Post-Industrialism Fashion
Until now, the success of each season to show a collection, how long it is able to maintain it, how it can build a rich archive, moreover, whether it establishes the brand’s own heritage, has been one measure of what a monumental brand is in fashion history. In addition, modern fashion also seems to be an important standard for successful collaboration with unexpected (= seemingly unconnected) and abundant exchanges.
As such, it can be seen that the boundaries between brands are disappearing in contemporary fashion, and mutual collaboration is active. Personally, I wonder if this phenomenon is a deconstructive flow that occurs in units that are more than clothes. In other words, I regard collaboration as a new movement that applied to the entire fashion industry after deconstructionism has been grafted onto each individual unit of clothes.
However, as in the art field, fashion designers who advocated deconstructionism are incorporated into the mainstream market and eventually, they have reached a clear limitation that has become one of many styles. (The reason for mentioning ‘limitation’ is that those designers stopped after ‘deconstructing’ clothes.) The aforementioned ‘collaboration movement’ is highly likely to be blocked soon, by the logic of capitalism. Even Heron Preston criticized reckless collaboration in April, 2022.(He presented clothes with the theme of ‘not collaborated’)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb8b8wgL9D7/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
So, what are the current clothes and the contemporary fashion?
This industry is where it is difficult to even step in if you do not have excessive affection and interest in clothes, and you are likely to leave soon even if you enter. Therefore, what I want to say would be a bit of a ‘leap’ considering the above characteristics of this field. Nevertheless, I believe the 21st clothes will eventually be recorded as UNIQLO’s clothes. (You can put your favourite fast fashion brand instead of UNIQLO.) It means that UNIQLO’s clothes and their production methods will be recorded more meaningfully than any other brands that constantly test their limits through fierce collections every season. UNIQLO is the style of the current era.
To add pure personal delusion, the designer’s collections and the archives are in danger of being treated as a portfolio for collaboration with the representatives of mass production, represented by UNIQLO. In the end, the current fashion is in a position to lose both the role of the designer and the role of the brand. Design will be demanded anytime, but there is no guarantee that designers will need it anytime. A marked individuality of brand will always be in demand. However, who will actually do the production is another matter.
If you believe that it will forever remain the exclusive domain of designers and high-fashion, that is obviously the evil of elitism.
Therefore, as people have done before, we should find and form new method. For example, it can be considered to look back at one-to-one production beyond small scale production, which can be clearly distinguished from mass production. I am not suggesting a return to the past before RTW was established. It might stay on the post-bespoke level. What I mentioned above is not a strategy to look ahead to the era and move quickly. It is a survival strategy for those who have to protect their works even if they turn their back on times.
In order not to just follow the past, we will have to go further than the existing bespoke system. The extent to which simply considering the physical characteristics of the customer and adapting it to the consumer’s own taste, which the consumer already know, is only a temporary measure. Of course, in this world too, there is a clear demand and their own history. However and unfortunately, the way of the past cannot rule the future . These realms remain only because they are not yet totally occupied by the capitalism. Therefore, it is unreasonable to suggest that the follow-up of this system is post-bespoke. This is because there is literally no answer to what “post” is.
I believe that post-bespoke should eventually touch the intangible realm. To put it another way, since literally one-to-one production is an artifact, it is necessary to consider about whether there is a blank space for the word ‘meeting’ between people and clothes. If such a method develops, naturally, the way of contemporary luxury houses will literally remain as a legacy.
The designer’s name should not be the main motivation leading to a purchase, such as the trademark or tag of the brand.
That method will never bring change. The name should function merely as a token that can prove the clothes that consumers are deciding to purchase, like a signature on the back or corner of the canvas. Of course, even with this alone, there are a lot of problems such as a huge fake market that can erase the proof in an instant, the method of determining the authenticity of clothes, the nature of clothes as a consumer product that distinguishes them from artworks, and whether transactions are being made without the artist’s fame in the art world all. There will be opportunities to write about these issues later. In any case, it is the priority to try to advance the relationship between the designer and the clothes to the level of the artist and the work.
Muyo Park, 朴無要
instagram@parkmuyo
