Fashion in Film Presents The 10th Victim by Elio Petri

Still from The 10th Victim (1965)

Coming up Tuesday December 7th is the last installment of the Melodrama: Fashion in Film Series curated by Jeffrey Lieber, Assistant Professor of Visual Culture Studies at Parsons the New School for Design.

The series explores "fashion as a key to the melodramatic imagination," and has so far included Imitation of Life by Douglas Sirk (1959) and Lili Marleen by Fassbinder (1981), introduced by John Epperson and Tom Kalin, respectively. The last film—perhaps the least known of the three—is the 1965 sci-fi The 10th Victim (orginally La Decima Vittima), directed by Elio Petri. The film, which will be introduced by Evan Calder Williams, stars Marcello Mastroianni and Courrèges-clad Ursula Andress and Elsa Martinelli.

The series is presented by the School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons, in conjunction with the MA in Fashion Studies.

Japanese Fashion - Past, Present, Future?

by Sarah Scaturro

Issey Miyake's new 132 5 collection as displayed in the Barbican Art Gallery's exhibition "Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion." Photo by Barbican Art Gallery.

We all know that fashion is an expression of the zeitgeist – a style or trend can explode out of seemingly nowhere, with disparate tribes and geographies adopting it simultaneously. Fashion exhibitions are no different. The past few years have seen many exhibitions mounted on similar topics (colors, sustainability, glamour, etc). Currently there are two very different exhibitions on display about Japanese fashion. The first is “Japan Fashion Now” at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT) in New York City, and the second is “Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion” at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.

There are some obvious similarities between these exhibitions – both are curated by top curators in the field (Valerie Steele at MFIT and the Kyoto Costume Institute’s Akiko Fukai at the Barbican). Both focus on Japanese fashion designers and celebrate their contributions to the Western fashion system. Both show looks dating back to 30 years ago and pay attention to contemporary Japanese sub-cultures. But that’s it. Their interpretations, exhibition design and overall approaches are radically different. I first visited the MFIT exhibition “Japan Fashion Now” when it opened - having seen almost all MFIT exhibitions over the past 6 years, I figured I knew what to expect. I was happily surprised to see that the first gallery of the show had been enlarged and was dedicated exclusively to early works by the groundbreaking designers who were the first to put Japanese fashion on the map: Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, Hanae Mori, and Yohji Yamamoto were among this group. This immediately made a lot of sense, since the thesis of the show was about what is happening now in Japan, rather than in the 1980/90s. I asked a close friend of mine what she thought about this first room after visiting it on her own. “They look like dead, headless corpses in a cemetery” she replied, citing the dark room, low ceilings and headless white mannequins wearing somber colored garments as the main issue. Now, she isn’t familiar with the challenges of the introductory gallery space and fashion exhibition display in general (low ceilings, low light levels, stiff mannequins, etc.), but she did have a point, especially when contrasted to the main exhibition space with its J-Pop music, vibrant colors, and soaring walls vinyled in a Tokyo-like cityscape. She also could have been reacting to the severity and deconstructed qualities of the garments on display in the first gallery – I could only imagine how shocking they must have seemed at the time when they were first shown decades ago. I personally thought the first gallery was a meditative moment, and was a nice contrast to the main exhibition space.

The first gallery in the "Japan Fashion Now" exhibition at MFIT. Photo by MFIT.

Entering into the main exhibition gallery, I was dynamically swept into a miniature city landscape. MFIT really used the gallery’s too-high ceiling to their advantage, creating a sort of mini-Harujuku by stitching together photos of Tokyo buildings and enlarging them to cover all the gallery walls. This mise-en-scène held more recent looks from designers also shown in the first gallery, but focused mainly on the contemporary generation of Japanese fashion designers. The platform featuring menswear designers was especially insightful, as it succinctly displayed a lot of what Japanese fashion is known for: technology, heritage, authenticity, gender-bending, punk, deconstruction, playfulness, elegance, etc. I really wanted to like the section on subcultures and street fashion, but it just didn’t resonate with me. The scary teenage girl mannequins were one problem, but the main reason was that part of the success of the subculture movement is that it is about a fantastical (and powerful) sense of individualism and performance. Without seeing the actual girl wearing the clothes, with her movements, voice, hair, shoes, etc, I just didn’t buy it – they looked more like costumes for Halloween than street-fashion. Although, maybe that was the point. It was nice to see MFIT touch upon the tribal, or “zoku,” subcultures (I remember being infatuated with the style of the Bosozoku [motorcycle gangs] when I lived in Japan a decade ago) as well as the never-ending search for “authenticity,” particularly concerning Japanese denim.

