For this blog post I have visited this week “The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined” exhibition
in Barbican, London. The exhibition “The Vulgar:
Fashion Redefined” is about taste of fashion, from the renaissance
through to contemporary design. Examining the
constantly evolving notion of vulgarity in fashion whilst revelling in its
excesses, you are invited to think again about exactly what makes something
vulgar and why it is such a sensitive and contested term. (Barbican, 2016)
Vulgar: The
common People
Vulgarism:
Grossness, meanness Vulgarity
Vulgarity:
Meanness, State of Lowest People
Vulgary:
Commonly: in the ordinary manner: among the common people
(Samuel
Johnson: A Dictionary of English Language, 1755)
“The word “vulgar” is
used to police the boundaries of taste. Fashion is where good taste and bad
taste mix and match” (Adam Phillips)
![]() |
Karl Lagerfield to Chloé |
So
in “The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined” exhibition I kept asking
from myself were the garments good taste or bad taste? For the exhibition space there was used dark black background and the lighting
was used to spot garments, which made them even more special and it made you to
focus to the details. On the walls there
was multiple definitions of the vulgar from the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips,
which subdivide the exhibitions into sections. The exhibition begins with
classic shapes and well shelving dresses like example dress from Karl Lagerfeld
to Chloé “Crétoise” dress. I think they have started with that because it is
easy to understand as a “good taste” and then exhibition continued to different
themed sections and with garments that can be combined
with the idea of being vulgar.
The exhibition
space was big and I spend two and a half hours going it through. This exhibition felt for me really
overwhelming. If I could take the experience again I would walk through the
whole exhibition, then had cup of coffee and gone back to explore more of its
meaning and the details. I also felt that the video middle of the exhibition
was what really opened the idea for me. The video told about what being vulgar
means for different designers from fashion industry. The video and stopping
point where you were able to browse through books about the subject helped me to but my
conflicting thoughts together.
On
the video on of the designers said something what I can reflect what being
vulgar means to me. I think one year something can be vulgar, but after 10
years it can be fashion again! I think in every fashion designer wants to be
unique and things what are unusual interests them, which I think makes their
designs vulgar. So how would you define
is it a good taste or bad taste? Or is it normal or not normal?
“So the only thing that interests us about
the vulgar is what´s wrong with it, because it is pretending to be something
that is not” (Adam Phillips)
What I got from this exhibition was that it
made me to think a lot! Here is some of the garments/outfits what interested me
and made my to questioning is it good taste or bad taste?
Barbican (2016) The Vulgar: Fashion
Redefined. Available https://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=18736
(Accessed: 10 October 2016)
Images:
Available at https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0840/9833/products/1202_THE_VULGAR_COVER_VISUAL.jpg?v=1473842823
(Downloaded 10 October 2016)
Available at https://londonvisitors.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/dscn1286.jpg?w=730
(Downloaded 10 October 2016)
Available at https://img.styla.com/resizer/sfh_760x0/viktor-rolf-van-gogh-girls-haute-couture-spring-summer-2015-team-peter-stigter-the-vulgar-fashion-exhibition-at-the-barbican_72170_73239.jpeg
(Downloaded 10 October 2016)
Available
at http://www.theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/images/stories/ART/Sarah_Kent/The%20Vulgar%20Viktor.JPG
(Downloaded 10 October 2016)
Available at http://snappa.static.pressassociation.io/assets/2016/10/13171731/1476375447-6c55264c8854cc3671bbd3f776d4a2bf-600x811.jpg
(Downloaded 10 October 2016)
Available at https://www.artrabbit.com/events/the-vulgar/images/9XHWR6l9wIbc/480x720/12046658-10153456628684193-6599818894907758867-n.jpg
(Downloaded 10 October 2016)
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