Modern Couture

It's all too easy to forget that clothes are no more than an augment to our bodies. Our body type suggests the flavor of drape and the shapes we surround ourselves with. Whether wraith thin, or broad and muscular, we all have a form. Some wrestle with it, other settle into comfort. But contemporary neuroscience and philosophers of the mind are currently challenging the boundaries between mind, body, and environment such that we should seriously reassess our identity as situated in the flesh and what lies beyond.

Electronics have become essential parts of our active life. We are in fact merging with our inventions. Some artists, such as Nancy Nisbet, and scientists like Kevin Warwick are already exploring the frontiers of cybernetics. Warwick succeeded in forming a kind of radiotelepathy using the internet with his wife at the other end of a direct link. Integrating the mind with databases and linking it to appliances has become a practical reality, so the self is extending into our tools.


The most accessible and common form of body transformation is excercise. Rick Owens was recently featured in Details declaring that "modern couture" consists in mastering your own body, promoting your own health. He goes on to say," No outfit is going to make you look or feel as good as having a fit body." It's now taken for granted that a good diet and regimen of exercise can greatly impact our daily stress levels and self esteem.

Our personal lifestyle is absolutely an extension of our sense of self. How lost do we feel when we leave home without our cellphone? How coherent are we without proper rest? These devices, technological and behavioral, are simply features of who we are. The limits of our identity is flexible, amorphous, and shifting like the transition of one season into the next.

The First of the Gang

With the shows fast approaching for many of us outsiders and insiders of fashion there is a sense of excitement, or expectation. We can expect to see a continuation of familiar trends and some attempted directional statements. With the luxury market enduring so many losses last year, buyers are waiting for something messianic. Behind the scenes further the stylists and designers will be scrambling to put last minute touches on looks. Hemming garments, waiting for other garments to arrive, waiting for models. Waiting. A year ago the designer was just beginning to think concretely about the collection.

Now the collection arrives before you at the tent, or in your inbox on your laptop, or on your television screen and you pore over it. Say that there is a genuinely unique idea presented by the designer, like translucent oxfords. There appears to be a limited number of responses to the idea as detailed in this essay by Otto Von Busch*.

* If the fashion expression is too unique, it is not fashion. (it is too
original)
* If the fashion expression is too popular, it is out of fashion. (it is too
popular)
* If an accessible status group wears the fashion, it is in fashion. (it
functions; imitating the once we like, differing from the ones we dislike)
* Fashion expressions are somehow “contagious”. But at the same time
it cannot be too original or too popular. (as in rule 1 and 2)

A successful new fashion expression has a life of its own. It must be able to withstand a certain saturation level to last more than a few cycles. It has to do its part in the imaginations of fashionistas/istos. Some expressions like the casual use of blue jeans outside of the workplace become essential statements, they will last for a remarkably long period, cycle after cycle. They will do so despite the boredom of some eccentrics (including myself). Other trends like neon are too extreme for most tastes and remain an occasional public curiosity, not a mainstay.

The early adopter is the not necessarily self-concious, at times they may merely act as feels natural to them, by wearing a familiar item in an unconventional way, or altering an item out of curiosity. Other times they look at what is common and normal and they feel a spiritual revulsion. They forge a path by choice away from the pedestrians. The early adopter must carry self-confidence and also curiosity. Too much concern for the thoughts of others represents a limit that will not allow experimentation. That fashionable man is a follower, not a pioneer. A bold move into either bad taste or an area too extreme for mass consumption will find some life in the underground trendsetter crowd, those who spit on traditionalism.

When do you, as a consumer or creator, tap into new style expression? What are your boundaries? What makes you uncomfortable?

And Then He Was A She

Ash Stymest photographed by Hedi Slimane for Vogue Hommes Nippon.

Are men being feminized? How you answer that question depends on what you think a man can be. Conservatism has a small definition that pits beauty against being a man. It forces a gender war into the equation. The paternal instinct fears men being weak which is the same as being like a girl.

