The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined

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)

 

Guerrilla Girls

For this blog post I have read Guerrilla Girls On Tour report “Special Report From Europe 2010- Slovenia, Hungary and Greece” and also visited Guerrilla Girls exhibition “Is it even worse in Europe?” in Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Guerrilla girls are group of anonymous feminist activist artists. The are women who wear gorilla masks in public using facts, humour and outrageous visuals to expose gender and ethnic bias as well as corruption in politics, art, film, and pop culture. They have done over 100 street projects, posters and stickers all over the world and they have also done projects and exhibitions at museums. One of my first thoughts was why they are hiding behind the gorilla masks, but they explain that they use the masks to keep the focus on the issues, and away from who they might be (Guerrilla Girls, 1985). 

I did not have heard of this group before I read the article. The report has been written like a diary. The article covers three European countries with different cultures defining women´s status in that country and they also explore food culture, people, local area, thoughts, art and architecture.  In they approach issues that women faces by workshop with 20 female artists or students. They do group brainstorming and then in Slovenia and Hungary they were divided to groups to great a slogan and live performance to address they subject like example stereotyping of female role.  In Greece they had to take different kind of approach, because of bad economy situation. They decided to make posters instead of the performance.  It seems that along with performing art and spreading awareness in art socially, they are also interested explore new places or countries by travel, photography, tasting local food, local culture, people, behaviour.

The exhibition “Guerrilla Girls: Is it even worse in Europe?” with its very powerful subject was fitted to in small room. The exhibition showed the latest research via posters consist of the responses to questionnaires, which were sent to 383 directors about their exhibitions programme and collections all over Europe.  The questions were example about how many female artists the cultural institutions were using (Guerrilla Girls Exhibition, 2016). I think they had really different way to approach people with the subjects of women rights. The whole space was used with effective way.  You were also able to sit down and read the actual surveys, (some of them were answered with they answer´s own hand writing), they received fro different museums all over from Europe. I´m actually really surprised that why one of the Helsinki´s landmark Museums, Kiasma from Finland did not apply to this questionnaire.  I´m just also wondering would I have got their message that well through the exhibition if I had not read their report before the exhibition. 
 
In my opinion the article is meant for all women, artists, designers and it is also really good example of different ways to make research.  The article and the exhibition is also good way to show to men how we women are feeling and I think Guerrilla Girls have also shown behave all of women that we are fitting for our rights and we don´t want to be separated from men. It is also our privilege to be talking about this subject. What could be done to spread this to those other countries that do not may have the same opportunities to be talking about this subject out of Europe? And what will make women to keep fighting to get the same treatment then men example why women´s salary is smaller then men? 

Picture of Chanel Ready To Wear Collection Spring Summer 2015 (Elman S, 2015), where end of the show models and Karl Lagerfield walk through the catwalk protesting Women´s rights.

References:
Girls, G (1985) OUR STORY. Available at: http://www.guerrillagirls.com/our-story/ (Accessed: 10 October 2016)

Girls, G Exhibition (2016) Is it even worse in Europe? Available at: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/guerrilla-girls/ (Accessed: 10 October 2016)

Special Report From Europe 2010- Slovenia, Hungary and Greece

Elman S. (2015) Chanel Ready To Wear Collection Spring Summer 2015 Available at: http://pinstake.com/chanel-ready-to-wear-spring-summer-2015-archives-sara-elman/aHR0cDp8fHNhcmFlbG1hbl5jb218d3AtY29udGVudHx1cGxvYWRzfDIwMTR8MTB8NDU2MzY5MDMyXmpwZw==/ (Downloaded 10 October 2016)

In City of Bikes

The author Pete Jordan is known from his memoir Dishwasher: One Man´s Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States. Pete’s work has also been featured on public radio’s This American Life and in the New York Times. He fell in love Amsterdam while doing his research for his memoir and he decided to stay in Amsterdam with his wife and has been living there since 2002.


