Carol Christian Poell

[Chant]

All your remarks are based on a single picture, and in addition a poor one since it's a showroom pic. We already said that no vaild comment can be made on pics whose purpose is only to be a reminder for buyers. But the most important is that, on this pic, the collar does not stand right.
This "contempt" comment does not make much sense, neither in particuliar, since your example is wrong (there are pics where the collar shows a very interesting relation to the upper part of the body and the head of the model), nor in general, since CCP's relation to the body he designs for is much more complicated, and interesting, than you think, or at least, say. Will elaborate later.

[Chant]

CCP said many times that he does not design for the body, but never that he would design against him, or even despise it - which would be, from a designer point of view, a non sense since the first material of the designer is not as one could think the fabric but obviously the human body.


To say it very shortly, a part of CCP's work is about accentuating, underlining or enhancing the formal rigidity that is a direct heritage of the mens sartorial tradition, that has been developped during the 19th century to become the standard European bourgeois way of clothing, and that was very restricting - the garment as a corselet, both for women and men. This kind of clothing is a direct heritage of the military clothing, as it is now well known here.

This explains the (over-)virilization of the silhouette, even though, as often with CCP, the opposite, and contadictory, tendancy, is concurrently present as well : the silouette is both virile and feminine. For example, the pagoda shaped shoulders are a characteristic feature of the women's clothing, as the high waist and round sides of the blazers, etc. Even the invisi- and chain-seam, that show a part of the weearer's skin underneath, are common features of the women's clothes, that reveal as much that they hide the female body, and might make some of the male CCP wearers feeling a bit uncomfortable with.

To keep on with this idea of a virile silhouette, one can say CCP sees the clothing as a protective surface, even as an exo-skeleton (and a prosthesis) - but not only since the opposite point of view is present too, as usual : the garment as a second skin (rigid-stiff vs soft).
Models for the exo-skeleton can be found in the military clothing again (the middle-aged armor), but as well in more contemporary technical "garments", like the deep-sea diving suit or the spacesuit, which might have inspired him in this collection (the titanium, the reflective fabric, the light in the dark, etc.).

If you look again the pic you were commenting, you'll maybe see now this influence on the shape of the collar, which is definitely non functionnal (collars should protect the neck), but definitely cohesive with CCP's work on the form of the garment and its relation with the body. Will post later a pic to show the proper way of wearing the collar.

[Pumpfish]

Refining the contempt argument into "object of contempt" versus "complicit in contempt" doesn't wash.

You are imagining a motive for something which is really just a consequence of a design concept.

Design concept: make a jacket from an uncut rectangle of denim.

Consequence: it is going to look a bit wierd around the neck.

End.

[AKA*NYC]

christian how does the "virile silhouette" idea explain why the 2008 collection was shown in a dirty, abandoned bathroom? or the gloves with conjoined fingers that suggest genetics gone awry? the fiberglass coat that can cause injury to the wearer? all the asymmetrical garments that distort the wearer's proportions, restrict his movement, and symbolically disfigure him? the dipped trainers that alter the wearer's gait? and this is just the last collection. in the past poell has presented his models in cages and blinded them with hoodwinks. copacetic simply suggested that certain garments reveal an aesthetic contempt toward the wearer. this strikes me as all but obvious. i don't think there is one right answer and the beauty of poell is that his work is open to such wide interpretation. that said the weird open neck piece in question strikes me as funny first and foremost: it's a rectangle with arms.

[Johnny]

maybe he's now grown to dislike men as much as he appeared to dislike women, from his attempts at dressing/disfiguring the female form.

i also lolirl at some of this stuff, the bin boots and even the nappy shorts. perhaps, after all, he just wants to make us feel happy.

[cjbreed]

Refining the contempt argument into "object of contempt" versus "complicit in contempt" doesn't wash.

You are imagining a motive for something which is really just a consequence of a design concept.

Design concept: make a jacket from an uncut rectangle of denim.

Consequence: it is going to look a bit wierd around the neck.

End.

i kind of got where u were coming from before and just thought that perhaps we just had different interpretations of "contempt". but now you act like we are basing this entire discussion on one picture of one garment. give me a break man. you also imply that he is coming up with design concepts just willy nilly. "oooh lets dip it in rubber! oooh lets make it shiny!" no dude. no.

[cjbreed]

...since he doesn't do runway shows perhaps there are pieces to be worn and pieces to be seen. i don't find his clothes painful in the slightest if you buy the right size

i agree that some are conceptual and some are meant to be worn. this has been demonstrated more overtly before with pieces like the block shoes, and so on. (speaking of the block shoes, how is this not contempt? you can't even fucking move. what could he be trying to say if not that? maybe we need a word other than contempt. is it loathing? fear? paralysis? dread? anger?). regarding the ones that are worn, no it isn't painful, its just that it constantly reminds you that you are wearing it. it is not like rick where you throw it on and forget it. and the explanation is not as simple as that it is tailored. so is brooks brothers. notice any difference? yes other designers have restrictive shoulders etc. ma+ comes to mind. but grandma uses materials and cut purposefully to break in and mold to the wearer. it starts out immobile but changes over time. i'm not sure the same can be said for xxx. the shoulder/armhole design is to create a sharp silhouette but the fact that there are so many other pieces that generate that same feeling tells me there is more to it than that. aka made this point with good examples a few posts up.

