anti fashion

Vivienne Westwood captured the essence of confrontational anti-fashion long before other designers realised the subversive power of punk. We forget how much a deliberately torn shirt held together by safety pins, for example, would have offended polite society in the early ‘70s. In Westwood’s words: “it wasn’t that I purposely wanted to rebel; I wanted to find out what it had to be done one way and not another.” The foremost anti-fashion fashion icon, she documented a style that electrified how we have presented ourselves since.

Decades after the reign of punk, movements are again springing from a grassroots irreverence for the fascism of ‘style’, that is inevitable in late-capitalist society. Production technologies have sped up manufacturing processes so that trends turn over at an ever-increasing rate. As soon as a model steps of a Paris runway the knock-offs are being shipped out of China. High waists, empire lines, ankle-length dresses, pinafores and bubble skirts were all being plucked off the wire racks of Supre within the same breath as they were photographed at international Fashion Weeks.

And at the same time trends are becoming less relevant. Because they are so instantaneously accessible, they are less appealing. In the words of Jean Cocteau “art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time - fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.” It is ugly as soon as it is universal and to avoid being clones of each other fashionable kids all over the world are refusing ‘fashion’.

The recently launched Sydney magazine, Duke, draws on a spirit of irreverence for trends, fashion and ‘lifestyle’. An absurd art and thrift fashion journal, it goes against dictatorial aesthetics and celebrates a more playful approach to self-expression. It is reminiscent of the cult London and New York based anti-fashion publication Cheap Date, launched in 2004 by the fashionista thrift-store enthusiasts Bay Garnett and Kira Jolliffe. It purported to go against ‘cool’ and all that goes with it (with involvement from an uber-cool bunch of kids including Anita Pallenburg, Karen Elson, Chloe Sevigny, Liv Tyler, Debbie Harry and Sophie Dahl).

The Cheap Date Fashion Strike promoted badges with messages like ‘To Hell With Chanel’; ‘Content Is The New Style’; and ‘I Will Not Be Told,’ and prompted readers to write to Anna Wintour, infamous editor of US Vogue, the following statement: “I consider contemporary fashion and obsession with it to be life-diminishing. In the interest of humanity I ask that you observe the Fashion Strike and cease trading from 14th May 2004.”

In our high-consumerist climate it is inevitable that people begin to question establishment fashion and realise how it stifles creativity and the flow of ideas. We are currently saturated with information and aesthetics from infinite historical and cultural contexts, so there is no defining style besides hodge-podged eclecticism. In the last decade pastiched retro looks have inspired catwalks more and more. The op-shop boom and new reverence for wearing second-hand clothes is not an indication that the frivolous are turning to philanthropy so much as one that originality is now the most vital thing for being cool. Ironic-chic has a greater place for the fashion-forward than big brand names or ‘hot-off-the-runway’ looks.

Andrew Duckmanton of Grandma Takes A Trip, which has two second-hand clothing stores in Sydney, has watched vintage fashion seep further into the mainstream over the last few years. With a background in advertising, he sees the rejection of high-end fashion as mainly economically driven: “It doesn’t even have to be big design houses - even a Morrissey or Witchery dress will set you back a few hundred dollars, which is basically the average weekly wage,” he says. “Vintage gives you the exact opposite of those mass-production chains – a good price for something unique that you can wear in your own way.”

There’s nothing wrong with spending $800 on a dress if you love it, but it means you have to take it seriously. You’re not going to cut it up or personalise it or play in the mud with it or

do anything fun in it at all. “And if you can’t have fun with fashion,” says Duckmanton, “there’s a problem. There are actually a few Australian designers doing some interesting stuff but their prices are at a level that takes the fun away.” He believes that seasonal trends survive on manipulation and are there to make bucks. The culture risks becoming even more conformist, he says, because of the increasing concentration of media ownership in Australia; the permeating evil malls taking over independent shopping areas and dictating what people should wear; and the fact that we only have two department stores, both very large and both very dull. “If we didn’t have independent areas like Crown Street and King Street,” he says, “we would have no hope at all.”