The chapter 20 “It´s a Joy to Be on a Bike Again!: The 1980s Onward is about the City of Bikes, Amsterdam. The author starts the text with little story of father who bicycles with his son, Ferris.  In the story Ferris from his young age sat on his perch on front of his dads bike and while crowing up they had to come u­p new ways to ride together and in the end story tells how Ferris got his first own bike. After the story the author continues to history of cycling and its evolution in Dutch. He also talks about cyclist´ behaviour and how the bike thefts were affected by the bike culture.

When the author tells about cyclist behaviour he comes in engagement with situation where cyclist´ were asked why they don´t fix the light of their bicycles, which were mandatory by low, one of the cyclist commented “Why should I repair my bike when it´s just going to get stolen anyway?” This was one of big problems in Amsterdam´s bicycle culture. In my opinion the government, police department and justice system used clever ways to reduce the thefts. Like, example on-street sale were banned strictly and if you wanted to sell your bike you needed to go to bike shop and prove you identity. This was proving to be a good way ­to drop bike thefts. One of the shopkeepers said that if “I ask to see their ID and they say they´ll go get it, they never come back”.  They used several other methods to low bike thefts and they also used efficiently advertising in order to achieve the goal. 

­The text starts interestingly with a story and it is easy to read. That allows me to think that the text is written for the general public audience. The text explains well the history and the culture of riding with bikes in Amsterdam so any knowledge before of the subjects is not needed.

The text has been published in 2013 and Amsterdam is still considered as the city of bikes. Global warming is issue around the world and a matter of concern. Driving with cars pollutes the air and it plays a big part of global warming. That´s why I think we could ask from ourselves what would make us people excited and the same time concerned to involve to help to slow down global warming by stop driving a car or at least to leave all the unnecessary driving with cars out? And what could governments of other countries do to achieve the same influence that Amsterdam did and get the car usage to drop? 

A/W16 collection from Samuji. Samuji is a creative studio and design house based in Helsinki, Finland. “Our ambition is to produce timeless and sustainable design that serves a purpose yet carries a story.”

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Toward an Ethical Fashion Framework

Both of the authors Andres Haug and Jacob Busch are from Denmark. Haug is professor in University of Southern Denmark. His research areas are design theory and design management, primarily in the scope of industrial and fashion design. Jacob Busch is employed as a post-doctoral research assistant in the Department of Culture and Society, University of Aarhus and has recently started work on the ethics of design.

The article “Towards an Ethical Fashion Framework” is part of Fashion Theory, vol. 20 book and it´s about fashion ethics. The authors explain why fashion is a difficult concept from an environmental perspective as trends are changing rapidly and fashion items are replaced with new ones. The authors tell about the difficulties what environmental fashion experience and how people in fashion industry deal with different interpretations meaning of the ethics of fashion. The authors use charts to visualize how different factors effect towards of ethical fashion. 

The author argues that so called “providers” have the biggest responsibility to avoid ethical harms that are caused in fashion industry. Designers, producers and consumers are part of the providers group, when again environment and animals are not able to act on it. Media also plays a big part of getting the consumers to think towards to ethical fashion.  Even if research shows that ethical fashion sales figures are low, designer believe that consumers demand for ecological clothing has risen. The consumers may feel that ethical fashion product have too high price, sometimes they have difficulties to recognize the truly environmentally friendly brands and in the text has been sad that “ordinary consumers may be unwilling to adapt more environmentally friendly practices because of feeling too physically and culturally distanced from the problems in focus”.­ While well-known designers have better chance to influence how the fashion products are produced and marketed and that’s why the authors propose making ethical fashion fashionable. It would be an effective way to get consumers­ to purchase ethical fashion items. To that may affect the best high fashion producers, in which case fast fashion brands would be forced to do the same, as said in the text “The ethical profile will then be an indispensable part of what is fashionable, and if consumption follows the leading designs as has been customary, then mass fashion will follow suit.” ­

I think that the article has been written for specialist audience who are working in fashion industry, it is also good for any business who have to outsource manufacturing. The text gives also good understanding of environment issues in fashion market for general public audience. 

