Child-like Style

[flick]

Akira Isowaga

maybe his clothes do not have a strictly child-like aesthetic because the craft involved is elaborate, but i think he is trying to capture and allude to the innocence, whimsy and androgyny of childhood in his designs.

this is an explanation of his exhibition, and some pictures (from the www.theage.com.au and www.akira.com.au

" “This” is the Akira Isogawa Printemps-Ete 2005 exhibition, opening today in the centre’s Contemporary Projects Gallery. It’s a gently surprising expose of fashion’s process, dominated by Isogawa’s current muse, a pretty French paper doll dating back to the early 20th century. “I liked its androgynous quality,” explains the soft-spoken designer, who migrated to Sydney from Kyoto almost two decades ago. “It does not specify male or female, is very neutral, so does the same job as a blank canvas.”

In the middle of the huge, hollow gallery space, there are also 23 giant replicas of a paper doll Isogawa found in a Glebe flea market. They are tall as trees and appear to float, suspended and anchored by silver wires in a wide, navigable circle that spirals into a central display of finished garments on mannequins. Each towering “doll” is a photorealistic model of the original, “dressed” by the designer in a carefully composed collage of found objects and flea market "

 

[stilista]

how cool! Thanks flick B)

 

[flick]

you're welcome

 

[Scott]

Oh those are so pretty,flick! That's exactly what I'm keen on...not really just the shapes, but the craftsmanship and the imagery that one associates with children.

 

[flick]

Karen Walker spring 2004 (www.firstview.com)

 

[flick]

Oh those are so pretty,flick! That's exactly what I'm keen on...not really just the shapes, but the craftsmanship and the imagery that one associates with children.

yeah, i think there are different incarnations of child-like style. for example karen walker uses symbols typically associated with children, and the type and shape of her clothes mimic childrens, but to me they do not evoke a sense of child-like innocence... i dont know how to say this... but they seem a bit trite and insincere (i do like her stuff i have a top from this collection)), wearing her pieces would be too over-thought to actually be child-like dressing. akira's stuff is very adult in terms of the fabrics, details and the shapes, but it conjurs the mentality of a child more.

 

[orlem]

Undercover Spring 2005 (style.com)

I thought this was done well... tribute to Jan Svankmajer's surrealist films; the surrealists were very concerned/obsessed with the purity and innocence of children...

 

[travolta]

....and Tess Giberson. And notice how all of them ALSO have that childish element in their work?

scott, i noticed that too. i found an article that not only sheds some light on fort thunder, an art collective which basically lived in their own mythology they created, but the school itself, and why it's alumni focus on craft and child-like elements.

As an outgrowth of the Rhode Island School of Design [RISD] where nearly all of them attended (some even graduating), Fort Thunder provided a common setting for creation that imposed almost no economic imperative to conform to commercial standards or to change in an attempt to catch the next big wave.

Fort Thunder was also fairly isolated, both in terms of influences that breached its walls and how that work was released to the outside world. This allowed its artists to produce a significant body of work that most people have yet to see.

www.tcj.com/256/e_thunder.html - 15k -

i think fort thunder was a microcosm of risd. it was a pretty isolated rigorous environment, therefore you can see how people would start to bond together and create their own folklore. it happens in un urbanized cultures around the world, and it can happen in bizarre pockets removed from reality called art schools.

i also attended a experimental hippie art high school where the same child-like, crafty phenonmenon happened, so i really relate to this kind of 'one sided joke or conversation and world in your head' it's what i respond to i guess, because as zazie said, it's uncontrived and pure. there are no standards really, except for getting to that primitive place.

btw. i was lucky enough to attend one of their theatrical noise/ performance art shows before fort thunder eventually disbanded because their headquarters was turned into a parking lot. apparently they managed to show at the whitney biennial.

 

[travolta]

...that's very interesting Travolta...would you care to expand on this a bit?

