The Comment

Fashion in the Time of Flux

Veronique Branquinho F/W '09

Since last Fall, dire headlines have dominated WWD and other industry trade papers, as profits at fashion houses plunged across the board, layoffs were implemented and expansion plans shelved for the near-future. Now, the other shoe appears to be dropping, as big name after name begin to fold their businesses, citing an economic environment in which they simply can't compete. Just last week brought news of niche designers Veronique Branquinho and Emma Cook closing shop, and an announcement that Christian Lacroix might be headed for bankruptcy. These designers aren't exactly newcomers - they've been on the scene for many years - and though their businesses have remained relatively small-scaled, they've been able to deliver a consistent financial performance, while earning critical acclaim... well except for Lacroix, which has managed to stay afloat without ever turning a profit.

Christian Lacroix Couture S/S '09

One has to wonder how long it will be before bigger companies start to buckle as well. Sure, the Vuittons and Chanels of the world don't have to worry - Gucci Group, in fact, posted a 5% increase in sales to $1.1 billion in the first quarter of 2009 - but for the majority of mid-size fashion brands lean consumer spending poses a real challenge. The consulting firm of Bain and Associates, for instance, forecasts a 20% decline in luxury spending for the first half of 2009, and this decrease can only further damage already-ailing brands. 

Emma Cook S/S '09

The coming year promises to bring more closures of iconic brands, most likely just in advance of the fall shows, or alternately as 2nd quarter corporate results are reported, and one gets the sense that, at many companies, the situation is much more dire than they are publicly letting on. Assuming that one believes that these bankruptcies will occur, then the question becomes 'how will the fashion world handle this reconfiguration?'. I'm guessing that things will move in one of two directions. On the one hand, designers (and their backers) will take fewer risks, and this might translate into more 'wearable' (read salable) collections, but on the other hand, there will likely be a resurgence of raw creativity among emerging designers who sense that the moment is ripe for reinvention. Unlike the past decade, when money drove almost all of the design world's evolution - even the most creative designers were coopted into a fashion system that prized lucrative mega-brand design contracts, rapid expansion and a surfeit of hype - the failure of this approach to sustain itself has an unexpected upside: without easy access to venture capital, and its attendant perils, designers will operate in a less manic, more grounded atmosphere, one that hopefully affords them the time and space to nurture a unique vision while refining their design skills, without sacrificing their idealism or  imagination to a voracious corporate retail and media machine that is unable to provide them with the genuine support they need to fully actualize themselves.

Will this work? We'll see. Maybe it's unrealistically optimistic. Still, considering that the alternative is the end of creativity in fashion, I'd prefer to believe that this time of economic hardship will spur a new generation of genius, instead of solely using them as grist for the capitalist mill.

Carsten Holler

During Berlin's Gallery Weekend, i saw a lot of art, but my favorite show by far was Carsten Holler's. Holler's work spans multiple mediums, and the fashion world knows him best because of Prada's patronage of his works, including the conceptual London nightclub, the Double Club, that he designed with their backing. His Berlin show, at Esther Schipper, was built around birds and mushrooms. The main installation featured a mobile of dull grey metal birdcages with live canaries chirping away in a magenta room. A side room has glass vitrines with moulds of different mushrooms spliced together to form strange and beautiful hybrid forms, while the office houses 9 large-format prints of different birds whose physical characteristics allow for the projection of incredible amounts of anthropomorphic characteristics onto them (my favorite one is pictured below).

The ideas of doubling and halving connect all the pieces, from the spatial arrangement of the mobile, to the mushrooms, to some small abstract paintings in the main room that were the starting point for the mobile's conceptualization. But somehow, despite all the weighty ideas on display, there's also a sense of wonder, of magic and of play. The idea that contemporary art doesn't have to present itself dourly or self-seriously in order to be of significance is one that should be drilled into young artists heads. One reason that the 'outside world' loves to hate contemporary art is because it is often pretentious. There's room for that of course, and an argument could be made that it's that very pretension - the aspiration to communicate a larger meaning - that makes it important in the first place. I'm just saying that extending an invitation to people to enter into the work, whether via humor or poetry or beauty or desire, is a valid strategy that artists shouldn't feel embarrassed to adopt.

