Laura Gardner – Vestoj

The Contemplative Life

Laura Gardner — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 09:59:55 +0000

Cistercian monk reading in Leicestershire, England, c.1930. Photographer unknown.

Father Michael Casey OCSO (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance) is a priest, tailor, author and member of the Tarrawarra Abbey, the only Cistercian monastery in the Southern hemisphere. Observing the ancient rule of Saint Benedict, the Cistercians are an ancient order that broke away from the Catholic Church in medieval times with a desire to lead a more simple and contemplative life. Faith, work and self-sufficiency are the mainstays of the Cistercian way of life. The Tarrawarra Abbey in central Victoria, Australia, was established in 1954 by a group of Irish monks, and is now home to fourteen monks. The simple monk garments, tailored by Casey with fabric from a local mill, last the wearer anything upward of fifteen years. The ‘cowl’ in particular, is worn ceremoniously seven times a day for prayer. The garment is symbolic of the daily transition into the introspective space of worship. The excess fabric and draped sleeves of the cloak are specifically designed to slow down the wearer, allowing for contemplation and introspection during the Liturgy of the Hours in the church. This ceremonious dress is observed routinely within the monastery, but outside in the public eye the monks prefer to venture ‘incognito,’ adapting to modern dress so as to limit unwanted attention. Father Casey speaks of the power a garment has in a context far removed from mainstream fashion, but also of the act of slowing down the production of clothing by elongating wear.

The Tarrawarra Abbey is a Cistercian monastery in the tradition of the
rule of Saint Benedict from the sixth century, when it was the major monastic rule throughout the Western church. The Cistercian element derives from a reform in the eleventh century, which broke away from the Catholic rule with the desire to get back to a simple, contemplative life and the search for God. Throughout the centuries there have been many reforms, but the idea to live a simpler life by supporting and sustaining oneself with one’s own work, remains.

In effect we’re a Catholic religious order based on a life of balance between work and the daily praises of God, what’s called the Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours. Monks go to church seven times a day beginning at four o’clock in the morning, and ending at eight at night, so the day is punctuated by prayer.

Dress has a significant role in monastic life and the ordinary daily dress consists of a tunic, over which sits something called a ‘scapula,’ named after the scapula bone in the shoulders. The main monastic garment, and a crucial aspect to the Liturgy is the ‘cowl.’ Originally the cowl was worn at times a monk wasn’t working, but we’ve become more practical than the medieval people and now only wear it for times of prayer.

The design of the cowl is a large cloak, with long sleeves and a hooded neck hole. It’s a contemplative garment and meant to be impractical – you can’t run in it for instance. It slows you down and you can’t do much in the way of work as a result of the long sleeves. Because you can’t move quickly, it calls forth a sort of gravitas by imposing a sense of gravity on the wearer. There is a special way of walking within the church, which isn’t always observed nowadays, called walking in ceremony, where you let the sleeves down. The long sleeves merge with the body, which becomes unified. There’s also the added symbolism of the cowl that when you lay it flat, you get a cross.

When you make your commitment as a monk, after five or six years of probation, you are officially clothed in this garment. The experience of being enveloped by the cowl signifies being brought into monastic life. You become part of the fabric. The actual experience for the wearer is to be enveloped, and it induces a thoughtful, sober mood. It’s not frivolous. At the same time, nothing could be simpler in terms of the shape of the garment. But it’s not a totally impractical garment, so long as you don’t want to do a lot of things. If you want to sit, it’s perfectly comfortable, but it gives the kind of sobriety that’s inductive to the contemplative life.

Our dress hasn’t really changed since the medieval era. It’s difficult to know an exact date when it was designed but the earliest description of monastic dress is in the writings of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic of the twelfth century in Germany. She was interested in clothing and its theological significance and gives very detailed directions about how various monastic garments are to be constructed.

The garments have been fairly standard since their creation: the cowl is simply three metres of cloth with a hole in the middle. We don’t actually have a pattern for this, we just measure the length needed and do a freehand sweep of the shape. For the fabric, we use a product called Prestalene, developed in 1960 for uniforms by an Australian company called Prestige. It’s sixty-five percent polyester and thirty-five percent viscose rayon, and very tough.

My best cowl and my newest (I have three in total), is seventeen years old. My oldest is from 1965 and I’m still wearing it every day. There is the slowness in that it impedes fast movement, but also attesting to the stability of the cowl. I suppose that is another sort of slowness, since you’re wearing the same garment for fifty- odd years and it doesn’t change colour, or season, or style.

Benedictans, another monastic order, have a very similar way of dressing, but they wear the belt inside the scapula, and their garments are all black. Their cowl is gathered around the neck, a detail that started in the old European monasteries for practical reasons of warmth. Often in drawings around the seventeenth century, the cowl has a detachable hood since this is the part that would get dirty, and can be washed separately.

The white cowl also has it’s own history; for instance if you ever cut your finger it leaves a stain which is there forever. So it’s a record of your life in a sense. We expect at least fifteen years from each cowl, so it collects a history over time.

We don’t wear our monastic garments outside of the monastery, this is for efficiency really; if you’re doing the shopping, you don’t want to make a spectacle of yourself. If you’re on a plane you don’t want to attract too much attention. Anonymity is what we are looking for outside the monastery.

My tailoring predecessor would say that he could always tell to whom a garment belonged by how it hung on the hook. People customise their cowls by wearing them. We had a psychologist working with the community in the 1960s who said he always recognised individuals by their shoes, watches or glasses, that’s where they make the difference, where they express themselves. For us, we can be differentiated by some details, but we don’t choose glasses just because they’re fashionable, but because they are cheaper, or more comfortable. In the church space, however, we strive for uniformity.

The monk that taught me to tailor, who has since died, Brother Leonardo Xavier, had been a milliner in Paris for Christian Dior before opening a hat shop, Leonardo’s, in Brisbane. Before coming to the monastery he made hats for famous women like Princess Margaret and Shirley MacLaine, who would fly over to meet him. We used to joke that the only reason he entered the monastery was because women stopped wearing hats!

I don’t really have a view of mainstream fashion. I get the impression that there’s a kind of exhibitionist tendency that something isn’t deemed ‘good’ unless it’s different from everything else. In my distant observation, originality seems to be the prime value, despite whether it’s comfortable, or usable. I compare it to when I pass a house that looks as though its been designed by an ‘architect’: it’s the same for bold outfits that look as though they’ve been designed by a ‘fashion designer.’ It’s self-consciously dramatic or glamourous.

For instance if you were listening to a pianist, you might say ‘anybody could do that,’ it sounds so natural and effortless. I’d say the same about a well-designed house: it looks as though it belongs in that place, it isn’t shouting at you or pointing to itself. That would be my idea of good design, that it looks easy, and only when you know something about it, you see the work. I’m attracted to things that are simple and elegant, and that have longevity and history.

Father Michael has been a Cistercian monk at Tarrawarra since 1960. In 1980 he was awarded a doctorate in theology from Melbourne College of Divinity. He has written extensively on different facets of monasticism.

Laura Garder is a Melbourne-based writer, scholar and editor. She holds a PhD from RMIT University, where she also teaches in the School of Fashion and Textiles.

Full disclosure

Laura Gardner — Thu, 16 Jun 2016 15:12:57 +0000

Vestoj and Style Zeitgeist have teamed up in a dialogue and series of critiques of recent events in fashion media to raise more wide-reaching questions about the state of contemporary fashion media – and what that says about our industry at large. In the third instalment, we examine the notion of transparency, and how four different publishing platforms are dealing with the issue in relation to their respective funding models.

Jaden Smith poses for Patrick Demarchelier at the Louis Vuitton resort 2017 fashion show at the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

LOUIS VUITTON’S RECENT 2017 resort collection was presented last month at the Oscar Niemeyer-designed Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The modernist building’s curvaceous ramp, set against a spectacular mountainous bay, was an ambitious venue that made for a photogenic catwalk locale, though its opulence, for some, jarred with the country’s current political and economic uncertainty.

