The Issue of Authorship

[Faust]

Against interpretation!!!!

Yes, but ten years later she did a 180 with Fascinating Fascism.

[Fuuma]

Yes, but ten years later she did a 180 with Fascinating Fascism.

I dunno, a different grid for a different time and context seem sorta in line with the idea of staying away from formatted interpretation. I agree that in this specific case the author is def not dead.

[Faust]

I dunno, a different grid for a different time and context seem sorta in line with the idea of staying away from formatted interpretation. I agree that in this specific case the author is def not dead.

Look at you

[laika]

Against interpretation!!!!

aye!!

[Sombre]

Perhaps it would be much more revealing for one to analyse the clothes before they knew anything about the creator, and also once again after they have undertaken the discipline, time and effort to better understand the creator and their world.

I really like this point. For me this is how I got into ccp and raf simons and for this reason it is why the pieces I own are more special to me then luc or rick, even if I get more wear out of the later. Its the same way I have approached music. I hear a song and find out who it is by then try to find a bit more out about them, this can lead to the discovery of a whole realm of new bands or it can remain stalled at that one song. But I had to hear it first, if i had read about a song it wouldn't have been the same, my drive to discover more would not have been so strong.

Avanster's point is exactly what I was coming here to suggest. I'm going to compare fashion design and this question of authorship with literature, since that's the only art form whose analysis I know anything about. Whenever I'm interested in a book, I want to read it first, and if I enjoy it enough, read another work by the same author, and then, after those two, find out more about the author's life and beliefs. This is because I don't like being forced into or pushed toward an analysis of any work. I like to have my own views, and only afterward see if they are congruent with the author's intentions. (This is why I hate falling behind in classroom reading, even though it tends to happen from time to time.)

If we compare fashion to literature, the former should be no different. I want to look at a few collections from a designer and (if possible) feel the work before I find out about encompassing philosophy or inspiration for the collection. My interpretation prior to this may be completely wrong but it will always represent my analysis of the designer's work according to the factors important to me at the time.
EDIT: If I had purchased an Odyn Vovk piece before reading Sherbanenko's comment about homeless people, I would have gone home and promptly burned the garment. Forget about buying. I'll confine the above paragraph to looking at collections and handling the work.

Unlike Gerry, I don't mind the more extreme manifestations of a designer's vision, particularly because I have no lifestyle to speak of. I am a student, I go to class, I do research outside of class, I have a lot of time to waste and sod about. I always joke that university students are not real people, because our biggest worry, generally, is learning. And that isn't a worry at all. What I'm trying to say is that if a designer's work and views align with mine, if I could I would wear the deepest representation of those views. This could (partly) explain why I'm drawn to extravagant pieces. Before coming to this site, I had never considered or known that fashion could be interpreted and analyzed the same way literature and art are; now that I know, I love it.

I suppose my answer would be that initially I think one should separate the author from the work, get to know the work first to have an unsullied view of and experience with it, but once first impressions are formed, associate the work with the designer in a manner that they eventually converge.

[Faust]

I am a student, I go to class, I do research outside of class, I have a lot of time to waste and sod about. I always joke that university students are not real people, because our biggest worry, generally, is learning. And that isn't a worry at all.

Would you like to come to my classes and give inspirational talks?

Agreed with the rest of your post and Avantster and others. Exactly what happened to me.

[Sombre]

Just tell your students to read this site. It really wasn't until I joined that I started to realize students are probably the most priveleged of society. People here talk about not having enough time to learn what they want, and it's my full time "job" to learn. I really consider myself lucky. It helps to have ambitious people like Mail-Moth, Christian, and others around. (Damn French.)

[dolochov]

This whole question wheter you can or even should seperate the actual work from the author once arised while I thought about a quite different situation, but maybe one can apply my thoughts to fashion and design.

I was born in Russia but moved to Germany before my third birthday and hence lost nearly any connection to my birth country, my parents however spent the most part of their life in the soviet union. Some years ago my father recommended a russian book to me which he loved and which highly influenced his life. But after I read it, none of these things happened to me and I didn't even find the book noteworthy. I questioned myself why i thought so and concluded that I didn't have the same possibility to understand the book like my father had because he shared the cultural background with the author.

If one is willed to include analysis of design and fashion in hermeneutical sciences like literature and art, it is possible to think about them in the same way. Let's observe this problem with the help of a little example:
If you show pictures of Ann Demeulemeester's latest collections to natives living in the rainforest who never wore anything except from their own hair on their body, chances are high that these people do not have the possibility to understand what they see, to grasp the sense, the meaning or the influences of her design, let alone like what they see. Their cultural background, their influences are simply so far from the author's that they can't judge the clothes properly. We, on the other hand, lived in a comparable society and maybe even had comparable influences through the media, our parents or our culture and thus share a good part of our horizon with that of Ann Demeulemeester. Even if you explained her vision, her ideas an her influences to the aforementioned native, he wouldn't feel the same way we do, because sense or meaning can only evolve if you are able to merge your horizon, your thoughts, your experiences with these of the author. And the more you have in common with him or the more you know about him, the more meaning you'll see in his work because interpretation is only possible if you can compare your point of view to that of your opponent.