H&M Commercials

I don't have the clearest memory of the 80's (for most of it I was under the age of 10) but what I do remember stands out very clearly. Part of the reason might be the impressionability of youth, but I think the decade's distinct aesthetic ideals also played a part in making it so memorable. The era's fashion television commercials are one of the most powerful visual statements that I can recall growing up (Calvin Klein and Chanel's fragrance ads come to mind) - some of the best Chanel work was directed by Jean-Paul Goude, legendary photographer, creative director and career-maker. I was happy to come across a link to an ad for H&M's new Matthew Williamson collection on youtube. I then found a bunch more from previous seasons, all of which were impressive. My favorites are the Williamson, Lagerfeld and Madonna collection commercials, but the Spring 2009 and Holiday 2008 editions are also a lot of fun. All (except the Madonna ad) owe a large debt to Goude's bold, signature surrealism - I wish more ads took as creative an approach as these. 

Some winning lines/moments:

the Williamson ad:  A Close Encounters of the Third Kind re-enactment, a woman on a pink horse proclaiming, apropos of nothing, "I like my horse", Williamson responding (in a spirit of irony, i assume) to someone saying "Look what you've done", in reference to a horde of models surrounding him "Well I haven't done them all"

  

Why Furniture is Better than Fashion

 

I made a quick trip to Milan last weekend for my first trip to Salone del Mobile, the international furniture fair that is the biggest annual event for the design world. I’ve only been to Milan in a fashion context before, but I’ve always wondered about the city’s other aesthetic personality – having sold myself into the fashion trade at a relatively young age, I’ve often second-guessed my decision, entertaining fantasies of kindler, gentler, less obnoxious creative fields populated with beneficent peers cheerfully working towards the harmonious realization of an artistic vision. It’s a ridiculous idea, of course, to imagine that any field is without its share of unpleasant people and interactions, but still, after 10 years working in fashion-related media, I’ve started to wonder if there’s something intrinsically wrong with these … well, technically, I suppose I should say ‘us’.

ANA FINEL HONIGMAN ON THE COLLECTIVE SEOUL

Hong Hyejin for Studio K

Seoul's debonair Mayor Oh Sea Hoon plans to defy the recession, not give in to it.  In a televised forum with a few international journalists and a smattering of established designers, he declared that Seoul is going to step up its investment in fashion rather than scale back. "We are aware that other cities are cutting down their commitment to fashion," Oh Sea Hoon said as he signaled his ambition to make Seoul into Asia’s fashion leader on par with Paris, Milan, New York and London. "We are increasing our investment in fashion and Fashion Week, in order to fill in the cracks in the industry."

On the surface, Oh Sea Hoon’s generous statement seems to bode well for Seoul’s fashion community. And Seoul is a city where every successive mayor strives to find a signature way to assert his personality and legacy. Unfortunately, advantages achieved those areas by each administration are rarely carried forward by subsequent officials. Unless systemic changes are embedded in Seoul fashion’s economic infrastructure, Seoul is at risk of backsliding, right at the point when its fashion scene is showing striking promise and its Fashion Week is starting to come into its own.

For one, Korean culture is still heavily stratified by class. It is a culture closely akin to America or England at the very start of the last century. Like Victorian London, the visible culture in Korea is extremely prim and codified. However, there are pockets of severe poverty and deprivation. Challenging conversation are shunned by high society and the country’s mass culture is cute and conservative.

Most significant for the fashion industry is the fact that few middle-class and affluent women work after marriage. One young designer, lucky to have a husband in finance and an affluent family who encourage and fund her career, explained a typical well-to-do non-working woman's day to me over lunch in the W Hotel’s five star restaurant. “At 11am, women will head to the department store to meet their girlfriends," she said. "They then have lunch and shop. Around 5pm, they go to the bottom floor and buy food to cook their husbands’ dinner. That is their life.”

Now Playing: A genius public service announcement from 1976 about Swine Flu

Thanks for this tip Max!

File Sharing: The Pet Shop Boys "Love, etc."

Late last night, surfing the net, when i should have been asleep, i stumbled upon a link to the new Pet Shop Boys single, which, I believe, was released in the US yesterday. I grew up listening to the Pet Shop Boys, and their unique combination of cutting insight, affecting pathos, wry humor and unabashed sentimentality were an essential part of my musical (and general) education. They're a great example of how pop music can be meaningful - just because something sounds catchy doesn't mean it's without substance - and their latest single, a typically tongue-in-cheek post-materialist ode, is one more piece of evidence that the zeitgeist is shifting in an important way, and that what we need, more than anything else, is love.