Coverage delivered in the form of reviews and photo-ops ensured that the cost of its staging – from the elaborate set, to the flying in of overseas press, buyers and celebrities – was money well spent. This came via the typical set of high traffic fashion platforms like Vogue.com, T Magazine, High Snobiety and WWD, ensuring the event was thoroughly and successfully documented.

Within this slew of articles, The Business of Fashion weighed in with a piece that recorded the event by mostly addressing its economic and political significance. Against a backdrop of the otherwise mostly frivolous coverage, BoF attempted a more analytical, and much welcome, perspective of the event. However, more thought provoking was a short statement at the end of the article stating LVMH’s investment in the platform. It read:

‘Disclosure: LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, is part of a group of investors who, together, hold a minority interest in The Business of Fashion. All investors have signed shareholder’s documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence. Lauren Sherman travelled to Rio de Janeiro as a guest of Louis Vuitton.’

The statement appears to be an attempt to reassure readers of the publisher’s candour, and their dedication to deliver unbiased and reliable coverage of the event despite the apparent relationship between host and guest. The gesture reflected a transparency rarely seen in the murky realm of fashion publishing.

Other publications have not gone so far as this. The fashion and lifestyle platform Nowness,¹ that has Dazed & Confused’s Jefferson Hack as creative director, is also funded by LVMH. Though editorially very different to The Business of Fashion, there is no mention of the funding from the luxury group anywhere on the site. Instead, this information is found only through a general internet search, or on the LVMH website.²

‘Nowness has built the influence and authority to genuinely curate and shape the future of cultural conversations, and goes beyond just delivering experiences. We provide solutions to the industry by creating bespoke content for premium brands looking to reach our premium audience. Nowness is truly an innovator.’

– Jefferson Hack, creative director at Nowness, as featured on lvmh.com

When Nowness was launched in 2010, an article by The Guardian responded with a brief, but apt blog post shortly after, highlighting the project as one that, ‘promises to blur the lines between editorial and promotional content in a “beautiful” way.’³ Back then Nowness was one of the first of its kind in the digital realm, but the site has since become emblematic in the landscape of fashion publishing where sponsorships are often shadowy terrain, particularly concerning the agenda an investor might have. Though the funding model adopted by Nowness allows the platform to remain advertising-free, issues arise around selectivity and what is chosen to be featured as published content. For example, Nowness often releases exclusive features, such as collection videos, made by Louis Vuitton and other brands within the LVMH group.

The Talks,⁴ an online interview platform created and funded by Rolex, reflects another editorial venture for a luxury company. The website aspires to cultural capital with editorial featuring interviews with high profile figures from art, film and fashion – similar to earlier incarnations like United Colors of Benetton’s Colors or Acne’s Acne Paper. Unlike Nowness, The Talks’ website reveals its economic framework immediately and explicitly with the Rolex logo on the right-hand of the website’s banner, relying on this separation with the editorial as a brand-building exercise for Rolex. Within the industry, marketers and press teams place significant emphasis on ‘content,’ a buzzword that is seen to be a critical mode of generating cultural capital, and thus sales, for a brand.

A similar and recent example of brand-generated editorial is the print publication Porter, the in-house fashion magazine launched by Net-a-Porter in 2015. Porter models itself off the tradition of the seasonal high fashion magazine, and, though it is obviously affiliated with the Net-a-Porter group, still targets the same audience as its competitors, and is thus challenged by notions of transparency in terms of the brands they choose to feature – or not feature – in their fashion stories.

The relationship between advertising (brand) and editorial (publication) in fashion has never been straightforward, as scholar Lynda Dyson contends, ‘Editorial is […] perhaps, the most valuable form of media content because it is perceived to be unbiased and believable. Its ‘‘purity’’ (precisely because it is not advertising) derives from its aura of authority and neutrality.’⁵ But this merging of brand and publication has profound implications. The reality facing these relationships as they explore the paradigm of editorial-as-brand extension, beyond the era of print sales, is the compromise on editorial selection process. Even in posting a disclaimer at the end of their review of the Vuitton show, one could argue that BoF still faces the same issue of what is not said in the article. Thus the challenge facing fashion journalism lies in what an editor, stylist or writer chooses to feature.

The implications of commercial ties needs to go beyond a statement tacked on at the end of an article since it will inevitably permeate the editorial decision-making of what is published and written. For example, BoF’s Vuitton show review featured extensive quotes from an interview with LVMH’s chief executive, Michael Burke, who justified the show as an economic strategy for the luxury conglomerate despite the controversial locale, allegedly motivated by ‘generat[ing] dedicated global media coverage and activate regional markets.’⁶ The article appeared to defend the cultural implications of the event by choosing to feature a largely one-sided argument with a representative from LVMH, and so was not able to generate debate on the topic. In this case, as with others, the potential for self-censorship on what is written, so as not to compromise their source of funding (LVMH), is, arguably, as powerful as the choice of garments featured on the pages of Porter. Since, in the case of BoF, ‘investors have signed shareholder’s documentation guaranteeing BoF’s complete editorial independence,’ a risk might be that this apparent transparency allows the publishers to ‘get away’ with more.

The editorial content housed by these publications becomes a point of contention in negotiating reliable and balanced coverage. Though BoF, The Talks and Porter (among other similar brand-affiliated editorial ventures) function differently in terms of publications and have different investment models, they embrace new modes of funding that tread thorny terrain in maintaining a clear boundary between advertising and unbiased journalism. The final disclaimer at the end of the BoF article presents a move in a new direction in terms of editorial transparency, however it raises deeper questions about selectivity within editorial content.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

https://www.nowness.com/ ↩
https://www.lvmh.com/houses/other-activities/nowness/ ↩
‘LVMH launches luxury online magazine Nowness,’ The Guardian blog, 27 February 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2010/feb/26/lvmh-luxury-online-magazine-nowness ↩
http://the-talks.com/ ↩
Dyson, L 2008, ‘Customer magazines: The rise of the “glossies” as brand extensions’, in T Holmes (ed), Mapping the magazine: Comparative studies in magazine journalism, Routledge, London. ↩
‘Vuitton Investing, Not Surfing, in Brazil’ by Imran Amed and Lauren Sherman for The Business of Fashion, May 29, 2016 ↩

Hacking the System?

Laura Gardner — Tue, 24 May 2016 14:41:52 +0000

Vestoj and Style Zeitgeist have teamed up in a dialogue and series of critiques of recent events in fashion media to raise more wide-reaching questions about the state of contemporary fashion media – and what that says about our industry at large. In the second instalment, we examine Jefferson Hack and Rizzoli’s recent book venture We Can’t Do This Alone: Jefferson Hack the System.

The press release for Jefferson Hack’s new book We Can’t Do This Alone: Jefferson Hack The System permeated fashion and design media these last few weeks. The monograph, released mid-May and published by Rizzoli, is a hardback, visually led selection of the editor and publisher’s work on Dazed & Confused magazine over the years.

As the author, Hack is presented as a fashion provocateur, moving easily across cultural categories. Concurrent with the book’s launch, Hack collaborated with French designers Each x Other creating T-shirts (stocked in Paris boutique Colette and priced €155 to €255) for their spring/summer 2016 collection. The T-shirts endorsed the book by referencing its title along with statements like: ‘The best way to make money is not to make any.’

Each x Other spring/summer 2016, collaboration with Jefferson Hack and Robert Montgomery. ‘Hack the System’ eco-cotton T-shirt.

The book’s contents select from Dazed & Confused magazine’s prolific body of work over its twenty-five year existence, adding to this, it features contributions from the high profile figures, like co-founder and photographer Rankin, musician Björk, actress Gwyneth Paltrow to artist Ai Wei Wei and novelist Douglas Coupland.

Since it was founded in 1992, Dazed & Confused has persisted through commercial and economic shifts in the fashion industry. It was initially conceived as a zine when eighteen-year-old printing student Hack approached photography student Rankin to create a publication to represent London’s art colleges as a collective. The project began in a black and white poster format, and its pages reflected the counter-cultural, DIY spirit of an era where cultural disciplines were beginning to break down and speak to each other more dynamically.

