Radical Fashion

Over dinner, my dearest friend and fashion director Ariel Lozada and I were discussing how wonderful it would be to take a vacation together. We had been working hard the past months and we needed new inspiration! In our jobs, it is necessary to revitalize our creative juices. Through travel, we discover new places and things, which inspire us. The constant exposure to the world also expands our mental horizons. Ariel and I were so lucky and happy that we were able to share new discoveries together. One of them is the Radical Fashion Exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The new times have brought presentations to new heights. As an audience, we have also become more demanding and discerning. Now, fashion shows, exhibitions and other productions are all about a total experience. They have to tickle all our senses – from our sense of sight to touch, smell, taste and hearing. The Radical Fashion Exhibit satisfied all senses. It was visually multi-dimensional and the music had been specifically commissioned and selected by composer and curator, David Toop. "The composers contributing are in the forefront of digital music and sound art in different ways and are exploring new forms in technology song writing or composition." The mix of video, sound and lights, graphic and art designs, the actual clothes and different installations provided this total experience.

It is interesting to note that the definition of "radical" in the Oxford English Dictionary is basic and fundamental yet at the same time, revolutionary and extremist. This word completely defines the scope and meaning of the exhibit. "Fashion marks moments in time with particular resonance, not only because it continually changes but also because it is a discipline charged with the essence of the present, imbued with the history of the past and full of potency for the future," writes Claire Wilcox, exhibit curator and editor of the Radical Fashion book. Eleven of the most influential designers in contemporary fashion provided their visions for this exhibit. Azzedine Alaia, Hussein Chalayan, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, Jean Paul Gaultier, Helmut Lang, Maison Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe-Comme des Garçons, Vivienne Westwood and Yohji Yamamoto interpreted the word "radical" in their own individual ways. Although they come from diverse backgrounds and are in different stages in their careers, they share an uncompromising desire and purpose to defy tradition. While they constantly challenge convention, they don’t lose sight of the importance of making clothes wearable. Wilcox writes: "Each designer demonstrates by their creative response what being a free radical is really about by pushing boundaries, challenging preconception, exceeding limitations and ultimately finding a balance between conformity and eccentricity, function and adornment."

The Designers

Azzedine Alaia: "When I see beautiful clothes, I want to keep them, preserve them ... clothes, like architecture and art, reflect an era."

Alaia was born and raised in Tunisia and has lived in Paris since the late Fifties. He is considered one of the world’s last true couturiers but he considers himself to be more of a batisseur or builder rather than a couturier. Some of his works contain up to 40 pieces and are constructed with corsetry stitching and seaming to achieve a perfect sculptural form. Georgina Howell describes Alaia’s clothing of the human form for Vogue: "The technique is dazzling, for just as a woman’s body is a network of surface tensions, hard here, soft there, so Azzedine Alaia’s clothes are a force field of give and resistance."

Hussein Chalayan: "When people talk about clothes, they don’t talk ... in the social or cultural context, they just take them at face value. That’s not something that interests me," he said on an interview by Susannah Frankel, The Independent Fashion Magazine S/S 2000.

Chalayan remains rebelliously independent of commerce. His graduate collection received critical acclaim and he won the British Designer of the Year in 1999 and 2000. His shows resemble living art installations and his works include film and furniture, which transform into clothes. An attention-grabbing computer-generated film for his Spring/Summer 2001 collection was shown in the exhibit. Like a computer game, the film reaches its end when one model shoots down another model, in a dreamlike indifference. He is a very intellectual designer who considers his concepts as important as the clothes he makes. Chalayan likes to call himself an ideas, not a fashion, person. "I am an ideas person. There is something to be respected in every given idea, no matter where it comes from," he stressed.

Jean Paul Gaultier: "I like my clothes to take a lot of different influences and to show them together. So there is not one kind but many kinds of beauty."

Gaultier was born in Paris in 1952. Unlike McQueen and Galliano, he immersed himself in French fashion culture and trained with Pierre Cardin. Both Gaultier and Alaia respect tradition and the particular technical genius of haute couture. As a master designer, he has redefined many fashion conventions. He constantly breaks down barriers of gender style and takes references to street cultures. He reworked underwear as outerwear, which Madonna made famous. "Be free with your clothes. You can do whatever you want with them," Gaultier said.

Helmut Lang: "Fashion means something to everybody. It’s like the landscape architecture of interior design. It defines people and our environment."

Lang was born in Vienna but has been based in New York since the late Nineties. He has defined the concept of "industrial chic" and is known for experimenting and using alternative, high-tech materials. Despite having a large company, his attention to detail is reflected in his control for everything from graphics to accessories. When asked what his label represents, he replied: "It says Helmut Lang in it. Everything I know is in it." The Helmut Lang woman exudes an effortless confidence. His clothes define utilitarian wear for urban living.

Maison Martin Margiela: "An experience that changes absolutely nothing is hardly worth having."

"My main inspiration has always been the extremities and changes of daily life." Margiela’s work is characterized by poetic appreciation of imperfection, personality and eccentricity. He continually explores the relation of human scale to the world around us. "This is seen in work ranges from the meticulous expansion to human scale of dolls’ clothes – ‘every detail and disproportion respected’ – to his series of jackets constructed to colossal size," wrote Wilcox. "Margiela questions our place within the inherent dimensions and structure of society," she added.

Vivienne Westwood: "Fashion is very important. It is life-enhancing and like everything that gives pleasure, it is worth doing well."

Westwood has been designing clothes since 1971 and won British Designer of the Year in 1990 and 1991. She is synonymous to punk in the mid-Seventies. Instead of street style, Westwood’s fashion references come from high culture and history. Like a true radical, the convention stops there. Her collections are often eccentric and subversive. Westwood perfectly expressed the essence of the exhibit: "As soon as you begin to use the word ‘radical’ to describe fashion, you are faced with a paradox: In order to do anything original, you have to build it on tradition."

