Art & Fashion: Aesthetic Worlds with Seamless Boundaries
+ Click image to enlarge
Andrea Sisson's "¿Wearable Objects, Objects You Wear?" Photo courtesy of Ashley Kempher.
Andrea Sisson's "¿Wearable Objects, Objects You Wear?" Photo courtesy of Ashley Kempher.Despite an extensive common history, fashion's status as art often necessitates explanation. Even with well-documented connections amongst designers, artists, and art collectors over the past dozen decades—not to mention the many fashion exhibitions put on by such prestigious art institutions as the Metropolitan Museum and our very own Cincinnati Art Museum—the connection between the two often begs justification, particularly in lofty critical journals whose writers and readers might harbor partialities for fine (as opposed to applied) art. What follows is a brief history lesson.
Haute Couture, literally "high sewing," is today revered as the artistic acme of fashion's biannual public offering. The collections typically offer very little by way of wearable fashion for the everyday woman or man but allow the fashion house and designers to show off their creative talents. However, at Haute Couture's inception during the last quarter of the nineteenth century in Paris, it was—relatively speaking—a more commercialized method than the previous form of garment making, couture à façon, or dressmaking for the individual. Haute Couture involved making multiple models with interchangeable parts. Thus, it made endless adaptation and duplication of the same dress possible. Couturiers created different pieces (bodice, skirt, sash, etc.)—often sewn on machines—that one could choose from, which would ultimately be hand-stitched together to personal specifications.
It was during this era that—perhaps freed by the further mechanization of their trade—nineteenth century couturiers began to focus more on their artistic passions. Many of the top fashion houses had art collectors at the helm who aligned themselves with artists for the purpose of creating an aura of artistry around their brand names. Designers like Charles F. Worth, Jacques Doucet, & Paul Poiret employed artists to sketch their designs for client look books, take their portraits, create brand letterheads, and help build their personal art collections with the hottest artists' works. Current fashion houses Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Cartier continue this tradition of supporting artists by collecting and underwriting exhibitions, in addition to curating and displaying art in museum like spaces.
Marina Abramovic, The Artist is Present, Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images North America.The barrier between "crafts(wo)man" and "artist" has always been ambiguous and migratory. During the 1970s, quilts were upgraded from crafts to fine art. Examples of artists crossing the line into fashion are numerous. Italian Futurist Giacomo Balla wrote "Manifesto for Men's Clothing" and designed elaborate avant garde suits. Pablo Picasso designed costumes for The Ballet Russes' production, Parade (1917), and Halston designed costumes for Martha Graham. Andy Warhol created ads and in-store displays for Halston; the Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2008 runway show had models holding Richard Prince-designed bags while dressed like women in the painter's "Nurse" series; and most recently, Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci dressed Marina Abramović throughout her "The Artist is Present" performance piece at The Museum of Modern Art. Abramović's change of dramatic dresses were such a part of her performance that—besides her sitting companion—her garb may have been the only variable throughout her performance, changing from blue, to red, and finally white over the course of her three-month installation.
It is with these ideas of Art's connections to Fashion on my mind that I recently attended the School of Design Art, Architecture, and Planning's (DAAP) 59th-annual fashion show at the University of Cincinnati. Featuring the school's largest graduating class to date, the tightly organized two-hour show included original designs from thirty-nine seniors and numerous undergraduates. The designs that made the best impression on this reviewer were both conceptually artistic and well executed.
Karey Gottschang, Frosted Veil, 2010. photo by Maria Seda-Reeder.The Fashion Design program at DAAP (within the School of Design,) is divided departmentally into Design Track and Product Development. The collections on the runway were those created by the students of the Design Track and thus produced for a hypothetical future in the fashion market. There were many quintessential examples of saleable fashion throughout the course of the fashion show. Jacklyn McFeely's "The Caged Heart" included red and black ruffled skirts, sheer tops, and tailored jackets perfect for any formalwear event. A collection of bridal and evening wear dresses by Karey Gottschang ("Frosted Veil") included a cake-topper bridal gown complete with voluminous skirt and strapless sweetheart bodice.
