hi
uberwench...thanks for joining the discussion...
love your post!...
Quote:
One thing that strikes me, however, is that this definition of 'avant garde' makes it quite hard to post the contemporary avant-garde... for essentially, it argues that the difference between simply being eccentric and being avant-garde is that in being avant-garde you are some kind of vanguard. That soon it will be recognised by the masses -or, at least, a group -as something to be adopted in a more mainstream way. That you push the boundaries of acceptability through innovation and manage to move them.
Now, talking about this historically, this all makes a lot of sense, and it's clear that YSL, the flappers etc. were avant garde. But how am I meant to know if my unusual dressing today is avant garde, or simply weird? How can you talk about being the start of a future movement today?
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it's true...is is quite hard to pinpoint contemporary avant garde without some experience...
but fashion stylists do it all the time...it's their stock and trade...
...
and when you have lived on the planet long enough to see several decades of fashion recycled...
it becomes easier to recognise the difference between avant garde and simply kooky...
plus- you see people who actually do start wearing things and people follow...(or it happens to you over and over)...and then you start to be able to tell who is a true vanguard ...
i won't deny that there may be some snobbery associated with the avant garde crew...
after all...they are not looking to belong to the masses, are they...?
**the word that keeps coming back to me when i think of the difference between avant garde and just plain 'weird' ...is...
cool...
there is a nonchalance...
an effortlessness...
they haven't put on a costume...
they are just expressing what they feel at that moment...
no matter how different or odd what they are wearing may seem to anyone else, they are completely comfortable in it...
they OWN it...nothing seems 'forced'...
**maybe that is why people want to follow them eventually...
they just look so damn cool...
....
and maybe that's how you recognise them...