Feroce Infirme
Member
- Joined
- Sep 9, 2005
- Messages
- 11
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Welcome Pillarist.
When did I first become aware of DH?
Let’s see… well… this picture did the trick…
Now, why was I drawn to Slimane’s work…Where do I begin?
First, I find the DH aesthetic to be unique because I feel it is as close to the notion of haute couture for men as anyone was able to achieve in the past x number of years.
Personally, I would not call all DH clothes minimalist pieces – well, the cut and the fit maybe, but I would be hard-pressed to argue that some of the pieces in “Luster” were minimalist…
I prefer the term that was used in the GQ (February 2004) article to describe Slimane’s aesthetic: an “aesthetic that somehow marries asceticism and decadence.”
It is an aesthetic that was already “ambient” in a sense - found in disparate places from Raf Simons’ work to the lithe bishonen so prominently featured in Japanese shojo manga. Slimane managed to crystallize it in a most pristine form. And the fact that he did not receive a standard education in fashion design (he studied history of art if I am not mistaken) afforded him a freedom to approach fashion in a different way – perhaps being inspired by more personal obsessions like fleeting youth and innocence (many references to Rimbaudian undertones have been mentioned in the literature concerning Slimane’s work) or perhaps he found inspiration in the 16th century Spanish court where it was first realized that black-on-black “had infinite gradations of subtlety and richness which would be destroyed by the addition of strong bright colours” (pg. 38 “Peacock Males and Perfect Gentlemen,” Colin McDowel). So you could say that I don’t believe Slimane’s words when he was quoted as saying “I have no reference to anything.”
As far as the whole concept of androgyny is concerned, I feel we are treading on thin ice… If not done “properly” men can look camp by modern masculine aesthetics. Now, the question is: is this bad? Since when does an aesthetic of a current period dictate an absolute norm? – I mean a couple of centuries ago men wore pearls, sported beauty spots and ran around in high heels. However, I think subversion is not the key requirement here: androgyny should not be about gender-bending but about a certain kind of freedom, the freedom of post-gender, of lack of gender “differentiation,” and ultimately of potentiality, something so wonderfully exemplified by the use of adolescent models (and of course reflected in Slimane’s clothes.)
Finally, recall that Slimane’s shot into stardom was laced by delicious tidbits of loyalty, rivalry and betrayal (Yves St Laurent attending the DH show rather than the newly-acquired-by-Gucci YSL rive gauche show). And as we all know everyone enjoys a bit of juicy scandal now and then let alone the fashion industry…
Anyway, that’s how I see things and that’s why I bemoan the fact that DH is becoming more commercial, but that’s a different story….
I apologize for the mini-essay; I hope I didn’t bore people too much. I tend to get carried away when I speak about these subjects….
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. I could not keep it because the sleeves were impossibly long and very hard to alter. It's a shame. But, it went to some nice person in Japan and made me $1.5k reacher. That was a long time ago...
