Friday, April 30, 2010

Fetish; The Neck & Shoulders.










I am interested in exploring the way different aspects/mechanisms can alter the proportion of the body. How we as humans are constantly attempting to hide or extenuate features of our body. I’m fascinated in how different eras in time & culture are cultivated by different areas of the body-in this particular case the attraction to the neck and shoulders- and different cultural fetishes within the way those parts of the body appear. Keywords such as ‘exaggerate’, ‘lengthen’, ‘extend’.
“Fashions great seduction is its mutability. Through the artifice of apparel, the less than perfect can camouflage perceived deficiencies and in some instances project an appeal beyond those gifted with characteristics accepted as ideal in their culture and time. However, while fashion is commonly thought to be driven by a constant cycle of aspiration and obsolesce, the ideal unclothed body paradoxically is believed to conform to some unchanging and universal standard. In fact, an examination of the nude in art reveals a constant if sometimes subtle shift in the ideal of physical beauty.” (Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed)

One could say there is almost a mathematical formula to achieve certain desired changes in proportions of the neck and shoulders, such as;
-‘A triangulated shoulder line attenuates the neck’
-‘In all these cases, the shoulder plays an important role in suggesting the long neck through dress. Ironically, to achieve that attenuation, the neck itself is hidden almost as frequently as the shoulders. The camouflaged, elongated neck is conceptually reduced to the relationship of the head to the torso, so that the shoulders are inevitably implicated.’
-‘To create the impression of a longer neck through the gradual collapsing of the shoulders.’
-‘The broad shoulder created a V silhouette that appeared to narrow the hips’

All these changes in proportions are merely a way for humans to appear more ‘attractive’ and fulfil particular fetishes of that time or culture.
The word fetish is quite an interesting choice of words,
Fetish:
1. Object of obsession:
-an object, idea or activity that somebody is irrationally obsessed with or attached to.
2. Object arousing sexual desire: -something that arouses sexual excitement in somebody.

“It raises the veil on a past, false ideality. From under this veil the secret of fashion steps forth: the fetishistic structure of desire. The fetish, which, according to Benjamin, underlies the sex appeal of the inorganic, is the heart of fashion. This is why fashion was the site at which the lifeless was animated, without having to bear the stigmata of life, at which the idea came to life, hand, flawless, complete and perfect like the marble of the antique statues, alive for the perfect moment of the illusion. Post fashion brings this fetishistic core to light: it exposes it. Margiela does this in a particularly drastic way; he shows how fashion brought the ideal to life, an ideal which, however, was as such located out of time, untouched, like the dummy, by the decline to which the flesh is subject. Time will not stand still, however, and the disfiguration of the ideal has inevitably to be followed by a refiguration.” (Fashion Zeitgeist-Tends & Cyles in the Fashion System- Barbera Vinken)
(all images from 'Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed'- Harold Koda)

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Nanna dearest,,...






Elsa Schiaparelli



The act of decoration is merely the process of making something more ‘attractive’-however what to categorise as ‘attractive’ can be a debated topic. For this particular task I strayed in the field of predictability when it came to creating decorative elements that were ‘attractive’-such as something as cliché as rosettes.
Integrate- to join two or more objects or make something part of a larger whole, or be joined or made part of a larger whole. I am more interested in decorative techniques as a textile form as opposed to an application. But for the sake of experimentation I intended to incorporate both decorative and integrated methods of decoration for the nanna briefs.
Whilst investigating the ‘decorate or integrate nanna’ task I came to discover just how widely decoration is used. The simplest of garments can be made extravagant purely through decorative elements, not to say I am largely in favour of this but I am able to appreciate some decorative works and admire their beauty.
I recently have been quite interested in the work of surrealists and their theoretical views, in pursuing this research I stumbled upon a fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli who produced some of her best known works in collaboration with Salvador Dali. Her designs created in the art deco period had fascinating use of decoration which really inspired me for the nanna exercise. There was some kind of a minimalist sense conveyed ironically, as who would have categorised decoration with minimalism. . Her decorative elements also appeared as if they were strategically placed with precise calculation.
The term minimalism is also used to describe a trend in where the subject is reduced to its necessary elements; in this case ornamentations being about quality rather than quantity. Thus I decided to take this approach for my nanna briefs rather than ‘over decorating’ –I felt there would be a more refined beauty achieved.




