The Issue of Authorship

[Faust]

Well, I distrust people who make such abrupt switches in aesthetic. I especially distrust them if they are designers. It indicates a certain disconnect between who they are and what they do. I am not saying that designers shouldn't experiment and make changes (so many artists have done just that), but this is supposed to be a gradual process of growth and maturity, not a wholesale abrupt switch.

[zamb]

Well, I distrust people who make such abrupt switches in aesthetic. I especially distrust them if they are designers. It indicates a certain disconnect between who they are and what they do. I am not saying that designers shouldn't experiment and make changes (so many artists have done just that), but this is supposed to be a gradual process of growth and maturity, not a wholesale abrupt switch.

I can see your reasons for saying this and I think its a valid point, but going through some level of personal philosophical change can lead to to a change to ones approach in design, and ultimately the work one puts out..................
yes I agree that this growth should be slow, but the switch can seem abrupt if one is out of the limelight for an extended period of time..............

[Faust]

Anything is possible.

[zamb]

Faust,
is it because you disliked his earlier works so much and what it represented why you now have this perspective?
Make no mistake, I am not defending him, nor what he does, it is that I can see one having a significant shift in philosophy of living and aesthetic without it being dishonest...................
One can only live and act on the basis of what one knows or accepts to be valid, however, in knowing more, or at the very least realizing the value of one thing over another, can lead to a complete about turn.......

[Faust]

No, it's because there is a huge difference between then and now. Actually, aesthetically, they are diametrically opposed. And you know I love those creators for whom their work is connected with their character. One usually does not do a 180 on their character.

[zamb]

No, it's because there is a huge difference between then and now. Actually, aesthetically, they are diametrically opposed. And you know I love those creators for whom their work is connected with their character. One usually does not do a 180 on their character.

but it may not be his character, but his outlook that has changed.......
lets use you and me for example, you remember when I visited you and I saw a particular item that made me laugh out loud........... you wondered why, but it was because it showed me how much you had grown, had evolved and I appreciated that because I know it came through experience..............
For me, there was a time when my aspirations were to be like YSL......
but after knowing more about him, about the fashion industry and what one has to do to get to that level, it made me do an about turn. one of the reasons, or better yet, the main reason i had stopped designing was that I found myself on a path that I didn't want to continue on, the last two years have been used to try to figure out where I wanted to be, what do I want to say in my work as a designer............I am still figuring out some things, and while my character has not changed, and elements of my work will be the same, the approach will be different and thus the results will also be different.....................

[Faust]

Surely, but the key words in your post, as they were in my original response are "growth" and "experience," which I don't see reflected in such a drastic aesthetic change. It feels the same as a consumer buying into a look.

[Faust]

bump for new members

[MikeN]

here we go...

[docus]

Another fascinating debate. It made me think about people's need to simplify and classify life, with the incessant bombardment of chaotic information raining down on them, and their need to forge or find an identity for themselves in all that white-noise.

Clothes are one of the ways in which people can identify themselves, to express their style and taste. But we want our clothes to encapsulate the qualities we aspire to ourselves! For that reason, I like CCP, LUC, etc., because they value time-honoured artisanal principles, etc. But if CCP decided to get factories in China to mass-produce his work, to the same standard as he himself does it by hand in Milan, would that make his clothes less appealing, even though they were - in appearance at least - the same?

[docus]

Another thought: even someone like Margiela, who tried to remove his image from his work, has subsequently become known as 'that guy who only puts four little white stitches on his clothes - quirky, underground, secretly cool!' So, even the act of trying to step outside of the myth-merchandise-machinery has itself become a highly marketable myth-merchandise-machine...

[Faust]

I have to say, I plead guilty to the four stitches allure. I don't know why - it's not like I don't have plenty of completely unmarked sweaters, but I've been looking for a plain turtleneck and I gravitate toward Margiela.

[Servo2000]

Didn't somebody post recently that the theory behind the way it's connected is that you can easily cut the stitches to remove the tag? Either that or I read it in an older interview in something recently. Needless to say, I don't see many people taking Martin up on that offer.

[syed]

I suppose the four stitches serve as a logo, without being as ostensibly vulgar as having a Margiela logo on the breast/lapel/etc. Nowadays the MMM profile is large enough that those four stitches have become exactly what they were kind of trying to avoid in the first place. They are the logo for 'those in the know' - which now includes most people. I know of cases of people who have restitched the label, rather than just remove it, after two of the stitches came undone. Seems odd to me, but I guess to them it was important to let people know, or at least those people who could recognize it, as being MMM.

I wonder whether that is an inevitable process though. Something intended to subvert gets picked up and serves the exact purpose it was trying to go against. Originally it was just a plain white tab, now you have Maison Martin Margiela and all the numbers, with the relevant one circled, printed on it. The no logo has become the logo. You see the four white stitches and you know it is Margiela.

[Macro]

There is no 'theory' behind the four stitches but this, as explained to me by high-ups at MMM:

Designer clothing (especially couture and pret-a-porter), prior to the contemporary marketplace of MMM in the 1980's, often had removable tags, for the consumer presumably did not wish keep the label on the garment. The tag was cut off when the item was purchased, removing the identity of the designer and giving the garment over to the wearer without a flag or symbol of the wearers 'wealth'. This idea stuck with Margiela, ergo the tags on his garments are removable via the 4 threads holding the nameless tag. Margiela didn't want his name attached to his garments... the strange reality is how the stitches became the identity... a very BRECHT result to his attempt.