Rachel Ramsey, Muscled, 2010. Photo courtesy of DAAPworks website gallery.
Nancy Todd, Addicted to Love-Potion IX, 2010. Photo courtesy of Lisa Ventre.
Rachel D. Shaftel, Perperam Sensa, 2010. Photo by Sunny Thakkar and Alias Imaging.Some adventurous departures from the ubiquitous dress culture of such shows were "Muscled" by Rachel Ramsey and Andrea Sisson's "¿Wearable Instruments, Instruments You Wear?" Ramsey's collection of all-season activewear comprised of bold colors and compression fabrics was "inspired by the power, speed, and appeal of classic American muscle cars." Sisson's collection of four outfits were rigged—as the title suggests— with musical instruments embedded into and on top of the garments, and worn/played by students from the University's College Conservatory of Music.
Perhaps the evening's most memorable moment was Nancy Todd's "Addicted to Love-Potion IX." Her group of nine models arranged three-by-three were styled like Robert Palmer's video vixens (the slicked-back hair and red lipstick) and wearing jackets that zippered to each other, when in formation. The wearers were models-cum-performance artists, required to walk in synch to turn around and detach themselves into rows of three, revealing their common fasteners. The humor and style of the moment was not lost on the audience who burst into spontaneous hoots and applause at the spectacle.
Originality is a challenge for all contemporary artists, and there were many here who succeeded. Kristen Dake's natural (perhaps vegetable dyed?) raw-edged knits from "The Farmer's Tale" were pleasantly offset by primarily white pieces underneath. Lindsey Winner's "Embody Your Senses" included lovely dresses printed with images of chemical reactions, piped silk crepe, and panels of glass beads, which provided texture and balance of form and color to the designs. The collections "Perperam Sensa" by Rachel D. Shaftel and "Skint" by Elizabeth Ricketts (who also won the Director's Choice Award), as well as the results of the Experimental Design class were also notable for their marked creativity and apparent technical skill.
Milan delVecchio’s Yolk’s On You, 2010. Photo courtesy of Ashley Kempher.My favorite collections of the evening (including those listed above) were perhaps least qualified for sale at one's local department store and may be more appropriate for installation at a local gallery. One particular example was Milan delVecchio's "Yolk's On You," a "multimedia performance piece." DelVecchio's animated video of the same name inspired the collection and demonstrates the wit in her artistic bent. The levity implied by the title was not lost in translation to material form, as several of the mobile models (a few remained stationary–attached to each other via their clothing) appeared to be wearing baby carriers. As they ambled down the catwalk one could see that these attached-yet-wiggling accessories were in fact large, ostrich-size eggs held in gauzy satchels that were a part of each ensemble. Where someone might wear the garments is perhaps beyond the point, but it will be exciting to watch delVecchio's future in fashion unfold.
I am pleased to report that all appears hopeful for the graduates of DAAP's 2010 Fashion Design Track program. In addition to the local glitterati who were in attendance, famous alumna Althea Harper from Project Runway also added to the allure of the event. With so many talented students—but only a limited number of positions in the fashion industry today—one can only anticipate that further stars (artists?) may find their own route to personal success.
The fashion show demonstrates many in both the fashion industry and the art world do not see a line dividing the two. Like former Curator of Prints at the Cincinnati Art Museum and longtime Japanese Haute Couture collector Mary Baskett puts it, some see Fashion and Art as a "continuum of aesthetics" rather than as something to separate. After all, we are each collectors who daily curate our own personal aesthetic by surrounding ourselves with imagery and style we value. If we call a spade a spade and recognize artists as practicing art, the barriers that separate worlds might just crumble.
Special thanks to Mary Baskett, Daniel Brown, Karen Chambers, and Laurie Wilson for their direction, advice, and kind assistance.