View of the first floor gallery from the second floor of the "Future Beauty" exhibition. Photo by Sarah Scaturro

The joyful cacophony of color, styles and sound at the MFIT exhibition contrasts sharply with the white, almost Zen-like design of the Barbican show. “Future Beauty” is broken up into two floors, with the second floor essentially a square with an open center, looking down onto the first floor gallery. Just like MFIT exploited the high ceilings of their main gallery, the Barbican used the high ceilings of the first floor to hang sheer white silk-like panels of fabric. As a design element, these fabric panels served several purposes - they made a pathway through the exhibition, they delineated themes, and they created small, intimate moments in which to view the garments, sometimes only a single look. The show itself was broken into several themes, with the first floor exploring “In Praise of Shadows,” “Flatness,” “Tradition and Innovation,” and “Cool Japan.” My favorite section on the first floor was “Flatness,” which displayed Miyake’s A Piece of Cloth and Pleats concepts in a dynamic and inventive way, and also included a separate display of Kawakubo’s garments shown on mannequins coupled with Naoya Hatakeyama’s photos of the same garments flattened out. As Fukai in the Gallery Guide points out, “the interstices between fabric and figure…represent an expression of ‘ma’ – the Japanese concept which views the void between objects as a rich, energized space.” The “Cool Japan” section was the only nod to street fashion and sub-cultural styles in the exhibition. Interestingly, whereas MFIT showed actual street fashion garments, the Barbican displayed only high fashion garments inspired by street fashion, anime and “zoku” style (designers included Ohya, Zucca, Jun Takahashi and Tao Kurihara). Fukai mentions that these designers were “eschew[ing] the visual overload common to Tokyo street fashion in favor of a simpler, more iconic use of manga characters.” I think this comment can be extended to describe the two exhibition design approaches in general – one is about visual overload, while the other is about restraint.

The second floor featured small vignettes of the work by the most well-known (and presumably most important) Japanese designers, including Miyake, Yamamoto, Takahashi, Kurihara, Watanabe, and Kawakubo. It also included a section on Mintdesigns, a duo who use print and graphics in an almost “fetishistic” manner, as well as another section on “The Next Generation,” which included work by Chitose Abe, Tamae Hirokawa and Akira Naka. Honestly, after seeing all other sections before, I was underwhelmed by the choices included in “The Next Generation” – they seemed a lot like rehashings of ideas already expressed by earlier generations of Japanese designers. The section on Kawakubo was especially touching, as it showed several looks from her revered 1997 Spring/Summer collection Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body, as well as a video showing the actual runway show. I had never actually seen the runway show, so I had no idea that the audience was rapturously clapping as each model appeared and walked down the runway.

The titles to the two exhibitions give the most overt clue to their fundamental difference – the MFIT show focuses on celebrating the here and now of Japanese style, whereas the Barbican show leaves a distinct feeling that the glory years of Japanese fashion are mostly in the past (even though its title ironically includes the phrase "Future Beauty.") I left the MFIT show with a sense that Japanese fashion was fun, quirky, youth-oriented and democratic, whereas the Barbican show seemed to elevate all of Japanese fashion into the cerebral realm of art (I think the fact that the MFIT exhibit was free whereas the Barbican show cost around $18 also contributed to that mindset.)