...just a thought...people like Betsey Johnson and Anna Sui have been successfully dressing with doll-like naivete even though their own beauty is not traditionally doll-like...takes guts but can be great it it's truly you...

i think this thread is really interesting because the topic is really broad. child-like could conjur up all sorts of things, and in the end it's very subjective. we first think of infantile proportions like shortened torsos and plump skirts, but in a way it's just a superficial way to think of dressing in a 'child-like' way. as said before, that is more of a fetish.

when i think of child-like dressing i think of dressing in the same perspective as a little kid would, such as putting on a glittery tutu and beads and miss-matched high heels etc etc without caring that you're going to the super market. it really isn't about editing, but about free flowing experimentation.

that's way i said a woman who creates her own rules of dress, such as wearing leggings which show all of her 'flaws' is dressing in the same way a child does, because she doesn't care/ isn't aware. infact, it's about testing the boundaries and seeing what kind of reaction you would get just like children knocking over blocks and other unruly behavior. i think it's actually really smart behavior to play around with different 'masks' and aesthetics and push the boundaries. i think kids get it.

 

[sea of stitches]

i think kids get it.

heehee, this made me giggle.

on a side note: people in my house are always comparing themselves to kids ages. i'm usually two and a half or five.

 

[travolta]

^ it's like a circle.. we eventually end up looking and moving just like kids again. watch a toddler or a five year old and you'll see an eighty year old.

i've been told i'm a six year old w/ a snotty nose. they were taking the piss, i think??

 

[sea of stitches]

^i often compare myself to an 80 year old too.

and it's totally okay to be compared to a six year old, even with a snotty nose. even if they were taking the piss, i'd be happy to agree.

 

[i_<3_chanel]

i adore this thread + all the pictures !
there are so many 'childish' influences in my own style
little badges here / cute pins there / bright tacky kitsch bracelets !
big buttons . . little bright whimsical touches & a lot of unpredictability !

 

[arlekindearrabal]

^im loving akira isowaga!

 

[Zazie]

that's way i said a woman who creates her own rules of dress, such as wearing leggings which show all of her 'flaws' is dressing in the same way a child does, because she doesn't care/ isn't aware. infact, it's about testing the boundaries and seeing what kind of reaction you would get just like children knocking over blocks and other unruly behavior. i think it's actually really smart behavior to play around with different 'masks' and aesthetics and push the boundaries. i think kids get it.

Well said. Experiment, humour, not calculated, not trying too hard, not a care in the world and sometimes sentimentality and melancholy are part of the child-like impulses. And of course it was a child that pointed out the Emperor had no clothes, so definitely candor. It's probably where our adult consciousness recede and the naive side emerges.

And of course I'm Zazie, a foul-mouth 12-yr-old brat in Parisian that is the antithesis of the saccharine Amelie.

 

[travolta]

everyone used to be creative and play...when they were children? i ask...what happened? we were too sophistacted ...

 

[Melisande]

...but in a way it's just a superficial way to think of dressing in a 'child-like' way. as said before, that is more of a fetish.

when i think of child-like dressing i think of dressing in the same perspective as a little kid would

What a great post, Travolta! You're from RISD no? You see why I love my RISDers. B) I'm gonna give you karma.

The most stylish person I've known to this day is a five-year old French girlfriend of mine...she wore nothing but supermarket hand-me-downs and plastic trinkets all covered with grime from the sandbox, but boy oh boy, the glamour, the elan, the self-assured nonchalance and insolence...she was truly sexy, and not in a pedophilic way, but with the raw and androgynous sexual energy that we are all born with.

Yes, she had a little something of Zazie, whom I love as well..."Le Metro Le Metro Le Metro!"

 

[Zazie]

Tiens! Someone who knows Zazie!

 

[Melisande]

Mais oui! She's the one who got me onto moules et frites.

I love how a single stroke of the comb is all the grooming she needs before going off to conquer the world.

 

[Hanne]

Acquascutum's red raincoat reminds me of a kiddie raincoat..