Art Of Fashion - OprahTrends

...modern fashion, like trendy art could be a catalyst for dialogue ANd an exchange of ideas

by Siska Lyssens more and more, in recent years and worldwide, fashion has been given a platform in areas wherever art is historically showcased. Museums currently show fashion with the maximum amount thought as they are doing art. The vastly sure-fire exhibition “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” at the Metropolitan deposit of Art in the big apple firmly placed a dressmaker among ancient artists just like the painter painter and gave the maximum amount prominence to evening robes on ancient art objects from centuries agone. will it mechanically follow that fashion is thought-about AN art form?
As with art, the cultural connection of fashion as a mirror of the habits and tastes of times past desires no proof. Fashion as AN artifact of culture teaches North American country concerning our and alternative societies’ histories. However, the road between fashion and art becomes additional blurred after we look to additional current instances of however fashion is given.

Fashion has ne'er been additional accessible to the lots than it's nowadays. once I interviewed Kaat Debo, director and keeper at the style deposit of metropolis (MoMu), before the Maison Martin Margiela retrospective exhibition at county House nearly 2 years agone, she explained her experience: “We’ve had a good vary of holiday makers (in Antwerp), from youngsters of faculty age to 80-year-olds, World Health Organization acknowledge the ability of the designer. That’s our goal: we have a tendency to don’t build exhibitions for a distinct segment public solely – the challenge is to talk to an oversized audience.”

The accessibility of fashion as a career has additionally taken the once quite protected  profession of designer out of its inventive, exclusive sphere. the quantity of fashion students is on the increase and also the inventive method of fashion – from the studio to the runway show – has become additional clear attributable to media interest. To quote the journalist cosmonaut O’Brien, in a {very} discuss the art world: "Today you've got artists like Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst World Health Organization use many folks – it is a very intelligible model for artists. And there area unit folks in alternative fields like fashion, like brandy Jacobs, World Health Organization has that kind of entrepreneurial sensibility." The attention-grabbing parallel that O’Brien explores here is that the one between artists and fashion designers, and also the similar strategies they need adopted over time. Speaking of Andy Warhol, Edna O'Brien states: "One of Andy's nice innovations was realising that the thought of the creative person alone in his studio wasn't a very trendy one, which AN creative person might have a team.”


Today’s garment industry plays by constant rules, however the validity of the finished product is significantly additional problematic. It’s simple to proclaim that a Lucian Freud painting is art – it’s more or less therefore taken for granted to say constant of a dress designed by Karl Lagerfeld, although they're contemporaries, each operating in studios, enclosed by assistants and heckled by press. each area unit forces to be reckoned with inside their various realms of ability and each are lauded by critics.

The group action of fashion runs parallel with the group action of art – and raises similar objections. within the case of fashion designers, however, so as to be taken seriously, it's additional necessary to tell apart themselves as making either ‘high’ or ‘low’ fashion. The question whether or not a painting of a Campbell’s soup will amounts to art or not resounds with the question of whether or not or not a abstract piece by Hussein Chalayan is thought-about a writing of wear. The additional unpractical or aesthetic-defying, it seems, the additional inventive. The samples of comparable instances in art and fashion area unit a legion. London Fashion Week fixture Pandemonia’s recognizably unidentifiable effort to disguise her (or him) self is seen as galvanized by the creative person Cindy Sherman’s identity explorations through self-transformation. Performance and installation art area unit effectively employed by designers to convey their fantasy worlds in fashion shows, as for instance throughout the now-legendary Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 1999 show, once model Shalom Sharlow dramatically let her dress be spray-painted by robots.

What shocks the audience most in these inventive high-fashion instances is that the medium of wear is employed to specific a plan that's not essentially fashion-related. The elevated feeling it provides rise to is additionally surprising within the context of a fashion show. within the sense that art will motivate a sense of awe attributable to its beauty, a fashion show will bring tears to the eyes of editors attributable to its powerful aesthetic impact. it's exactly the strain between practicality and aesthetics that lies at the guts of fashion’s inventive potential. This potential is unleashed initial by the designer’s intention and ultimately consummated by the audience’s interpretation. during this sense, trendy fashion, like trendy art could be a catalyst for dialogue ANd an exchange of ideas.

Exhibitions, just like the explicit case of Martin Margiela, area unit proof of this evolution within the reception of fashion. By creating a notoriously abstract designer additional accessible it exposed the underlying message that any exhibition carries, whether or not it's concerning art or fashion. It offers, as Kaat Debo affectingly states, “an introduction to a kind of aesthetic which individuals may not stumble upon each day. It broadens the horizons of the viewer, forces them to seem at fashion from a unique angle.” In alternative words, if the art of fashion is dead well, it's the ability to renew our read of the word and lets North American country expertise it through visionary eyes.