A large part of the disconnect between the two exhibitions has to do with the fact that the Barbican exhibit was curated by a Japanese fashion insider, whereas the MFIT show was organized by an outsider looking in at contemporary Japanese culture. This inside/outside dichotomy can’t be overstressed, as it plays into every aspect of interaction Japan has with outside cultures – even fashion. (As someone who has lived in Japan, I am very aware of having always been considered a “gaijin,” which means “alien.”) Fukai even presented a run of fashion show invitations from Miyake that she had actually received, further emphasizing her own inclusion, and by extension authority, in the realm of Japanese fashion. Precise and tightly-edited, “Future Beauty” is the exact vision and message of Japanese fashion that Fukai wants the rest of the world to know – no more and no less. Steele, perhaps cognizant of her American audience (as well as the FIT student body), has presented her own interpretation of Japanese fashion that is in many ways more in-line with American values and tastes through its emphasis on youth, democracy and individuality. Ideally, a visit to the MFIT exhibition would be coupled with a visit to the Barbican exhibition. The two exhibitions, with their disparate foci and approaches actually complement each other, bringing a fuller understanding of just how revolutionary and influential Japanese fashion was, and still is, both inside and outside of Japan.

Japan Fashion Now is on display until April 2, 2011.

Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion is on display until February 6, 2011.

Sarah Scaturro

Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA's Collection

This post is long in the making. I have been meaning to review the exhibition Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA’s Collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, as it ties in with themes explored in my Ph.D. on the grotesque in fashion at the turn of the twenty-first century, which I recently completed at Central Saint Martins

However, having not yet been able to visit the exhibition in person combined with the fact that it closes January, I figured for the moment, to at least mention its central theme and participating designers as sketched out in the museum’s accompanying literature:

"Body Unbound: Contemporary Couture from the IMA’s Collection, examines the many ways designers have manipulated, transformed and liberated the female figure. The exhibition will feature ground breaking designs by Rudi Gernreich, Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe, Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Gianni Versace and other avant-garde fashion designers. Body Unbound will explore how these designers used modern construction and unexpected materials to contort, conceal, reveal or mock their wearers.

Fashions by visionaries Rudi Gernreich and Jean-Paul Gaultier illustrate how some designers played with the notions of shape and construction, challenging mid-century ideals of form. Examples by Issey Miyake and Junya Watanabe, based on the theories of androgyny and “universal beauty,” demonstrate how Japanese designers working in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s promoted an alternate way of styling the body, concealing its contours and silhouette. Pieces by Thierry Mugler, Gianni Versace and Franco Moschino display how designers utilized innovative textiles and subversive design elements to toy with the concepts of seduction and femininity."

The exhibition is on view through January 30, 2010 and the IMA will be its sole venue.

Maximum Effect: An Interview with Fashion Critic Elyssa Dimant

by Sarah Scaturro Photo by James Moore

My interest was recently piqued when I began hearing about a new book called Minimalism and Fashion: Reduction in the Postmodern Era. Having admired the recent minimal designs of people like Raf Simons (for Jil Sander), Jil Sander (for Uniqlo) and Francisco Costa (for Calvin Klein), I was even more intrigued when I realized that the author was none other than Elyssa Dimant, a fellow alumna of FIT's MA program in Fashion and Textile Studies. After seeing some of the beautiful photographs and reading the glowing reviews in places like NY Magazine and the New York Times, I knew that I had to talk to her. While her research into minimalism and fashion is mandatory for any fashion scholar, it's her unique approach to the field of fashion studies that I find inspirational. Dimant graciously took a few moments out of her busy schedule to answer the following:

Fashion Projects: You just recently wrote a gorgeously illustrated book called Minimalism and Fashion that was published by Harper Collins. Instead of merely examining the aesthetics of minimalism in fashion, you traced the movement back to its roots in art. What was your inspiration for the book, and what were some of the most interesting findings you discovered?

