Fashion Is Boring ... Have they Run Out of Ideas?

[Zazie]

Thank you Pastry..may you always find inspiration.

 

[faust]

Now all the major houses have their second, third, and fourth lines, every celebrity has their own brand, and as if that weren't enough, in addition to printemps/ete and automne/hiver we have the "cruise","resort",and whatnot collections...vintage...young and indies designers in the spotlight...and then the highstreet stores replicating all that and multiplying it by two, three...

It's just too much!

...I think it's too much business/greed/speed and not enough emphasis on quality and art. (As with anything.)

It's like the .com bubble!!!

 

[faust]

This is something I believe in as well.

(though I don't agree that all designers should be registered as in couture because rules are so easily corrupted)

I think the idea of a fashion show, fashion weeks, and bi-yearly collections are outmoded convention.

Bi yearly collections:
Stores want new things every week - it gives their customers a reason to come in more often.
Ergo - fashion is fleeting because Fashion Is Boring. The fact that we get sick of our things and "want something new" gives fashion a reason to exist. The worst thing about fashion week is having to wait for months for it to come again. As fashion people we are always bored with the project we just worked on. I'm always asking "what's next?"

Fashion shows cost tons and tons of money and are fleeting - a years worth of work leads up to fifteen minutes for the designer? Only a few people get to see the show and the rest of us have to look of static, flash-card style pics?
Photo shoots are 100X better than fashion shows. Far less people to co-ordinate, more creative, more expressive, and more available to smaller designers.
I'm interested in Oscar De La Renta's trunk shows as a more engaging kind of "show". Rather than experiencing the show through the intermediary media the customers get to meet with the designer personally, actually touch and try on the clothing, and have a pleasant experience rather than the hyped-up circus fashion week has become. It's supposed to be about clothes, remember? This is another option for a small designer who wants to make certain, select people aware of (and inspired by) the story behind the clothes.

Certainly it is not all bad. And I look forward to fashion weeks every year and enjoy and learn from the good and the bad. It isn't boring at all!

Just some ideas.

Are you observing or prescribing? Because if you are prescribing, I'm with Melisande - that's a TERRIBLE way to view fashion. To me, the garment is far from fleeting - on contraire, I pick what I buy because I pay careful attention to it, downright to the last minute detail, and hope that they will last me for years and years to come (unless my aesthetical views change).

 

[olivia tod]

Zazie said it best.

the trends makes fashion boring. it makes things accessible and it doesn't help that you have magazines telling you wat to wear, telling you this is the it look.
one season ,preferably a spring one, all trend companies should decide not to send out any information and let designers decide completely void of direction what to put the consumer in next season it is then they would have to search for an original thought, an original cut, an original pattern.

why i would think that would be utter disaster? so many designers would sink and fail thereby producing things so far away from any believable past aesthetic. you would find yourself saying? WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY DOING ALL THESE YEARS?
oh and how could i forget wat would old navy, gap,etc. do when they can't find the lastest common fad to send into the mass markets.

At 1st i didn't understand the shelly fox collection and though minimalist in its own way which im all for cause im so tired of colour. (my eyes hurt everytime i see a print with flowers, bees, goats...watever.) i get the collection now and it is beautiful. that's the kind of designer you want to emulate looking for new way to cut, a new way to drape, a whole new aesthetic.

sometimes the runways cheapen fashion as was said before the photoshoots are more interesting. a new concept needs to be implemented. it so easy to get bored and with fashion you always want something new all... the... time.
i remember being completely and utterly bored of gypsy skirts and boho chic after seeing all the spring/summer '05 last year so when the hit the main market in '05 i wanted to poke out my eyes.

Innovation is the name of the game and the fashion world prides itself on the ability to be innovative. Then it should be innovative and start a revolution for the new generation forego commercial for avant-garde. sell individualism to the masses not copier-friendly.

fashion is not boring it is UNINSPIRED DUE TO COMMERCIALITY AND GREED.

 

[Zazie]

Hee...the very personification of society, Ms. Wintour, gets fingered for blame by the NYTimes... though I would ask if this isn't a case of the pot and the kettle, Ms Horyn. Plus, Chado Ralph Rucci is really, really ugly....

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/fashion/shows/19FASHION.html

Return to Practicality Begets Simple Elegance By CATHY HORYN
Published: September 19, 2005

.....
The desire to be knocked off your feet by fashion lurks everywhere. I wondered, though, as I boarded my own train for the hugely looming pleasures of home (the bath, the bed, the dog's warm breath), how many designers realize how deep that craving runs. If they did, they would have produced fewer but better clothes. They would have listened less to editors and more to themselves.

Editors have long given designers advice. During World War II, Diana Vreeland, then at Harper's Bazaar, encouraged a young designer named Mildred Orrick to pursue her idea of leotard-based dressing, and though, according to the fashion historian Caroline Rennolds Milbank, the credit went to Claire McCardell, whose company manufactured the style, Ms. Orrick achieved recognition of her own for simple but innovative sportswear, like floor-length cotton sundresses for evening.

