After reading an article in, The Guardian, about London Fashion Week I felt myself disagreeing with the writers opinion.
The article was mostly about the new fashion for the upcoming Autumn/Winter 2010 collection and the designers. The same sort of article anyone would hand in about any of the fashion weeks; Paris, Milan, New York etc. However the opinion on the clothes was that they were becoming more accessible for Jane Doe, the housewife down the street.
The hem lines were coming down, albeit not by much, but not round our crotches anymore. This was seen as a positive move from the designers as well as the different feeling the audience had whilst watching the show, "the collections that make you smile rather than making you feel cool". I disagree completely. A fashion show should make you feel 'cool', the clothes should look 'cool', they shouldn't make you smile. You're not going to remember a simple, pleated, pink, below the knee, up to the neck, knotted in with a belt dress by Christopher Kane in a years time that simply made you 'smile'. However you will remember Keira Knightley's, eggplant taffeta, Vera Wang dress she wore to the 75th Oscars. That is a dress to remember but it is only accessible to the size zero millionaires. This is how I think it should always be.
I love flicking through photos of different fashion shows and looking at different dresses, zips, buckles, wings, shoes etc and admiring them. I admire them for the imagination the designer must have had when creating the outfit, I admire the model that is tiny enough to wear the clothes and I admire the clothes themselves. The colours, patterns and out-of-this-world innovations. These clothes are not just slung in the wardrobe and thrown out to Oxfam when they don't fit anymore, they are works of art. They are to be admired and cherished and inaccessible. It is a sad day when Haute Couture becomes accessible for the lady down the street. The day I see a mother, with a gaggle of children in ASDA wearing a Dolce and Gabbana coat straight from the runway, is the day I no longer wish to watch the catwalk and the new seasons line up.
Designers should not have to think about their hem lines, the size of their shoulder pads or if the dress is a little too see-through. They should create whatever they can imagine up, with no holds barred. Their designs shouldn't be relevant to the real world, hell, they shouldn't even be made for the real (size 14) woman. Haute Couture is a world of its own, with no rules and regulations. The designers make the clothes to be looked at, to be admired and to show the world the designs for the following season. The only designs that should be accessible to the real world, on a normal wage and with a normal sized body are the knock-offs on the high street. Shops like Top Shop, River Island and Next look to the runway to see whats 'in-season', they copy it and make it accessible to the real world. It is their job to do this, not the Haute Couture designers.
I am probably within a minority with this opinion. That the catwalk shouldn't be for every woman, however this is the innovative world I love to look at. I love to watch and be inspired. I don't draw up my shopping list whilst watching the shows, I watch in awe of what has been made and how they look. This is what I truly believe Haute Couture is about and how a fashion show should make you feel.
This is a very interesting post and I agree with much of it. Fashion shows are the closest many people will come to visiting an art gallery. In fact, some people may argue that the catwalk sees some purer creations than galleries in terms of the designers' honesty about their purpose (finance and recognition as well as expression), but that's another conversation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this kind of creativity shouldn't be stifled; fashion houses are businesses and the items that make it off the catwalk and into boutiques will do so because they fit the market, so the shows are the only places that the designers can be uninhibited by markets and create with freedom.
As for price, I don't think you need to worry. If a top label decides to relinquish its exclusivity to appeal to a wider market, Keira Knightley will have nothing to wear (shame) and someone else will step up to fill the vacuum (and no doubt be bought up by LVMH shortly after).
I wouldn't say that "real" sizes are unacceptable, but the perhaps the designer should be free to select the models that carry their creations in the way they prefer, in the same way a sculptor chooses the block of marble from which he hews his masterpiece.