The article has been written in 2016 and subject is an important matter to concern. The text goes well through the Different perspectives of matter of the ethical fashion. In my opinion the authors give a really good points how fashion designers, ecpecislly high fashion producers could make diffrence by making ethical fashion fashionable, that raise the question how could high fashion designers make ethical fashion to suit their design without compromising their unique desing features? Would it be even possible to manufacture sustainable fast fashion products with the price range mass production has?­

 

Sustainable Campaign A/W16 Collection from Zara

Forever in Kente

“Forever in Kente: Ghanian Barbie and the Fashioning of Identity”

The Author Carol Magee has specialized in African contemporary art with emphasis on photography. She has published several book, articles, book chapters and essays. She is currently working project “Being in Place” which examines urban photography.

The Article “Forever in Kente: Ghanian Barbie and the Fashioning of Identity” has been published on 6^th of November in 2005 in book “Social Identities”. The article analyses the costuming of the big American toy manufacturer Mattel´s Ghanian Barbie.  Ghanian Barbie is one of the “Dolls of the World” collection. The author Carol Magee brings up in the text what ideologies Barbie exemplifies and promotes and how these dolls reveal about issues of nostalgia, imperialism and identity.

­In the text the author Carol Magee explains how she studied Ghanian Barbie and how important part her costuming became. As we consider Barbie as a fashion doll it doesn´t surprise. The April 2004 issue of Marie Claire raised the issue of Barbie having so called the ideal body. Barbie has been sold through her interchangeable clothing, her activities, career choice or expensive cars. Barbie is compered to context of the Cold War, as said in the text “Barbie was a reassuring symbol of solidly middle-class value”.

The collection “Dolls of the World” Barbie exemplifies race and culture through the costuming. “Dolls of the World” represents more how Americans comprise the image of how the different cultures dress and every doll has been modified to present specific identity. The dress has a powerful means of communication. As said in the text “dress can communicate social position, age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, and even emotional states”. The Ghanian Barbie has been dressed with Kente cloth, with bright colours and striking juxtapositions of patterning and it has historic meaning. As the Ghanian Barbie has not intended for playing but for more

as collector's item, the Ghanian Barbie doesen´t have the same possibilites to allowing for identities to multiface than additional Barbie roles have. The author Carol Magee points out that the Ghanian Barbie has only one identity since there is not possibility to change hers clothes.  

­I think that the text suits for public audience. Text is well structured which makes it to easy to follow and text doesn´t need previous knowledge from the subject.

The Article was published in end of the year in 2005. In my opinion trying to bring different cultural identities up is still a very sensitive topic. Example Mattel tries to bring up diverse cultures using Barbie dolls in it´s “Dolls of the World”, but like the author pointed out the issue of Ghanian Barbie opportunities to have only one identity. It seems that there is no away to do it right and people get offended.  

Questions: How important part the logo has in fashion industry? How  the logo reflects the brand´s identity? How fashion designers can respect their customers´ different cultures?

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(Chanel 2012-2013 ´Paris-Edinburgh`Métiers D´Art Collection, inspired by Scottish Romance)

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Designing Symbols

Designing Symbols. The Logos Of The Spanish Autonomous Communities

(1977-1991)

The Author Javier Gimeno-Martínez is coordinator and lecturer Design Cultures at the VU University Amsterdam.  Gimeno-Martínes has MA-degree in Industrial Design and in In Art History from Universities in Valencia (Spain). He got his PhD in 2006 from the KULeuven with the dissertation “The Role of the Creative Industries in the Construction of Regional European Identities (1975-2002): Design and Fashion in Belgium and Spain.” His research interests encompass design and fashion as related with consumption, gender and national identity.

The Article has been published in online 20^th of August in 2006 and it is part of “Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies” book. The article goes through how 17 new autonomous governments in Spain (devolution process of 1979-84), created their own identity logos and symbols with designers. In the text the author examines the logos of the Spanish Autonomous Communities as symbolic capital produced by their governments and designed for the Spanish voters. 