These early issues were highly influential in merging genres from fashion, music and art graphically on the page. Hack and Rankin, two bold students frustrated with the state of media in the creative arts, appealed to a young, culturally savvy, style conscious reader in reaction to mainstream glossies. The first issue reflected this spirit with its opening manifesto reading:

‘This is not a magazine. This is not a conspiracy to force opinion into the subconscious of stylish young people. A synthetic leisure culture is developing – plastic people forced fed on canned entertainment and designer food. Are you ready to be Dazed & Confused?’

– Dazed & Confused, issue 1 1991.

The poster format of Dazed & Confused issue 1, 1992.

These counter cultural beginnings are essential to the branding of the global media company Dazed now operates as, and We Can’t Do This Alone attempts to project this energy. An opening essay by Hack reads as a call to action. He writes: ‘We are all media. We can rewrite the rules together. We have the power to construct our own language and distribute our own images.’ The tone is similar to Dazed & Confused’s initial issue, but the economic context in which it is written is vastly and fundamentally different.

The graphic approach to layout also echoes this paradox. Collated and designed by New York-based art director Ferdinando Verderi, the publishers worked with Kodak to produce a unique cover for each of the 5000 copies in the print run. No stranger to corporate collaboration, Verderi is a founding member and creative director of the ad agency Johannes Leonardo, whose clients include Coca Cola, Adidas and Trip Advisor.

Corporate dealings are home territory to Hack. As publisher and director of Dazed Digital, Hack oversees an editorial and media empire that now incorporates AnOther Magazine, Dazed Digital, AnOther Man, NOWNESS (funded by luxury conglomerate LVMH) as well as Dazed & Confused. On their website, Dazed Digital boasts global brands like Armani, Chanel, Nike, Swarovski and Dunhill as key clients. Given this, Dazed Digital is unequivocally embedded in the mainstream fashion system, making the political-sounding rhetoric and graphics of We Can’t Do This Alone seem empty to say the least.

Copy 1/5000 of We Can’t Do This Alone: Jefferson Hack The System, published by Rizzoli.

In effect, the book is a corporate project dressed up in DIY aesthetics. Dispersed through its pages are hyperbolic, political-sounding phrases presented in graphic arrangements. One spread features the text, ‘A conspiracy of ideas’ in an artwork of haphazardly cut and stapled paper. The message is direct but fundamentally ambiguous: who the conspirator is, and how we, as readers, are supposed to deal with this ‘conspiracy’ remains unarticulated.

Hack’s claim as an independent publisher is equivalently hollow, prompting criticism from journalists on the commercial activity of the Dazed Group. Features on Hack in The Guardian and the Financial Times have addressed this.¹. In a particular ‘Lunch with the FT’ feature for the Financial Times, John Sunyer mentions to Hack his ‘surprise at the amount of “content sponsored by brands” in his magazines, much of it passed off as regular journalism. Take, for example, the October 2013 issue, in which six pages are given over to Hack’s collaboration with Tod’s, the luxury Italian shoemaker.’²

When offered the opportunity to respond to these criticisms, Hack still doesn’t seem to be able to articulate a key distinction between independent publishing and corporate activity. In an interview with Lou Stoppard for SHOWstudio in 2014, she questions him on the commercial motivations of Dazed & Confused:

“When you started Dazed you talked about it being an independent magazine, […] but you yourself, and Dazed Group, doesn’t operate in an independent way, you’re very closely tied to advertising.”

“Independent doesn’t mean anarchist. Independent for me means we choose what we do, and nobody tells us what to do.”

“So your stylists don’t shoot full looks for advertisers then?”

“Of course they do. But I still decide what happens. What goes in and what doesn’t. We make all the decisions. And that’s independence.”

[…]

“Independence from what?”

“Independence from anybody telling us what to do. We do what the fuck we want to do. That’s independence. It’s that simple.”

– Interview with Jefferson Hack by Lou Stoppard for SHOWstudio in March 2014, https://vimeo.com/91950177

In her research on ‘niche fashion magazines’ fashion scholar Ane Lynge-Jorlén cites Dazed & Confused, among others as part of a genre of magazines that although aesthetically is ‘positioned outside the mainstream, their financial underpinning is advertising revenue, and they are thus, not outside commercial interests.’³ Dazed & Confused’s implicit relationship with big corporations, despite claiming an independent status, functions as a brand extension for the luxury fashion companies it features in ‘full looks’ on its pages; a relationship that symbolically and economically reinforces the brand value of both parties in the contemporary market.

Under the umbrella of Dazed Digital, a content and media producer for corporate brands, Hack capitalises on the cultural clout generated from Dazed & Confused’s heritage as a counter culture publication. Yet, fundamental changes in the way this publication operates in the commercial market indicate the magazine’s shift from being an independent publisher to a media agency, making press release statements like ‘If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything,’ dangerously hollow. Stoppard querying Hack about ‘Independence from what?’ is a critical question in defining a position in relation to the commercial high fashion system, and Hack’s oblique answer points to the difficulty of appearing ‘authentic’ while simultaneously being transparent with your commercial motives.

In his failure to answer his critics, Hack, not surprisingly, appears unable to demonstrate what exactly needs to be ‘hacked’ in the fashion system. Apart from a light-hearted pun in its title, how to meaningfully subvert the system that he has become a leading tastemaker of, is a question his book raises but fails to answer. Instead, it falls amongst the many voices that harp on about the sorry state of the contemporary fashion industry, without wanting to acknowledge the role they play in constructing and upholding it. The end result is just more white noise.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

see Eva Wiseman (2011), ‘Still Dazed at 20: the gang who changed pop culture’, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/nov/05/dazed-confused-gang-still-cool, 6 November, 2011 ↩
‘Lunch with the FT: Jefferson Hack’ by John Sunyer for the Financial Times, 8 August 2014. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/fc444a8a-1cab-11e4-88c3-00144feabdc0.html ↩
Ane Lynge-Jorlén 2012, ‘Between frivolity and art: Contemporary niche fashion magazines,’ Fashion Theory, vol. 16, issue 1, pp. 7-28, Berg, Oxford. ↩

In Parts and Pieces

Laura Gardner — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 14:14:40 +0000

CALVIN KLEIN’S HERITAGE AS a brand that attempts to push the boundaries with controversial, sexually-explicit advertisements has seemingly made a return this season with a campaign that serves up a well-worn narrative of ‘men act, women appear.’¹ The agenda of the brand’s new Spring 2016 campaign is clear: the trope of woman-as-objects sells, particularly through the lens of the campaign’s gritty, filmic aesthetic. It might sound like something we’ve heard before, but the reaction to the campaign – which, amongst other images, sees model Kendall Jenner presented as a collection of Polaroid body parts – has been alarmingly docile, prompting us to reignite the discussion since it’s hard to believe so little has changed when it comes to the portrayal of women in mainstream fashion media.

Released in January of this year Calvin Klein targets its youthful followers across print and digital channels by featuring names from music and fashion in the brand’s diffusions, from Calvin Klein Jeans to Underwear. The label worked with fashion photographer Tyrone Lebon for the project, a collaboration that capitalises on Lebon’s association with high fashion, through the niche publications he regularly frequents the pages of, from i-D, LOVE and POP magazines. The images which feature as portraits of each of the stars are sweaty and cinematic, evoking film scenes of downtown L.A., all emblazoned with the hash-tag of the campaign, #mycalvins. A film clip released concurrently with the print images was a mood board of models lolling on unmade beds, rappers in bathrooms, film sets, power lines, tattoos, hedonism and so forth, all aimed at a young market of music and fashion-savvy consumers.

