“The artification of fashion. A phenomenon
transforming the discipline.”
Table of Contents
Introduction………....….pp. 2-11
Chapter I. Where does fashion artification come from? Whom are the actors and what are the events that triggered this phenomenon? A “process of processes”……….. ……….pp. 12-23
What is
artification?...pp. 12-15 Fashion and the Museum………...pp. 15-16
The Fashion Brands……….……...pp. 16-19
The Fashion Discourse……….….….pp. 19-21
“A process of processes”……….…pp. 21-23
Chapter II. Alexander McQueen’s exhibition Savage Beauty: an institutional artification………..pp. 23-39
Alexander McQueen’s fashion: the reasons behind the exhibition…. …....pp. 23-31
McQueen at the Metropolitan Museum: Savage Beauty………..… pp. 31-36
Blurring the lines: Is it fashion or is it art?...pp. 36-39
Chapter III: Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons, aesthetic meets business………...pp. 40-54
Who is Rei
Kawakubo?...pp. 40-44 Rei Kawakubo’s practice………..……pp. 44-46
Rei Kawakubo’s garments………...………….……pp. 46-52
A conceptual fashion……….……pp. 52-54
Chapter IV: Maria Grazia Chiuri: Artification as an Ideology
Dior under Chiuri, traditions meet feminism………... ………..pp.55-61
Chiuri’s Fashion meets today’s issues……….……pp. 61-65
Chiuri’s artification as an ideology………..pp. 65-70 Conclusion………..….…...pp. 71-73 Annexes……….…….pp. 73-80 Bibliography………...…pp. 81-90
Introduction
“Luxury brands […] could become singular as the only form of human work that combines creativity, art, patient craftsmanship, and high
nobility”.1 Jean-Noël Kapferer, when concluding his article on “The Artification of Luxury”, makes a bold and strong statement: luxury goods are the future of art as we knew it. Contemporary art is not anymore about beauty and material work, but about concepts and an aesthetic going more towards ugliness than beauty. While luxury goods, such as fashion items, are now embodying our old definition and vision of the art: a beautiful artefact that will please the eye of the spectator. This bold statement is to be remarked, in a cultural world such as ours, now coming to a turning point. Art is changing, it is morphing into new forms and aiming at new values; on the other hand, fashion is also evolving, and does not anymore conform to its primal values, being the covering and embellishing of the body.2 So what is fashion today? If we follow Kapferer’s idea, fashion could be the new medium for the old vision of arts, the field in which its past values are now manifested.3 The word used by the scholar, ‘artification’, applies to this morphing fashion is going through. More than proposing a new fashion, today’s designers are artifying garments. So is fashion the new traditional art?
Before getting any further, a first question needs to be answered: what is artification? Fashion historian Diane Crane gives the following definition: “the ways in which practitioners of cultural forms that are relatively uninstitutionalized – such as hip-hop, primitive art, the art of the insane – develop institutions that evaluate and regulate these forms of culture, thereby socially construct them as art forms”.4 In other words, what Diane Crane means, is that thanks to the intervention of an institutional agency – such as a museum, an art critic magazine, or a theatre, for instance –, a cultural practice can be considered as an art 1 KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in
Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 379.
2 Those new values are of the number of three according to Kapferer, as he writes: “First, it has abandoned work as a value and focuses essentially on creating experiences for receivers. […] Second, contemporary art involves provocation, creating a split with elites […]. Third, many contemporary artists refuse to ennoble ingredients and instead create their art using leftovers and junk.”, Ibid., pp. 379.
3 Which are, according to Kapferer, “creativity, art, patient craftsmanship, and high nobility”, Ibid., pp. 379.
4 CRANE, Diane., “Chapter 8: Boundaries: Using Cultural Theory to Unravel the Complex Relationship between Fashion and Art”, pp. 99-110, in GECZY, A. and V. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013., pp. 99.
form. It is an answer that meets my own understanding and application of the term. I would also agree with Jean-Noël Kapferer’s understanding of the word, being “the transformation of a non-art into an art”, yet I also want to add to it, the ‘recognition’ of it as such.5 However a first issue appears here, the question of what art is needs to be answered. This word can be defined in many different ways, which makes it a term hard to grasp, especially today, when its practices are constantly renewed, as Kapeferer remarked.6 In order to have a recent and general explanation of the term, I turned to the Oxford Dictionary, which provided me with no less than four different definitions. I here quote the first one: “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”.7 This definition teaches us that art is then something that can trigger emotions in the spectator, and something which tends to be beautiful. The Oxford Dictionary is in a sense referring to the modern definition of the art, encompassing the high art mainly. But further researches led me to an article wrote by Art History Professor Jean Robertson for the Oxford Art Online, entitled “Art in the 21st Century”.8 I would like to quote Robertson here, who gives us an overview of what art is today:
Art of the 21st century emerges from a vast variety of materials and means. These include the latest electronic technologies, such as digital imaging
and the internet (…); familiar genres with a long history that continue to be practiced with great vigor, such as painting (…); and materials and processes
once associated primarily with handicrafts, re-envisioned to express new concepts (…). Many artists regularly and freely mix media and forms, making the
choices that best serve their concepts and purposes. Activities vary from
5 KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in
Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 372. 6 Ibid., pp. 379.
7 https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/art
8 ROBERTSON, Jean., “Art in the 21st Century”, Oxford Art Online,
http://www.oxfordartonline.com/page/art-in-the-21st-century. This website is an online platform gathering various resources and information about art. It works in association with Grove Art Online, and collaborates with many scholars and specialists of the Art field.
spectacular projects accomplished with huge budgets and extraordinary production values to modest endeavors that emphasize process, ephemeral experiences, and a do-it-yourself approach. The notion of influences has also shifted with changes in communications and technology; every location around
the world has artists who respond to local geographies and histories as well as the sway of global visual culture.9
Leading academics have asked the question ‘is fashion art?’, applying it to specific frames, and trying to answer it through different questions and case studies.10 The historical separation of art and fashion is still present today and led to many questionings and debates.11 It is a very ‘hot topic’, if I may say. The existing literature is extensive, and the question is being asked both in the fashion industry, and in the art world. Of course, the answers vary a lot, and the status of fashion today is still very far from being accepted as a high art form. Nonetheless, some disagree. Fashion historian Sun Bok Kim argues that fashion should be considered as a high art because of its aesthetic dimension, which is central in the creation of garments.12 This argument is an interesting one, and her philosophical approach adds an intellectual dimension to fashion, that makes out of her research one willing to elevate fashion’s status. On the other hand, Robert Radford is against fashion being considered as an art, since for him, fashion is not spiritual nor metaphysical, while art is.13 9 Ibid.