Alexander McQueen: "There is beauty in anger. Anger for me is passion. If you don’t have passion for something, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place."

Much of his work explores the violence of desire. McQueen was born in London in 1969. At the age of 26, he became chief designer of Givenchy. He has been named British Designer of the Year three times. Early on, he developed his skill in tailoring when he apprenticed at Savile Row in 1986. "Let us not forget the use of my own hands, that of a craftsman with my eyes made of steel that reflect the technology around me." His Voss, Spring/Summer 2001 collection was displayed in the exhibit. "Models with bandaged heads prowled a bleak landscape seen through mirrored glass while model Erin O’Connor tore at a razor shell encrusted skirt, literally cutting her hands," wrote Wilcox. No matter how extreme his concepts, the underlying foundation of impeccable tailoring is constantly there. Suzy Menkes of the Herald Tribune wrote: "In his most perfect balance yet of fine clothes and an artistic concept, McQueen seemed to express the anguish and angst of his generation."

Four Japanese designers were chosen to collaborate in this exhibit. They are innovative and challenging, either highly wearable or absolutely inconceivable. "Japaneseness" is irrelevant in an industry that transcends national boundaries though. Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe, Rei Kawakubo attract similar clientele – the most critical and discriminating – their peers and arts professionals. "While western fashion generally echoes the contours of the body and is cut front and back, Yamamoto and Kawakubo wrapped and draped great swathes of fabric around the body. Foregrounding form and texture, in time-honored tradition they exploited the full width of their loosely woven and pre-washed fabric to create oversized garments that moved sensually with and independently of the wearer," wrote Amy de la Hayein in "A Dress is No Longer a Little Flat Closed Thing." The Japanese also lead in the development of techno materials working with specialized technicians and factories.

Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons: "I try to make clothes that are new, that didn’t exist before and hope that people get energy and feel positive when they wear them. I believe that creativity is an essential part of life."

Kawakubo was one of the most revolutionary designers to arrive in Paris in the early Eighties with her ripped and knotted fabrics, somber colors and asymmetric detailing. She has made an enduring mark in the fashion world for her total independence and originality. Born in Tokyo in 1942, Kawakubo is a self-taught designer. "What I do is not influenced by what has happened in fashion or culture. I work from obscure abstract images to create a fresh concept of beauty," she said.

Yohji Yamamoto: "My most important concern about fashion is still about breaking some code, some tendency, which I do by using fashion."

"In Yohji Yamamoto’s work, the nature of change and renewal is explored and most clearly seen when his fluid and architectural clothes are set on the catwalk, each subtle metamorphosis is cut, traced in time and motion," wrote Wilcox. Yamamoto describes himself as a natural born feminist. In his childhood, he was already observing and assisting his mother in her dressmaking business. After graduating law, he studied at Tokyo’s Bunka College of Fashion. He founded his own company in 1971. For his Autumn/Winter 2001, a collaboration with sports label, Adidas brought a marriage of art and engineering. "It is not about approaching high technology itself ... it’s about approaching a world of elements opposed to the ones of fashion," he wrote in his press release for the collection.

Issey Miyake: "Sometimes my clothes are radical, probably sometimes challenging but I try not to fear the radical things," interview with Miyake, Guardian Weekend, Fashion Special, 28 September 1996.

Born in Hiroshima in 1938, Miyake studied graphics at Tokyo’s Tama Art University. De la Haye wrote: "Prior to graduating in1963, he presented his first collection lyrically entitled ‘Poem of Cloth and Stone.’ From the onset and with the modernist’s revolutionary zeal, Miyake sought to design a dress that was neither elitist nor ephemeral, but simply in tune with contemporary function and style requirements." After studying at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, he worked with Guy Laroche and Givenchy. Then he learned the ropes of mass production and merchandizing in New York when he worked with Geoffrey Beene. Miyake has brought the avant-garde to a wide group of people through the mastery of innovative cut, silhouette and fabric. The Pleats Please range was born in 1993 after much commitment with the innovation of fabric technology. Since 1999, Miyake has concentrated on the research and development of his revolutionary clothing line, A-POC (A Piece Of Cloth). Traced out on the computer programmed Raschel-knit tubes, blue prints of garments lie trapped.

Junya Watanabe-Comme des Garçons: "I cannot tell the future except that I will dedicate my energy to every collection. Moving forward without thinking of consequences is important."

Kawakubo’s protégé is hailed as one of fashion’s greatest visionaries. "Rei has taught me everything about how to create, " Watanabe once said in i-D no. 195, March 2000. He apprenticed at Comme des Garçons for three years before becoming the chief designer of the Tricot knitwear line. "Hauntingly beautiful origami folding, honeycomb weaves and garments entirely constructed from or embellished with petal-like ruffles – from chiffon dresses to thick woolen coats and capes – are his forte," wrote De la Haye.

"Radical fashion is not just about an expressive or visionary individualism but also, in the nature of fashion, it is a barometer of a changing world and changing ways of thinking. The fashion phenomenon encompasses shifting patterns of consumerism, ideas of public image and a sense of individualism, enriched by music, film and literature, fine art and philosophy," wrote Wilcox. The fashion world is very complex and multi-layered. Radical Fashion demonstrates the infinite potential and power of fabric when interwoven with human identity. There is more to fashion than just clothes. The exhibit goes beyond this. "Vain trifles as they seem, clothes... change our view of the world and the world’s view of us," Virginia Wolf, Orlando 1928.

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Note: Source and photos from Radical Fashion edited by Claire Wilcox

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