Immediately obvious in the images is a consistent difference in the portrayal of the women in the campaign to their male counterparts. Singers (FKA Twigs) and models (Abby Lee Kershaw) are presented promiscuously, in bed, bent over, or – in the case of model Kendall Jenner – in parts. Jenner is presented as ‘woman-wearing-boyfriend’s-underwear’ in a grid of Polaroids each cropped to an element of her voluptuous body parts – lips, butt, hip – that take on a pornographic, doll-like reference. The shots put the viewer firmly in the position of voyeur, and consumer of Jenner’s dismantled figure, prompting a disruption between her as a ‘complete’ person into a collection of fetishised parts or objects. The spread, which appeared across print and online advertising channels, is underscored by the caption ‘I want to be with you in #mycalvins,’ a thinly veiled reference to Jenner’s (theoretical) availability as a sexual object.

The message is consistent across the campaign, with the texts on the women featured suggestive and provocative. Filling the gap of ‘what they do in their Calvins,’ women apparently ‘arouse,’ ‘dream’ and ‘seduce.’ Whereas the men in the campaign, like rapper Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$ and Sung Jin Park, are, however, presented quite differently and apparently wear their Calvins to ‘reflect,’ ‘focus’ and ‘consider.’ They are (generally) fully clothed, deep in thought and serious, packaged as ‘complete’ human beings: thinking, cultural figures with artistic clout, in contrast to the fragmented, objectified parts of Jenner’s physique.

Reflecting on the campaign prompted us to revisit the seminal 1972 text, Ways of Seeing, in which cultural critic John Berger famously wrote: ‘One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear.’ Though referring to an age-old phenomenon in the representation of women in art, advertising, as well as self-presentation in everyday life, Berger’s thesis sadly doesn’t seem to have waned. Fundamental is the proposition that, ‘She is not naked as she is. She is naked as the spectator sees her.’ Though image culture becomes increasingly sophisticated, it’s a dynamic still embedded in the DNA of advertising and how men and women are presented in mainstream (fashion) media. In the cK ads Jenner’s body, pieced into bite-sized Polaroids, is packaged to be consumed by the spectator.

The rift in the gendered ways in which the different figures are presented in this Calvin Klein campaign is another shock-sell by the house, one that has often been an element of their branding strategy² – particularly for their diffusion lines more targeted towards a youthful market. From Kate Moss’ waif figure appearing across billboards and magazine pages alike in 1992, it seems Calvin Klein’s method has been to tactfully push the envelope and generate controversy, then sales. Unfortunately #mycalvins has had little impact in comparison to past campaigns, like Moss,’ in terms of critical response. The reception could be a result of the calibre of cultural figures included in the campaign – a cross-pollination of up-and-coming musicians, models on-the-make and high profile celebrities. Or it may that in the hands of photographer Tyrone Lebon the campaign is given a certain edge that places it in the realm of editorial, and less as an explicitly commercial ad campaign. In any case, though the uproar in reception of Moss’ waif figure, another case of the woman-as-object, has faded, #mycalvins would suggest not much has changed.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

John Berger, Ways of Seeing, 1972. ↩
‘Ad Pullback Unlikely to Hurt Sales at Calvin Klein’ by Denise Gellene for the Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1995 ↩

Walking Taller

Laura Gardner — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 19:49:47 +0000

A HANDFUL OF CENTIMETRES can have a lot of power in the business of shoes. Recognising a market for well-designed, well-made men’s ‘heels’, Jennen Ngiau-Keng’s began his company Taller Shoes in 2007 and now offers a range of over one hundred elevated men’s shoes. The names of each of the shoes – Mr Debussy, or Mr Mozart – are a nod to Jennen’s career as a professional violinist: he’s played for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra among others. The company stocks a range, from black formalwear shoes to boating loafers, each of which add between five and thirteen centimetres to the wearer’s height with a reinforced insole.

Not only do the shoes appeal to height-challenged customers (including celebrities), but also attract men working in security and law enforcement, highlighting a link not only between height and confidence, but also with power. Even so, the website still has to reassure their customer with ‘discreet packaging’, orders arrive anonymous and free from Taller branding. Body enhancement products, though readily accepted by parallel female markets, are reluctant to take off for men. Jennen hopes elevated shoes will simply become the new normal, a boost of confidence without the social stigma. Speaking with Vestoj, the designer and entrepreneur explains how the shoes work, what made him start his own company and what it takes to feel comfortable within your own centimetres.

Yakunins (Japanese officials) in Nagasaki, Japan in 1868. Collection of the National Museum of Denmark.

***

I remember looking up celebrity heights online and there was an American advertisement that kept coming up claiming that Tom Cruise or Mark Wahlberg wore elevated shoes, so I decided to buy a pair from the States to try. I’m five foot seven inches and my partner at the time was taller than me when wearing heels, particularly when we used to perform on stage together. I realised that a lot of men faced the same issue with partners in heels and I saw a market to bring them to Australia, but to incorporate better quality and design.

When I began Taller Shoes I designed eight styles and began with an order of six hundred pairs. The shoes themselves are an adaptation of a normal shoe – a sneaker, for example, which fits a thin insole. Taller Shoes have a much thicker, elevated insole that goes into the shoe in the same way, but if you were to put a thick insole into a normal shoe you can’t fit your foot inside and it slips out. So our shoes are designed to be higher at the heel of the shoe creating space to accommodate the raised insole. In designing the shoes we look at what’s on trend but we’re also mindful of what styles suit the structure of the elevated insole. There are a lot of styles that wouldn’t work: for example, more streamlined, narrow shapes don’t work. The shoes are made in our factory in China: for each shoe there are about twelve different people involved the making process. Then we try them on and see how they look, there’s a lot of back and forth with the factory in tweaking the samples.

A man in a ceremonial dress, Nagasaki, Japan 1868. Collection of the National Museum of Denmark.

We’ve built on the original styles seasonally but also through feedback from customers – hearing what they like has been hugely important to the growth of Taller. In order to keep the business sustainable we have to cater to a wide audience, so we have a broad range of designs. I’m quite out there with my taste in fashion – I like to look a bit different – but I find I have to be more restrained when I design for Taller to cater to a more conservative man. I have a few more adventurous styles but they are slower moving in the range; the majority of customers are more subdued in their taste.

In the beginning you learn about the business and what’s important to your customers. I had a few people email me complaining that they had the shoes delivered to their work, because they didn’t want people to know they were wearing these types of shoes. It can be difficult to market ourselves when our customers want their purchase to be discreet, but I guess men just don’t want others to know they’re wearing elevated shoes. We have a lot of shy customers that prefer to buy online rather than come into our stores, but we send all our packages discreetly to satisfy this.

Japanese pilgrim on a trip, Japan. Collection of the National Museum of Denmark.

A lot of the customers are women who come in with their male partners, particularly for special occasions like weddings, and our best sellers are black formal shoes. Word of mouth is also very important for our business, especially where men don’t openly want to talk about wearing the product. Before we were doing a lot of advertising in Men’s magazines like GQ, Men’s Health and fitness periodicals, but in fact we did much better when we advertised in women’s magazines.

I also realised there was a big market in the security industry, for police officers and bouncers for example. Customers that might already be tall, but want that extra height to give them a sense of power, and as a result we’ve increased our sizes to go up to size twelve. The reason for buying our shoes might be the height of your partner, or your job, but what’s most important is that we give our customers a sense of confidence. It’s amazing, I’ve had smaller guys come in and you see the change in them; they leave and they’re happy and smiling. I think a powerful person is someone who has a strong presence. In the end this is all in the mind and how you feel about yourself carries through to how you present yourself. To me, a powerful person is someone with a lot of self-confidence, someone who is self assured and without hang-ups. This is an alpha person: confident in the way they walk and move. Ultimately, it doesn’t depend on how tall you are at all. The extra few centimetres is more about a psychological difference. I used to be more self-conscious and thought I needed to be taller, but as I’ve become more confident in myself, height doesn’t make a difference anymore, and that’s a nice realisation.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

Between Words

Laura Gardner — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 20:52:43 +0000

This is a response to the article ‘The Maddening and Brilliant Karl Lagerfeld’ by Andrew O’Hagan, published in T Magazine, October 12 2015.

Portrait of Karl Lagerfeld by Jean-Baptiste Mondino from the article in question, as part of T Magazine’s ‘The Greats’ issue, published October 12, 2015.