10 Diane Crane (CRANE, Diane., “Chapter 8: Boundaries: Using Cultural Theory to Unravel the Complex Relationship between Fashion and Art”, pp. 99-110, in GECZY, A. and V. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013.), Barbara Heinemann (HEINEMANN, Barbara., Chapter 17: “Curating an Exhibition: Art and Fashion”, in GECZY, Adam. and Vicki. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013., pp. 201-209.), Robert Radford (RADFORD, R. ‘Dangerous Liaisons: Art, Fashion and Individualism’, in: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress,
Body & Culture. 2 (1998)2: 151-64.), or Sun Bok Kim (KIM, S. B. 1998. ‘Is Fashion
Art?’, in: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture 2(1998)1: 51-72.), to name only a few.
11 “This process of separation, however, went hand in hand with the establishment of a ranking in which fine arts are positioned at the top, but crafts, in contrast, are defined as the minor arts or even worse, as the arts abject other.”, DELHAYE, Christine. & BOSC, Alexandra., “Fashion Blockbusters: a Mixed Blessing?”, University of Amsterdam, 2017., pp. 6.
12 KIM, S. B. 1998. ‘Is Fashion Art?’, in: Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body &
Culture 2(1998)1: 51-72.
13 RADFORD, R. ‘Dangerous Liaisons: Art, Fashion and Individualism’, in: Fashion
Those fields, in his view, share some common points, but they are not on the same level. Another example would be the dense book published by Adam Geczy and Vicki Karaminas, Fashion and Art, which revolves around this debate on the relationship between art and fashion.14 This book is a compilation of articles trying to give an answer to that question through many different points of views, addressing various concerns such as the curating of fashion exhibitions, the relationship between fashion and aesthetics, or the question of the existing boundaries between art and fashion.15 In other words, we remark that fashion is made of many different layers, each of them leading to a questioning of its status and recognition. This field can be studied through diverse academic disciplines, and the extensive literature on the topic testifies of the complexity and interdisciplinarity of this practice. Yet during the past decades one focus has been dominant: the artistic status of fashion.
The debate ‘is fashion art’ is not so recent. The question in itself appeared in a series of interviews of artists and fashion designers, led in 1967 for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, directed by journalist Priscilla Tucker.16 In this series, the aim was to get a clear answer, whether a yes or a no, to that question. The answers varied, but were always nuanced, never resumed to a simple yes or no. For instance, fashion designer André Courrèges replied that he would “not affirm that fashion is not an art”, but on the other hand, for him the profession of designer “is simply a job like that of any artisan”.17 However figures such as Charles Frederick Worth did consider themselves as artists, and then, later, designers such as Elsa Schiaparelli made this argument even more blatant
“In general, the aesthetics of fashion do not admit the spiritual, metaphysical, or contemplative modes”., Ibid., pp. 155.
14 GECZY, Adam. and Vicki. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013.
15 HEINEMANN, Barbara., Chapter 17: “Curating an Exhibition: Art and Fashion”, in GECZY, Adam. and Vicki. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013., pp. 201-209.
Ibid., Chapter 3: “Aesthetics: Fashion and Aesthetics – A Fraught Relationship”, by Llewellyn Negrin, pp. 43-54.
Ibid., Chapter 8: “Boundaries: Using Cultural Theory to Unravel the Complex Relationship between Fashion and Art”, by Diane Crane, pp. 99-110.
16 TUCKER, Priscilla., “Is Fashion an Art?”, Interviews, in The Metropolitan Museum of
Art Bulletin, New Series, Vol. 26, n°3, November 1967., pp. 129-140. 17 Ibid., pp. 138.
when collaborating with Surrealists artists in her collections.18 She is one of the most used example to argue on the question ‘is fashion art’. Yet what she did has nothing to do with what is happening now. She collaborated with artists, while the artification of fashion today relies on the fashion designer and its medium, the fabric, which will then be acknowledged by the institutions. The debate is fashion art is then not recent, yet the question of fashion’s artification brings in a different insight. It is not anymore about collaborations with artists, or about the ‘art of couture’, but lies in a deeper change in fashion, a change of values and aims, happening both in the craft of the designers and the recognition of the institutions. This question ‘is fashion art’ is then different from the one I am addressing today through the phenomenon of the artification. Here I will not be supporting the acceptance of fashion within the art world, but of the morphing of this field into something new, getting closer to the art by adopting its values.
In order to demonstrate and justify this assertion, and to pinpoint this change, I define a specific frame for this research. I will only look at specific luxury fashion houses designs from the twenty past years – approximately from 1999 to 2018, highlighting the main events which happened between those two years – in the Western fashion world. This specificity is justified by the facts themselves: the process of the artification of fashion is happening in this time frame, and in the five Western fashion capitals, namely Paris, Milan, London, Tokyo, and New York. I will focus on three cases studies, each of them representing a different moment in the artification of fashion, but also embodying a different type of change. Each of those three designers, being Alexander McQueen, Rei Kawakubo (for Comme des Garçons), and Maria Grazia Chiuri (for Dior), are questioning fashion and its artification in a different 18 Worth himself said, “I am an artist”., PEDRONI, Marco., “Art seen from Outside: Non-artistic Legitimation within the Field of Fashion Design”, in Poetics, Vol. 43, April 2014., pp. 102-119., pp. 104.
Diane Crane also refers to Schiaparelli, who was for sure one of the most important primitive figures of the artification of fashion, when she looked at surrealist art in order to find inspiration for her clothes., CRANE, Diane., “Chapter 8: Boundaries: Using Cultural Theory to Unravel the Complex Relationship between Fashion and Art”, pp. 99-110, in GECZY, A. and V. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013., pp. 103.
way. Each case will then be representative of a particular aspect, a specific value, of this phenomenon that is fashion artification.
This leads me to the question of the method. As my case studies will be my main focus, and the departing point of my arguments, my method will mainly be analytical. For each designer, I look at artification in a different way, by studying a specific aspect of their work, according to the way they participate in the artification. I will examine Alexander McQueen’s work through the question of fashion and the museum, focusing on the landmark exhibition of his work, Savage Beauty.19 With this
exhibition haute couture entered the museum, and this time, the exhibition’s curators are looking for more than a simple display of garments in galleries: they want the visitors to experience McQueen’s world. The way it has been curated makes out of it a major event of the artification. I will also discuss the designer’s creations for the reader to understand this exhibition and its approach in a better way.
Concerning Rei Kawakubo’s case, I will directly study the design of her garments.20 The Japanese designer has a completely different approach to fashion design, focusing much more on the concept than the material. Her working method does not depart from the fabric to go towards an idea, for her it works the other way round. This original approach leads to the creation of unique garments, designs addressing issues much more than responding to the garment’s primal aims, to cover and adorn the body. Her creations, as I will argue, find themselves closer to the art of sculpture than the craft of fashion. In order to grasp her ideas I will combine the study of her collections with what she has to say about them, through quotes gathered by Andrew Bolton in his book, Rei
Kawakubo: Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, and diverse
interviews.21
19 “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 4th – August 7th 2011.
