A New Concept on Fashion as it Relates to the Social Position of Woman in the New Century - Coursework Example

Female and the machine: A new concept on fashion as it relates to the social position of woman in the new century Table of Contents Table of Figures 3 Introduction 4 The body and machine 5 Alexander McQueen 6 Michiko Koshino 10 Hussein Chalayan 14 Conclusion 16 Table of Figures Figure 1 ‘Highland Rape (autumn/winter 1995-1996) Alexander McQueen (Fashiontribes 2010) 7 Figure 2 Alexander McQueen Runaway Show 2009 (Fashiontribe 2010) 8 Figure 3 Alexander McQueen collection by Sarah Burton 2011 (Become Gorgious 2012) 9 Figure 4 Michiko Kochino 2005 (Trendsetter Magazine 2005) 11 Figure 5 Bora Aksu 2005 (Trendsetter Magazine 2005) 11 Figure 6 Michiko Koshino (IDN 2012) 14 Figure 7 The Remote Control Dress - Chalayan (Weblog Surf 2009) 15 Female and the machine: A new concept on fashion as it relates to the social position of woman in the new century Introduction The 21st century is providing designers with a new perspective on the idea of the female body as it relates to the mechanized and technologically advanced world that is in the process of developing. The evolution of machine and body, the idea that the human being is now as much an extension of the machine as the machine is an extension of the individual has suggested a new aesthetic in design. The strain that women have had imposed upon them to defy nature and to transform is beginning to form a shape and mindset in which the body is no longer only human, the mechanized extension of the cultural phenomenon of female power within society manifesting in fashion as a reflective vessel of social meaning. One of the designers that can best discuss the ideas of the symbiosis of the organic and the machine was Alexander McQueen. Although he has passed from this world, his work was inspired, a connection between art and design that allowed for communication to those who experienced his fashion week runways at an unprecedented level. In the continuation of his work through Sarah Burton, one can see the hybridization of the natural and the mechanized used to suggest that which would defy nature. In looking at the work of Michiko Koshino, one can see how the evidence of the organic as it is constrained by unnatural forms can extend the position of the idea of female into a recalculated shape. Chalayan has taken the female form and applied a new technologized identity. Through examining the work of these designers it is clear that the female body has been reconsidered, the idea of the gender of female placed in context with the emergence of the technological world. The body and machine The body is no longer a canvas, but a sculptural medium, the individual having the capacity to change any aspect they desire and fight against nature. This fight against nature is the epitome of beauty. According to Quinn (2007, p. 33), “The ideal figure of fashion has never been the celebration of the natural, but the test of a woman’s ability to resist it”. The natural evolution of fashion has been to embrace that which is the opposite of natural, to look for the farthest point from natural to define the highest elevation of beauty. The thick, lush hips, legs, and arms of the natural woman is replaced by the emaciated. The light, delicate lash, replaced by the thick mascara spikes and the pale ruddy color of lips made deepest red. What is harsh is expected to transform to that which is subtle, and that which is subtle is emblazoned with ripe color. The natural transition of the image of the body into the 21st century is towards a hybridization of the body with machine in order to reach that state that is beyond what is born to that which is created. Hybridization is the key to understanding techno fashion; new ideals of the body are combined with technological innovations of both the body and the design fusing to create an aesthetic that is reflected in the editorial of a designer. The ideal of the 21st century is the woman whose physical image reflects her social position of power, her body as ripe with strength as her ability to dominate within the world. The next step is often discussed in terms of cyborg like extension that increase her efficiency through artificial means, enhancing the abilities that she has cultivated in order to become the future and perform at a superior level. Alexander McQueen The designs of Alexander McQueen are severe, testing both the world and the woman, creating a violence ridden buffer between the individual and the world as she is ready to mount an assault as much as she is tested for her ability to withstand the hard edges and sharp structures of his work (Quinn 2007, p. 34). At the core of his work are emotions. Even as he works in a world of machined created pain and torment, the work is