But then again, if we come back to our example, it may also be possible that he likes Ann D's work because he finds the combination of the colors or the proportions aesthetically pleasing, these being things which also appear in nature or may even be part of our genes.
That would imply that design and fashion, unlike things like words or sentences, have intrinsically beautiful qualities, completely regardless of the socio-cultural backround of the author and the observer. And this may also be the point in which the reception of fashion differs from that of literature.

But nevertheless, in my opinion it's impossible to look at the work without seeing the author and his influences in it. In our modern society, however, we tend to share the same socio-cultural influcences due to the globalisation, which has installed a mainstream culture in nearly every industrial country so that the signature of the author may not stand out at first sight

[Faust]

The above makes sense. What was the book, I am curious? Дядя Фёдор, Пёс, и Кот?

[dolochov]

^ No, that wasn't it i've forgotten the title, have to check it when i'm back home.
But russian children books and cartoons would be another example, I also didn't get this whole Ну, погоди! thing

[Faust]

Oh, come on!

[Mail-Moth]

Just finished to read the previous two pages, and for once I feel like a very simple person

When I look at a garment, I know if there's a resonance. And that is all I need to know, I think. If I clearly understand the purpose of the one who made it is irrelevant for me : he/she decided to sell his/her creation - which may, or may not, be as a part of his/her soul, there seems to be some lazy people around in the designer's world too - that is, he/she decided to sell it, deep meaning inclued, to whoever wants to buy, including morons who don't have a clue.

Once you show something you've created, it is done. Possibly the only thing left to do is to run after people, through interviews and publications, and try to reach them with some bribes of what you were trying to express. Which sounds like confessing some sort of distrust toward people's aptitude to understand things by themselves, as toward the clarity of the work itself - since a really good work is not ambiguous. Think of Harnden or CCP.

Let's take a simple example : hanging in front of me, there's some sort of a military coat, something exhudating rigid brutality, something undubiously fascist.
And I like it.
What do I have to ask myself ?
If the designer purpose was to express his sympathy with totalitarism, or to denounce people's secret craving for dicature, or both, or something else ?
I'd rather think the only question worth asking is :"Why do I like what I see in this coat ? What does it teach me about myself ?"
This is all.

[galia]

Ну погоди rules, how can anyone not get it ?

I believe there is always a resonance with out own history in what we find pleasing aesthetically. It doesn't have to be conscious, and in most cases it isn't, but it's still there. We don't come from nowhere.

I have a hard time believeing in a universal set of aesthetic values. When you think that the greeks and romans thought blue to be one of the less appealing colours, and that today it is one of most people's favourite, it has to make you think about the major cultural shifts in taste within a single culture or civilisation. I'm not saying it's imposible to appreciate something that is irrelevant in our culture (such as ann d clothes for naked natives, even though I find the scenarion highly unlikely, since they would most probably simply not understand what they are about if thy have truly been sheltered from "white" culture), but if one does appreciate it, one does because of its foreignness, and that is another process altogether

anyway, I'm not sure any of this is relevant to the discution, not that it makes sense, I haven't been sleeping enough lately and have a hard time organising my thoughts

[Mail-Moth]

I believe there is always a resonance with out own history in what we find pleasing aesthetically. It doesn't have to be conscious, and in most cases it isn't, but it's still there. We don't come from nowhere.

Certainly ; and it becomes a lot more interesting the deeper it reaches in the unconscious.

I'm not saying it's imposible to appreciate something that is irrelevant in our culture (such as ann d clothes for naked natives, even though I find the scenarion highly unlikely, since they would most probably simply not understand what they are about if thy have truly been sheltered from "white" culture), but if one does appreciate it, one does because of its foreignness, and that is another process altogether

I'm not sure about that last point: you may like something obviously foreign not because it looks outlandish, but rather because beyond this characteristic it looks strangely familiar. Feathers in a native american headdress appeal strongly to me, for example, because birds and feathers have been fascinating me since childhood. Seeing them integrated in a garment sounds like a form of liberation, and even if i don't know much about native americans (which is more or less the case) I like to fantasize about a civilization that expresses freely this fascination, whatever the true reasons behind that display.

[galia]

Well there are also examples of feathered headdress in our culture, think of Austrian hunting hats

I think that anything directly related to plants and animals is more widely understandable if you come from a place where there are similar plants and animals. Also, our culture is over-informed about so many things... we are probably not a good example of a sheltered culture (I mean in some ways we are, but we are very aware of images from many foreign, places)