ON THE COVER OF the recent October issue The New York Times’ weekend supplement, T Magazine, Karl Lagerfeld’s profile looks out like some sort of modern renaissance bust. As one might expect, his severe white collar and dark sunglasses are firmly in place, as is the white ponytail. The cover is one of a series of six released for the issue, and accompanies a feature article inside on the designer. It’s a long-form profile and interview by Andrew O’Hagan that gushes over Lagerfeld, depicting him as the most important designer of our time, or in the author’s words: ‘fashion’s one and only.’ The high praise of the designer could be mistaken for an extended press release and might be construed as another example of the failure to present balanced and analytical coverage on fashion in mainstream media, particularly for a publication like The New York Times.

The interview itself takes place between the designer’s home in Paris and also in Seoul, where he is preparing for a Chanel presentation. O’Hagan opens the article and interview with a quote from Marcel Proust’s famous sartorial descriptions from In Search of Lost Time – a book that illustrates fashion as ‘not a casual decoration alterable at will, but a given, poetical reality like that of the weather.’ The preface leads into the sweeping generalisation that: ‘It’s about a hundred years since fashion took its place alongside literature, painting and music as a way to look for the social essence of one’s era.’ Fashion, which as we know is older than this, is immediately marginalised from the outset as a lesser, younger form of the arts. This is a statement that is reinforced in the intellectual banter about literary and cultural figures that ensues, an effort to add some sort of cultural capital to Lagerfeld and reassure us of his significance as an ‘intellectual designer,’ despite being embedded in the world of fashion.

Andrew O’Hagan is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction writer with seven books published and one Booker prize under his belt. His credentials as a writer suggest that the editorial choice of him as author feeds into the overarching semblance that this article will be looking at fashion seriously. This notion is reinforced by Lagerfeld’s cultural dexterity, which is constantly reminded to us throughout the article – from the setting of the designer’s Paris apartment with its ‘Art Deco ambience’ and ‘candle-scented air,’ to the art (a Jeff Koons sculpture) and its book-lined walls (‘the room is all about the books’). O’Hagan’s conversation with Lagerfeld begins with the name-dropping back and forth on twentieth century figures from film, literature and classical music, which are apparently more respectable streams of culture. Mentions of Françoise Sagan, Günter Grass and Thomas Mann emerge in the discussion, as a device that seeks to give Lagerfeld (and the author) a sizeable dollop of cultural capital. In effect, the dialogue reflects the pervasive hegemonic conception of fashion, and one that hinders its progress as a site for critical discussion.

Historically, fashion has an uncomfortable relationship with critique: mainstream media coverage by newspapers and magazines often shy away from rigour and analysis on fashion’s output of events and collections. This is a dynamic that is constantly repeated in its discourse. References to other cultural disciplines, namely art and literature, are used to legitimise the domain of fashion, and suggest that it’s an industry that fails to measure up to a similar level of intellectual rigour.

Reinforcing this notion, in the article Lagerfeld is presented as a creative genius in the world of fashion: ‘our premier idea of what a brilliant designer can be’; and is unashamedly showered with praise by O’Hagan: ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone more fully native to their own conception of wonder.’ In a more literal metaphor of the designer later in the piece, he is compared to the twentieth century conductor Herbert von Karajana as he tweaks the accessories to a Chanel outfit for the presentation in South Korea, a movement that is described as similar to ‘conducting the violin section during a rehearsal of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.’

Though some of O’Hagan’s comments to Lagerfeld are deserved, the heavy-handed approach portrays the designer as having a symbolic status that distances him from the commercial messiness of the industry.

‘The Maddening and Brilliant Karl Lagerfeld’ reinforces a convenient and problematic summary of fashion as a frivolous domain. Though T Magazine may not be the context for academic discussion on fashion, there is surely room for a bit more rigour when dealing with the subject matter. This may also reflect the dilemma facing all national newspapers and their glossy weekend supplements, which lend themselves as platforms for corralling (often luxury) ads, perhaps as a source of revenue to commissioning more serious news-style articles elsewhere. With that said, the history of The New York Times as a platform that offers more critical positions on fashion and dress – having featured writers like Ann Hollander, Cathy Horyn, Lynn Yaeger, among others – should set a stronger precedence for coverage such as this. Unfortunately, this article is yet another exemplar of the lack of critique in the discourse, a paradigm that means that fashion is constantly playing catch up on itself.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

The Best for the Most for the Least

Laura Gardner — Tue, 24 Mar 2015 12:30:00 +0000

SLOW AND STEADY WINS the Race is a clothing and accessory label that by its mere existence comments on the state of contemporary fashion. Why does fashion need to constantly change? Is fashion always intrinsically elitist? And how can you make ‘the best, for the most, for the least’? Presented as a ‘bimonthly clothing diary,’ Slow and Steady Wins the Race acts as a sort of classification of ideas revolving around the question of what we wear and why we wear it. By reinterpreting our everyday wardrobe, designer Mary Ping aims to create sartorial design classics that are ‘timely and timeless, unique and universal.’ As those of us who love clothing already know, it’s hard to talk about the fashion industry in a new way; its rigid and hierarchical system doesn’t lend itself easily to alternative business models. Nevertheless, the season-less, classic and accessible pieces from the ever-growing Slow and Steady Wins the Race archive offer a reminder to keep questioning the system, to never stop asking ‘why?’

Idealistically power should lie in the origins of creativity. A true and clear vision is ultimately a source of power. Realistically however, we’re dealing with a much more complicated organism. Fashion has its own ecology, built on a hierarchy of psychological and cultural relationships, with a bit of internal politics thrown in for good measure. Right now, power in fashion boils down to economic power. Not only do bigger companies have the ability—based on financial strength—to influence, giving them the capacity to steer everything in their direction, but the fashion industry is also devoid of any market category: Nike is as powerful as LVMH. This is nothing new, but people are more aware of it today. There are many more communication channels now, and companies are able to harness information to a greater extent, and the goal seems to be about dominating the masses. The more you sell, the better in other words. The strategy appears to be to constantly conquer new markets to find new consumers. So with this in mind, I’d say that the consumer also has substantial power: the power of where and how to spend our money. This power can be positive, if handled correctly, with the right information and moral codes. It’s up to each of us, as producers and as consumers, to decide how to use that power responsibly. I’m a true believer in the idea that good design can better the world. a well-designed teacup for instance has universal appeal; a design classic doesn’t need to go on sale or out of fashion. This is the concept behind Slow and Steady Wins the Race too; what we do exists as a sort of testament to the idea that good design is always relevant. I want our oeuvre to serve as a sort of constantly evolving archive so every piece we’ve ever made is always available to buy. We don’t design according to the seasons; instead we produce our pieces at a steady year-round pace to highlight the temporal nature of contemporary fashion. We also take care to make our pieces in simple fabrics and to keep our costs down to show that high design can, and should, be accessible to everyone. Designers are always trying to pursue what’s next and what’s new, so the most challenging aspect of my work is to design a be-all-end-all piece of clothing. I would love to design a new classic. I’d say that, with these intentions in mind, Slow and Steady Wins the Race exists as a body of work, a living library of wardrobe basics, interpreted in a way that is timely and timeless. It’s a conceptual interpretation of everything that you would find in a closet. We’re trying to give ordinary garments an iconic appeal by taking clothes that everyone wears—a classic ballet flat, a white T-shirt, a simple tote bag—and proposing the most archetypal version of that. It’s a lexicon of products. I’d like to think that if there was a universal dictionary of garments and we opened it at ‘T’ for ‘tote bag,’ the Slow and Steady Wins the Race design would come up. I want Slow and Steady Wins the Race to act as a sort of mirror to the fashion system, reflecting the forces at play in the industry. We aim to question certain parameters of the fashion system in order to create a considered response to the hyper-consumerist pace of contemporary culture. Our philosophy is that if you like something from us, and you want it again, you will always find it. We’re against the idea that fashion needs to change to remain significant. I believe that it’s only a matter of time before fashion reaches a boiling point—trends move so fast and are so cyclical today that it’s inevitable that at some point soon the pendulum is going to swing, and we will long for things that last again. Eventually we’re going to hit a critical mass of people getting frustrated or just overwhelmed with too many options, because regard- less of how exciting novelty can be, we also crave the familiar and constant—it makes us feel safe.

