I must confess that I was a fan of Alexander McQueen and was saddened by his untimely death. Indeed the fashion industry creates a distortion regarding a woman’s body, a perception of the ideal woman the emphasis being on the very slim while there’s outrage and controversy when there’s a size 14+ model on the catwalk. Fashion commodifies and objectifies which reflects the dominant hegemony of patriarchal capitalism.
Fashion for me is contradictory, it replicates conformity/non-conformity. Based on mass production, consumerism and profit. And a playground for the rich. So it reflects my own contradictions as I suspend my own politics when I have sat in the front of fashion shows marvelling at the clothes. Indeed I saw McQueen’s fashion as works of art, my pragmatism suspended (‘who the hell can wear that’?) and the clothes are modified for the high street.
I think my liking for fashion goes back to when I was kid where my mum was a dressmaker/seamstress. I would watch in awe as she would create a garment out of a piece of material and she always relied on her trusty 1950s Singer sewing machine only giving it up when the machine finally gave up the ghost. She tried to teach me to sew, how to cut a pattern, design your own pattern, develop knowledge of fabrics and so on… But I didn’t take any notice and wasn’t interested in doing that (one of my biggest regrets is not learning the techniques …along with not learning the piano and not going to art college when I left school). But I was imbued with an interest in fashion nevertheless. And having met a number of fashion designers over the years, and this sounds like an appalling sweeping statement, I have been struck by their shallowness yet at the same time by their creativity and imagination (and a leftie I know who studied fashion didn’t pursue it further due to the shallowness and individualism but maybe that reflects the commercialism and consumerism aspect of fashion as well as the creativity and inventiveness). Just don’t talk politics with them. Though I do recall one student putting together a collection based on Soviet garb, which was kinda surreal as she wanted to know what was the ‘fashion’ of Soviet society during the 20s and 30s specifically.
Anyway… I admit I got an almighty thrill modelling a student’s clothes/jewellery (yeah I know, whatever turns you on!) totally bedazzled by the camera and experience. It was a great experience and the photographer kept making me laugh because he reminded me of the David Hemmings character in the film Blowup. And my vanity (ha!) knew no bounds when I stood in awe watching her work projected on a wall in the college during the final year exhibition … though I did cringe a tad when confronted with my image bouncing off a wall (Oh gawd, that’s me!). And those images of my brief encounter with the world of student fashion are tucked away in somebody’s portfolio……
“Fashion commodifies and objectifies which reflects the dominant hegemony of patriarchal capitalism.”
Is that why all the designers (and all the bloggers writing about fashion) are heterosexual males ?