Death of the Fashion Visionary?

[Dkammern]

^^got to disagree on that last statement... of course SOME women's dream would be to wear something "ethereal"... but even if they had the money for it, do you really think they'd do it? after all it's just a DREAM. after they fulfill their lifetime fantasy of wearing princess dresses, do you really think they'd want to stay the rest of their lives wearing the corsets, the frou-frou, the pink and lace, and so on?
people say they want what they cant have... if they cant afford it, theyll sure tell you how fantastic it would be to have all the money in the world to wear wonderful night-gowns all day long.
it doesnt make sense at all, but how would you prove they wouldnt do it, you sure arent gonna give them the money to see what they do, right?
with or without the money, it's the perception of the clients that has changed. there's hundreds of oil tycoon wifes, and rich socialites that could wear the most wonderfully crafted dresses for their everyday life. believe me, if they dont, it's really because they dont want to.

(latest finantial analysis are pointing to what is called the new "decade of jewellery". i've read it in economic papers, and jsut a couple of days ago i watched an interview with Boucheron CEOs who strongly reinforced the idea.
Their arguments to support this idea is that with economic recession coming and going and how uncertain the situation is, rich people would rather invest on diamonds and emerald necklaces that, if taken to pieces, would never loose their value as a dress could. Besides that, what the french call haute joaillerie doesnt need three fittings as a dress would, and the traveling of the collections from one country to another is a lot lot easier. After all, a LBD can be so easily reproduced these days, that if feels almost natural that people try to spend the money on something a lot more exclusive, and a lot harder to copy... the RTW everyone can have, but the rubies, not so many ))



EDIT: whoever says that all we care about TODAY is the money is being blindly unaware of the fact that MONEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MATTER! do you really think Velazquez would have painted one single canvas if it wasnt to be part of the royal court? think of warhol (the materialist), dali (the greatest publicist), it just goes on, and on, and on... far back to egyptian architects that were greatly paid, if they did a good job with palaces, statues, and whatsoever!

 

[Bidwell]

We live in an info society where we think we have access to all things at all times.

That doesn't mean something dreadfully exciting isn't happening right underneath our noses...the underground will always remain....underground.

Punk (for lack of a more obvious example) was not a manufactured scene (although Malcom McLaren would say otherwise).
It tapped into something bubbling in the public ethos because there was a will for change.
If there is so much dissatisfaction, it will happen naturally. I fear most may be just bored and complacent because things aren't really all that bad....YET.

 

[Fontenrose]

lots of interesting quotes here:

NY Times, March 6, 2008
Fashion Diary
Fashion Sees Its Shadow

By GUY TREBAY
Paris
HUGE crowds gathered last summer at the Russian pavilion of the Venice Biennale to see a three-screen video installation by a collective known as AES+F. Filled with dreamy computer-game landscapes, scary monsters, rocket ships, carousels and nearly naked post-pubescent models engaged in elaborate mock battles, “Last Riot” was the apocalypse rendered pastel and made chic.
The artists set the piece to Wagner, as artists often have when the leitmotif is The End. This strategy worked for Francis Ford Coppola when he needed to hit the doom button (and drown out the rotor wash) in “Apocalypse Now,” and it also worked pretty well when Bugs Bunny was playing Josh Brolin to Elmer Fudd’s Javier Bardem in the 1957 cartoon “What’s Opera, Doc?”
Whether the end is nigh is rarely the point. What matters is that, when people fear shifts in the cultural tectonics, they tend to reach for myth and the verities. And, while it may seem like a stretch to extend this observation to a sphere as ostensibly superficial as fashion, it was hard to come away from the season just ended here without thinking that dressmakers are spooked by the cold breath of change.
Like the battle scenes in “Last Riot” (Miuccia Prada’s favorite piece at the Venice art fair, by the way), the Paris season gave the impression of being a valiant defense of the ramparts of chic.
And there were good reasons for this. Faced with overwhelming shifts in the way clothes are manufactured; with the widespread dispersal and pirating of information on the Internet; with markets broadening to encompass not just familiar consumer elites, but entire swaths of the globe; and with the knowledge that their boldest efforts seem puny compared with the chess moves being enacted by the multinational titans who employ them, a lot of designers are befuddled. What should they do? Change careers? Why not, instead, reach into the costume trunks and, like the pretty combatants in “Last Riot,” take up a wooden swords and play pretend.
The recurrent themes of the season’s playacting were nostalgia, full-blown romanticism and crypto-religiosity. These were everywhere visible, but most particularly at Alexander McQueen, Givenchy, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent.
The McQueen show, titled “The Girl Who Lived in a Tree,” was inspired by a fable the designer concocted about a maiden who lives in a six-century-old elm in his English garden, and who comes out at night “to meet a prince and become a queen.”
Because the designer has recently toured India, the queen in question was probably Victoria. But Mr. McQueen’s was not so much the image of the dour and hard-headed sovereign of historical record as of a Raj Barbie, a creature from a music-hall pantomime, clad in what one critic described as “ballerina-length, multi-flounced dance dresses, each more insanely exquisite than the last.”
She was a skinny queen, too, trussed up in corsets that added a note of perversity easy to read as a clue to a control fetish, something autoerotic. When a designer takes a girl — a wraith, really — like the English model Lily Donaldson and binds her waist, it’s hard to avoid thinking of how unruly the world must seem from inside his skull.
No one can really blame designers for trying to conserve themselves or to regulate the growing demands on creativity. “People are becoming overwhelmed,” the D. J. Michel Gaubert remarked last Thursday, as he stood by an oval portal to a luminous biomorphic tent constructed inside the Grand Palais for the Yves Saint Laurent show.
Mr. Gaubert, a seasoned D. J. who has spent decades creating aural backgrounds for labels like Saint Laurent and Chanel, noted how the increasing rapidity of fashion’s production cycles seems to affect everyone. “Look at the number of outfits people are showing,” he said. “Look at how many shows there are a day. Look at how many cities and markets buyers have to think about.”
Even the shows themselves are getting faster, it seems, an impression confirmed if one happened to see a video that accompanies a costume exhibition Christian Lacroix assembled from the archives of Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs. In it, the 1980s-era mannequin Dalma is seen sauntering the catwalk at a Lacroix show, pausing, posing, cocking her head, twirling, making a moue.
In those days, Dalma was known as a fairly peppy character on the catwalk (as opposed to, say, Iman, who moved so magisterially she should have been accompanied by tugboats). Yet compared with either of those two, models now break from the gate like sprinters. They almost have to in order to make it up and back a 90-foot runway in time to whip backstage for the next change of clothes.
“The demands on everyone are constantly growing,” Mr. Gaubert said, referring not just to the twice-yearly ready-to-wear collections, but also to the couture presentations some labels produce, as well as precollections and resort collections and — ka-ching! — accessories.
“People can’t keep up,” he said. “The demand is insane.”
So, perhaps in response to this, designers retrench. They embrace conservative ideas and the clothes that suit them. They look backward. They outfit models as an army of automatons, the way Stefano Pilati, the gifted Saint Laurent designer, did. His pale-faced cadres wore black lipstick, had eyes obscured by black-bowl wigs and bodies encased in clothes of a stark geometry rarely seen outside the Vatican.
“I don’t think you want to go out advertising a brand anymore,” Mr. Pilati told Style.com after the show.
Mr. Pilati was not alone in balking at the idea of becoming a logo machine. At Balenciaga, Nicolas Ghesquiere produced a collection that was as much about formalist feats as about anything as banal and frivolous as grabbing an after-work cocktail. At Prada in Milan, Miuccia Prada showed a collection of stark widow’s weeds. At Lanvin, Alber Elbaz made ribboned dresses that summoned up Victorian mourning clothes. And at Givenchy, Riccardo Tisci presented dresses that had a renunciatory feeling. They were clothes for a streetwalker who has forgone her wicked ways and taken the veil.