20 “Rei Kawakubo / Comme des Garçons Art of the In-Between”, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 4th May-4th September 2017.
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/rei-kawakubo
21 BOLTON, Andrew., Rei Kawakubo: Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between, Yale University Press, 2017.
Regarding Maria Grazia Chiuri’s work for Dior, I will not solely look at the material aspect of her designs, but also at the social and political questions lying behind the gowns. Chiuri’s interviews will also in this case be my main literary sources, while her short tenure, so far, at Dior, justifies the lack of academic writings on her work, a lack which is nonetheless compensated by her regular interventions in the media. Proud feminist, she is not afraid to expose her ideas and her will to inject politics, and art history’s mistakes and issues in her creations. That is why my method in her case will mainly be relying on what the designer herself has to say, her will and wishes, thanks to the many interviews she has been invited to give in the past two years. I will also look at her designs in a rather general way, focusing on few collections and pieces, to support my arguments.
Theoretically, my frame is defined by the word ‘artification’ and its definition. The question of the artification is still today a niche topic, where literature is rare. But the specificity of fashion artification is even more niche, and, as my searches have proved, almost inexistent. That is why my theoretical frame work is very wide. To find a fixed definition of this term is already a hard task. De l’Artification : Enquête sur le Passage à l’Art, by Roberta Shapiro and Nathalie Heininch is one of the rare publication that studies the process of artification in its entirety, and fashion is far from being its main concern.22 Nevertheless, it is useful in order to understand better the background of this concept, and how widely it can be applied. More useful however, as a starting point, is the definitions given by Diane Crane and Jean-Noël Kapferer which I have already cited.23 To condense their ideas, artification is the transformation of a non-art into an art, 22 SHAPIRO Roberta & HEINICH Nathalie, De L’Artification : Enquête sur le Passage à
l’Art, Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 2015.
23 “The ways in which practitioners of cultural forms that are relatively uninstitutionalized – such as hip-hop, primitive art, the art of the insane – develop institutions that evaluate and regulate these forms of culture, thereby socially construction them as art forms”., CRANE, Diane., “Chapter 8: Boundaries: Using Cultural Theory to Unravel the Complex Relationship between Fashion and Art”, pp. 99-110, in GECZY, A. and V. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013., pp. 99.
“The transformation of a non-art into an art”, KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 372.
thanks to the acknowledging of an institution, whether a museum as I will remark in McQueen’s case, or media coverage with Chiuri. Nonetheless we also have to remark that this transformation can be done in many different ways, as the designers I chose will prove. A fixed definition was obviously needed as a starting point, however, all along my research, I understood that the term ‘artification’ cannot be limited to the transformation of a non-art into an art. It also has to do with will, with possibilities and acceptance, and an evolution of values. The phenomenon of artification can only happen if all the people concerned work in this direction. This phenomenon needs many actors and significant events to arise, something that I will show in the first chapter of this thesis.
I have to add here, however, that I cannot talk about artification without talking about institutionalization. The artification of fashion, as the artification of any other artistic and creative field, has to do with institutions. The entrance of fashion into the museum is an institutional act, garments being welcomed in a place that acknowledges the artistic value of a piece. Another kind of institution would be the media, which will, by the use of a new discourse, participate in the artification of a practice. Last but not least, the states – France in particular – is also an institution which supports fashion, it is an authority which recognizes its value, by granting it and claiming its cultural matter. Artification then comes hand in hand with institutionalization. The institutions and their acknowledgments, their recognition, are part of the “process of processes”.24
Now comes the question of the why, why the artification of fashion should be studied. As I demonstrated all along this introductory chapter, fashion is going through a major change. Its values are evolving, and designers, by using diverse manners, are getting away from fashion to come closer to the art. Fashion designers of today are incorporating in their creations the traditional and original values of the art which have been manifested throughout Art History, some of them being beauty, activism, but also this famous maxim being art for art’s sake. Rei 24 HEINICH, Nathalie & SHAPIRO, Roberta, “When is Artification?”, in Contemporary
Kawakubo, Alexander McQueen, and Maria Grazia Chiuri, are assimilating those values and injecting them into their designs. Kawakubo’s questions fashion’s practice and aesthetic; while Chiuri, as I will later show, wants to be part of art history using the medium of fashion; when finally, Alexander McQueen, maybe without willing to be, became a figure of fashion institutionalization. All those three cases are embodying a value of the art, whether this is triggered by the institution, or by the designers themselves. As I remarked at the start of my introduction, art is going towards something new, it does not follow its traditional rules and aims anymore. Yet fashion now seems to fill in this gap, to attempt to become the new form of what we understand as art traditionally. This research follows the path opened by Jean-Noël Kapferer in the conclusion of his article I referred to earlier on. In the last section of his article, he writes: “Luxury brands have been elevated as strong cultural conveyors of advanced taste. […] A question thus arises: Does this strategy actually positions luxury as the paragon of human work? It might be the unspoken goal, accessible by exploiting three major weaknesses of contemporary art”.25 My research will participate in the answering of that question, by focusing on fashion artification, a luxury good that might become the new form of traditional art.
In order to answer this question, I will look at whom are the actors of the artification, who are the people needed, apart from the fashion designers, in order for the phenomenon of artification to happen. The following chapters, starting with McQueen, followed by Kawakubo, and finally Chiuri, will focus on my three cases studies. For each one, I will identify where the artification is present in their work – is it in the aim? In 25 The three weaknesses being the following ones: “First, it has abandoned work as a value and focuses essentially on creating experiences for receivers. Formerly, artists had to be excellent artisans first, to master the technique and spend time on each piece of art. If work is abandoned by art, luxury brands could capitalize on this concept and earn considerable additional social legitimation. Second, contemporary art involves provocation, creating a split with elites, which offers another entryway for luxury brands. Third, many contemporary artists refuse to ennoble ingredients and instead create their art using leftovers and junk. Luxury brands thus could become singular as the only form of human work that combines creativity, art, patient craftsmanship, and high nobility.”, KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 379.
the material work? –, and why we can say that they are going toward an artification with their design. And finally, when going towards an artification, do they do it by personal desire or are the institutions at the origin of their artification? The conclusion will open up to an even more complex issue, being the impact of the artification of fashion on our cultural society and on the way we define words such as ‘art’ and ‘fashion’.
