Then you should already know that prints follow certain lines in pattern-making, that wherever the cloth is cut, darted, sewn there should be a corresponding segue of print, that segue of print is not significant in East Asian design because there are no use for darts, that uneven repetition is undesirable not only in graphic design but in East Asian fabric design, that the balance of negative and positive space is different in Western and East Asian contexts, that the heaviness of embroidery and print in kimono tends to be concentrated towards the bottom of the garment, that Dries is, again, juxtaposing these concepts against Western shapes, silhouettes, and aesthetics. Prints of clothes wherein print is of essense on clothes wherein cut is of essence. The social signifiers of East Asian design (dragons, cranes, phoenixes, crests, colors) flattened against the idealized democracy of Western clothing, the latter an important value in particular to Dries. No elite stum or cloak of mystification here (which I find deeply ironic when it was mentioned above). Simply impatience with the rhetoric.
I didn't know all of that so Thank You very much Uemarasan. Just the sort of exposition I was hoping for. You've piqued my interest. I follow a little of the difference of history of art/ graphic design structures from Kress and Van Leuwen's Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design I think I recall it's title being.
Below is the report of whom I take to be the premier fashion writing talent of the moment - Show Studio's Alex Fury. Though I find your thoughts more enlightening so thanks. Not quite sure why the battle but anyway.
There's always a sense of otherness in Dries Van Noten's work. It's rarely about another time, as Van Noten's clothes are rooted in the here-and-now (or, in the case of fashion's stilted life-cycle, the here-and-about-to-be), but it's often about transporting us away. For Autumn/Winter 2012 there was actually a little of both, that transportation taking us east, to Qing dynasty China to be precise.
Precise is maybe the wrong term, for these garments were miles away from flat facsimiles of Imperial China. Van Noten synthesised the different elements, combining print and embroidery, lavish fur and intricate texture, but avoided costume. The shapes throughout were simple - in the clean, uncomplicated to wear sense rather than lacking work, for these were supremely elegant clothes whose simplicity belied extreme effort. Van Noten folded print across pleated skirts and chopstick-slender suit jackets, sometimes abstracting them by placing a flat plane of elaborate oriental pattern at an angle to cut through the precise tailoring, other times engineering the print flawlessly to the body. One jacket had sleeves scrolled with Japanese-style woodcuts like painstaking tattoos, the closer turned to reveal a back banded in black, white a jade green like an ancient samurai warrior.
Van Noten's vision of Asia was somewhat distorted: in his mind, China and Japan blurred into one, figures from Japanese art jostling against robe embroideries in brilliant red, orange and Imperial Yellow, or the gold bullion crane embroideries that wound their way across otherwise utilitarian flak jackets. Maybe these were a nod to China's Mao past - if so, they were a bit glib, but as modern sports-luxe they looked fantastic.
It wasn't the actuality of the Far East Van Noten was seeking to capture, its high culture, ancient traditions and formalities, but more the essence of rich texture and vivid colour. Call it Chinese Whispers, if you must - and as with any game, the whispers became distorted as they passed down the line, until we ended up with Dries' translation of all that Chinese pomp and circumstance. That is, colourful, exuberant and eminently wearable clothes that women everywhere will hanker after.
Report by Alex Fury 3 minutes ago