Today, however, editors exert an influence not only through their magazines but also Web sites and endowment funds like the CFDA/Vogue Fund, which was initiated last year by Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, to give money and advice to young designers. Even my Lab wouldn't consider that a harmless alliance, and he tends to approve of everything.

But the best designers are independent ones, and in following Ms. Wintour's suggestion to show in the blank white space of the tents, Johnson Hartig and Cindy Green of Libertine unwittingly overexposed the label's design conceits, reducing vintage tulle skirts and jackets with crystal-beaded cobwebs to a one-liner. Ms. Wintour's best intentions on behalf of the American fashion industry have also led, perhaps unconsciously, to a style that could be called "pleasing Anna." Its most ubiquitous form this season is the chaste white dress (Derek Lam, Proenza Schouler), followed by rustling widow silks and Quaker hairdos seemingly transposed from a 19th-century daguerreotype (Vera Wang).

A consensus is fatal to fashion. It derails the train of innovative fashion that began in New York in the 1930's, with designers like Ms. McCardell and Elizabeth Hawes. As Ms. Milbank said in her comprehensive study, "New York Fashion" (Harry Abrams, 1989 "Practicality has always been an American trait, and an American dress can be considered less a work of art than a solution to a design problem. When solved well, elegance is the natural result."

 

[Tushka_BeLLa]

Fashion will never cease to excite me. However, I feel stuck in the boring slump of New York and London fashion week. Bring on Milan and Paris!!! Of course South African Fashion Week remains as gorgeous and eclectic as ever....and will never cease to amaze me with new ideas and concepts .... the French are just French..The Italians are just Italian ... but there is something about an African and Indian and South African street culture .... this cultural mix spurned into fashion - that makes it so exciting. It is especially interesting to watch fashion develop in a developing country.

Just my two cents. I'm such a proud citizen.....hehe.

 

[Melisande]

Wait a sec...people are talking about different things here. Zazie and others are discussing clothes as a form of expression, others are discussing the fashion *industry*.

I agree with you, Zazie, totally. I just think the fashion **industry** is, like Faust says, in a sort of tiresome bubble. For better or for worse, it will eventually burst, hopefully leaving the best to survive, and then we will move forward.

For inspiration, I no longer look at magazines or even most boutiques except the really interesting ones, and focus on things that really move me: music, art, literature, nature. Fashion comes from within---not the market.

 

[.francesca]

it's not boring, there's just a lot of ridiculously bad crap out there that's clouding your judgement.



i'm serious though.

 

[Zazie]

Right on, Olivia, Bella, Melisande..I think fashion is revolting (and I don't mean the latest Basso and Brooks...) - the cries for an end to the same old pandering to the highest common denominator are loud and clear and when the NYTimes reports it, it's officially a TREND itself.

I fear websites and blogs are threatening the centralised dissemination of fashion, and the very heart of the fashion elites themselves, as opinion leaders can now be openly challenged, and it can be pointed out that this emperor has no clothes.

As individuals, we can always find our own internal space for all that thrills us in life, including the fashion in which we all express ourselves, no matter how awful the system has become.

 

[Ghost]

non non non non...............people here are not discussing
they are competing who is the most well-said.....haha

post a professional-like comment and come back later to check whether others were impressed.

 

[mdankwah]

^That's too funny

 

[faust]

non non non non...............people here are not discussing
they are competing who is the most well-said.....haha

post a professional-like comment and come back later to check whether others were impressed.

Gee, I wonder if you are too smart or too stupid to make such a statement. Why don't you start us off with "a professional-like" comment, so we can find out, Suzy?

 

[fullfrontal]

I think fashion has reached it's commercial stage and that makes everything taste a bit bland because the money rules and the creativity becomes secondary. It's the same thing that went on in the music business. Conglomerates taking an interest in a profitable industry and buying up ever hot brand in sight. It scares me when I'm reading that LVMH as listed 2007 as the breakeven point for Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. I understand that as a business you have to recoup your investment, but just imagine the pressure on the designer (do I make clothes that will ensure that I meet the requirement or do I stick to what I want to design and perhaps lose my financial backing?)

I agree with whomever said that designers are playing it safe. Many designers seem to be going for the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to the most amount of people. Those designers aren't trying to set any trends or define any moment, they are just trying to make the numbers. It's becoming pop music. But just like in the music industry the real creative people will decide that they don't need the huge companies in order to be successful and refuse to be reduced to bottom lines and will decide to go back to the way it all started...independently with their art being most important.

It's funny how this all comes of the heels of NY Fashion Week which is basically a joke at this point. NYFW has become this huge NY event instead of a showing of collections for the next season. It's too much about sponsors, the partners, celebrities, all kinds of everything being shoved in your face and not enough about the clothes.