Nonetheless, the aim of this thesis is to discuss the changes happening in the universe of fashion, and it is what I am proposing to do now. This field needs a redefinition, and to be looked at through a new scope. The evolution of fashion is part of our cultural heritage, part of our society, and it is redefining much more than the purpose of fashion itself. It is questioning more than the fashion industry, but the cultural and artistic field. This research I am conducting here wishes to grasp, while it is still happening, a crucial moment for the world of fashion. Its new skin and new soul. Its morphing into something new. Its artification.
Chapter I:
Where does fashion artification come from? Whomare the actors and what are the events that triggered this phenomenon? A “process of processes”
The artification of fashion is inscribed in a specific frame, a frame delimited by the definition of the word ‘artification’ which I already gave in the introduction. However, before getting any further and diving into the study of the three cases, I would like to come back, in more details, to the theory of artification, and to define whom are its actors when it comes specifically to fashion artification.
What is artification?
As said in the introduction, the process of artification can be defined as the transformation of a non-art into an art. I relied on Diane Crane and
Jean-Noël Kapferer’s definitions of the term, both of them arguing that it is the transformation of a non art into an art, thanks to the intervention of institutions.26 Since they both directly treat of fashion, those definitions then apply to my own field of research. However, there are two main authors who are dominant figures when it comes to the study of artification, the French sociologist Nathalie Heinich, specialized in the study of art and contemporary art, and Roberta Shapiro, also sociologist, yet focusing specifically on dance. Their work is crucial to grasp what artification is today, but also to understand that this phenomenon is happening since centuries, changing the status of artistic activities into institutionalized art practices.
In Shapiro and Heinich’s publication, “When is artification?” (2012), it is interesting to note that the authors do not want to answer the question ‘what is art?’, but, in place of that, to ask when it is happening, under which conditions, and thanks to whom, a practice becomes an art.27 Artification, as they explain, is “a process of processes”.28 By this, they mean that for a practice to become an art there is a need for different steps to be taken. Those processes have a lot to do with institutions, since they will be the agencies that will change the status of the practice. Nevertheless, a process can also be an event, a pattern, or the will of a practitioner to have his/her activity recognized. For instance, with fashion artification, McQueen’s performances could be considered as events, then a process; the fact that numerous designers are now willing to change the values of fashion can be seen as a pattern leading to a change. Both those actions are processes.
26 They respectively write: “the ways in which practitioners of cultural forms that are relatively uninstitutionalized – such as hip-hop, primitive art, the art of the insane – develop institutions that evaluate and regulate these forms of culture, thereby socially construct them as art forms”, CRANE, Diane., “Chapter 8: Boundaries: Using Cultural Theory to Unravel the Complex Relationship between Fashion and Art”, pp. 99-110, in GECZY, A. and V. KARAMINAS. Fashion and Art. London: Bloomsburry, 2013., pp. 99.; “the transformation of a non-art into an art”, KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 372.
27 HEINICH, Nathalie & SHAPIRO, Roberta, “When is Artification?”, in Contemporary
Aesthetics, Special Volume 4, 2012. 28 Ibid., pp. 5.
However, since the 20th century, this process seems to have become easier to go through. In another article published in 2004 (“Qu’est-ce que l’artification ?”), Shapiro and Heinich explain that this period questioned art and its limits, its boundaries always pushed further with the appearance of new art forms, but also a change of the authority: now it is not anymore up to the Academies to decide what art is, everybody can have an opinion and weight in this debate.29 They give the example of hip-hop dance which became an artistic activity thanks to social workers; but we can also think about Andy Warhol’s Factory, as public policy scholar Elizabeth Currid explains, which was a phenomenon discussing the limit set between the different art forms.30
The topic of fashion is not really approached by Heinich and Shapiro, who rather focus on their own fields, being contemporary art and dance. However, I would argue that fashion can be fitted into their theory. According to them, artification can whether be “durable, partial, ongoing or unattainable”.31 This categorization makes it possible for us to apply their theory to various fields which they do not include in their books. The “partial” category is then the one which concerns us, since it encompasses the architectural object, a type of artefact which because of its utilitarian aspect has never been fully recognized as an art. Fashion seems to be facing the same issue. The fact that the garment is in part a utility appears to cancel the creative basis fashion comes from. Nevertheless, thanks to 29 “Ce n’est plus l’Académie qui fait l’artiste, mais le public, les journaux, les collectionneurs, les jurys, les directeurs de galerie ou de festival, les commissions d’attribution des subventions, les commanditaires, les statisticiens, les sociologues, les systèmes de retraite et d’assurance-maladie, etc.”. Translated by me: “It is not the Academy which makes the artist now, but the public, media, collectors, board members, art galleries or festival directors, committees of allocations and subsidies, sponsors, statisticians, sociologists, pension and health insurance systems, etc.”, SHAPIRO, Roberta, « Qu’est-ce que l’Artification ? », XVIIème Congrès de l’AISLF, « L’Individu Social », Comité de Recherche 18, Sociologie de l’Art, Tours, July 2004.
30 Ibid., pp. 3.
“He [Andy Warhol] understood but also encapsulated, in both his work and his Factory, the collective nature of creativity: that fashion, art, film, music, and design did not reside in separate spheres – that instead they were constantly engaging each other and sharing ideas and resources across creative sectors.”, CURRID, Elizabeth.,
The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art & Music Drive New York City, Chapter I: “Art,
Culture, and New York City”, pp. 1-16., Princeton University Press, 2007., pp. 7.
31 HEINICH, Nathalie & SHAPIRO, Roberta, “When is Artification?”, in Contemporary
the case studies that I chose, but also the institutions I will be looking at in this chapter, we will see that the utilitarian aspect of fashion, but also the idea that a garment is simply a piece of fabric, are outdated visions of this field. Now fashion and its values are changing. Utility is not a priority anymore, its new values take it always further from its primary ones. Today in the fashion industry the body is questioned; haute couture pieces have their place in art museums; a garment can be used to voice a political opinion, as in Chiuri’s fashion, to denounce social inequalities, doing then much more than simply covering our bodies. The term ‘artification’, for this thesis, will then be understood as the transformation of a non-art into something that is getting closer to art by changing its values. However, the reader will have to keep in mind that fashion is an industry, and then will never be on the same level as true art. That is why my aim is not to say if fashion is art or not, but to identify how fashion is getting away from its own definition and primary goal to get closer to questions, methods, values and aims that we can find in art. In other words, to get away from its utilitarian aspect to reach a higher purpose, while still being an industry. Shapiro and Heininch’s idea that artification is a “process of processes” will also be taken in account. And this is what I am now going to look at. Which are the processes fashion has to go through to be artified? Whom are the actors participating in the process? Which are the institutions playing a part in this transformation?