And the video is pretty amazing too.

Lakme Fashion Week - India's Design Ascent

Indian fashion is at a crossroads – as the country rockets ahead and begins to take its place as an economic superpower, its design scene is poised to play the role of global ambassador, providing an image that instantly summarizes the culture’s modern appeal. At Lakme Fashion Week, which just concluded in Mumbai, the crisis didn’t seem to have the same effect as it had on Western runways, reiterating just how powerful the Indian economy is. Despite a slowdown in growth, the point is that the economy is still growing, unlike in Europe and America where the decline doesn’t show any signs of ending anytime soon.

The week’s highlights span a diverse range of design perspectives, from Anand Kabra’s fiercely modern silhouettes to Sabyasachi’s rustic layers, but they all share an investment in expanding the definition of what it means to be an Indian designer. Their ideas are bigger than stereotypes of ‘ethnic’ costume, and when they’re at their best, they can succeed in environments around the world, not just in their native context.

The first show that caught my attention was Anupamaa Dayal. Her vibrant print combinations, caftan-like cuts and beaded edges called to mind Zandra Rhodes, but seen through an Indian lens, and easily translated to both Western and domestic markets.

Now Playing: Slumdog Millionaire

Before I saw Slumdog Millionaire, I read, and heard different critical opinions about the film’s portrayal of the city and the circumstances in which its poor exist: the crime, the cruelty, the squalor, their struggle to survive. A friend of mine, whose opinion I trust even if I don’t always agree with her, had a different perspective – she thought the plot was hokey and too ‘Hollywood’, and it left her unmoved, despite its great effort to engineer an emotional response. I saw the film a week ago – I live in Berlin, where movies which are not forecast to be major hits take a while to arrive – and after it was over, I was of a divided
mind.

The story’s serendipitous arc was beyond far-fetched and the dialogue was, in parts, embarrassingly flat, but the acting, especially of the slum children, was powerfully unaffected, and there were a number of elements throughout the film that would have held meaning only for those with an intimate knowledge of India, and more specifically, of Bombay. For all of its contrivances, the movie was also unexpectedly authentic, and I think that the unlikely conjunction of brutal reality with saccharine fantasy is what gave the  movie its power, and why it has become such a global phenomenon.

Diane Pernet: The Luxury of Never Being Lonely

Diane Pernet, the editor of cult-favorite blog, A Shaded View On Fashion, and the co-editor-in-chief of Zoo Magazine, is one of fashion's most iconic figures. With her towering hair, blood-red lips, all-black ensembles, veil and sunglasses, she is a stylistic sphinx. Here, she reveals herself through her philosophy - a very different idea of what luxury means: never being lonely. In a world where material goods are used as markers of personal satisfaction, her abstract approach to the idea of luxury is an inspiration. God knows, I'd love the luxury of never being lonely.

It’s hard for people to believe but the truth is I’m really a loner. If you want to see the worst of my personality then put me in a house with other people, somewhere far removed from a city and make me dependent on someone else to drive a car. It could be in the Tuscan countryside, or a large villa in the middle of nowhere, no matter how magnificent the surroundings, the truth is I really need  to be alone.

I do love people and I cherish my friends, and in fact I cannot imagine my world without them, but at the end of the day, I need to be alone. I’ll never understand the people that prefer to be houseguests when they could just as easily stay in a hotel.  I guess, unlike me, they simply cannot bare the idea of being left alone.

I have a friend that used to call me every time I sent him an e-mail because he could not understand why, when we were both living in Paris, I just did not pick up the phone.

I remember years ago being offered a villa in the south of France. We were filming the making of the festival d’Hyeres. The founder of the festival proposed that instead of putting us up in hotel rooms that they would offer us a car and a villa so that we could all stay together. For my collaborator this was heaven, for me this was the definition of hell.

My first husband and I used to think that the ideal situation for us would be to live separately but close to each other. It wasn’t a matter of being unfaithful it was just a matter of wanting and needing personal space.   My fourth husband used to have a lovely house in Normandy. I had a standing invitation but I knew after a day or so of cutting roses and eating delicious home made food, I’d feel trapped and missing the luxury and freedom of the city and cement.

Diane's first husband

For me luxury is not a full time chauffeur, although that would suit me just fine, it is the pleasure of having a few dear friends that I really care about and that bring me moments of supreme happiness, and of course the luxury of doing what I love and enjoying, frankly, being  alone.

Diane Pernet