Surprisingly I enjoyed the process of constructing the decorative nanna briefs. Whilst in class, I experimented with different ways of creating a textile surface through smocking and tucking. The process I found most effective was making textile out of a series of overlapping tucks travelling in different directions. It created an interesting texture and made one wonder and ask ‘how was this achieved?’. Thus I thought to continue this approach on my toile. I initially wanted the entire back piece to be made out of the tucks. I thought the best way to do this would be to get the fabric and then place the pattern and cut the piece out- in that chronological order. However I wasn’t aware of how much fabric it would actually take to fill the pattern piece. The fabric dramatically shrinked in size after the tucks were completed. Due to this being a tedious process and extremely time consuming I opted to incorporate the tucks into the side panels of the nanna, and thus make it a minor detail of the nanna.
Throughout this generic garment investigation I have learned that achieving your desired/intended result proves to be an immense challenge (for myself at least). Largely due to either the complexities of design or in most cases the behavior of the stretch fabric which is rather hard to predict and would require several toile’s before coming across anything close to perfection. Conversely I have learned to accept this and embrace it, as Salvador Dali says “Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it……………………Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them. “



Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Generic Garment Invest.- Image Ideas/intention

I am intrigued with the beauty of the simplest non remarkable object captured in a dynamic moment.
Capturing the essence of truth. Something that may appear ordinary in its origin but has an illuminating essence of life that is not artificial. A shot in movement is further embedded in your mind as you wonder what the shot before and after that moment would have appeared like and I suppose you almost create this in your mind.
The video from American beauty always reminds me of this.-“and that’s the day I realised that there was this entire life behind things”.

(Ignore the poor quality of the video).













I wish to convey what my message about the generic garment investigations findings are without it being literal, telling the story in an abstract sense of thought.
To capture a feeling, a truth. A moment in time.
Let it take your thought without controlling it.
Don’t restrain from a feeling of movement or desire. Don’t deny the truth being captured in your mind.

The generic garment- You can twist it and pull it, but does it still remain to be the original object?
Will it ever cease to remain the object of desire?

Monday, April 5, 2010

Week 4- Possible 'Project:STRETCH' response
















(The artwork of Hans Bellmer- all images above)

The body was a site for Surrealist experiment and a conduit for the transmission of ideas. It became the subject of intense scrutiny: dismembered, fragmented, desecrated, eroticized and eulogized in the pursuit of a range of psychological, sociological and sexual concerns. These processes were iterated in mind and physical act. For instance, Hans Bellmer pulled mannequins apart to create violent new forms. Fashion brought it into a direct relationship with commodities, and through the imagery of fashion and fashion photography it was manipulated, fetishized and irrecoverably changed.
For the surrealists, the mannequin embodied the dialectics of modern life. It confused the boundaries between animate and inanimate, human and machine, male and female, the sexualized and the sexless, and ultimately life and death. It was simultaneously a commodity, a simulacra, an erotic object, and the embodiment of the uncanny.
In the Freudian uncanny the mannequin also represented the return of a suppressed elementary or primal human emerging from the unconscious. It provoked a sense of ’the crossing of the human and the non human’
(‘The Surreal Body: Fetish and Fashion’, Ghislaine Wood)


These passages express an idea and point of view which I find very intriguing and wish to further explore as a possible concept for the final project. To develop the theoretical view of these surreal artists into the way I approach the possibilities of stretch wear for this project.


Saturday, April 3, 2010

WEEK 3- leggings part 2- 'Morphing against humanity'












(First image from http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41906000/jpg/_41906168_glove_pa_220.jpg, rest of the images are my own)

I took the idea of deformation in the structure of morphing and the addition of ‘extra limbs’. I instantly was grabbed by the idea of morphing- ‘to cause something to change its outward appearance completely and instantaneously, or undergo this process’ . Morphing against humanity -In the same rationality with the generic garment investigation we are in a sense trying to ‘morph’ the generic garment into its anti human self. Deconstructing all the features of the garment that is well-known and accepted by society.
My idea for the leggings didn’t turn out quite as expected but it did create an interesting prospect. Rather than stuffing the legging with foam I decided to take a different approach and fill some of the ‘glove fingers’ with bags of pebbles-as influenced by the work of Ernesto Neto. The affect this created was in essence the appearance of an almost melting glove- or possibly more so some form of multi legged creature? I do feel it was successful in deforming the body- due to the pattern of the legging being a large glove in shape; it created a low crutch on the leggings which dramatically shortens the length of the legs whilst extending the upper body. The other obvious outcome being the malformed appearance of extra limbs.