Minimalism and Fashion [Book]

[Faust]

I think minimalism has to do with taking away superfluous details, and finding beauty in simplicity (not simpleness). Jil Sander is the prime example here. Helmut Lang sans bondage as well. Some of Margiela's work, too. But I would be hard-pressed to think of Hussein Chalayan as a minimalist, for example, or Yohji Yamamoto.

[Dandyzoku]

minimalism isn't for the untrained eye, but usually compliments you get are typically better thought out and contain more substance. For most, its a hard aesthetic to understand given that people assume they can have most of it made at their tailor since it requires no adornments.

[nqth]

could you please compare those two books (Elyssa Dimant's and Harriet Walker's), i'm interested in the texts especially. i saw the later in a bookstore. it offers a lot of interesting texts on CdG, YY, IM, MMM, HL and Ann D to name but a few. The author saw fashion from "minimalistic" perspectives and explained why comme and yy were all described minimalism, of course in a much broader sense than just "simplicity". such as negation of colours, forms, or the attention to fabrics, while ignoring human body.
thanks!

[888]

I daresay I don't find much of the SZ aesthetic particularly Loos-ian. Things like fake distressing on certain Rick products or unusual-for-the sake-of-it cuts are the very definition of ornamentation. While their decoration in some instances is subtle, it is still there and still unnecessary. Throup's work for Umbro, however - aside from branding obviously - is more in keeping with those sort of ideals. Monochrome, functional, every detail that is there is there for a purpose.

[Faust]

Interesting how the two posts above take a diametrically opposed view of the work of the same designers. :)

[safeword123]

thanks for bringing this thread back! lots to ponder. i'd just like to add a quote from Amy Spindler, whose work i only recently became aware of.

Minimalism is as noncommittal as fashion gets without leaving a body naked.

At its best, minimalist fashion is like Mission-style oak furniture: inviting, architectural, sturdy, elegant. At worst, it's plain. It can put demands on the wearer. It won't inspire your friends to apply adjectives to you that you couldn't inspire alone. A minimalist dress is the only $2,000 one that you might wear to meet the Dalai Lama without feeling obscene.

What sets the minimalists on this page above the rest is their deceit and their conceit. Deceit because these clothes look so simple but can in fact be the most difficult: many are cut on the bias (diagonally, across the grain of the fabric). The bias cut makes them drape. The conceit is the richness of the fabric. There is nothing plain about chiffon backed with silk, or cashmere woven into the rib knit of a sweater.

Minimalism is best described not by what it is, but by what it lacks. There's no lace. No tulle. No fringe. No flouncy tiers. No rows of pleats. For those who subscribe, it is defined the way obscenity ofter is: they know it when they see it.

[laika]

awesome thread...i can't believe we don't have something like this already in the designers & their work forum.

i too would like to hear more about both of these books. and is there any way we can restore the images from the first page?

also, shall we use this thread for examples/general discussion of minimalism as well?

[525252]

trentk asked a question in the "approaches to fashion" thread

Actually, I am curious to ask, seeing as I don't think I've seen it asked on this forum: where is the fashion in art? how does fashion appear in art?

I have thought to answer this question before (which resulted in a very ambitious and badly written essay) but I have looked to minimalism in fashion as an appropriate topic of study which I think evokes the issue of fashion in art. I'm going to thought-vomit a bit here, but I would very much like to hear people's opinions on this :)

I think of minimalism in design in correlation with the abstraction of art. While art and design are fundamentally opposing in their function/non-funtion, the effect of abstraction in Modernist art to painting more or less the same as in minimalist design.

Abstraction in art, modernist non-figurative painting for example, started as a spiritual endeavour which would elevate the human as creative being. This is reflected in the manifestos of the Futurists, De Stijl and the Suprematists. Later in art discourse, the works of these groups are re-contextualised as political destructions of painting- abstraction as a means of escape by slashing the canvas or voiding it with black. Abstract painting goes from spiritual to materialist, but it is always conceptual. Its conceptual nature is problematic because it is then susceptible to re-contextualisation by whoever according to whatever agenda. Of course, Post-Modernist sentiments don't really like the Modernists' flouncy feelings about transcendence and shit in painting so they appropriate its relevance to art to suit its own agenda- they make abstract painting a de-constructive exercise in self reflection.

The contemporary situation demands of abstract painting that it be a commodity, Modernist abstract art sells well and perpetuates the system which has infiltrated the all too sacred bounds of art and turned it into an asset class object. This is where I find fashion in art. Retrospective of Modernist abstraction at MoMA, Rothko ooh ahhh, Malevich coffee table book, Downtown Boogie Woogie mug: terribly fashionable. An abstract painting no longer subverts art, it signifies "art".

So I'm going back on point to how minimalism in fashion design is relevant to all of this. Pure in its utilitarian ethic, minimalism is an abstraction of design. But what happens when you abstract design to its limit?



On the left we have a piece of cloth that is only the image of a garment: the pure image of fashion.
On the right we have the abstracted design object:a jacket which is nothing but a jacket. It attempts to signify a void, "this is nothing but a jacket". Both are pretty impossible objects as either fashion or clothes. They have ultimately failed in their utilitarian project, BUT BAM, THIS IS NO LONGER FASHION, IT IS ART.

what my terribly written essay attempted to conclude was that minimalism and abstraction in art and design have binary/complementary effects on each other. Art becomes fashion when pushed to its abstracted limit and the vice versa.

[nqth]

safeword123, I think Amy Spindler must refer to so called "lux minimalism" (Jil Sander came to mind).

As i remember from Walker Harriet's book, she wrote sth like RK and YY reduced garments to just a piece of fabric, and often it was japanese workwear's fabric. So the fabric was not very elegant or sophisticated, and designed with their functionality in mind. But RK and YY manipulated it, draping, cutting... as though it were a precious material. They also used it in a quantity that an average japanese worker would never afford - so it was sort of having to do with luxury.

i am very interested in what she wrote abt other designers. There was some text on labels like Celine in recent time. I've ordered the book so maybe i will be able to post some images from it.

what also interesting is Jil Sander saying there is a need for "new approach" for minimalism. I'd love to hear more discussions on it.