For me, the only way to move forward as a designer is to ask questions and propose answers that are clever, elegant and long-lasting. It’s my job is to propose something that is as close to the ‘right’ solution as possible. The designers Ray and Charles Eames had a perfect saying to define what’s democratic in design, which is ‘the best, for the most, for the least,’ I think that’s a great goal in talking about democracy of design. If you only stick to that, you’ll be fine.

This article was originally published in Vestoj On Fashion and Power.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

Dilan Walpola is a New York-based illustrator and designer, and founder of the namesake design practice.

Blank Looks

Laura Gardner — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 12:15:28 +0000

IN MAY 1997, POLITICS intervened with fashion when U.S. President Bill Clinton addressed the White House at a press conference with concern over designers glorifying the so-called ‘heroin chic’. He explained that, ‘In the press in recent days, we’ve seen reports that many of our fashion leaders are now admitting – and I honour them for this – they’re admitting flat-out that images projected in fashion over the last few years have made heroin addiction seem glamorous and sexy and cool.’ He went on, ‘the glorification of heroin is not creative, it’s destructive. It’s not beautiful, it is ugly. And it’s not about art; it’s about life and death.’¹

The political statement marked a seminal moment for the ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic that became mainstream in fashion during the Nineties through advertising campaigns and editorials. But the look had broader implications, evolving from its original incarnation as documentary-style fashion photography into the minimalist grunge style adopted by designers in the latter years of the decade, such as Jil Sander, Helmut Lang and Josephus Thimister.

Emerging from fashion photography and styling that was intended as more realistic portrayal of fashion, the androgynous waif was a subversive take on mainstream fashion. Models appeared rakishly skinny, doe-eyed and pale skinned, framed in awkward and off-centre positions that suggested they were either sleep-deprived or using drugs, which they often were. Haphazard styling that made the model look like she or he was either still in last night’s clothes, or had hurriedly dressed themselves. Underlying this ‘de-glamourisation’ of the fashion image was a celebration of hedonism and youth through the grunge of drug culture. This imagery presented a more honest take on the fashion image, with publications like The Face and i-D and their creative teams trailblazing the aesthetic. Kate Moss became the face of the generation, from her early images with Corinne Day to her subsequent Calvin Klein campaigns.

Kate Moss photographed by Mario Sorrenti as the face of Calvin Klein in 1993.

The stark images from this era were a reaction to the opulent glamour of fashion during the Eighties. As Amy M. Spindler phrases it in her 1998 article for The New York Times, ‘heroin chic’ reacted to ‘the maniacally jolly group shots of the campaigns of Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren.²

It was a rejection of the bronzed and buffed culture of the former generation coupled with the rising hedonism of Generation X. Photographers like Corinne Day, Davide Sorrenti and Juergen Teller sought to give a revealing and honest look at fashion as it really was, capturing moments that revealed the reality behind a polished fashion image. The intention was to subvert the fashion image by glorifying the seediness behind.

In a recent interview with SHOWstudio’s Nick Knight, model Kristen McMenamy sheds light on the famous image of her, naked with ‘Versace’ emblazoned in lipstick across her chest taken by Juergen Teller. It is an image that has, in many respects, defined the era as a starkly honest portrayal of fashion. The model explains that, ‘it was the first time that photographers were actually allowed to capture [models], as documentary.’³ The gesture marks a clear departure from the high glamour and elaborate, big-budget fashion campaigns of the Eighties, orchestrated by brands like Versace. Still in the tradition of fashion, the look of ‘heroin chic’ embraced an honest, bare-all approach that literally stripped back the layers of the fashion image.

Juergen Teller, ‘Kristen McMenamy 3’, from the series ‘Versace Heart’ from 1996.

Image from the ‘Underexposure’ editorial by Corinne Day for British Vogue, featuring Kate Moss, 1993.

Chloë Sevigny by Juergen Teller for The Face, 1997.

Milla Jovovich by Davide Sorrenti, 1996.

The ‘heroin chic’ aesthetic set the parameters for the generation of the waif that became popular in the mainstream. The image of the emaciated, child-like physique still suggested the effects of drug-taking culture in its later, more watered-down incarnations. Journalist Robin Givhan pointed the blame at the fashion industry for promoting these behaviours. She wrote in an article for The Washington Post in 1996 that, ‘Editors and photographers have been fond of posing [models] in dingy bathrooms or cheap motels with their makeup smeared and their hair tousled. And while they may be wearing the latest pricey designer clothes, the implication is that a hypodermic is somewhere just outside of the frame.’⁴ Indeed, outside the frame drug culture was hitting the mainstream, with films like ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Kids’ which presented the archetype of the reckless youth, a reality behind many of these fashion images.

For all its controversy ‘heroin chic’ became a popular term in fashion media, readily applied to any image that presented a sort of minimalist, grunge look. Designers like Helmut Lang, Prada and Jil Sander and their stylists and photographers embraced this aesthetic to varying degrees, merging art and fashion in a way that evolved from the earlier, grungier, fashion images. This second wave of the waif presented a more artful aesthetic that still rejected the opulence and glamour of the traditional fashion image, by using minimal make-up and pale skin in styling that appeared to be unchoreographed.

As if to highlight the link between the two generations of the waif, Jil Sander was criticised for promoting ‘heroin chic’ in her spring/summer 1996 campaign by Craig McDean. One image featured the model Guinevere Van Seenus posing with her sleeve rolled up above the elbow in what apparently suggested heroin use. Sander rejected the claim that the image was a reference to ‘heroin chic,’ defending the campaign by explaining that, ‘This makeup has nothing to do with the drug scene.’ Instead she argued that, ‘It has something to do with sensitivity and refinement, and going away from the old fashion world. We are not in the old time. Sometimes you have to punch harder to go forward. We can’t go back to the old idea of beauty.’⁵

Jil Sander’s spring/summer 1996 campaign shot by Craig McDean with Guinevere Van Seenus.

What Jil Sander meant by ‘sensitivity and refinement’ refers to the language of modern simplicity that the designer has made a name for herself with, alongside her Nineties minimalist counterparts Helmut Lang, Josephus Thimister, Ann Demeulemeester and others. These designers brought the pale, waif-like cover girl into the latter years of the decade. This newer look that was defined by its own set of ideals but it remained in step with the rawness of the documentary-style fashion of the former years (as seen with Juergen Teller and Corinne Day).

Although the strength of the argument against Sander’s image campaign might seem stretched, to a large extent ‘heroin chic’ appears to be embedded in the DNA of her images and others like them. Trends, after all, evolve from the collective of a former generation, and constantly react to and build on existing cultural ideals. Today we, somewhat nostalgically, remember ‘heroin chic’ as an integral Nineties fashion phenomenon, and as such it is an essential part of the aesthetic language of the era. Considering the controversy surrounding ‘heroin chic’ at the time, big brands were understandably reluctant to overtly subscribe to the aesthetic. Nevertheless, it’s of course absolutely vital to fashion brands not to lag behind the trends; a fashion brand needs to remain in fashion. And so, in a complex manoeuvre intended to allow high fashion companies to keep old customers while enticing new ones, it’s hardly surprising that overtly distancing themselves from ‘heroin chic’ while covertly observing the trend must have seemed like the only way forward. Appearing to challenge the status quo while remain suitably politically correct is then perhaps just another way of both having your cake and eating it.

Kristen Owen backstage at Helmut Lang for autumn/winter 1997, photographed by Juergen Teller.

Angela Lindvall by Glen Luchford for Miu Miu spring/summer 1997.

Laura Gardner is Vestoj’s former Online Editor and a writer in Melbourne.