Elyssa Dimant: To be totally honest, I was inspired to write the book because I felt that the subject of Minimalism as it pertained to fashion had been omitted from fashion scholarship, for the most part. The word ‘ minimalist’ is so often used in fashion criticism, but it has kind of avoided formal definition previous to this point. Though Rebecca Arnold has presented a compelling examination of 1990s sartorial minimalism, in various forums, I felt it was important to trace the genesis of the style—artistically and culturally—in order to clarify its relationship to minimalist design in other mediums and to understand its relevance and impact to movements of “(post-)modernity” in fashion. I suppose the most interesting discoveries emerged as a result of the study of product development across disciplines. For example, it was exciting to see the pared down shapes of Courreges and Cardin in the 1960s—executed as they were in luxury fabrics or new synthetics—adapted as minimalist staples by the emerging ready-to-wear market, and then to juxtapose them with Judd’ s Cadmium series – boxes that he had produced in quantity by industrial workshops, but exhibited in prestigious New York art galleries. I suppose that example also beckons the minimalist conflict between high and low, commercial and elite. As a more contemporary, and perhaps more straightforward example, there’s Nicolas Ghesquiere’s Spring 2008 collection, with its refined architectonic shapes, and it’s quite easy to see its kinship to objects produced by Ron Arad and Anish Kapoor. These all demonstrate a neo-minimalist aesthetic where surface embellishment is reduced in favor of a clean exterior, but more importantly, each of these objects is clarified through technologically-advanced materials and digital design programs. They each relate so strongly to their architecture…which I think is a very significant departure point for minimalism in general.

Photo by Mark Steinmetz

Minimalism and Fashion is not your first book - you published Fashioning Fabrics: Contemporary Textiles in Fashion in 2006, and have written for numerous publications including Vogue, Elle Canada, Selvedge and City. You also were a curatorial assistant at the Costume Institute, where you co-curated the exhibition WILD: Fashion Untamed. Did you always want to be a fashion writer and curator? How did you enter into the field?

I suppose, like many individuals who have always been interested in fashion, I wanted to design when I was a child. But as soon as I began to actually study the histories and theories of fashion, first at the University of Massachusetts under Patricia Campbell Warner and Susan Michelman, then with Patricia Mears and Lourdes Font at FIT, I think I was quite happy to make my way as a critic, whether as a curator, a writer or a journalist. I was certainly very lucky to be able to come on board at the Costume Institute full-time directly after graduate school – I learned more from just listening to Harold and Andrew discuss an object than from the countless texts and articles one tends to read as a student. In any case, I have benefited from the knowledge and generosity of several extraordinary mentors.

You actually left the Costume Institute to work for a fashion PR company. How did that compare to your experiences in the museum world? Would you ever want to back to working for a museum, or do you prefer to straddle the divide between fashion industry and fashion scholarship?

I actually think it’ s quite important to understand the mechanics of the fashion industry—the cycles of its production and promotion—in order to be a successful critic. I had the good fortune to work with Jaqui Lividini, who is an unbelievably creative and thoughtful person, so while the tempo of the work was quite different, I think that the spirit of wonderment when approaching all things fashion was still very much retained for me when I made the move into the private sector. As for where I will end up, I certainly will never be able to suspend my critical instincts when it comes to fashion, and have every intention of continuing as a part of the academic community for as long as it will have me. That said, I realize that there is a divide between the industry and the academic realm – one which is quite crucial to the academic’ s objectivity, actually – so I suppose the simplest answer to that question is that I’ m looking to land with a project or role that is more long-term…no matter how inspiring and enjoyable the Minimalism book experience may have been, it was a solo journey, and it’ s so important to be able to observe and create within a larger framework or community.

Photo by Marcus Tomlinson

The field of fashion studies is growing rapidly - NYC alone has at least six competing graduate programs that deal with fashion theory/history in some manner (FIT, Parsons, NYU, Bard Graduate Center, CUNY and the combined CH/Parsons Dec Arts program). Unfortunately, this rapid growth hasn't translated into a large number of available jobs - at least in the traditional sense of academia and museums. As someone who has successfully forged your own career path, what sort of advice can you give new scholars coming into the field? If someone wanted to publish a book like you have, how should they go about it?

I actually think it’ s a much more promising time to enter the field than when I graduated from FIT in 2003. There are more fashion exhibitions. Critical work in fashion is more widely accepted in the academic and cultural panorama and, most importantly, fashion has a more friendly interaction with other design disciplines and mediums. The best advice I can offer new scholars coming into the field is to be careful to regard fashion as its own artistic form—and learn from objects!—but second, to see fashion as it evolves in artistic culture and society overall. Don’ t let anyone tell you that fashion can’ t interact with photography, painting, sculpture, 3D modeling, or whatever in the broader academic realm because it also lends to function and utility. The more we allow fashion a place in academia among the other disciplines, the more venues will emerge to support that research, and hopefully more jobs can be created. Until then, students of this field will need to jumpstart their own careers – pitch exhibitions to small galleries, start publications such as this one, and try to contribute papers and critical work to forums that you respect and have learned from yourself. Working as a fashion academic, unless you’ re one of a very lucky few, is a self-starter career – you have to be open to translating that perspective to other mediums and skills and learning and growing wherever you can.