Conservative standards of male style have little chance of lasting forever. Don't wear baggy jeans gives way to don't wear skinny jeans. Don't grow out your hair. Grow out your hair and don't you dare put on a skirt. The most constant thing in fashion is change. Sometimes men were even supposed to be pretty, to be a peacock. Male beauty was once a subject of general appreciation and of the artistic "male gaze", as Germaine Greer described in her book The Beautiful Boy. In western society this liberty declined with the rapid ascent of early modernism, but its surged again into a degree of acceptance.

Male beauty isn't a topic of consideration, appreciation, or discussion. Especially among men. The difficult middle path seems wisest here. There will always be men attracted to the iconography of the hunter/warrior, but others will find a kind of sensuality in battle as the Greeks did. There's one largely accepted art form that's driven along this road in our times. Rock and roll entertains the dissonance, and finds pleasure in it.

On On Kawara

There's a man who lives in Soho who usually gets up out of bed everyday and produces at least one painting in a series that he has worked on since 1966. He applies five layers of liquitex paint, sanding each one to a smooth finish when it dries. These are monochromatic images of a simple line of text: the date. Each of these graphic paintings is unique in other less subtle ways as the colors are created afresh everyday. The backdrop of the date may shift subtly towards warm hues, or towards cool hues. The specific date itself is handpainted without stencil though precisely in either futura, or gil sans. The man is celebrated conceptual artist On Kawara.

Accompanying the paintings are sometimes newspaper clippings, or recordings. They are also given subtitles which are sometimes personal (I saw so-and-so today) or impersonal records of daily events. There are gaps in the series. If the artist doesn't finish the painting by midnight on the day of its date the canvas is destroyed.



Taking in the series the Today Series one might expect to be confronted with thoughts of cool voyeurism, or history. However, the impact of this process driven work is far more. Today demonstrates the emptiness of tables. The dates have subjective meaning or meaninglessness based on the viewers approach. Most of us cannot without some effort remember what happened on specific dates of our lives. Memory instructs us that some things we hope to remember we soon forget, and other mundane things stay with us forever apparently without regard to significance or practicality.

Consider then the process of creating the paintings themselves. The artist spend hours building a thing that signifies nothing though its format, white text on a matte background, suggests permanence and gravity. The font featured on many pieces, Futura, was created by the Bauhaus and used regularly by Stanley Kubrick. The appearance instead gives way to a weightless sign without a thing signified. The power of text and record becomes a vulnerable gesture.

On the other hand, the paintings are also signposts of accomplishment and discipline. They can also be garnished with scraps of the past, those resilient scraps of sense experience. Our graduations, our realization of hopes, our realization of dreams can be linked to specific days. A line of graphic text can bring us back to the day we first fell in love.

On Kawara One Million Years will be on display January 14 through February 14 (Valentine's Day) at David Zwirner.

Art theft

You're in a creative mood and an idea comes that you feel is unique. You start working on it and you execute the idea to the best of your ability. Not too long after you are surprised and upset. The idea isn't new at all, its been done before and with a mature trained approach you aren't quite capable of. If you have ever worked in any of the arts or sciences you've probably come across this scenario more times than you'd like. I've personally designed things and seen them show up in films or on a shelf. It's frustrating.

The best you can do is make that idea your own and take it in a fresh direction. Look at it another way. Nothing's new, but anything can be made new in an updated context, or with the help of your unique personality and background. This problem frequently challenges the modern artist. Embrace your predecessors, borrow, and rob your ancestors for their greatest contributions. "Bad artists copy. Great artists steal."

And for your consideration, look for the traces of the masters found in the work of Peter Doig. I see bits of Bonnard,Monet, and Bruegel as well. What do you see?

De Gustibus est disputandum

I have been pushing this book, After Virtue, by contemporary moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre for sometime now. I just can't recommend it highly enough. If you are interested in the question of how morals are rationalized, and have been rationalized historically this book is for you. If you are interested in the question of the propriety tradition in a world which individual choice is prior to and stands over classical notions of authority and "accounting for taste" then this book is for you. Interested in how stories and narratives might be fundamental to our basic worldview?

It's not necessarily an easy read. You might have to follow some references to figure out all the nuts and bults of MacIntyre's arguments and illustrations, however it's a challenge well worth the pursuit.

De Gustibus non est disputandum translates into the more familiar phrase "there's no accounting for taste". MacIntyre's thrust is, on the contrary, there is within reason.