Fashion and the Museum
One of my case, being Alexander McQueen, asks the question, of the presence of fashion into the museum. When it comes to fashion museification, one of the main event to pinpoint is the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition which took place at the Met in 1983. It was the first time a museum paid a tribute to a designer who was still alive and still working for his house. This exhibition then marked the entrance of fashion in the museum as an artefact appreciated for itself, and not as an anthropological nor ethnological testimony of an era. This event
constitutes one of the process, it is a turning point for fashion artification. Fashion, since the 1980s, has its place within the museum, and since then, many more designers – such as Rei Kawakubo – have seen their creations being exhibited at the Met, but also in many other institutions, such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, a museum of art and design.32 Fashion curator Harold Koda explains on the topic that the acceptance of fashion in the museum has been made possible with institutions such as the V&A, whom desire is to exhibit clothes for themselves, in a sense, fashion for fashion’s sake, without any underlying purpose.33 But according to him, the changes in the definition of art itself gave more space to fashion as a culturally valued phenomenon.34 Koda argues that this process of revaluation of fashion started with Worth, but it took more than a century for fashion to be accepted within the institution of fine art museums.35 Today, we can see some of Oscar de la Renta’s designs exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, a place where are also held exhibitions on the Renaissance painters.36 More than entering the museum, fashion has then, recently, entered the art museum.
So what does this say on fashion? It would be going too far stating that placing a dress in an art museum makes it art. Yet this new presence of fashion within fine art museums, and every design or craft museums in general, evokes that couture is now being recognized as an artistic discipline worth being looked at, worth being showed, in a context that is not historical, nor for an ethnographical purpose. Robert Radford even argues that the museum is the place where the link between art and fashion has been made blatant.37 It is then an important space to look at in order to understand the phenomenon of artification. I will explore the presence of fashion within the museum in more details later on with 32 “Rei Kawakubo / Art of the In-Between”, 4th May-4th September 2016.
33 KODA, Harold, “Rei Kawakubo and the Art of Fashion”, in ReFusing Fashion: Rei
Kawakubo, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, 2010., pp. 17-35., pp. 19. 34 Ibid., pp. 19.
35 Ibid., pp. 22.
36 “The Glamour and Romance of Oscar de la Renta”, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, October 8TH 2017, March 18th 2018.
37 RADFORD, Robert., ‘Dangerous Liaisons: Art, Fashion and Individualism’, in:
McQueen’s case, yet it is important here to highlight the event of 1983, this first exhibition which opened the door of museums to fashion designers, as scholar Marco Pedroni reminds us.38 This event states something major, it institutionalized fashion in a way that has never been before, and made it possible for this craft to be appreciated for itself, for its material. Yet today we have taken another step, now fashion has entered the art museum, and, in a way, this says something on its value, maybe even put it on an equality step with art.
The fashion brands
Before getting any further, I would like to address an important nuance. In this research, I focus on three designers, whom, I will argue, are figures of the artification of fashion, and this because of the way they work and see fashion today, but also in the way they are presented by institutions. This research will then specifically look at the personal work and the individual ideas of those fashion designers, as autonomous and free creatives. Nevertheless, it is impossible to talk about fashion designers without talking about brands, and for them the creations must sell. We can see here the start of an issue, because how can we argue that a fashion designer is going toward an artification of couture when he has to bring money back to the brand? It is important then to understand the importance of fashion groups such as LVMH (owning Dior) which weight a lot in the balance of decision making. Jean-Noël Kapferer in his essay “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists” argues that luxury brands, meaning CEO, not designers, are willing to go towards an artification of their products in order to keep their status of luxury brands.39 As he phrases it: “the growing multiplication of associations of luxury brands with artists, galleries, and museums is not accidental. Luxury brands are actually engaging in a subtle process of ‘artification’, the transformation of nonart into art. The luxury industry aims to be perceived as a creative 38 PEDRONI, Marco., “Art seen from Outside: Non-artistic Legitimation within the Field of Fashion Design”, in Poetics, Vol. 43, April 2014., pp. 102-119., pp. 104.
39 KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in
industry”.40 In other words, the will to go towards an artification is also a marketing technique. The first example that came to my mind when reading this quote was Louis Vuitton. Kapferer himself uses this example several times in his article, but I myself thought of a line he did not mention, being the accessories line launched by the brand, “Masters”, in collaboration with Jeff Koons, which consists of bags being printed with famous paintings of great masters.41 Can we talk about an artification in this case? Kapferer explicitly exposed the issue Vuitton is facing. It has become an affordable brand for the new riches, their monogram bags are now mainly purchased by Asian customers, and the fact that their products are so widely present is an issue for them. They are loosing their ‘luxury aura’, they are not considered as enough valuable anymore, too easy to access. In order to make up with that, they brought out a campaign all about craftsmanship, willing to value again their products, yet it was a fail.42 The “Masters” collection follows the same principle but in a different way. The bags are being given value because they are representing famous art pieces, but they also are the result of a collaboration with a current famous artist. There is then, in a sense, a will for artification, but not as in the three case studies I propose. We could talk about an instrumentalization of art in fashion rather than an artification. Here, the purpose is commercial, it is, in a sense, a will to create a ‘blockbuster’. There is no engagement from the designer, it is not fashion going towards something new, it is fashion borrowing from art, vulgarising it, making a purse out of a Monet. Artification is not about this, it is about creating fashion with fashion, not simply do a ‘copy and paste’. 40 Ibid., pp. 372.
41 https://fr.louisvuitton.com/fra-fr/histoires/masterscampaign2#
42 “Luxury is an industry, and an industry is about reproduction. In 2009, Louis Vuitton launched a world advertising campaign called savoir-faire (know-how), highlighting the work of the firm’s craftspeople. Such a campaign was needed to provide a counterweight to the growing image of Vuitton as a mass-produced, luxury mega-brand. The United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Agency even banned Louis Vuitton from using two of its ads, maintaining that these images misled consumers to believe the label’s products were hand- made, when the majority of the bags, wallets, and other accessories that Louis Vuitton is known for have been crafted by machine. Allusions to craftsmanship thus can backfire.”, KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 374.
This counter example is very interesting to unfold here, because Louis Vuitton is a brand with a long history, still very important today, just like Dior. However, even if their goals are similar – injecting higher values into fashion through art – the methods and the results are completely different. Money, vulgarisation of high art, and a fail for Vuitton; political engagements, original creations, and a real success for Dior. What is important to grasp here is the difference between an instrumentalization of art and the artification of fashion. Artification of fashion is not about reusing what art has done and put it in a garment form, it is about creating something new which carries artistic values.
Nonetheless, the three designers I am studying still have to be cost-effective, yet this does not mean that artification cannot happen. In this research, I am focusing on luxury fashion brands, and this is important to keep in mind because some haute-couture pieces will not be on display in the Comme des Garçons or the Dior store, they will be unique samples. What will be for sale is the prêt-à-porter, being massively produced, the accessories, the ‘wearable’ pieces, yet they still are luxury and expensive items. Haute-couture shows and luxury creations are then the place where the fashion designers can let their creativity be expressed, but we have to keep in mind that behind the designer there is always a brand.