‘The Death Proclamation of Generation X’ by Maxim W. Furek, 2008. ↩
‘Critic’s Notebook; Tracing the Look of Alienation’ by Amy M. Spindler for The New York Times, March 24, 1998. ↩
‘Subjective’ which featured Kristen McMenamy interviewed by Nick Knight for SHOWStudio, 2014. ↩
‘Why Dole Frowns on Fashion’ by Robin Givhan for The Washington Post, 1996. ↩
‘The 90’s Version of the Decadent Look’ by Amy M. Spindler for The New York Times, May 7, 1996. ↩

Clothes for the Body, Clothes for the Home

Laura Gardner — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 11:50:43 +0000

IN MANY WAYS SUSAN Cianciolo’s work evades a formal category. For the most part she is a designer, but also maker, artist, director, among other roles that allow her to create her exhibitions and performances. Her body of work is similarly multi-facetted, with the products she creates under her own name as well as her brand RUN (a label she started in 1995 and has recently revived) consisting of anything from clothing, to tapestries and drink coasters. Each item is part of a whole experience in which clothes, and the way we use and wear them, have a critical role. Her clothes and products which are typically hand-made and finished in Cianciolo’s New York studio, have appeared in exhibitions, retail spaces and pop up restaurant projects across the world. Cianciolo’s work draws on the sensation of wearing, for instance her pop up restaurant creates a dining experience by curating every aspect from food and interiors to the garments worn by the service staff.

From a formal fashion education, to an informal art education, Cianciolo’s practice spans two decades and resides in both of these contexts. Her performances and exhibitions during the Nineties with figures like Bernadette Van-Huy and Rita Ackermann inform a body of work that subverts fashion, though not always overtly so. This living archive is crucial to Cianciolo’s practice, and she constantly draws from her past output, repurposing clothes into new projects and in the process reminding us that fashion can be a continuum – an ongoing process that doesn’t necessarily forget itself with the rigour that mainstream fashion sometime suggests.

Susan Cianciolo’s ‘Underneath the sea and inside a mountain’ collection, shot by Rosalie Knox.

Cover of Katrin Thomas book ‘Exits, Living Fashion’, featuring RUN 2 collection

Laura: Could you explain your practice as a fashion designer and talk us through how you put a collection together?

Susan: This is actually a question I am always asking myself since I don’t create a collection in the formal sense, even though it’s a body of work that includes clothing. For example, in a few days I’m leaving for Mississippi for a show at Yalo Studio, this is a gallery in a community steeped in the tradition of quilting and textiles. The reason I took this residency, brought about by the Pine Hurst Artist Residency, is because I like going to different locations where I merge with a new environment. So what I’m doing right now is preparing a collection of clothing or products for the project. I decided for the project to go into my archives and add pieces from it, for example I’m using these body suits from a performance I did at MMK in Frankfurt. I am always looking through my archive and pattern library and pulling things out to recreate them in a new context.

Laura: So it’s part of an ongoing process…

Susan: The clothing is one part of these projects, they might also involve a performance, drawings, film or animation. It is just one of the mediums in my work. I don’t sit down and plan for a season. It all depends on what the exhibition or project is and I make specific pieces for each context. After that private clients come to me, or friends like the retailer Maryam Nassir Zadeh, who sells my work in her shop. But all this happens after, and it’s not something I plan for.

Laura: When you say ‘performance’, what exactly does this mean in the context of your work? Are we talking about a traditional runway presentation?

Susan: It can be anything really, in the last performance I did for an exhibition at Mito Contemporary Art Center (which was later shown at MIMOCA) in Japan I cast girls that worked in local galleries and museums and customised my garments to them. I’ve also worked on projects with a pop up restaurant that travels to various private homes, and for this I create a dining experience for the visitors. We dress the staff in costumes that we’ve made, so it’s a visual performance as well as an experience through the food, and then there’s the music and all the details of the event. Every aspect is hand-made and connected to the experience.

Laura: So it’s almost the reverse of the way traditional fashion works in that, instead of putting clothing on a pedestal or catwalk, you’re bringing it back into a more intimate context.

Susan: I’m creating an experience or sensation with the clothes, it’s important to me that the presentation of the products is as natural as the process, to show that all the aspects are equal and accessible. Most of the garments and homewares are completely made by hand, so it’s a very tailored and labour intensive process. I also try to re-use my archive of works and keep adding or adapting past designs but we also keep making new pieces.

Susan Cianciolo at her recent exhibition at MIMOCA, Japan, 2014

Laura: How is your studio structured? Do you have a production team?

Susan: It changes, but right now there are three people in the studio, which is quite a big team for me. I stopped doing production some years ago because I needed such a big team to do it in-house. At the moment I’m collaborating with Kiva Motnyk in Soho and we’re recreating RUN Home collection, which is something we began in the Nineties, so we have a team at her studio and I have a team here at my studio developing the collection, and it goes back and forth.

Laura: What’s the thinking behind revisiting a past RUN collection into your current way of working?

Susan: I’m always going back into my archive and using original pieces from RUN in new projects, so there’s never a sense of new or old for me. And Kiva and I have been working together for so long there was a real understanding of how we could do something similar in a new context: this collaboration was born from that complicity.

Laura: How does the collection work?

Susan: RUN Home is a collection for the home, and comes out of RUN, the label I originally worked with when I started out making clothes. The collection is made up of all kinds of products for the interior, from bedding to drink coasters. What I’m doing now is making clothes that work with the Home collection, for example a hand-made pillow set comes with a kimono to wear. I’m taking a holistic approach; it’s continuum of my work with one-of-a-kind pieces. We’re also collaborating with other people: artists and clothing designers like Jessica Ogden and Zoe Latta, Hans Gillickson, who is making furniture, and we have ceramics made by Jasiu Krajewski. So we spend a lot of time seeking out collaborators. But the wearable aspect, like the kimonos, reflects what you would wear if you were in your home, so it is an imagining of what a home space would look like.

Printed matter for a flyer for a pop up restaurant, and a RUN collection opening December 4, 2014.

Laura: How do you exercise control over an aesthetic when you collaborate in this way?

Susan: Well we approach like-minded artisans so that our aesthetics join together. With Kiva, since we’ve worked together for so long, we already have an understanding of an aesthetic for the collection, so we know if it works or if it doesn’t. We share a common language.

Laura: In light of the topic of ‘slowness’, the theme for the next print issue of Vestoj, is sustainability a conscious aspect of you work?

Susan: A lot of people ask me this and it isn’t something I sought out, but it’s always existed in my way of working. As ‘sustainability’ became really popular, I got brought into the conversation, but it’s not something I do consciously. I’m not waving the flag of the eco-friendly designer; I feel it’s much broader than that. Most of my textiles are either organic or vintage, and I’m constantly repurposing in my studio, so sustainability just happens naturally.

Laura: In terms of your artistic approach and philosophy, I wondered how you see clothes and their role in our everyday lives? How do you hope that your garments are used and worn?

Susan: I don’t have any expectation actually, but I would say that I feel a lot of love towards the clients who buy my garments. It’s a very intimate relationship between a designer and a wearer. For a personal client, the pieces are custom-made or they’ve bought pieces for so many years that we have a really close relationship. These clients understand my clothes so deeply, and the amount of sewing that goes into the pieces as well as the level of care. I never project how I want a piece of clothing to be worn, they’re free to do what they want with them.

Laura: Since your process is so personal, I wonder if there are particular aspects of the fashion industry that you react to, or are trying to subvert? Your earlier work was more overtly subversive, how does that compare to how you work now?

Susan: Earlier I was really trying to be subversive. I was trying to make a point and it was my goal to be as subversive as I could possibly be; I guess I did a good job. But now I realise that I don’t have to try so hard, it just comes naturally by working in a different way to the mainstream. I don’t think there is even the slightest bit of me needing to rebel anymore, it’s more about accepting that my work will always stand out as different to the fashion industry.

RUN 6 shot by Mark Borthwick, styled by Pascale Gatzen for Purple magazine.

