[Tentacl Ventricl]

A second bite of the cherry

It's interesting how we first receive the visuals of a collection. My first impression was formed after viewing the video edit @ post #21 above. It's a very 'Amy' edit. Having now viewed the stills of the entire collection it does suffer less from literalism than initially I thought. For instance the Amy-ised full length gowns would not have been something Amy would have herself worn. In 'Reality'. So there is a degree of inventiveness there, a hybridisation - a mash 'between' Amy iconography and the conventions of Couture. But first impressions stick. And regardless of format, that opening look is only ever going to yield one initial association: just straight -'it's Amy'.

But what is beginning to rescue the collection for me (with further viewing and reflection) is not so much the presence of nuance and creativity beyond mere costumic reproduction but to reflect on how in fact we engage with Gaultier's work here, what it's 'use' might be.

Let's face it: few if any of us here are ever going to wear the pieces seen or even encounter any of them in three dimensional physical space. We encounter JPG's work two-dimensionally, virtually, as pure image in the Image World. 'Wearability' isn't our question. We are not shopping.

We could say that Couture (moreso than RTW) might remain a private matter. An unmediated 'by appointment only' embodied interaction between House/atelier and specific private client. It's not so much that an 'old world' view like that would be to miss entirely the importance of branding, it's more than that here. Here, we're dealing with iconography.

With this collection Jean Paul Gaultier appoints himself as Priest of Amy Iconography. Resuscitating, if not the body then the wardrobe of Amy Winehouse in various manifestations he congregates us, the virtual/media viewercommentator, as arbiter/disseminator of the Image of Amy.

My analogy with Marilyn made in my first post helps shed light on this. When we write/read text in relation to a person who is a visual Icon that text (this text) 'summons up' a spectral vision of the Icon. An Image in the mind's eye. For me 'personally' my Image of Marilyn is of her in the white dress in The Seven Year Itch. There are several points that follow-

When our mind's eye summons up the Icon Image it does so singularly. We have one impression. If we push some more we might summon up a secondary Icon Image. For me, with Marilyn, as a second image in my mind's eye, I get the pink gown from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. But the mental Image arrives not as various manifestations all together but singularly, sequentially. And the first Image arriving in the mind's eye is the most important. That's the core Icon.

I put 'personally' in inverted commas because of course that Image (the white dress) is not personal to me, it's culturally 'placed'. No doubt the Icon Image formation is contested. In visualising Marilyn not everyone will envisage the image from Seven Year Itch but some, perhaps many, perhaps the vast majority, will.

When we think of our own personal mind's eye Image of Icons, it's interesting for fashion to note the central importance of the garment or look
within the iconic image. When I think of Marilyn and the Seven Year Itch image springs forth, I see her hair, I see the subway grate below her, the gust of wind, her pose and expression but mainly - I see that white dress. Similarly in the Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Image I see the stairs, I see all the men in tuxedos but mainly - I see the pink dress.

The Gentlemen Prefer Blondes image is interestingly problemmatic. Do I see Marilyn or in fact do I see Madonna's appropriation of the iconography in the video for Material Girl? And was it Madonna's resuscitation of the pink dress image that raised up the pink dressed Marilyn to compete with the white dress Marilyn. Appropriation and interruption. Of singularity.

To think of the Iconography of Madonna ushers forth an interesting connect. Because Jean Paul Gaultier is there present. I now insert into your mind the mental image of the conical breasts of the corset top of the Blonde Ambition tour designed by of course...

So Mr Gaultier well understands the place of fashion within the construction of Iconography. He already exists there. And that is his motive here. I think perhaps he cares not whether he receives any commissions from private clients in relation to this collection. And he cares even less whether you or I find any of the looks 'wearable'. That's utterly besides the point. This isn't directly about money, it's about speaking to immortality.

When we compare the more established Iconography of Marilyn with that of the newer Icon, Amy Whitehouse, the mental image of Amy is much less clear. Flickering. There is a process of the settled Iconography coming into being. JPG invites us to join with him in that process.

Each of us may of course choose to internalise a different mental image of Amy. We can carry a plurality of Images of her but ultimately one singular image has to be dominant. That 'when I think of Amy in my mind's eye I see...' So that when we hear or read her name without an actual picture present our mind's eye conjures up..what?..

I agree with Mr Gaultier and his team. For me the image which most says 'Amy Winehouse' from all those which they've created is their opening look. For the time being at least, JPG may have interrupted/'covered over' my previous mind's eye image of Amy. Mr Gaultier therefore appropriates and mediates how I see her.



To the extent to which this (or another image from the collection) circulates around the web/blogosphere/twittersphere that image will be in WTJ Mitchell's sense - an 'image with legs'. I doubt that this collection will have any profound lasting impact on the formation of iconography either for Gaultier or for Winehouse. It stands as a temporary 'circulation by association' of the celebrity of both. We are asked to ajudicate and participate in that circulation/dissemination. The democratic branding/iconography fluidity of the web.