The fashion discourse
Next to the museum and the brand, the discourse on fashion, carried by the media institution, also contributes to its artification. Roland Barthes taught us very well how important the discourse is for fashion in his book,
The Fashion System (1967).43 This book goes in every details of this
specific discourse, looking at the vocabulary used by fashion journalists in fashion magazines, the way they build their sentences, and how all of this is at the origin of fashion. According to him, in fashion every words hold a meaning, however, this meaning will change with the seasons and the
trends.44 Yet he only argues on the material aspect of fashion, not on its conceptual meaning. His book became a founding text for fashion studies, and it did point to a major element of the fashion industry. Fashion journalists have a lot of power, they can make an unknown designer famous, and bring down with critics a main fashion figure.45 But also, they decide what is fashion, and what is not. As Julie Bradford phrased it: “On a theoretical level, many academics have pointed that fashion has to be written about and represented in some way to exist – otherwise it would just be a bunch of clothes with no backstory”.46 In other words, fashion, on a general level cannot exist without its language. And when it regards artification, we come to the same conclusion: it is not solely up to the fashion designers, but also to the fashion journalists to artify couture. Aurelie van de Peer wrote an article on the topic, where she argues that today, in the media world, we assist to a process of “re-artification”, thanks to the way journalists from outside and inside fashion magazines tend to see and write about fashion shows.47 Since the 1990s, as the author writes, fashion is “intellectualized”.48 What Van de Peer means is that now the focus is not only the material work, not only the fabric, but the whole story lying behind the collection, the meaning of the clothes and the message they carry. In order to do so, fashion journalists got away from the material, to get closer to the concept.49 The 1990s were then a turning point in the fashion discourse, it is the moment when fashion journalists really looked at the ideas and concepts of the designers. It was not anymore all about the final product, but much more about the stream of ideas that led to it. Van de Peer argues that the concepts behind the clothes were sometimes pushed really far, pondering on the conception of beauty, femininity, body, and also social issues, yet as we can see now 44 “Fashion does not evolve, it changes: its lexicon is new each year”, Ibid., pp. 215.
45 “The equivalence of the garment with the world, of the garment with Fashion, must conform to the norms (as obscure as they may be) of the fashion group”., Ibid., pp. 41.
46 BRADFORD, Julie., Fashion Journalism, Routledge, 2015., pp. 35.
47 VAN DE PEER Aurelie. ‘Re-Artification in a World of De-Artification: Materiality and Intellectualization in Fashion Media Discourse’, in Cultural Sociology, Vol. 8, 2014., pp. 443-461.
48 Ibid., pp. 444.
this was only the start of it.50 Today, when reading interviews of Maria Grazia Chiuri, we can see that the topic is not the material, the only focus of many of the articles is Chiuri’s feminism and her will to inject this value into her garments. The concept has completely taken over the actual garment, and we are now far away from Barthes’s theory, which seems to now be lacking an element: the overcoming of the material.
Van de Peer does not only treat of fashion journalists in her article, but also of journalists from outside this sphere, such as art critics. Fruzsina Bekeffi joins her when stating that McQueen’s exhibition has been subject of many critics, whether positive or negative, from many different spheres and milieus, including the art world.51 For instance, Holland Cotter, art critic for the New York Times, wrote a review of the exhibition, regretting that the show did not go far enough in the presentation of the designer as an artist.52 For the fashion designer’s work to have their artification recognized by the media industry constitutes a major process of this phenomenon, and in McQueen’s case it was even acknowledged by art media. It is almost a proof, since it is recognized and written, spoken, that this is really happening, that it is being “regulated”, accepted, institutionalized.53
The work of Maria Grazia Chiuri, Rei Kawakubo, and Alexander McQueen, could not be qualified as representative of the artification of fashion without the discourse surrounding it. It is not only helped by the descriptions made by journalists in glossies, who, as Van de Peer says it, “intellectualize” fashion, but it is also thanks to the many interviews those
50 Ibid., pp. 454.
51 BEKEFI, Fruzsina., “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”, in West 86th: A journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, Vol. 22 (2), September
2015., pp. 244-249., pp. 249.
52 “If you’re going to deal with fashion as art, treat it as art, bring to it the distanced evaluative thinking, including social and political thinking that scholars routinely apply to art.”, Ibid., pp. 247.
53 Roland Barthes writes about the importance of things being said in order to really be, and when it comes to fashion he writes: “the more a garment is spoken, the easier it is to regulate”. This joins this idea of ‘recognition’ from the fashion journalists and art critics in our case, the fact that it is spoken is a proof that it is here, and will eventually be “regulated”., BARTHES Roland., The Fashion System, University of California Press, 1967., pp. 156.
designers have been asked for.54 They interest the public, and thanks to that can spread their ideas and convictions, which seem to be happily carried by journalists. The fashion discourse in its more general sense is acknowledging the fact that fashion is changing, it writes it, says it, and this acknowledgment is needed for the artification to happen. Barthes’ ideas are still valid on that point, for fashion to exist it needs to be written. For the phenomenon of artification we are facing the same need: in order for the artification to be real, the fashion discourse has to acknowledge it.
“A process of processes”
The word ‘institutionalization’ seems then to be central to the phenomenon of artification, as we saw when looking at the diverse institutions. We cannot talk of an artification if we do not mention the institutionalization. But what is it? According to sociologist Arnold Hauser, but also to Diane Crane to whom I referred to earlier on, institutions are a path for a work of art to follow in order to be recognized as such, and so accepted and approved, a ‘social process’.55 This definition is very close to the way Shapiro and Heinich define artification. Yet institutionalization seems to be more concrete, since it is made of actual institutions and agencies. What are they? The museum, the discourse, the important actors such as the states, main figures of this world – as Andrew Bolton, curator for the Met – but also powerful names – such as Anna Wintour, Redactor in Chief of Vogue US. All of them are institutions of the artification of fashion. All of them are places and figures, mediums, the fashion object has to through during the process of artification. In a sense, the institutions are the “processes” of the process.
What we can conclude from this chapter is that in order for the artification of fashion to happen, there is a need for many actors to intervene, and many events to occur, a need for an institutionalization. 54 VAN DE PEER Aurelie. ‘Re-Artification in a World of De-Artification: Materiality and Intellectualization in Fashion Media Discourse’, in Cultural Sociology, Vol. 8, 2014., pp. 443-461., pp. 444.
