"Intellectual fashion"

[Chicktiff]

Fashion aesthetic - not the main focus

This exactly. fashion should focus on aesthetic as opposed to being suggestive of something else. Sorely lacking is the creative ideas that make people take note of the fashion world; unfortunately people focus on the completely wrong things.

I'd argue that for the past 20 or so years, majority of designers have only been focused on aesthetics - or something shocking to draw eyeballs for a quick period. But, since most collections lack that deeper, thought provoking layer, they're really not interesting past the point of purchase. Maybe this is how see-now-buy-now was born in the first place.

Look at designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Rick Owens ... I could dive into Rick Owen's Cyclops show and pull out references to male-ego, fetishism, Leigh Bowery and Allen Jones - whose work you can pour over for years.

 

[blueorchid]

I was going to create a new thread, but I found this... it seems useful to bump up this topic with the reaction designers like Matthieu Blazy, etc. are getting. To the point where it's de-railing other discussions about designers, imo.

Especially surrounding what Blazy's work at Chanel will be. So much of the discussion surrounding "intellectual" fashion is met with disdain and an almost, hysterical, hatred of it (from my perspective), by some loud tFS users.

So, let's discuss. What is "Intellectual Fashion" in 2025? Is all intellectual fashion pretentious, or is pretentious fashion intellectual? What makes a designer an "intellectual"? Why is being an intellectual a bad thing (I find lots of traces of anti-intellectualism in people's hysterical reaction to so-called "intellectual" designers)?

(I can't help but cackle at Jacquemus described as "intellectual" in 2016...)

 

[JohannesL]

I am pretty sure they are quite "intellectual" when marketing and selling expensive clothes to their customers that those are different kind of fashion, but never the way they are going to change our societies for the better that I would associate with intellectuals. Maybe fashion is a still small world that exclude ordinary people who cares more about earning a living than exploring intellectual fashion. I think Miuccia has her points, the Belges have their points, and so do the Japanese, but they are still not intellectual enough to break the bubble of high fashion that can convince us mortals they are intellectuals in a common sense.

 

[JohannesL]

I wonder some people find intellectual fashion pretentious having to do with the perception of such aesthetic in social context, because to me there is no difference between the "vulagarity" of eurotrash and the "purity" of intellectual fashion(both I disagree) as they are just different ways of flaunting the obscenelity of wealth but maybe it is more intellectual to hide your wealth with this aesthetic without upseting ordinary people who are the victims of globalized exploitation.

 

[blueorchid]

@JohannesL I’m very confused about your definition of intellectual including trying to make the world a better place. Can you clarify?

 

[JohannesL]

@JohannesL I’m very confused about your definition of intellectual including trying to make the world a better place. Can you clarify?

It is from my shallow and silly moral superiority that one can argue about the same thing about how great are the NAFTA and WTO which economists (intellectuals in common sense whom I despise) has defended for decades just for one instance. I get what you and other members wrote, and I have actually been trying to know more about this aesthetic but fashion critics is just not my strength.

 

[blueorchid]

I'm sorry... but... what? What does being an intellectual have to do with supporting NAFTA and the WTO? Not all intellectuals are economists, and surely not all economists are intellectuals?

According to the OED, these are the most common definitions of intellectual (that aren't archaic/rarely used)





Oxford English Dictionary

 

[JohannesL]

Now the debate becomes which occupation is qualified as intellectuals and in fashion the closest one is probably Elsa if we take fashion designers as serious as economist, historians, philosopher and the likes. My opinions just more align with non-fashion people who view the industry and its people not in the sense of intellectual. If we refer to the dictionary definition, you are no doubt an intellectual.

 

[blueorchid]

If we refer to the dictionary definition, you are no doubt an intellectual.

I will accept that as the insult you surely meant it to be.

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

So interesting all the points of view in this thread and in the Mathieu Blazy one.

Like many people, I would instinctively deem Helmut Lang more intellectual than DSquared.
But maybe these are only projections I make based in many elements external to the clothes: the shows, the interviews, the public persona of the designers, the campaigns...

Confronted to pieces that I have seen in museums, outside the Fashion machinery, it becomes harder for me to put the label "intellectual", with only the clothes.
If I had to pick who was the intellectual one, between Fortuny, Poiret, Lanvin, Vionnet and Madame Grès... I wouldn't know.