Even the stylized clothes Marc Jacobs showed for Louis Vuitton were devout, at least in their allegiance to traditional French style ideals. A lot of people thought that Mr. Jacobs’s designs looked like monastic vestments, and some (well, I) found the heavy woolens and kooky conical headgear evocative of the uniforms (purple shrouds and two-tone Nikes) worn by the Heaven’s Gate cultists of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.
Those benighted souls will be remembered, of course, for having committed mass suicide in 1997 with the help of vodka and phenobarbital, in the hope of meeting a spaceship they thought was hidden behind Comet Hale-Bopp. Everybody, as the artists who made the “Last Riot” seemed to understand, is looking for a faith, however misguided or outright spurious.
While some find it in the imagery and crafts of the past, others remain resolutely forward thinking. Few designers treat the idea of submitting to anything other than the zeitgeist with as much lip-curling disdain as Karl Lagerfeld. “I don’t believe in anything,” he said recently in an interview with the French editor Olivier Zahm. “I envy people who have faith. It must make things easier.”
Yet Mr. Lagerfeld, who is now in his 70s, is being disingenuous. Few are more devout about promoting what one French critic called, correctly if pretentiously, “the sacralization of consumer goods.”
As if to prove this, Mr. Lagerfeld set his Chanel show at the Grand Palais this season on an immense carousel adorned with outsize versions of house classics like sling-back shoes, camellias, quilted handbags and ballerina flats. Fashion, he seemed to be saying, may not yet have attained recognition as a global creed. But it takes a true disbeliever to question its role as the outward expression of our deep faith in acquiring things.
Markets may slump. The dollar may become the peso. China and Russia may turn the United States into a rest stop on the superhighway of global economy. None of that is likely to deter people from impoverishing themselves in order to possess the latest who-knows-what.
“Everybody knows the economy is terrible,” Stephanie Solomon, the fashion director of Bloomingdale’s, remarked last week as the sun broke through the winter clouds and gilded the city. “But whatever happens, and I believe this with all my heart,” she said, “there is always something special, that one unique thing, that one special object you want so much you’ll do without food to have.”

 

[dior_couture1245]

^^I agree...fashion has become TOO fast.

I was horrified to realize that only a few weeks separated the SS 08 Haute Couture season and the FW 08 RTW season.

I think labels should stop making a big deal out of their pre-fall/ resort collections. Save it for the store. I don't need to see it. Just give me two (or for couturiers, four) amazing shows a year and I'll be happy....I'm tired of seeing some houses and labels sending out upwards of 6 collections a year, many of which are uninspired and sub-par! Give us a break!

 

[Bidwell]

Most companies have a presentation-show in any case. If there are enough buyers and press that need to see it, Voilà...a runway presentation is called for.
Of course, it doesn't mean one has to watch them all...just watch your favorites, no?

 

[iluvjeisa]

EDIT: whoever says that all we care about TODAY is the money is being blindly unaware of the fact that MONEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MATTER! do you really think Velazquez would have painted one single canvas if it wasnt to be part of the royal court? think of warhol (the materialist), dali (the greatest publicist), it just goes on, and on, and on... far back to egyptian architects that were greatly paid, if they did a good job with palaces, statues, and whatsoever!

I don't think anyone here is naive enough to deny that it has always - to some extent - been about profit. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that - it's clearly been a good method. But in all those situations there was an auteur with a vision, with a curious sense for what is simultaneously irresistible and thought provoking. But not irresistible to every last person, of course, since a lot of people lack an inner (deep-rooted) opinion about art. Now - instead of the eccentric monarch you have an entire business structure with strategists and people trying to guess what others would find appealing.

Top-down vs Bottom-up in other words.

 

[Plisskin]

^^got to disagree on that last statement... of course SOME women's dream would be to wear something "ethereal"... but even if they had the money for it, do you really think they'd do it? after all it's just a DREAM. after they fulfill their lifetime fantasy of wearing princess dresses, do you really think they'd want to stay the rest of their lives wearing the corsets, the frou-frou, the pink and lace, and so on?
people say they want what they cant have... if they cant afford it, theyll sure tell you how fantastic it would be to have all the money in the world to wear wonderful night-gowns all day long.
it doesnt make sense at all, but how would you prove they wouldnt do it, you sure arent gonna give them the money to see what they do, right?
with or without the money, it's the perception of the clients that has changed. there's hundreds of oil tycoon wifes, and rich socialites that could wear the most wonderfully crafted dresses for their everyday life. believe me, if they dont, it's really because they dont want to.

I never said everyone wanted to wear something "frou frou" or "ethereal" all the time. I just said I've met plenty of people that would like to own at least one spectacular gown to wear once in a while for special occasions. [FONT=&quot]I don't agree either in thinking wearing a "princess gown" is a "DREAM" or lifetime fantasy.[/FONT] But I do think the type of people buying the dresses have changed not the 21st Century Woman. Like you said it's usually "Socialites" or "Oil Tycoons Wives". That's not the everyday woman.

EDIT: whoever says that all we care about TODAY is the money is being blindly unaware of the fact that MONEY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MATTER! do you really think Velazquez would have painted one single canvas if it wasnt to be part of the royal court? think of warhol (the materialist), dali (the greatest publicist), it just goes on, and on, and on... far back to egyptian architects that were greatly paid, if they did a good job with palaces, statues, and whatsoever!

