I would step in and argue that the two don't even fit into the same category. Can something not have avant garde construction methods and still fall under 'period dressing'? Is avant garde just to do with construction, or does it also involve overall look and feel, like Rick Owens' strange aesthetic? Consider the grey areas and ambiguities.
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Paul Harnden
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And thus Rick and Paul meet again. Two strangers in a no man's land.Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde
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I guess so, as far as aesthetic, we're talking old timey vs the unexplored regions of male drag, in some cases. Construction-wise though, avant garde is still a pursuit of new, unexplored methods, while period dressing is just a reflection of what has already been (obviously).Originally posted by philip nodsomebody should kop this. this is forever.
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What avant gard Construction??
I have a PH jacket and find it to be average at best. nothing better than your average contemporary price-point jacket. It does not warrant the designer price tag nor the accolades. I do understand his aesthetic, and love his shoes, but lets take a closer look at an actual garment and put aside the hype.
The shrinkage arguement is not a good one. A $20 Ed Hardy T-shirt has been garment dyed and the shrinkage has been accounted for so that your medium fits like a medium, no matter what color shirt you buy. Your denim jeans you are wearing which have complicated wash processes, have been caluclated to shrink so that your 30" jean fits like a 30" jean. My PH jacket is a coarse wool, something I wouldn't dress my worst enemy in. The lining is 100 percent cotton. When the jacket is washed, the cotton shrinks more, creating a jacket where the lining becomes too small, pulling up the back hem. Not a good look.
Lets take a look at what a true tailored jacket has to go through. Thome Browne for example. It takes roughly two weeks for a jacket to be constructed. Fabric is layed individually and cut per pattern piece, not some giant computer generated marker. After they are cut, patterns are then layed over the cut pieces to check for accuracy. They are re-cut if neccessary. Then, the canvase inner lining is basted to the self fabric as to keep it from shifiting during the construction process. This is done by hand with Thome Browne suits, but done by machine with Band of Outsiders suits. Actually, the machine does a better job. Some 2000 stitches are used in basting a typical mens suit. Now the garment is sewn, and basting removed. During this time, the partially finished garment is placed on a dress form and pressed and steamed to make for an accurate fit. This is usually a 4 step process. If done truely the hand tailored way, the garment is left overnight on the dress form. All button holes and buttons are done by hand. The Thome Brown suits by the way represent the truest form of hand tailoring.
PH jackets do not go through any of this. The peasant look doesn't require that the attention to detail and contruction be that good. The stitch-per-inch (SPI) on the jacket I have is average (9SPI's) The washed and wrinkled look and unconstructed nature of the garment precludes it from requiring any kind of inner facing. I'm not sure about the button holes, but they look machine done. The buttons do look hand sewn.
The Geofrey B. Small article in Scoute desicribes the tailoring process pretty well. The issue I have is that it is romanticised because of the aesthetic and because the designer himself pushes that as part of his brand's story. A boring and ugly old Band of Outsiders jacket goes through the same process (accept for the hand dyeing and interesting fabrics used) as a Geoffrey B. Small jacket.
I'm sure I can be proved wrong on a few of these points, but please dont' get lost in the hype. A garment is a garment, and there are only so many ways to make one.
-o
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My friend
if you were to go into the process of making a semi bespoke suit, then be my guest. Many designers we speak of here dont use canvassing- doesnt make the garments any better or worse. GBS may go through a million diffferent intricate stages, but the end result always leaves me puzzled(sorry G) (they are beautifully made clothes nonetheless..oops wrong thread)
Ok.. I wasnt very clear in my description. But from what I am aware of the PH jackets are initially huge, they are then shrunk by means of some kind of hot water washing. This creates the rumpled fabric, and the rumples give in to the wearer and mould on his/her body(well that is the designers intention anyway)- Thom browne does not wash his jackets to fit, and dear friend neither does ed fucking hardy(i cringe everytime i hear that name). Now you have to take into count the way in which the fabric shrinks, they've obviously figured out a certain way around this.
Id like to page runner from tfs( crouka here) to fill in on the process, im sure he knows a lot more than myself.
Also I dunno what jacket you have but the one i see in front of me in my closet definitely has some kind of woven canvassing..There is definitely something floating in there, might not be basted, but god knows.
Also the price is high due to its manufacture(mostly inhouse) in england, where your labour rates are much higher than in italy for example.
If you want to get into the designer's pricetag debate, id much rather you talk about other big designers and not paul harnden, ma+ and gbs. Anndem for example isnt particularly well made for how much the garments cost(dont want to derail the thread).
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Originally posted by C'est Fini View PostMy friend
if you were to go into the process of making a semi bespoke suit, then be my guest. Many designers we speak of here dont use canvassing- doesnt make the garments any better or worse. (sorry G) (they are beautifully made clothes nonetheless..oops wrong thread)
Ok.. I wasnt very clear in my description. Thom browne does not wash his jackets to fit, and dear friend neither does ed fucking hardy(i cringe everytime i hear that name). Now you have to take into count the way in which the fabric shrinks, they've obviously figured out a certain way around this.
Id like to page runner from tfs( crouka here) to fill in on the process, im sure he knows a lot more than myself.
Also I dunno what jacket you have but the one i see in front of me in my closet definitely has some kind of woven canvassing..There is definitely something floating in there, might not be basted, but god knows.
Also the price is high due to its manufacture(mostly inhouse) in england, where your labour rates are much higher than in italy for example.
If you want to get into the designer's pricetag debate, id much rather you talk about other big designers and not paul harnden, ma+ and gbs. Anndem for example isnt particularly well made for how much the garments cost(dont want to derail the thread).
I'm not necessarily comparing the two jackets, but pointing out consumers romanticize certain designers and their techniques. Maybe they do this to justify the high price tag.
Of course a bespoke tailored suit is a different beast. We don't go on and on ad nauseum about the time and effort that goes into a boring Band suit because, well, it's boring.
But from what I am aware of the PH jackets are initially huge, they are then shrunk by means of some kind of hot water washing. This creates the rumpled fabric, and the rumples give in to the wearer and mould on his/her body(well that is the designers intention anyway)-
"Some hot water process"??? I just did laundry today and I put my whites through a hot water process as well.
The Ed Hardy line was meant to make you cringe
What I'm trying to say is that a basic pair of jeans require shrinkage calculations, and they are even more important in the world of jeans. They need to fit to the quarter of an inch. Actually, less. PH jackets don't need to fit that well and if they shrink a little more or less, who will know. The rumpled mess gives him a greater margin of error for shrinkage. Mine is an ill fitting rumpled mess, and that is his intention. I get it.
-o
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What a silly question. The guy did not say that he hates it. Why do I have my Uniqlo jeans?Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde
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