55 HAUSER, Arnold., “Chapter 17: Institutions of Mediation”, The Sociology of Art, 1982., pp. 489.
This phenomenon is not limited to the fashion designers. There is a need for some key events, such as fashion exhibitions in museums, which as we saw, play a major part in the artification. This institution is the place where the value of the garment as an artistic piece is acknowledged, and even more today, now that fashion enters the fine art museums. The Saint Laurent exhibition was a key moment, nevertheless McQueen’s Savage
Beauty triggered more. This exhibition elicited a major reaction from art
critics, and even if it has been subject of some negative reviews, the important fact to notice is that it has been talked about and then recognized as a phenomenon of artification. This then leads me to the institution of media. Fashion journalists and art critics now write about fashion in a new way, one that acknowledges the deeper meaning of the creations. In their interviews, they do not limit themselves to the material work of the designers. Redactors want to know what they think, which are their values, their will for the future. Fashion of luxury houses, thanks to the fashion discourse, becomes more than simple garments, its aim and meaning take more and more space in its discourse. The designers are then not the only ones ‘creating’ the artification. It is not only up to the designs, yet they are the starting point. Their ideas and creations are the place where the artification takes birth, where the artification lives its first moments. The garment and its aim come from the designer’s mind, and without this first actor, this first step, there will not be any artification. Artification could then be compared to a game between institutions, actors of the fashion industry – brands –, and designers. But we have to keep in mind that fashion is positioned at the limit between craft and high art, it is in between those two worlds, and this blurry location makes the artification even more complex. That is why in the following chapters I will discuss in more details, focusing on chosen angles, the work of my three case studies. For each of them, I will try to understand if this artification is a desire of the designer to go towards it, or if it is a phenomenon triggered by the institutions. Yet the main question to answer will be: “what is the artification for each of those cases, and what does this say on fashion and its future?”.
Chapter II:
Alexander McQueen’s exhibition Savage Beauty : an institutional artificationMy first case study will be Alexander McQueen, and more specifically the exhibition he had been subject of at the Metropolitan Museum in 2011. His case brings in quite clearly the relationship between the concepts of
artification and institutionalization. Even if the material garment and the
concepts lying behind the clothes he created are also part of the artification, the exhibition constitutes the event which led to the consecration of this artification.
Alexander McQueen’s fashion: the reasons behind the exhibition In order to understand the reasons why this exhibition has been curated, and how the institution of the museum led to the artification of Alexander McQueen’s work, we need to understand his fashion, both on the material and on the conceptual level. The material aspect of the British designer’s garments is central to the Savage Beauty exhibition, and to Alexander McQueen’s career.56 He started as a tailor, and for him the handwork was a crucial aspect of his designs. Yet he did not limit himself to what he learned as a tailor, as he said: “Anything I do is based on craftsmanship. A bit of tailoring, or a bit of woodwork, or be it anything else, you know. I try to involve a lot of handcrafted things.”57 In this quote, we can see that McQueen was far from the contemporary art ideas, based on concepts rather than crafts. In other words, McQueen was getting closer to the main traditional and modern ideas of art that I explained earlier on, being beauty and craftsmanship. This love for handwork, crafts, and the materials, led him to sophisticated fashion creations, overcoming
56 Fashion historian Valerie Steele explains that the curator wanted the “visitors to focus on McQueen’s craftsmanship and, particularly, on his inimitable cutting”., STEELE, Valerie., “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty”, in Fashion Theory – Journal
of Dress, Body and Culture, Vol. 17 (4), June 2013., pp. 419-430., pp. 422.
57 PISTERS, Patricia., “Metallurgic Fashion. Sartorial transformations in Changing Techno-Media Worlds”, in Fashionating Images, Audiovisual Media Studies Meet
Fashion, Comunicazioni Sociali, Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural
by far the fabrics usually used for garments. Here I think for instance of the Shell Dress (VOSS, Spring/Summer 2001).58 This gown was completely made of razor-clam shells all glued together, assembled by the work of hands, then demonstrating how important the craftsmanship was for the late designer. Its realisation in itself is questioning fashion. How could this dress be worn? Or even, how can this dress had even been made? It is constituted of a fragile and heavy material, also being a natural element that will then go under the will of time. This piece is actually unwearable, as it was proved during the show, when the model broke some of the shells.
The choice of materials constitutes a major argument in McQueen’s work’s artification. His use of natural elements, such as antlers, shells, or even stuffed birds, questioned the materiality of fashion. The British designer went further and did not limit himself to the traditional fabrics used in the fashion industry, instead he decided to work with fragile materials, many borrowed from nature, which constituted a main theme all along his career. The use of those uncommon materials asked the question of the wearability of the clothes, the comfort, the possibility to go out in the street with a hat made of stuffed birds.59 However, we have to keep in mind that the pieces presented during the shows, such as the shell dress, were never made to be massively produced, nor sold in stores. The gowns presented on the catwalks were for McQueen the ones which expressed his aesthetic. They were the theatrical expressions of his ideas, as Patricia Pisters explains: “His shows and dresses were savagely theatrical, with each collection providing a total experience, which built the catwalk like a film stage.”60 To make this distinction is crucial. Those unique and sophisticated pieces, not the clothes made to be sold and bring money back to the brand, were the ones used for the Savage Beauty exhibition.
58 Annexe n°1.
59 Annexe n°2.
60 PISTERS, Patricia., “Metallurgic Fashion. Sartorial transformations in Changing Techno-Media Worlds”, in Fashionating Images, Audiovisual Media Studies Meet
Fashion, Comunicazioni Sociali, Journal of Media, Performing Arts and Cultural
The haute-couture pieces are then not anymore products of the fashion industry that will be widely produced and sold, they are something to be looked at, objects to admire. The craftsmanship of the dresses has been exceeded, to become almost an anti-fashion object, not replying to any of the traditional characteristics of a garment – here, mainly the wearability. This will to forget about fashion’s first aims is manifested in numerous of McQueen’s designs, and this recurrence leads me to argue that the designer was already, before the institution acknowledged it, going towards an artification. The way McQueen considered the material creation of fashion was almost contrary to fashion’s essence: he created unique pieces that could not be worn, or even purchased by clients. Those gowns blur the line between art and fashion, since we cannot decide, because of their lack of fashion values, if they are clothes or art pieces. This peculiar approach already starts to explain the reasons behind the curating of Savage Beauty. This blurriness that was omnipresent in McQueen’s works constitutes a part of the artification that was later on exploited by the institution.