 

[Johnny]

non non non non...............people here are not discussing
they are competing who is the most well-said.....haha

post a professional-like comment and come back later to check whether others were impressed.

Well spotted! This thread has lost its, ahem, thread. We're all talking about different things. It seems clear to me that the original idea was about the fashion industry, fashion brands etc, so there's no point in going on about fashion never being boring then saying that fashion is revolting. It makes no sense, sicne there are two different things being discussed both being given the same label.

Anyway what do you think ghost, smarty-pants?

 

[Zazie]

non non non non...............people here are not discussing
they are competing who is the most well-said.....haha

post a professional-like comment and come back later to check whether others were impressed.

Ok, Congratulations, you win! You're the most well-said. B)

 

[Zazie]

Well spotted! This thread has lost its, ahem, thread. We're all talking about different things. It seems clear to me that the original idea was about the fashion industry, fashion brands etc, so there's no point in going on about fashion never being boring then saying that fashion is revolting. It makes no sense, sicne there are two different things being discussed both being given the same label.

Anyway what do you think ghost, smarty-pants?

Well, when the designer loses his individuality to the fashion industry, to the reviews by editors, to the huge marketing machine, that's what's wrong with the system, it's no longer about the creativity of one talented dude. And if we all buy because of the fashion industry, the reviews, the advertising, etc. ad nauseum, there's no point in any designer exercising individual creativity is there?

If the NYTimes is writing about it (the article I posted about Wintour and the one about webblogs), it's obviously not a fringe phenomenon, but possibly a revolt stirring against this.

Both ends have to be addressed, the talented designer emboldened to make or break it, editors be damned and the fashion watchers setting up alternative information structures to judge them on their merits instead of slavishly following the fashion elites.

I presume many posters here work in the fashion industry, and are buyers with substantial knowledge, who knows what they might decide from here and how that might change things?

I don't see how you can separate the fashion industry as a sort of untouchable ivory tower, while ignoring the potential of serious changes in the market (i.e. us and the way we access information and make judgement) which the industry feeds on.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I think fashion is boring for people who allow what they call "fashion" to be served to them via Vogue or the latest display at the mall. There are alot of exciting designers out there doing fantastic things. With a little but of intiative you can enjoy them as well.

 

[Zazie]

I'm off to bed. And no, not interested in coming back and checking your response. I was being f*cking sincere, in reminding everyone that they just need to look at themselves, to remember *what they first love about fashion*, to be aware of what they are doing here on tfs in expressing opinions, to know that this isn't some juggernaut that those of us who are disgusted with it are powerless to change.

Exit stage left.

 

[Johnny]

Well, when the designer loses his individuality to the fashion industry, to the reviews by editors, to the huge marketing machine, that's what's wrong with the system, it's no longer about the creativity of one talented dude. And if we all buy because of the fashion industry, the reviews, the advertising, etc. ad nauseum, there's no point in any designer exercising individual creativity is there?

If the NYTimes is writing about it (the article I posted about Wintour and the one about webblogs), it's obviously not a fringe phenomenon, but possibly a revolt stirring against this.

Both ends have to be addressed, the talented designer emboldened to make or break it, editors be damned and the fashion watchers setting up alternative information structures to judge them on their merits instead of slavishly following the fashion elites.

I presume many posters here work in the fashion industry, and are buyers with substantial knowledge, who knows what they might decide from here and how that might change things?

I don't see how you can separate the fashion industry as a sort of untouchable ivory tower, while ignoring the potential of serious changes in the market (i.e. us and the way we access information and make judgement) which the industry feeds on.

I haven't a clue what you're on about in most of that post, maybe I'm missing something. In fact, I think you certainly cannot separate the fashion industry form the designers; I think quite the opposite. What I'm saying and what I think is that fashion as a whole is less interesting than it used to be, at least for me, because of oversaturation and overavailability. There are obviously elements of it that I like - in other words, the two or three designers that interest me - but that doesn't mean that, on the whole, the industry is not dull. It is. When we talk about fashion we must be talking about the whole industry not just the bits of it we like, otherwise you can't have a discussion, since everything can be reduced to the subjective. And on the whole, I don't like it as much as I used. I don't still have the same bug as I did when in fact I couldn't really afford it. Democratisation of fashion is over-rated. It results in countless fat wee girls on the high street wearing Joss Stone-a-like outfits with peasant skirts and thick brown belts with jeweled buckles.

 

[Johnny]

I'm off to bed. And no, not interested in coming back and checking your response. I was being f*cking sincere, in reminding everyone that they just need to look at themselves, to remember *what they first love about fashion*, to be aware of what they are doing here on tfs in expressing opinions, to know that this isn't some juggernaut that those of us who are disgusted with it are powerless to change.

Exit stage left.

Chill out zazie. No need for the am-drams! Nighty-night.