defined by the emotions that lay at the core of the reflected exteriors of those feelings. According to Andrew Bolton’s discussion of McQueen’s work, his runway shows are more like art installations. During his 2009 collection runway experience he had two robotic arms spray color onto one of his dresses, the dress being created at the moment of its showing (Fig 1). He quotes McQueen who states that “I don’t want to do a cocktail party. I’d rather people left my shows and vomited. I prefer extreme reactions”(Bolton, McQueen, Frankel, Blanks, Sundsbo, and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY) 2011, p, 2). McQueen’s most controversial collection to date is likely his highly organic creations within the Highland Rape autumn/winter 1995-96 collection (Figure 1). This collection is littered with strained imagery, revelations of breasts and buttocks consuming the eye with a sense of violence that is visceral. One can see in this collection the foundation of collections that would follow as they take from this violent and bloody sense of organic perversion to a place in which the inorganic begin to take precedence. Figure 1 ‘Highland Rape (autumn/winter 1995-1996) Alexander McQueen (Fashiontribes 2010) As McQueen continued to explore the shock and emotional current of his collections, he began to explore the connection between the created and nature. Through images of machinery and control, he asserted the strain that can be connected to the machined body. In his 2009 collection, two ominous, almost threatening robotic arms sprayed color onto one of his dresses, the performance piece discussing the nature of creation as the dress was transformed on the runway (Figure 2). Figure 2 Alexander McQueen Runaway Show 2009 (Fashiontribe 2010) Current collections under his label, even after his death as carried forward by Sarah Burton, reveal the combination of the organic and the machine, the perfection of the cutting edges with the reflection of nature (Figure 3). Sarah Burton defined a standard of design under the McQueen name that is a natural evolution from Highland Rape. The structured wings of the butterfly, straining at the neck in a uniformity that is reminiscent of gears and machined parts, complimented by the unnatural and structured shape of the skirt suggest that this has hybridist tendencies, that nature has been transformed to conformity and strict duplication. Figure 3 Alexander McQueen collection by Sarah Burton 2011 (Become Gorgious 2012) Michiko Koshino The novelty of Michiko Koshino is that she is both Japanese and of the West. Her work is considered both unusual and exotic in both realms, a new take on the concept of globalization as she does not serve to transport one culture to another, but to reflect aesthetics that combine both worlds. According to Quinn (2007, p. 153) “she has followed her own path, never allowing herself to be seduced by outright commercialism, yet not failing to accept the imperative that she must make profit to survive”. One might say, then that she is the epitome of the 21st century, the idea of making money socially reviled as too common a reason to be the purpose of an action, but also one of the primary necessities of modern life. Her clients are rock stars, celebrities, and the cult of celebrity, those who have embraced the public as their purpose and their conflict, the contradiction that can be seen within the work of Koshino. As the century was new in 2001, Koshino was using PVC in order to create unusual and innovative shapes for jeans. The use of industrial materials in order to create order for shapes that defy gravity and natural form extends the mechanization of the female body. The distortion of the natural shape the body becoming secondary to the fall of the fabric and the aesthetic of body parts as being erotic can be seen in her work of 2005 as seen in Figure 4. The work of Bora Aksu can also be seen through its similar body defying aspect although this work has completely eliminated the female form and placed in its stead an overwhelming design (Figure 5). Figure 4 Michiko Kochino 2005 (Trendsetter Magazine 2005) Figure 5 Bora Aksu 2005 (Trendsetter Magazine 2005) Koshino further eliminates the body through her work in as seen in Figure 6, a work that covers all evidence of the female, replacing it with a compilation of organic in the draping around the upper torso which is in balance to the strict structures of the lower belled skirted area that extends from the torso to the calf, the body seen through wrappings of paper that have been braided and entwined in order to hint at the existence of flesh beneath the technological configuration of the madness of the industrial world as it tries to create order within the human sphere. There is a defining rhythm to the work in which the reflection of the