Fashion should be fun; not dictatorial, and the more homogenised we become the more we value personalisation. Punk had to come out of a reaction to a highly regimented culture because change always comes from changelessness. Similarly, the street style in Tokyo’s Harajuku today could only be born of the highly conservative and conformist culture of much of Japan. With firm beliefs in trends and high-fashion, the Japanese consume over one third of the world’s luxury goods. But within their countercultures it seems they are truly pushing the boundaries and having more fun with it than anywhere else in the world.

Of course, in seeking to sabotage fashion, they end up creating it. In the 1920s the Dadas established a whole new art movement in their pursuits to destroy art (Duchamp’s said “I threw a bottle rack and urinal in their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty”). Then in the 70s the punks sought to fuck the system, but created one simultaneously - designer safter pins could be purchased mail-order before the Sex Pistols even split up and the stripped-down instrumentals and nihilistic lyrics were quickly appropriated by record labels and sold back to the youth as packaged rebellion.

In the same way, today’s anti-fashion kids are creating and following another stylistic category. Anti-fashion is fashion. It is still a competition of cool and a way to distinguish identity. And what better way to show you ‘get it’ than to ironically revel in bad taste; recognising it for what it is and saying fuck fashion, let’s dance.

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Comments

6 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Adrian

January 9th 2007 04:15

Philosophy Blog

Yeah, I loathe brand names on myself. But I promised a friend that I'd wear the Calvin Klein t-shirt they gave me for Christmas. After all, anyone who knows me will take it as humorous and ironic.

Comment by David my David

January 9th 2007 05:23

Dear Orble ...

I would like to complain about the amount of women on this sites with sexy brains.

I have OCMD ...

And the women on this site?

Their brains ... ?

Poured out on the page?

My OCMD is escalating ...

As to me 'liking' to complain? I'm not going to ...

I GET OFF on their brains ...

Thank God they don't put pics of their bodies uP!

I'm struGGling enough as it is ...

Words to me? Big TURN ON. A woman's brain? WHOAH! ...

Plus I'm too busy [deleted] their brains out ... in a virtual way ...

GIRLS ... MORE GREY MATTER ON THE PAGE THANKS ...

Pink?

Nup, not going there ... Far too excited by your grey matter ... and grey bits ...

Wouldn't mind a dose of reality one day though ...

(If i get this excited over your grey matter ... don't turn pink on me ... I'll die ... (again .. and again and again ...

Anyway Orble ...

I don't even know why I wrote to you to complain ... especially when I really wanted to compliment you ...

But, that's just me ...

It takes a while for me to get to the point ..

David ...

Comment by Anonymous

January 10th 2007 03:24

I hope that fashion is less about the desire for 'labels', and more about how much you adore individual items, regardless of brand. I have some clothes that cost .50c and others that cost much more and without concentrating on brands or price tags, I wear them because I love how they look and how they make me feel.

There have been occasions when I've worried about what I was wearing, and in retrospect realised the importance of wearing something you love, regardless of price, vintage or label.

What I do contest, is the purchasing of items for other people. But If someone wants to spend an entire pay packet on a dress, bag or pair of shoes I dont have a problem with it. As long as its about them.

x mic

Comment by DuskDevi

January 10th 2007 11:16

Rugby World Cup 2007

"...clean out Vivienne Westwood in my Galiano gown..."

This is a profound observation on Gwen Stefani's part re Westwood's influence.
I think.
I just like that line anyway.

Ag...

Yes to everything you say.
Brilliant post. As always.

movements are never born from one person, no matter how much their opinion counts, they are born from the people.

Trend-setting and taste-making designers, editors, stylists, and celebrities don’t create new ways of dressing, they observe people and adapt what is already happening. No one is truly original

The Alpha Fashion Types (Alphashion?) are not leaders. They are disseminators.

My favourite brand is I Maketh The Clothes.
You may have heard of it...everyone wears it.

DuskDevi