The material was nonetheless not the only place where McQueen exceeded fashion’s tradition and values. The themes he exploited during his career treated of problematic issues which are rather unfashionable. Fashion sustainability and mental illness were some of the topics that he put forward during his shows.61 McQueen’s fashion, in this sense, was intellectually profound, but also provocative. His collection always carried an important message for his audience, which was left thoughtful, sometimes ill-at-ease, for instance with the VOSS show, which represented an asylum, taking place in a glass box.62 According to fashion scholar Maria 61 The Horn of Plenty (Autumn/Winter 2009), a collection which asked a very deep question, profoundly anchored in his time: the recession. He decided then to show how the recession affected the fashion industry, and did so by changing usual objects into fashionable ones. Even the staging was in this vein, the models walking around a pile of debris, being the objects used in past shows., LINDGREN, Maria., “The Perception of Fashion: Alexander McQueen: a Case study of the Subjective Perceptual Experience of Five Alexander McQueen Fashion shows”, Stockholm Universitet, 2011., pp. 23.
62 "The audience sat around a mirrored cube forced to stare at themselves for a whole hour. When finally lit from inside, the cube revealed itself to be a
mental-Lindgren, VOSS was one of his most important shows. Here, he approached themes that are usually rejected by fashion, “fatness, fetishism and pest insects”, all of them embodied by the installation that was revealed during the finale.63 The blog Blotting Paper’s moodboard, quoted by Lindgren, describes it as follows: “another cube within the psychiatric ward-cum-runway opened up to reveal a nude Michelle Olley, her face covered by a mask, breathing through a tube, surrounded by fluttering moths. It was a truly shocking and enthralling tableau: Francis Bacon via Leigh Bowery and Lucien Freud. In other words, sublime.”64 This staging was inspired by the photograph entitled Sanatorium, took by Joël-Peter Witkin in 1983.65 McQueen reinterpreted it in his show, and by doing so made a reference to an art piece, but also shocked the public by the unfashionable aspect of the scene, disturbing and disconcerting. But we here come back to the idea of sublime and hence romanticism, yet all of this was expressed through an aesthetic almost contrary to fashion, always rejected by the fashion industry, yet valid in the artworld. In other words, he exploited topics that were anti-fashion by reinterpreting art works. I would then argue that here, he once again gets away from the fashion industry to comes closer to the art world. McQueen seemed to have wanted to inject art in his fashion, and it did not matter for him if by doing so he actually went against fashion.
As I just argued, the British designer injected in his work unfashionable issues such as mental illness, yet another one of his recurrent theme was the environmental issues we are now facing. This interest for the becoming of our planet was manifested through his use of
hospital holding cell.”, LINDGREN, Maria., “The Perception of Fashion: Alexander McQueen: a Case study of the Subjective Perceptual Experience of Five Alexander McQueen Fashion shows”, Stockholm Universitet, 2011., pp. 17
63 Ibid., pp. 19.
64 Blotting Paper Moodboard, quoted by LINDGREN, Maria., “The Perception of Fashion: Alexander McQueen: a Case study of the Subjective Perceptual Experience of Five Alexander McQueen Fashion shows”, Stockholm Universitet, 2011., pp. 18-19.
65The set was inspired by a photograph from 1983 called “Sanitorium” by Joel Peter Witkin, depicting “a twenty-stone middle-aged woman, connected via a breathing tube to a stuffed monkey.”, Ibid., pp. 19.
natural material in his fashion creations, but also in his fashion shows décors. The theme of the environment was blatant in his Spring/Summer 2009 show, where an image of the earth was projected, while endangered species stuffed animals were displayed on the sides of the catwalk.66 Sarah Mower, journalist for Vogue Runway.com, describes the show as follow: “McQueen explained, through program notes, that he had been pondering Charles Darwin, the survival of the fittest, and the deleterious results of industrialization on the natural world.”67 His last complete collection,
Plato’s Atlantis (Spring/Summer 2010), also looked at this theme, but went
even further, by pondering on the potential future of the human species. This collection was fully based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, yet McQueen reversed it. He described it as follow: “(This collection predicted a future in which) the ice cap would melt…the waters would rise and…life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. … Humanity (would) go back to the place from whence it came. (…) Life on earth became with the oceans, and perhaps it will indeed be a watery end for man.”68 He took part in the dialogue concerning current issues, yet even if fashion sustainability is a fashionable issue at the moment, he exploited the question of the environment in a more negative manner. In fact, McQueen did not try to find solutions for a better fashion, one that will respect the environment, but he simply warned his public that it was too late to do anything. He made fashion out of a fatality, exploiting this trending topic in a pessimistic way. A collection as a testimony of our future ending, that we would have triggered. Once again, McQueen pushed the spectator of his show to think and question himself/herself.
Through the example I have just given, I have aimed to prove that McQueen was not willing to conform to the norm. He did not mind addressing unfashionable issues such as mental illness, or showing unfashionable bodies in his installations. I would argue that his purpose 66 KNOX, Kristin., Alexander McQueen: Genius of a Generation, A&C Black, London, 2010., pp. 96.
67 MOWER, Sarah., Vogue.com, October 3rd 2008, https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2009-ready-to-wear/alexander-mcqueen
68 BOLTON, Andrew. & KODA, Harold., Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Yale University Press, 2011.
was not to please the spectator, but to voice a message, to propose a critic of the fashion industry through his creations and shows. This constant will to go against the stream of trends, and to show what other designers hid, participated in his future artification by the institution.69 Yet his themes and particular craft techniques were not the only aspect of his work that led to his artification. By referring earlier to his remake of Joël-Peter Witkin’s photograph, I touched upon another facet of his practice, which participated even more, I would argue, to his artification, being the art installations and performances he included in his shows.
One of the main event happened in 1999, during the Spring/Summer collection presentation. This was an important moment for both the designer’s career, and the artification of fashion. According to Vogue.com: “It wasn’t a fashion show. It was performance art.”70 This quote coming from an online fashion magazine is rather significant, since it does remark the artistic purpose of this performance which was however strongly linked to fashion design. Because during this show, he designed on the runway. The performance consisted of the use of robots borrowed from a car industry, and programmed in order to spray-paint Canadian actress Shalom Harlow’s immaculate petticoat dress with a defined pattern.71 This event is to highlight in fashion’s artification because of its performative aspect, taking it very close to the contemporary art practices.72 Yet some other events are to be noticed, such as the Kate Moss floating hologram from his Widow of Culloden show in 2006, which, “with its classic music soundtrack in the finale of the fashion show comes across as an art installation more than anything else”.73
69 For instance, the theme of races and racism was blatant in his It’s Only a Game show (Spring Summer 2005), where models were all from various races and origins, yet facing each other on a chessboard.
70 https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-1999-ready-to-wear/alexander-mcqueen
71 Annexe n°3.
72 As explained by Jean-Noël Kapferer, today’s art practices are much more focused on performances that will trigger an experience, rather than actual objects that will last in time., KAPFERER, Jean-Noël., “The Artification of Luxury: From Artisans to Artists”, in Business Horizons, Vol. 57 (3), May-June 2014., pp. 371-380., pp. 379.