The Author starts by explaining the differences between coats-of arms-and logos.  The first part of the text the author studies how logos evolve as time passes and what factors and constraints affect the relevant. Gimeno-Martínes goes and explains political effects of decentralization to different autonomous communities, for exmaple they all have the same coals, but they didn´t receive the same power. According to Gimeno-Martínes text “Graphic design became a vehicle to shape the institutions with a modern, European touch”.

In the second part of the article the author analysis matter of the regional logos. Gimeno-Martínes skilfully tells about the effect of modernization the logos using different Autonomous Communities as an example. Like, to Andalusian government turned out to be a problem the composition of a human figure and lions in coat-of-arms. Anyway, after several ideas they came to the outcome, which the author Gimeno-Martínes described as a “absolutely geometric symbol, an extreme synthesis of the coat-of-arms”.  It was approved by consumers and managed to avoid rejection. 

The text goes through well how big influence of desings have to get the cosumers attention. The same applyies to every day affairs. Like how fashion designer have to develop clothes and bring new ideas all the time to attract costumers to shop and now it requires even faster development than once.

I my opinion the article has been written for specialist audience who are interested of how history influences to decision of designing symbols. The author also gives a clearly expressed summary of Spanish Autonomous Communities history to general readers, which gives the benefits to understand the article.

  

Questions: How important part the logo plays in fashion industry? How the logo reflects the brand´s identity?

(The most iconic logo in fashion industry, designed be Coco Chanel herself in 1925, consists of two letters “C” from her name. )

Ottoman

“Ottoman”

The author Elif Batuman is a Turkish-American writer from New Jersey. She graduated from Harvard College and a PhD from Stanford University. She is known from her first published book “The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them and she has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010. 

Elif Batuman spent three years as writer in residence at Koç University in Istanbul from 2010 to 2013.  The article “Ottomania” has been published on the 17^th of February in 2014 in the famous magazine The New Yorker. It is modern written, well studied story about the Turkish soap opera “Magnificent Century”, The Turkish trend “Ottomania” and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The article is a mixture history facts and parts of the soap opera which reflects and gives a good picture of Turkish national identity.  

The author having the Turkish background, wrote clever article of how TV show was used to review history and how TV show can affect todays society.  The soap opera “Magnificent Century” has been a cause of discussion since the first time it aired in early 2011.  The show starts from when Süleyman starts planning the creation of “The Ottoman Empire” after his father´s death and the show lets people to see how much time Süleyman spend in the harem drinking and with low-cut gowns of the harem women. It also showed how Hürrem, who Süleyman eventually married was able to manipulate him into killing his best friend and his own son Mustafa, who he had with his concubine before Hürrem. Unsurprisingly, those who adored the national hero Süleyman and the great Ottoman Empire did not accept the “Magnificent Century” drama. Neither did Erdoğan approve of the popular soap opera. He accused several media sources of not telling the truth about Turkey “ This people isn´t the people you showed the world”.

­The online article “Ottoman” has been published not that long ago in 2014.  In my opinion things have not changed from when it was published in The New Yorker. A large number of people from Turkey and all around the world are afraid of losing their lives and so many of them have to leave the countrey to look for better life elsewhere or at least try to. A good example was when Elif Batuman talked with the directors of “Magnificent Centry”, Yağmur and Durul Taylan and they told about being awarded and appreciated around the world, as said in the text “but in your own country you´re living almost in fear of being put in prison” of creating open-minded  historical TV drama.

I think that the article is written for specialist audience who are interested in Turkish history and cultural issues. The text assumes a level of knowledge about the subject. The article gives good understanding of where Turkey stands today. 

Questions:  Can Turkey ever have a leader who would be more broadminded? How did the actresses feel about acting in the much spoken sope opera?

(Photo by Fashion Brand Les Benjamins, who aims ”to bring to the world a true visin of modern-day Turkey” with modern designs. Founder of the brand takes inspiration from a political reform movement that existed during the Ottoman Empire.)