The Issue of Authorship

[Mail-Moth]

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

I have a better example :)

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.

I disagree with that. This connection can occur on a more elementary degree, implying the matter itself, and in that case you don't have to be familiar with, for exemple, the bird you recognize in the garment.

As in this case :


Unless you know your basics in ornithology, you won't identify the bird, and it is quite the same for the furs. But does that really matter ? Would it be different with fox furs and the head of a crow ? No - because this kind of sacred relation to animal materials does not belong to our culture anyway. We even tried our best to negate it, or at least to keep it at a reasonable distance. You could even use pigeons and stray cats, for that matter : that would exactly look as outlandish.

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)

Yes, one can say that at this point most of us have some sort of representation for each and every culture one can think of. But that does not mean that we are familiar with those cultures. Most of the time we know enough to recognize them as different from ours and thus be seduced by this exotism we mostly crafted ourselves. For we like this idea of exotism, of being led to a somewhere that eventually doesn't exist by a something we often don't care to understand fully.
In that sense we are still sheltered - not because until now we have lived in the deepest aeras of the rainforest, but because of our certitude to understand almost anything.

A little off-topic maybe ? Sorry for that.

[galia]

In that sense we are still sheltered - not because until now we have lived in the deepest aeras of the rainforest, but because of our certitude to understand almost anything.

That is what I meant, you are more articulate than me

My point about the animals is that even though you may not recognise the animal itself, you recognise something about it (shape, hide, beak...) and therefore you know that it is an animal of a species you are aware of

[Faust]

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.

Interesting. So, you do not feel compelled to find out who that person is, and what ideas went into creating the garment, and to see whether your worldview and theirs relate?

[Mail-Moth]

If I like the gament, then probably I have something in common with the one that designed it, I think - conciously or not. I may be interested in learning more about this connection, but that comes later, and it is more of an intellectual curiosity, when the attract for the garment is of a rather primitive nature.

For example, I do like some of the pieces Ann Demeulemeester is designing, but I'm not particularily interested in knowing more about her, because of the presence of synthetic fibers in the fabrics she uses, as of her overall aesthetics, which appear a bit too "romantic" - in a demonstrative way - to match my tastes. I'd rather go for Harnden's muted romanticism, served by the use of traditionnal fabrics.

[Faust]

Fair enough!

[vois]

I don't really have a clear answer but I would rather lean towards a yes - it should be seperated. It's mainly because the designs will speak for itself. Without knowing any facts about the creator, I believe there is more freedom for a viewer to feel and think the way he/she wants or should feel about such work.(in a more individualistic ways)

Knowing the designer and their intention may give more options to consider. But on the other hand, that might become the only thing the viewer might consider. To elaborate on this, it could become a simple mathematic problem. An answer to a question. But fashion is surely not math. There is no such answer. I believe fashion, including all art forms, is mostly by the emotional and mental approach.

About being hooked to a certain design of an item, I think that's because we all are human beings and, at some point, we share a certain belief that is so similar. Neglecting and/or classifying the differences also exists because human beings are capable of thinking.

[genevieveryoko]

Long Winded Personal Response

Knowing that Rei Kawakubo and Junya Watanabe are Japanese is enough for me to say that I am unable to separate these designers from their work, whether or not I think I should and whether or not I do this with other designers. Perhaps not their individual personalities but at least their cultural/national identities. That is to say, I actually don't know hardly anything about Junya but I do love his work. The man remains a mystery to me, I can't even find a photo of his face by googling. (Of course that is also just because I haven't spent much time researching him - I should and will.)

I have always been interested in fashion but I wasn't able to come to terms with the high fashion price tag until I discovered Comme des Garcons (and Ann but that's another train of thought and she came later, not to mention she cites CDG as an influence). It offered a different perspective of beauty that helped me to reconcile the tensions I have always felt in fashion between being sexy and cute, between tradition and the new, following or breaking rules, east vs. west, etc...I could go on but I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about.

Because I am half Japanese and half white, American born, these designers' designs and the history of CDG speak to me in a personal way that no others do. It reminds me of my childhood, spending summers in Japan, getting older and then feeling confused/amazed/distubed/etc. by different aspects of Japanese culture, especially the way they appropriate western culture. Connecting this back to my own disenchantment with mainstream high fashion labels such as Chanel, Balenciaga, etc. (all European of course) I simply can't forget that Rei and Junya are Japanese when looking at their garments, helping me justify my somewhat obsessive appreciation (with something most people would say is just wacky). Also it helps me to reconnect to my past and what as my mom would say the side of myself that she wishes I would be more in touch with....

But now I will conclude by saying that my most recent obsession, a Junya Watanabe Fall 09 quilted long coat covered in gold chains...has nothing to do with anything execpt the fact that I tried it on and I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!!! No need for any philosophies, runway images, or a picture of Watanabe's face to make that any clearer...although if anyone has one I'd appreciate it if you shared it.

Ultimately, for me, fashion is a non-verbal enterprise - the garments speak for themselves.

[Venus in Furs]

Kendall Walton's essay in the Philosophical Review, titled 'Categories of Art', discusses how far critical questions about works of art can be separated from questions about their histories. It's a very insightful essay which I believe has pertinence to this discussion. He argues that some facts about the origins of a work have an essential role in criticism and aesthetic judgement. If anyone is interested let me know

[galia]

I'm very interested

[laika]

love the animal-bird thread of this conversation

[crouka]

he usually appeared at the end of the show in white shirt (untucked) and beige pants in the 90's.



rei said, "all I want to say lies in the clothes". and junya, "I have put all my message into the clothes".
so basically if they designers are appreciated purely through what they do, that may be good enough.
and according to her, what she stated for interviews, magazines, etc is there because she was being asked to say something.
so I guess that means she sometimes has to devise a verbal compromise because it's an interview and she tries to be a conscientious interviewee, as a maitreya of the fashion world athough she might really have wanted to be a siva. she cannot behave like carol who used to answer it in joke.

things behind the work could increase pleasure though.

[genevieveryoko]

thanks crouka...

"I am not conscious of any intellectual approach as such. My approach is simple. It is nothing other than what I am thinking at the time I make each piece of clothing, whether I think it is strong and beautiful. The result is something that other people decide" - Rei Kawakubo, Interview Magazine Dec/Jan 09

...perhaps better table manners than Carol...her business is much bigger anyway.

Merz - we are such pussies in comparison to the fur wearing, meat eating people of the past!

[eris quod sum]

random interjection here, having just stumbled into this (quality) debate. although consumers today are fairly sheltered when it comes to animal materials being directly, if somewhat morbidly, linked to their source/origin, this was not the case as recently as 80-90 years ago, where most ladies' stoles were sold with tails, paws and heads attached, glass eyes and all. At the turn of the century, you didn't just have feathered headdresses, but entire families of birds arranged in elaborate scenes affixed to women's hats.

Isn't that the truth. I work in a shop that always has a few fur pieces around, and last fall winter we had a vest made up of 30 (or so) fox faces... The reactions were priceless.

[galia]

I love naturalised animals, so I could probably wear the "whole fox" stole if I wansn't too afraid of it becoming a rather overbearing and agressive conversation piece

[STEALTH]

I guess Junya Watanabe is a "designer"

Not a " creator"

That is perhaps why i have never given two fu... hoots about him or his product.