[philip nod]

all of this contempt and no love for bardot

[cjbreed]

CCP said many times that he does not design for the body, but never that he would design against him, or even despise it - which would be, from a designer point of view, a non sense since the first material of the designer is not as one could think the fabric but obviously the human body.

To say it very shortly, a part of CCP's work is about accentuating, underlining or enhancing the formal rigidity that is a direct heritage of the mens sartorial tradition...

i won't try to comment too directly to your post christian as i obviously agree with most of it. i do think that u misunderstand at least my point regarding contempt, i can't speak for everybody else. or perhaps you are taking it too literally as well. even if we concede that the designs against the body are conceptual, many other pieces are at least holding the body in check. (i'm going to ignore all the articulated pieces which are obviously designed for the body in the exo-skeleton vein. except when the joints don't line up and then its working against you haha) but is this really nonsense? or is it simply a paradox. or a challenge. is he using his clothing as a means to deal with his own feelings about himself? and others? self loathing? trauma? the death instinct? counter-intuition? i really don't know. i mean listen if there was ever a designer you could overthink its this guy. every single thing he produces is calculated. everything is tightly controlled. from the pictures to the model to the setting to the displays at lift to floating people down the river like they just drowned themselves. there is no way in the world this is just clothing, at least for him.

i don't know i guess i just think he's a complex guy. you said it yourself that a part of his work is an exploration of mens sartorial tradition. so, yes i think a part of it is about tailoring, a part is about precision, a part is about silhouette, a part is about materials, a part is about psychology and so on. maybe thats why it takes so long to produce a collection.

i'm not a wordy guy, i don't have a philosophy degree and i don't make my living with words. but much of what art is about, and this is art, is feelings. even if i can't express it, i can feel it. it feels harsh. but life is harsh. it looks sharp, when the world is messy. it is armor, because there is much to fear. to gain protection you sacrifice movement. and to wear xxx, you sacrifice mad $$$$$$$$$$$

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

One thing, no matter how calculated he is, his garments
will come into contact and connect to different body types,
processes you can have an idea of as you create, but can't
really fully be controlled.

Another thing, despite how much you work against or
disfiguring the body, at least for me, it makes you very
aware of your body, especially in relation to joints and
movement. So in a way it restores back a consciousness
to the body. It's a different sensation to what I find in
Demeulemeester, where I sometimes can feel as naked
as Bardot above.

But a consciousness nonetheless.

The dead end, almost adds a certain vulnerability to his
armors, in the way he breaks of the continuity
of seams.

[copacetic]

All your remarks are based on a single picture, and in addition a poor one since it's a showroom pic. We already said that no vaild comment can be made on pics whose purpose is only to be a reminder for buyers. But the most important is that, on this pic, the collar does not stand right.
This "contempt" comment does not make much sense, neither in particuliar, since your example is wrong (there are pics where the collar shows a very interesting relation to the upper part of the body and the head of the model), nor in general, since CCP's relation to the body he designs for is much more complicated, and interesting, than you think, or at least, say. Will elaborate later.

I agree with everything you say, particularly about clothes as exoskeleton.

But you critique but comment saying that I'm basing it off a single picture, and I never said I wasn't. I'm not trying to provide the sole prevailing force in Poell's design... I'm just trying to pinpoint one of many.

I also don't think that Poell is designing against the body...that would of course be absurd. He doesn't hate anybody! And the wearer doesn't hate himself! But many of his pieces fragment and distort this classical sartorial silhouette...and so the wearer takes pleasure in seeing his body transformed by his clothing. Is that transformation sometimes grotesque? I'd say yes, sometimes. Is that transformation sometimes to the androgynous? Yes, that too.

Poell designs in many ways. It's hard to pin him down to one overarching interpretation or school of thought.

Edit: One more thing!


"CCP said many times that he does not design for the body, but never that he would design against him, or even despise it - which would be, from a designer point of view, a non sense since the first material of the designer is not as one could think the fabric but obviously the human body."

It's often helpful in art criticism to divorce the artist's intention from the piece itself. To put it more bluntly, I don't care what he was thinking of when he designed the piece. The piece speaks for itself. Poell's comment can inform the criticism, but artists do have a way of misunderstanding themselves....

[Chant]

christian how does the "virile silhouette" idea explain why the 2008 collection was shown in a dirty, abandoned bathroom? or the gloves with conjoined fingers that suggest genetics gone awry? the fiberglass coat that can cause injury to the wearer? all the asymmetrical garments that distort the wearer's proportions, restrict his movement, and symbolically disfigure him? the dipped trainers that alter the wearer's gait? and this is just the last collection. in the past poell has presented his models in cages and blinded them with hoodwinks. copacetic simply suggested that certain garments reveal an aesthetic contempt toward the wearer. this strikes me as all but obvious. i don't think there is one right answer and the beauty of poell is that his work is open to such wide interpretation. that said the weird open neck piece in question strikes me as funny first and foremost: it's a rectangle with arms.