Here's what I think about that:

There are those of us in this world that think firstly and mostly about the art and then about the money that comes later. Not everyone creates masterpieces solely for a paycheck, but rather to express their selves, leave behind their mark when they are dead and gone, and also their love for the art. Yes it's great to get a hefty paycheck for your work, but that shouldn't be the only factor when you create something. Money has and always will make the world go round, and you do need it to continue your creativity, but when money is the first and foremost thing that comes before a creative outlet then that's a problem.

 

[tigerrouge]

One source of optimistism for me, is that there are many areas of the world where nations - especially smaller countries - are changing their circumstances, revising their own cultural histories, stereotypes, symbolism - and out of that will come people who will want to communicate 'their things' to the world.

Because they will be standing outside of the current culture, conforming to current models will be of no use, when it comes to getting those ideas heard. And if you come from repression or impoverishment, that can result in an explosively intense drive behind your need to be heard, to make your mark. Creativity is often best channelled by having few options, few opportunities. These people will come forward, and some will make it to the top level. There is always a new wave.

 

[Dkammern]

Here's what I think about that:

There are those of us in this world that think firstly and mostly about the art and then about the money that comes later. Not everyone creates masterpieces solely for a paycheck, but rather to express their selves, leave behind their mark when they are dead and gone, and also their love for the art. Yes it's great to get a hefty paycheck for your work, but that shouldn't be the only factor when you create something. Money has and always will make the world go round, and you do need it to continue your creativity, but when money is the first and foremost thing that comes before a creative outlet then that's a problem.

believe me, if i could live from what i paint and design i would be a lot lot happier... but i have to study business, accounting, maths, finance, etc first, because chances are that painting, sculpting and designing wont fill my stomach nor my pocket! sad but true... i think about art all the time, but at the end money has to come somehow!

 

[Paula Mattoso]

One source of optimistism for me, is that there are many areas of the world where nations - especially smaller countries - are changing their circumstances, revising their own cultural histories, stereotypes, symbolism - and out of that will come people who will want to communicate 'their things' to the world.

Because they will be standing outside of the current culture, conforming to current models will be of no use, when it comes to getting those ideas heard. And if you come from repression or impoverishment, that can result in an explosively intense drive behind your need to be heard, to make your mark. Creativity is often best channelled by having few options, few opportunities. These people will come forward, and some will make it to the top level. There is always a new wave.

Very interesting point of view.
Creativity nowadays in my opnion is a small artistic manifest recognised by a small nbr of ppl. The majority is blinded following famous brands because they associate it to wealthy, style, celebrities, events and/OR... a wrong concept of fashion design,(Im not talking about excess or deconstruction). Usually ppl are too attached to a symbol, a label or a name and a price. it is easier to follow it, talk about it, WEAR it [but not maybe buying it]. but its all ready there and so available for buying it or copying it that creativity is not really the point. So boring that even some of my colleagues designers [who should bring fresh ideas up] are taking it as examples of success and breaking their creativity in the name of massive sales or the possibility of it. But in fact, visionary fashion ppl pay more for exclusive designs coming from a challenging, artistic or contemporary urban atmosphere then from a plain tshirt just signed by a famous name. Money is always a consequence and when u work with vocation and originality you are naturally attracting it. B) dressing social status is different then dressing personality.

 

[Erzébeth II]

but of course, what exactly IS vision anyways? we have been talking about vision vision vision but no one really said anything about what their definition of vision is.

This is a good thing to bring up. Personally, I think having a vision involves:

-bringing legitimately new ideas to the table. and radically new ideas which may involve some controversy. e.g. poor-chic for rich ladies from mlle. chanel, christian dior offering designs that used lavish amounts of fabric when people were being frugal after the war had just ended.. (weren't there protests?), raf simons pushing the emaciated-youth look, alexander mcqueen's brutal, aggressive women. ann demeulemeester's moody, patti smith-inspired vision of femininity.

-consistently building on these ideas, season after season.

-making people appreciate these unconventional ideas, so that in time they become compelling and desirable (at least by some)

I think the difference between visionaries and people who design clothes is that visionaries don't just establish a vocabulary for a certain lifestyle or group of people (e.g. preps, surfers) as most fashion houses do these days and nothing else. they are also adjusting people's opinions on what is good, what is bad, what is feminine, what is sexy..