world becomes embodied in the design through which a piece of art begins to emerge in which female and machine are both exalted and eliminated at the same time. Figure 6 Michiko Koshino (IDN 2012) Hussein Chalayan Chalayan can be quoted for having said “I am interested in re-animating certain thoughts around it (the female body), because you can alter the idea of the body in the way you present it” (Quinn 2007, p. 50). An example of how he creates his work can be seen in his Altitude collection in which he examined the idea of speed as it related to the automobile and created clothing designs that were based on the idea of ergonomically enhancing the body’s speed. Through work that is placing actual circuitry onto the body, his Remote Control 2000 created a “dialogue between the body and the environment” (Quinn 2007, p. 50). Quinn (2007, p. 50-51) goes on to discuss the dress by quoting Chalayan who stated that “The dress expressed the body’s relationship to a lot of invisible and intangible things – gravity, weather, flight, radio waves, speed, etc.” The Remote Control Dress (Figure 7) suggest the connection between the body and technology, the machine becoming an integral part of the organic, the body becoming mechanized to maximize its efficiency and to evolve to the next level. Figure 7 The Remote Control Dress - Chalayan (Weblog Surf 2009) For Chalayan, the concept of design becomes the conduit between technology and the body, the lubricant through which the expression of modern machine becomes integrated with the body as it reflects the defiance of nature. Looking at the garments, the both reflect the idea of something made through craft, fine tailoring expressed through something home grown. The technological space that the design fills becomes a part of the overall aesthetic, the integration of the ideas of control over the environment manifested in fashion. Conclusion Throughout history the aesthetics of the erotic have changed as the presentation of the female body has been a continually transformation through focus. As shown by the designers chosen for this paper, the female form sometimes becomes obliterated by the aesthetics which celebrate the idea of the integration of machine to body. The work of McQueen integrated the organic as representation of the natural form into a sense of order in which the idea of the erotic could be expressed. McQueen embraced the sexual, used it to represent those ideas that were violent, evolving into the tension between that which is technological and the body. When he sprayed and created through mechanized robotic arms onto a dress in his runway show, her provided the life of creation with the mechanization of robotics, the female form caught in the middle. As Kochino creates her industrialized works, the body becomes almost immaterial, the design becoming an overwhelming entity around the body. Chalayan takes the machine and body to complete integration, using dynamics of ergonomic structure and even actual technological systems set to the body in order to express those things that best relate his aesthetic. The female body is now the material of sculpture, the design creating a tension between what is real and what is made. The innovations of the 21st century are developed through the belief and understanding that the body is no longer about the natural and can be defined best through reflecting the existence of the machine within modern life. References Become Gorgious. (2012). Alexander McQueen 2011 spring/summer fashion collection. Becomegorgious.com [Online] Accessed on 3 March 2011 from from http://www.fashionstyle.becomegorgeous.com/new_trends/alexander_mcqueen_ 2011_springsummer_fashion_collection- 2981.html Bolton, A., McQueen, A., Frankel, S., Blanks, T., Sundsbø, S., and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). 2011. Alexander McQueen: Savage beauty. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fashiontribes. 14 February 2010. What Alexander McQueen knew (AKA why you are beyond bored with New York fashion week). Fashiontribes.com. [Online] Accessed on 3 March 2012 from http://fashiontribes.typepad.com/fashion/2010 /02/what -alexander-mcqueen-knew-aka-why-youre-bored-with-new-york- fashion-week.html IDN. (2012). Images. IDN. Retrieved from http://idnworld.com/creators/?id=ZoeBradley Quinn, B. 2007. Techno fashion. Oxford: Berg. Trendsetter Magazine. (18 August 2005). 2005 Autumn/winter season look. Trendsetter Magazine. [Online] Accessed on 4 March 2012from http://trendsetter.typepad. com/ trendsetter/2005 /08/2005_autumnwint.html Weblog Surf (23 January 2009). Wooden skirt and remote control dress by designer Hussein Chalayan. Weblog Surfer [Online] Accessed on 4 March 2012 from http://weblogsurf.com/wooden-skirt-and-remote-controlled-dress-by-designer- hussein-chalayan/ Read More