So I would say: better cut or worse, embroidered to create a denim effect or in actual denim, infinitely creative or strictly functional, made by someone who enjoys philosophy or soccer, a trouser is a trouser. Full stop.



(But then you could say that a Gabrielle Chanel 1930s trouser for women is not just a trouser 🤣 and you would be right.
And we would go on and on.

That's what I love about fashion: it creates beauty but it also provokes ideas, dreams, communication and words, sometimes very articulate like the ones posted in this forum by many of you, and they are fun and exciting to read.)

 

[fromdawntodecadence]

What is often deemed as intellectual in the world of fashion or design is minimalism. In many ways, minimalism is masquerading as a form of intellectualism—the "less is more" aesthetic that has been pervasive as of late in editorials. The problem I tend to have with a minimalist approach is that everything starts looking the same and loses its distinct character or voice, where the art lies IMO. There are too many constraints, which squashes the free-flowing expression that gives artists their unique voice. There are codes to follow, and you must not stray. This is why all the pretentious fashion magazines often look identical—sometimes very difficult to distinguish one photographer to the next—this sends a creative chill through the industry as nobody wants to take risks or upset the overlords in charge of hiring the creative teams for editorial shoots. We are then left with bland nothingness, leaving the soul unsatiated.

 

[Monsieur Cristobal]

Absolutely.
Less is more when excess is the norm.
When minimalism is, less is less.

 

[JohannesL]

I will accept that as the insult you surely meant it to be.

No, it is not an insult. You can call me an "intellectual" and I will happily accept it no matter what the word actually mean.

 

[blueorchid]

Why do we think intellectualism in fashion is associated with minimalism? To me, minimalism and maximalism are alternating trends in fashion, when we've had enough of one... the other swoops in.

Also, in other fields simplicity/minimalism isn't often viewed as *intellectual*? I guess in music there's like... atonal music or sparse poetry. Things which are meant to appeases our intellect rather than aesthetics.

 

[Snejana Onopka]

long *** rant incoming sorry yall i feel like babbling 🫦💋🚬

if we're being strict and reactionary while defining what makes fashion/fashion designers intelectual, for a designer to be considered intelectual he or she has to have a solid academic background (they must have a PhD or whatever) but imo its a very old fashioned, and quite frankly useless criteria.

modern fashion is a tricky subject bc its inherently paradoxical, its made up of images/descriptions (a system of signs if you will lol), is not purely about garments, the physical product in itself, but something more abstract: a chanel tweed tailleur for example is not just a jacket, it goes beyond that: its a symbol of a certain class, a savoir-faire, an institution and even a cultural perception of french identity. I think every designer working today has to operate in this system and to me what makes a designer intelectual is the awareness of how this very especific environment works and how to play in it/around with it.

in this sense miuccia, rei and margiela are extremely intellectual designers, not bc they imbue their work with arty/niche references but bc they understand how fashion works, in the economical and social sense: what they produced was both a reflection of our times AND an anticipation of how ppl would dress/relate to clothes also (this is a very very very personal opinion and by this definition all the greats would be intellectual designers but w/e lol).

Fashion students and designers nowadays are striving for the intellectual """look""", associated with phoebe/martin/helmut, but they're not very interested in knowing why it is considered cerebral, they take the media's definition of what an intelectual design is and run with it lol. i think blazy gets an unfair heat bc of this, he never positioned himself as an intelectual figure but ppl project this image onto him: he studied in belgium, he's part of raf's clique, he worked at margiela and with phoebe, all things associated with intelectual design lol

I'd argue that there's also this distinction the west makes, thanks to early moderniy, between body and mind, where the body and every activity related to it is seen as lesser separated from the mind, where the important things happen and funnily enough fashion's medium is the body, as a result someone like pieter or raf basically ignore the body and operate solely on ideas bc consciously or subconsciously they think fashion is lesser than furniture design or architecture.

the dude from marni, raf post-jil sander and pieter's alaia are examples of a complete denial of their medium/support, they dgaf about the body everything is an experimentation that results in awful useless clothing bc they exist in a vacuum, not fully aware of fashion's system. the media might hype up pieter's alaia and raf's prada but they wont stand the test of time bc theyre empty, innocuous, an unhumurous farse disguised as a cerebral output (pieter gets a pass bc he seems like a sweetheart, raf and his old *** still wearing oversized sweaters can puff away marlboro lights in a gallery in the middle of bumfuck nowhere while discussing why sterling ruby's paint diarrhea is the second coming of cy twombly)