Whilst I think the 'legs' are short, and I'm still scenting a slight whiff of cheese (it may be impossible to 'do' iconography without some element of cliche), nevertheless I do think there is a sense in which, via this move, Mr Gaultier 'owned' SS12 Couture season.

[yellowetpink]

I think to make it look less 'Amy Winehouse Fancy Dress Costume' and more 'Couture inspired by Amy Winehouse' he should have styled the hair and make-up differently. The clothes are enough of a homage to Winehouse without having to copy her make-up and beehive. I think they distract from the clothes too, definitely cheapens it.

[neonsprinkles]

The first sets of suit-looks are amazing!!! But the hair and styling distract from them way too much, that I agree with

[Tentacl Ventricl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellowetpink I think to make it look less 'Amy Winehouse Fancy Dress Costume' and more 'Couture inspired by Amy Winehouse' he should have styled the hair and make-up differently. The clothes are enough of a homage to Winehouse without having to copy her make-up and beehive. I think they distract from the clothes too, definitely cheapens it.

And that this might have somehow made it read more like an ordinary fashion show? A similar thought crossed my mind. But, no. I think the decision to be literal with the hair and make-up reveals that this wasn't really intended as a usual collection/show. I struggle to think of any other show quite like it, quite so reverential of the look(s) of one particular person. I'm convinced we're to suspend usual criteria of judgment and see it not as a standard fashion show but as an exercise in iconography.

Imagine for instance you're a potential buyer/user of this collection/couture in general. A member of the SuperRich or a celebrity stylist. Even if you conceive to not follow a Winehouse look in hair/make-up, is there a context in which you could wear (or have your client wear) anything from this collection. I think the answer is no. To do so would either be in bad taste or to displace any sense of your (client's) own identity. The collection, or perhaps better we say the 'spectacle' is 100% on the Press side, 0% on the Buyer side. In raising up a spectral 'Army of Amys' set forth to roam in cyberspace, the collection has a wholly two-dimensional existence.

I wanted somewhere to make a point that what Couture might increasingly come to be, given the price points and the opportunity to see a purchase as an investment piece, is the zone where fashion really is art. But that requires more than time heavy sewing on of embellishments etc, etc. It requires ideas and a tenable claim to the particular fashion piece/collection as art. I don't claim the title 'art' for this collection. More it's like a sort of gothic cartoon. But facing death does make one philosophical. In confronting the mortality of a loved one or celebrity who's creative product we admired, we are necessarily engaging with the question of our own mortality. This is why I've suspended the usual terms of reference for approaching this collection and gone on to consider Iconography and the way it's produced and circulated.

I got to thinking about decade Iconography and came up with the following (as a Londoner this may be a bit transatlantic ethnocentric but it's just my own personal take and I don't claim any objectivity for it) -

50's Marilyn, Elvis
60's Twiggy, Beatles
70's Farah Fawcett, David Bowie (woman of the 70's is tricky)
80's Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan (or Princess Diana, Gordon Gekko Wall Street)
90's Kate Moss, Kurt Cobain

The noughties becomes really difficult. The whole context is to pose the question could Amy Winehouse be the female icon that 'stands' for the noughties. With the current focus it would be all to easy to go there. But I'm not sure that would be right to do so. It would claim too much.

Rather I think that in the noughties human icons cease to appear. The icons become materialised, dehumanised. I suggest rather a computer with a blank screen (perhaps a graphic of a grid representing interconnectivity) and the spectre of 9/11 - the fall of the twin towers. Probably fame has become so diffuse, so democratised, so plural, so ubiquitous, that no one person can any longer come to stand as the Icon for a decade/generation.

In being about Iconography not fashion this collection suspends our usual criteria of judgment and takes us some place else. It has to be as much about death as it is about Amy Winehouse. It has a strange, spectral, two-dimensionality. We don't 'wear' death but death does make us feel and/or think.

[silk skin paws]

It comes off like a caricature. There's nothing wrong with finding inspiration in people or things.

[Nepenthes]

I'm really looking forward to the video of the full show!

[KemAlnagdy]

some pieces are so silly , but most are so cool ! love !

[mikeijames]

looks like this collection found its perfect customer...



(source: redcarpet-fashionawards.com)

[Tentacl Ventricl]

Great spot Mike. And...Uncanny.

I think back again to my stuff about decade iconography. Madonna is of course a massive icon. But. In that she'd be top 5 for any of 80's, 90's or 00's she can't 'stand' for any one of them. In that the Madonna of Material Girl is so juxtaposed to the Madonna of Erotica her iconography flickers. Amy's claim to icon status is aided by the fact that, like many icon/stars, she burnt brightly for a short time. To have to reinvent oneself across decades in moving with the times blurs your iconography. Madonna's solution to her icon status has been, perhaps like nobody else before her, to, rather than die young, stay young. She's amazing.

In many ways she is Postmodernism personified. But I think Postmodernism and Iconography to be contradictions in terms. In Postmodernism you have plurality over singularity, signs circulating freely uncoupled from their referent, and Nostalgia. Which is exactly where culture and fashion finds itself right now.