If someone wants to publish a book, especially if you’ re publishing as an independent author, you have to be very passionate about the subject and willing to invest a great deal of time and energy into putting that scholarship out there – with little compensation. And draw yourself very distinct boundaries within which the research and dialogue is contained.

What projects do you have in store for the future?

I am currently working on a follow-up manuscript for Harper Collins, which will be released late next year. Other than that, I have been fortunate in that I’ve been able to take on a lot of little inspiring, fun projects. I’ve been pursued by various firms and brands to consult, which I’ve really been enjoying.

Photo by Fabien Baron

Self-reliant Fashion Design--Politics and Practices in Fashion Design: The case of Buenos Aires

It's exciting to report on the great number of conferences happening in the field of fashion studies, which helps one grasps the cross-cultural and geographically diverse scope of the phenomenon. Alessandra Vaccari, an Italian scholar based at the University of Bologna, is organizing a conference in Buenos Aires in conjunction with the new masters launched by the University of Bologna, Buenos Aires. The conference, which is taking place November 11, is organized in collaboration with the Centro Metropolitano de Diseño.

For detailed information on the conference, see below:

Thursday 11 November 2010, 17.30-21.00

Auditorium, University of Bologna Rodríguez Peña 1464, Buenos Aires

The forum explores the role and activism of self-reliant fashion designers in the development of a new perception of fashion scene and system. The term “self-reliant” designates here a relatively high degree of independence from fashion industry; strong control and decision-making power over research, creative process, production, and communication; output ranging from one-offs to small series; close relationship with end users.

The self-reliant practice is not necessary a goal, but it is the condition in which new generations of designers increasingly work with an enhanced attention to cultural and ethical dimensions of fashion, often after the achievement of an academic qualification in fashion design.

The forum investigates what has become a global phenomenon, which is particularly interesting to study either in the presence of powerful fashion and textile industry (e.g. Italy), or when such an industry is weak, as is the case of contemporary Argentina. The forum involves designers, media and fashion institutions’ representatives, academics, and students, who are invited to express and discuss their views. Which are the creative strategies that self-reliant practices entail? What is the role of fashion oriented small medium sized enterprises? How do self-reliant fashion designers interact with urban and social space? Are they the product of the current trend toward academisation in design education? And which are the relationships between them and the public institutions promoting design and creative industries? These are some of the key questions that the project seeks to answer.

Project Alessandra Vaccari

Co-ordination Vicky Salías y Alessandra Vaccari

University of Bologna, Buenos Aires

Programme

17.30 Introduction Alessandra Vaccari (University of Bologna)

17.40 Panel 1: Policies Andrea Saltzman (Universidad de Buenos Aires) Celia Turquesa Topper (Universidad Argentina de la Empresa) Daniela Sartori y Cesar Albarracín (Cèsartori) Marina Pérez Zelaschi (Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial) Pablo Ramírez (Ramírez) Sofìa Marré (Fundación Pro Tejer) Vicky Salías (Centro Metropolitano de Diseño)

Panel 1 Co-ordinator Vicky Salías

19.10 Coffee break

19.30 Panel 2: Practices Emiliano Blanco y Camila Milesi (Kostüme) Javier Estebecorena (HE Hermanos Estebecorena) Jimena Nahon (Catalogue) Marcelo Giacobbe (Marcelo Giacobbe) Mariana Szwarc (Salsipuedes) Vicente Donato (Università di Bologna) Victoria Lescano (Pagina/12) Yumico Takemoto (HP France)

Panel 2 Co-ordinator Victoria Lescano

University of Bologna, Buenos Aires + 54 11 4878 2900 informes@unibo.edu.ar

Centro Metropolitano de Diseño, Oficina de Moda, Buenos Aires +54 11 4126 2967 oficina.modaba@gmail.com