Film still from ‘Pro Abortion-Anti Pink’ shot by Chris Moor.

Laura: Could you discuss your earlier work, with artists like Rita Ackermann and Bernadette Corporation, a bit further? Were you exploring specific ideas at this time and do they still come into your work?

Susan: When I remember those first presentations, for me that was the beginning of making a show. What set it apart was very subtle. For example, for the first show I did at the Andrea Rosen Gallery on Spring Street in New York, I put tape on the floor to mark the runway for the models, which at that time seemed so different, but it was just all I had to offer. The first model had a switch-blade that she flipped while she was on the runway, an action that echoed the aesthetic of the clothes. Bernadette Van-Huy (of the art collective Bernadette Corporation) had sliced the tank tops off the shoulder. We also had cheap wigs for the hairstyles and I was really experimenting with styling, so the subversion came out of our resourcefulness and experimentation.

The second show we did was in an abandoned parking garage. A friend drove around and picked up these wooden planks used for shipping crates which we covered in brown paper and used as the runway. I also had the makeup artist do really heavy makeup, so the models looked ugly and sickly in a way. So like the first show, it was very raw and through these aspects, it became a subversive statement.

A flyer from a 1993 performance with Bernadette Corporation.

For the third show, I presented a film, ‘Pro Abortion Anti-Pink’ which collaborated with different photographers who had never made films before, like Terry Richardson, Annette Aurell, Chris Moor, Cheryl Dunn, Marcelo Krasilcic, Tobin Yelland and myself and we each made a vignette. During the fashion show, the band No Neck Blues played and it was so loud that it was quite bothersome to the audience. It was always one thing after another, and it wasn’t about money, it was just ideas and experiments. I think all this work came about from not having any resources, just your brain and your creativity!

At left, RUN 4 performance, in an abandoned store front, New York; at right image performance and film screening at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, 1996.

Laura: Were you trying to work more in an art context? Or was it a fashion vernacular you were working with?

Susan: Well I didn’t have a strategy back then, but now there’s a lot of planning in the way that I work. At the time I was married to Aaron Rose who owned Alleged Gallery, so half of my existence was in the art world. I think I was making art, but not intentionally. So many interviewers would ask me ‘is it art or fashion’? Having to decide which to align with felt very stressful at the time because back then no one was doing both. But eventually I just thought why not, and why couldn’t I?

Laura Gardner is a writer in Melbourne.

The Bryanboy Gesture

Laura Gardner — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 02:44:09 +0000

THE MUCH-APPROPRIATED BRYANBOY gesture – one hand at waist, hip cocked with the other hand is held high, proudly clutching a designer handbag – has become a powerful symbol in the digital era. The blogger Bryan Yambao, popularly known as Bryanboy, ‘coined’ the pose on the pages of his popular blog bryanboy.com. This gesture, and other similar poses of Bryanboy’s blogging contemporaries, has become clearly identifiable in contemporary image culture, widely replicated with playful aspiration. More broadly speaking, the ‘blogger pose’, as it has come to be known in the digital landscape, has given the everyday fashion follower the opportunity to adopt a centre-of-attention status in a culture of fashion commerce.

Bryanboy poses with a denim Louis Vuitton monogram handbag, 2005.

Bryanboy is a pin-up boy for the fashion blogger: hailing from Manila, the capital of The Philippines, the 27-year-old has become an ostentatious mainstay of the fashion weeks, appearing on the front row among a cohort which includes Susie Bubble, Scott Schuman, Tavi Gevinson, Garance Doré and Tommy Ton, all of whom are now almost veterans of the blogosphere. Each of these figurehead bloggers have their signature and highly-cultivated appearance, taste and language that has garnered their loyal followers. Bryanboy presents a character of luxury leisure and fashion consumption typical of bloggers, but his standout characteristic is the ‘Bryanboy pose’, which he enacts enthusiastically with the latest season bags he features on his blog. The pose consists of one arm outstretched, with the other hand on hip, as if to say: ‘look what I’ve got!’ in a clear gesture of branding. In 2008, in honour of the pose and the blogger, and in an act of pop-cultural homage typical of the designer, Marc Jacobs named a style of bag after Bryanboy: the ‘BB ostrich’ bag, for his autumn/winter 2008 collection.¹ This reflected Bryanboy’s status as an enduring figure of the blogosphere, and cemented the pose as an iconic image on the digital landscape.

Fendi’s spring/summer 2006, where the model appeared to be doing the ‘Bryanboy pose’.

Copycat Bryanboy poses submitted to bryanboy.com in response to the Fendi advertisement in 2006.

Before Jacobs’ eponymous ‘BB ostrich’ bag, the Bryanboy pose emerged from a playful internet narrative to something more commercially complex when in 2006 the luxury brand Fendi appeared to appropriate the pose for their spring/summer advertising campaign. The images featured model Angela Lindvall in a position that was strikingly familiar to the Bryanboy pose. Bryanboy fans immediately adopted the gesture and an array of amateur copies ensued; these were gladly received and promoted by the blogger. In a response post to the Fendi campaign Bryanboy wrote ‘NOTHING CAN BEAT THE ORIGINAL, THE LEGENDARY AND THE INFAMOUS BRYANBOY POSE.’ Which he followed up with: ‘I LOOOOOVE FENDI!!!!!!!’² Since this outburst, many of the blogger’s posts on the subject, as well as images of Bryanboy himself in the pose, have mysteriously been removed from the blog. Whether or not Fendi did actively appropriate the blogger, the interaction sheds light on an interesting dynamic between the popularity of the ‘blogger pose’ with fashion followers and broader issues of cultural appropriation.

Blogger chicmuse (Denni Elias), in May 2014.

Blogger Garance Doré poses for The Sartorialist on the street in Rome, 2009.

The Sartorialist, ‘On the Street…Via Dè Brunelleschi, Florence’, June, 2014.

A quick Google search of the term ‘blogger pose’ will inevitably raise any number of demonstrations on mastering the art of posing for street-style photographers for the blog context. There are how-to Youtube tutorials and step-by-step guides that instruct a model on how to get the right nonchalant stance of the street-style blogger. In a top ten list of these poses, blogger Cocorosa lists some of the popular figures and their signature poses.³ For instance, there’s chicmuse (Denni Elias) with her side-swept hair and hand-on-hip pose, or the pigeon-toed, direct stance popular on Scott Schuman’s The Sartorialist, among numerous others. These aesthetics, borne out of the blogging and street-style landscape, have become a clearly recognisable cultural phenomenon. But, as fashion academic and writer Minh-Ha T. Pham contends, the Bryanboy pose represents something more complex than the cliché vanity of fashion bloggers; it reflects an inversion of cultural appropriation. Pham argues that ‘fashion blogs have created a global platform on which Asian bodies and labours are incredibly visible and also commanding’ and that ‘Fendi’s dodgy corporate practices render invisible Yambao’s racially and sexually minoritised body…In effect ‘whitening’ the Bryanboy pose.’⁴

A defining phenomenon of the digital landscape and the cohort of celebrity bloggers, is the ‘blogger pose’. Personified by leading figures of this industry, such as Scott Schuman, Denni Elias and Garance Doré, the culture of posing has been which has been widely adopted and adapted by the mainstream. The case of the Bryanboy pose, as Minha-Ha T. Pham argues, presents a deeper, more culturally complex interaction between blogger and brand, raising issues of cultural appropriation in fashion commerce. Although the intentions behind the Fendi advertisement remain uncertain, perhaps the cultural repercussions aren’t as severe as Pham might suggest, but certainly the incident sheds light on the ever-evolving dynamic exchange between blogger, brand and follower.

Laura Gardner is the former Online Editor for Vestoj and a writer in Melbourne.

http://www.bryanboy.com/bryanboy_le_superstar_fab/2006/05/resurrection.html ↩
http://www.bryanboy.com/bryanboy_le_superstar_fab/2008/06/marc-jacobs-bb-bag.html ↩
http://mypreciousconfessions.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/top-10-fashion-blogger-poses.html ↩
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dz-w5ecvBU ↩