The Role of Authenticity and Uniqueness for Fashion as an Art Form
Fashion is often seen by the public as superficial, ephemeral and as largely determined by popular culture, while the visual arts are seen as timeless, thoughtful and elite.
In the assessment of both disciplines, there is often a divide between art and fashion. The former is always seen as timeless and elitist, fashion on the other hand tends to be scorned by the public as a superficial and commercial form of expression of pop culture. Yet everyone should actually be aware that art in the 21st century is a commodity like any other and, just like fashion, has been absorbed into the capitalist image of society. The boundaries between the two disciplines are fluid. There is, undenieably, an Intersection of Fashion and Art. Museums exhibit clothes, artists collaborate with designers and fashion shows make waves like works by Warhol, Picasso or Monet in their time. Visionaries and border crossers such as Hussein Chalayan, Martin Margiela, Elsa Schiaparelli, Rei Kawakubo, Alexander McQueen and most recently Iris van Herpen or KidSuper, show that no line should be drawn between fashion and art. At the latest, collaborations such as those between Anne Imhof and Burberry or Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama should have finally made the artistic relevance of fashion clear. Kant's degradation of fashion as something worthless and driven only by vanity is as much a thing of the past in this debate as the century in which the philosopher was active.
What is Art?
Although fashion, especially fast fashion, can fall outside the category of art and be reduced to functional aspects such as keeping warm, status and social adaptation, clothing, if considered as aesthetic objects, regardless of their functional use can also be assigned to art in the aesthetic sense.
This is because what is crucial in defining whether something is art or not is the underlying theory, concept, and intention behind an object. A urinal is not a work of art, but a urinal that is displayed with an intention that pursues an art-specific question and balances boundaries of art, as Duchamp did with his Artwork “Fountain”, is certainly art.
In this respect, fashion that is dedicated to something greater, which has been the case time and again at least since Elsa Schiaparelli, can certainly be described as art. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she did not see herself simply as a designer. Her understanding of fashion stemmed from the idea that it should be considered art. The love of the Rome-born fashion designer to the surrealist art movement, among others to Salvatore Dali, with whom she designed the "hat shoe" or Marcel Duchamp, the one who set the art with a urinal like no other in turmoil, led to the fact that she broke the boundaries of what clothing is able to express. Since then, at the latest, it has become clear to most people that clothes, campaigns and fashion shows are artifacts of our time that tell a story and evoke emotions. They can tell stories, convey certain moods and intentions, or construct an entire self-image of the person dressed.
One of the most Iconic Fashion Designers. Or Artist?
Alexander McQueen managed to combine both spheres like hardly anyone else. His shows were not just catwalks, his shows were an act of performance art, telling meta-themes, staged so powerfully that the audience was overcome by their emotions. Some even cried. He managed to engage the audience, creating a tension between the audience and the performance, making them question their own selves. This ability to evoke real feelings in the audience and create a field of tension through interaction corresponds to what we understand as the art of the performative: Garments that are part of a performance as works of art itself, creating a situation in which something larger is created, the actual, very ephemeral work of art. That which arises in the imagination of the audience, has transformative potential and leaves a lasting impression.
An outstanding example of this is the SS 2001 performance of the McQueen-designed "VOSS" collection, in which viewers were confronted with their collective reflection and a poignant silence for over an hour. The viewers' and critics' gaze was drawn to themselves. They were the stage, the ones to critique. Many of the spectators began to question their own selves until, after almost two hours, the stage became visible behind the mirrors. It looked like an asylum. The models were acting in particularly unusual, manic and unsettling ways, provoking an equally enthralling and distressing energy as the setting.
Designer Daphne Guinness recalls, "At the show's finale, the mirrored glass walls fell apart and shattered, and what emerged-a naked, masked Michelle Olley besieged by moths-made a deeper impression on me than anything I'd ever seen in the Tate Gallery."
Fashion, Art and Commerce
McQueen's importance was already undisputed in his time. Shortly after his death, his life's work was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which once again underscored what was already clear to everyone anyway: fashion is art. Today, Alexander McQueen's brand is best known for its shoes, which not infrequently round off awful skinny-jeans-outfits. As part of the luxury group Kering, which includes Gucci and Balenciaga, among others, McQueen has arrived in the capitalist system that repeatedly reduces fashion to its commercial function. Even though art, like fashion, is now similarly part of the capitalist system, a key difference lies in the originality of the artistic work, while fashion almost always has the principle of reproduction inherent in it. A work of art is an artifact with a semiotic level, an aura resulting from authenticity and uniqueness, which becomes an inseparable part of the work of art, unique in this form. The philosopher Walter Benjamin sees the authenticity and particularity in the here and now of the original. This disappears with the act of reproduction.
Is Fashion Art or not?
Authenticity seems to be exactly what is missing in today's consumer culture. The objects lack originality. They have no particular greatness. Haute-Couture has managed to maintain this by creating unique or at least limited products with a specific purpose that are individually numbered and cataloged, just like works of art, while fast fashion and even prêt-à-porter deliver little creative or artistic value. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. Fashion can be more than just overproduced, meaningless products. Fashion can be art. Fashion is art! It just lacks originality from time to time.
Case 01 particularly follows the ideology of originality especially in its individualistic approach. Each product is unique to create a special magnitude. Ultimately, it is our personal connection to the things we own that makes them special. And what is more authentic than owning a unique piece that no one else has or will ever have.
Comments