Hey, AKA*NYC, I never said that I had said everything I had, or wanted, to say about CCP. And I assume that you know it as well as me...
You wrote a great list btw and I'll try to answer all your questions, even though some of them implicate their replies.

all the asymmetrical garments that distort the wearer's proportions, restrict his movement, and symbolically disfigure him?

I'd say that a part of the "classic tailoring with a weird taste" effect is on one side the consequence of the mix of man and woman tailoring features, and, on the other one, the result of the distorsion/defiguration/reconfiguration of the human body - or at least a play with the human proportions as they've been fixed since the Renaissance.
Runner/Crouka would say that it is an expresionnist way of distorsion, since he likes to point the proximity between some of CCP's silhouettes and Egon Schiele's paintings. I'd rather reference it to some kind of grotesque - like copacetic just said. Not completely sure yet though.
His asymmetry is very interesting since, to the opposite of Damir or Ann, it is not a subbtle variation on symmetry, that enhances it, but something that goes against the symmetry and destroys it. For example, the SS07 asym blazer can't be worn closed - unless you want to achieve the Exorcist twist move :

christian how does the "virile silhouette" idea explain why the 2008 collection was shown in a dirty, abandoned bathroom?

I'd say that the reply is quite easy. You did have noticed that the toilets were mens, and that this collection was featuring a new, and rather, strange colour - quite close to piss. As I said the virile dimension in his clothing is always counterbalanced, or fought, by the opposite one. It might be feminine features, or homosexual ones. But, as we know, virility and homosexuality have been, in some periods of our recent history, quite close.

or the gloves with conjoined fingers that suggest genetics gone awry?

I read it in another way. It gives the human hand a singuliar form, and makes it look like a crab-claw (see exo-skeleton). I'd say as well that a part of his aesthetic is about moving the frontiers between genders, including the one that separate human beings from animals/insects.
But I have another interpretation, about the meaning of this geometric form. The two fingers merging into one show two possibility : either "two becomes one" (i.e. conflict/death) or "one becomes two" (i.e. birth/life), depending on the way you move along this specific part of the glove.

(this thread was desperately lacking of diagrams )

the dipped trainers that alter the wearer's gait?

This is very important imo, and happens not only with the dipped sneakers : derbies have a higher heel than regular ones, and are quite heavy; high and narrow armholes are constricting and restrain movements, as the very fiitted sleeves, or the stiff leather used for the kangaroo mitens; the quite rigid shape of the overcoats shoulders oblige you to pull yourself up. I'd say that this a consequence of the exo-skeleton dimension of some of the clothes : wearing an armour won't allow you to move easily, you have to learn a new way to do it, and from my point of view it's very interesting, since it will alter not only the way you usually move but as well the perception of your own body. "Clothing is a tactile experience", said once Avantster - but in a different sense here.

[cjbreed]

...I also don't think that Poell is designing against the body...that would of course be absurd. He doesn't hate anybody! And the wearer doesn't hate himself! But many of his pieces fragment and distort this classical sartorial silhouette...and so the wearer takes pleasure in seeing his body transformed by his clothing. Is that transformation sometimes grotesque? I'd say yes, sometimes. Is that transformation sometimes to the androgynous? Yes, that too. ...

i hope people don't think i'm implying that he or the wearer hates themselves. thats not what i mean. i think you're point about transformation better describes what i think.

[copacetic]

i hope people don't think i'm implying that he or the wearer hates themselves. thats not what i mean. i think you're point about transformation better describes what i think.

I was more clarifying my own comment... I think my use of the word contempt made people think I was implying the wearer was masochistic. He's not necessarily.

[Chant]

I also don't think that Poell is designing against the body...that would of course be absurd. He doesn't hate anybody! And the wearer doesn't hate himself! But many of his pieces fragment and distort this classical sartorial silhouette...and so the wearer takes pleasure in seeing his body transformed by his clothing. Is that transformation sometimes grotesque? I'd say yes, sometimes. Is that transformation sometimes to the androgynous? Yes, that too.

Poell designs in many ways. It's hard to pin him down to one overarching interpretation or school of thought.

Edit: One more thing!

"CCP said many times that he does not design for the body, but never that he would design against him, or even despise it - which would be, from a designer point of view, a non sense since the first material of the designer is not as one could think the fabric but obviously the human body."

It's often helpful in art criticism to divorce the artist's intention from the piece itself. To put it more bluntly, I don't care what he was thinking of when he designed the piece. The piece speaks for itself. Poell's comment can inform the criticism, but artists do have a way of misunderstanding themselves....

Completely agree on both points. The CCP's quote was just a short-cut, I don't care neither about what the designer/artist might say, their work speak by theirselves, and is open to any interpretation made by anyone who has a brain - which excludes of course Kunk, who's got only muscles+wallet.
I you Kunk.

EDIT : multi-edited my previous post.