white films lasting many hundreds of hours from around the world between 1909-1931. A diverse world of local fashions and life can be seen in his works – at that time a person’s clothing was truly a reflection of their cultural identity of where and how they lived. Kahn’s archives are now kept at the Musée AlbertKahn near Paris in Boulogne-Billancourt. However, Kahn’s project would not have the same impact if carried out today as everyday people from across the world tend to dress in similar ways.

Sweden, near Gagnef, 1910 Japan, Kyoto,1912

India, Bombay, 1913

Many countries in Europe and North America rely on the globalisation of fashion to help their economy. For example, blue denim jeans are perhaps the most popular item of clothing. Denim material was first made in the French town of Nîmes, and so the word derives from the phrase ‘serge de Nîmes’ which means ‘serge (a sturdy fabric) from Nimes’. During the Cold War they became a symbol of America’s strength and freedom in comparison to communism in Russia and China. Fashioned after the trousers of cowboys and

ranchers in North America, they became a global sensation thanks to how cheap they were to make, consumerism and marketing that advertised their strong material and practicality. Levi made their jeans iconic in the 1800s due to their belt loops, improved pockets and zippers on flies. Alongside Levi many brands such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Nike and Supreme are all American companies that are dominating the fashion trends and clothing desires today. However, jeans are no longer made in France and now 40% of America’s jeans are made in Xintang, China, where many workers are exploited in sweat shops and the mass production produces a lot of greenhouse gases.

Levi advertisement between 1940-50s

As people from all over the world become more and more interested in fashion and clothes, the map of fashion metropolises and fashion capitals is steadily increasing. Wessie Ling examines ideas of mapping fashion, perceiving identities and the world fashion conquest in two different solo exhibitions: ‘Mapping Motifs’ and ‘Game On: The World Fashion Conquest’. In ‘Mapping Motifs’ Ling explores how a traditional Chinese dress, called a qipao (Mandarin Chinese) or cheongsam (English derivation of Cantonese), is perceived when related to fashion. Adapted from the Qing Dynasty changpao, a men’s robe worn by the upper class, the cheongsam was worn as a symbol of gender equality by feminists in order to challenge beauty expectations for women and also as part of the May Fourth Movement in protest of traditional Confucian values. Soon after, the cheongsam became an everyday outfit for women of all ages in urban cities like Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Taiwan, with more form fitting designs, influenced by the west, to accentuate femininity. After the Communist Party came to power the cheongsam was banned as part of the cultural revolution, but the cheongsam managed to survive in Hong Kong and so continued to be a part of working women’s lives who often sewed them out of magazines themselves. The cheongsam was introduced to the west from actresses such as Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk and film characters like Suzie Wong and began to inspire the fashions of western designers. ‘Mapping Motifs: An exploratory journey through fashion, cities and identities, 2006’ was exhibited in the AVA Gallery, London. Here Ling brings attention to the cheongsam as both an homage to East Asian culture but also to question our understanding and reception of it, she asks: “Are we concerned with where it comes from, who the designer is or with the garment’s authenticity? Are we more likely to appreciate it if it’s made by a Western designer rather than a Chinese tailor?”.1The cheongsam, whilst having different meanings to Chinese people, is often regarded as simply a fashionable dress in both the east and west which induces different opinions when it comes to cultural appropriation. Mapping Motifs consists of 6 identically cut cheongsams, each showing the city map of a fashion metropolis: Paris, London, Milan, New York and included for their important relationship to the cheongsam - Hong Kong and Shanghai. At a distance the maps seem to be nameless, but when viewed closely using two different coloured lenses, the dress becomes a map of the history of the cheongsam as names of streets, cities and designers appear to reveal those people and places where the qipao has been included in collections.

In Ling’s second exhibition ‘Game On: The World Fashion Conquest’, she investigates link between fashion culture and modern metropolitans through the phenomenon of ‘fashion week’. In created an interactive installation inspired by the game ‘Risk’, Ling expresses the competitive prestige of fashion seek between cities. The board maps out 85 fashion cities and their international network of consumers and buyers on intersecting lines of longitude and latitude that resemble fabric whilst players sit around a catwalk and runway that resembles the real fashion world of celebrities, journalists and buyers to help internationally promote fashion week. At the centre of this project Ling focuses in on the reasons and true motives for hosting fashion weeks, questioning whether cities exploit fashion week for the economic boost, tourism or the publicity of a local identity by branding themselves as a fashion capital. In ‘Game On’ Ling sheds light on globalisation in fashion as fashion weeks encourage consumer culture and European trends overtake the local fashion – ‘Are cities a slave to fashion or do cities enslave fashion to serve their own objectives?’3

Ling’s exhibition on Game On

Exploring the map of fashion in the past and present has brought up many topics of discussion. With globalisation, unpredictable, fast paced, everchanging trends, concerns on mass production and the environment, an increasing number of fashion metropolises and many different cultures, beliefs and opinions - there is no doubt that the fashion industry will continue to provoke, enrich and inspire the lives of people no matter where they live on the map.

1 https://www.opendatasoft.com/blog/2016/07/22/ archives-of-the-planet-albert-kahn-open-data 2 http://wessieling.com/reviews/mapping-motifs-text/ 3 http://wessieling.com/projects/game-on-the-worldfashion-conquest/

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Photo Sources

https://timeline.com/photos-earliest-color-imagesf48ea4ae8e9f#.rmzch4o5q https://www.vogue.fr/fashion/article/vogueencyclopaedia-the-history-of-denim-jeans http://wessieling.com/projects/mapping-motifs/ http://wessieling.com/publications/game-on-theworld-fashion/