Designers and Brands: Reasons to Hate or Love

[mint condish]

Hi all,

with HeatherAnne's permission I have started this discussion because there's questions I've always wanted to ask forum members here. I sometimes notice consensus all over the forum about particular designers or brands. Fashionistas tend to respect one designer over another. Obviously everyone has different tastes, but sometimes there's opinions floating out there that I've never understood and I'd love to hear more about.

Here's my original post in the "Suggestions" thread.

This is a really weird question probably. But I've always wanted to ask. Is there some sort of discussion thread about general consensus 'fashionista' opinions about stuff, like why a lot of people hate certain designers or love them?

I know that this is very, very vague, but for example, a lot of fashion-followers seem to love Haider Ackermann and hate Marchesa

When I watch a Marchesa runway show I really enjoy the clothes so I've never got this. Could there be such a thread that could ask these questions (innocently - not rudely or rhetorically). So that people could answer?

Or, maybe there's a thread that already exists like this that I don't know of? I think there was one about models like this, like "Convince me this model is great". So this would be about designers -- I know a lot less about voicing my opinion on why I like a particular designer and I'd love to learn more from people who study this more than I do.

Okay. I'm ready. Why do so many fashion followers hate Marchesa?

 

[sore]

it's probably difficult to answer your question in general, but i think your examples illustrate some things quite well.

marchesa is just painful to watch for me, and i guess for many other people who love fashion as well. marchesa does hollywood-ish red carpet gowns year in, year out. while they might work on the red carpet - because of the 'nature' of the red carpet per se - i still find them to be a) extremely tasteless because of the (often) ostentatious pomp and the loveless detailing b) because their crude show-off collections never seem to add up to an aesthetic vision.
their gowns, for me, illustrate everything people tend to hate about fashion, especially fashion's sometimes vulgar superficiality. their collections lack content, there's no idea behind them that goes beyond 'this year we could take india as inspiration for our gowns'. i view fashion as a form of art, and marchesa's collections have nothing to do with this kind of art.

then, on the other hand, there's haider ackermann, one of the very few designers who have been moving fashion forward in the last couple of years.
fashion, for me, is all about moving forward, pushing boundaries - this is how coco chanel translated the dandy look to womenswear, this is why giorgio armani, jil sander and donna karan established the business suit for women in the 80s and this is where punk fashion was based on.
haider ackermann, for example, has a very original yet elegant take on silhouettes.
other examples for designers who are usually considered avantgarde include the so called antwerp six (among others ann demeulemeester and dries van noten who heavily influenced designers such as martin margiela and raf simons), japanese designers issey miyake, yohji yamamoto and rei kawakubo or miuccia prada, to name but a few.

so i think my answer to your question would be: there's a fine line in fashion between innovation and repetition, thoughtfulness and pretentiousness. most fashion experts tend to see marchesa in the first category - as opposed to haider ackermann.

 

[BerlinRocks]

Fashion lovers passionately love craftsmanship, concepts and personality over trends, hype ...

For instance, I guess a Fashion lover would prefer Yamamoto's perception and "illustration" of sexuality over the vulgar one of DSquared or even Dolce&Gabanna ...

 

[fashionista-ta]

I don't see anything wrong with Marchesa, but it's like candy ... it's nothing you could eat for a main course, nothing nourishing. It's pretty, nothing more. Pretty only gets you so far ...

Oh, there's sex at Yamamoto?? I'm not typical here, but I find the frank sexuality in many of D&G's campaigns kind of fun and charming ... I certainly prefer it to the perverse, bondage- and underworld-inspired stuff that's so common on the runway

What I'm looking for in a designer/house is ...

• Intelligence, character
• A consistent point of view with some originality to it
• Beauty
• Respect for women
• Useful, flattering clothes that are made well
• Timelessness is not a bad thing

 

[ssgghh]

^respect for women, can you maybe illustrate that with some examples? Because I think if you would ask 10 people what respect for women in a collection/house meant for them I think you would get some very different answers, thats why I would be very interested to see what it ment for you particularly

I agree on that point, I also look for respect for women in collections (althought i feel its hard to find, at least by my deffinition )

I also look for stuff that feels fresh in one way or another.

Flattering clothes are not what makes it interesting for me, but usefulness in terms of something that you can actually do stuff in without feeling like your clothes are an obstacle to being alive in them and actually doing stuff in them is essential. I am in no way interested in lines of clothes you can only stand or pose in, or clothes that limit a certain movement of your body like squatting, bending or running. But all of that not on the expense of it being estethically appealing, fresh or interesting.
I can, though, appreciate a piece of unwearability if it indicates future directions and something new.

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ i wrote this some months back, but ... how the designer speaks about women is a really good clue. designers producing constricting, uncomfortable clothes where the intention seems to be women fitting into one particular mold with no flexibility, i find that offensive. when clothes are cut/darted in such a way that there is only a single body type that can wear it ... that does not show an appreciation of women. i find it more an attempt to control/cage women.