December 25 2006 - January 1 2007, Time Magazine's 'Person of the Year' is 'You'. This was a major tipping point for media, politics, commerce... It was a revolution of popular culture. It was also a starting off point for my final project.
Youtube.com which uploaded it's first video 'me at the zoo' on April 23, 2005 and 'grew rapidly' in July of 2006. For me Youtube was the beginning of a new public awareness of how popular media is made and received - by anyone for anyone - it was a paradigm shift.
The world was teetering on an explosion of collective consciousness, revolution, uprising, freedom, but what did this all mean for fashion?
'You' and 'me' and 'you looking at me looking at you'.
July and September 2006 the social networking sites twitter and facebook respectively became available to the public. Surpassing the more basic social networking models of bebo, myspace, ringo etc - twitter and facebook made you, me and every celebrity - the PR manager and 'Star' of our own 'internet lives'. Social networking sites also gave a feeling of our identity being out of our control, which at the time made many people including myself, very weary of what information we shared with 'the internet'.
On the whole, internet networking hugely empowered the individual. The celebrities we once revered are now vying for space on our 'wall' with our friends - we were/are realising the power of personal promotion and the influence we have on mass consciousness.
This independent empowerment spawned an small explosion of common people becoming famous, everyone was going for their own 15 minutes of fame, there were no laws or morals controlling self promotion on the internet. Anything was fair game on the internet as long as it caught the attention of a quickly disillusioned audience.
Overnight celebrity sensations sprung up everywhere for any reason, as long as it was unique and new to popular media. These sensations became so ubiquitous and competitive around 2007 that interest in celebrity centered on shock and scandal over real achievement. The result was a loss of reverence and interest in traditional celebrity and all that they represented. While common people's interest in themselves and each other was taking off via social media.
Marketing companies were keen to utilise the consumer's interest in social networking to advertise product. It was nothing new for products to be advertised as part of our lifestyle or aspirations (Saatchi's design ads around them). It was a new concept to be submitting your personal information and interests in a 'social' situation, to be utilised by... whoever wants to purchase it.
Popular culture was my major influence through my study, my research base was heavily influenced by watching BBC World News, which was giving a lot of time to the coming recession, juxtaposed by beautifully made ads for Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Big business looked sexy, strong and unstoppable. The same couldn't be said for the (then) bullish economies of the world. Also at the time George W Bush with his 'Cowboy' 'devil may care' style was loosing popularity (32% approval mid 2006) and credibility ("why are our troops still in Iraq?...w.m.ds?"). Conversely the 'hope' of democratic candidate Barack Obama was making international headlines around this time also.
In 2007 with an economic recession imminent yet consumerism and finance booming, a number of financial commentators gave profound judgments on the state of our economies, which would have a big impact on our lifestyle and of course fashion.
The term 'Affluenza' became poignant again at this time as the subject of a best selling book by Oliver James ('Affluenza' '07). Documentaries: 'Enron The smartest guys in the room' and 'The Corporation' made light of how multinational businesses were abusing human rights - issues which were/are concerning as we become more integrated with advertisers.
2007 the pinnacle of celebrity branding and endorsements seemed to span all commodities due to consumer demand - celebrities were idolised like 21st century gods - dictating public consumption. Celebrity endorsements reached a saturation around this time, particularly in the fashion industry, which will naturally always utilise the idols of the time. However the public's interest in celebrity became a desire for more and more intimate details, thus shock and scandal became mainstream and the obvious downward slide of the traditional celebrity and their influence began.
Today the fashion industry has become far more focused on the common consumer 'you' as the market's idol, due largely to social media.
"I’m not into the celebrity thing or anything, like we used to do. You know, it’s like, that’s boring. People used to want to come to our shows because of that, and we’ve sort of cut that out the last two seasons just because it was boring... It generated so much press and at a certain point it was like, did anybody actually watch the show?"
The demand and supply of a new 'male lifestyle industry' had been growing since the early '00s. Feeding the new consumer frenzy for lifestyle products were the rise of blogs - common people giving their angle on 'the ultimate guide to being a Man / Woman / Teen'. The immediacy, content quality, relevance and thus reverence by the blogs niche market, were at the time beginning to surpass traditional magazines with celebrity covers.
Fashion lines always need a cultural reference, in 2007 many popular icons promoted their unique look in what is a saturated fashion market. Lily Allen, Kate Moss and Madonna diversified by fronting fashion lines with High st stores. Like their own stardom their short lived collections had volatile success.
Fashion designers enjoyed the media frenzy at this time, becoming (generally more conservative) celebrities themselves, and diversifying their brand name onto paint, publishing, film direction etc.
Creating one's personal identity through conspicuous consumption had become a huge market, however selling a dream with a product was reaching it's zenith.
Celebrating conspicuous consumption was well promoted and aspired too, through style magazines, blogs, in fashion stores, in street fashion etc.
My view was that conspicuous consumption, and the desire for a 'maximalist' approach to consumption would become unfashionable and unsustainable because of the impending recession.
In an about turn, average consumer's have dictated the future of fashion - demanding sustainability; better quality, longevity, value for money when buying high price items, and affordability; fast, cheap, trend relevant, high turnover fashion.
"We don’t need so many things…I’m being very frank"
"I also don’t understand what the hell people do with all those clothes. Less would be better, and shorter collections."
"You don’t need a lot of clothes—I’ve been saying this for ages now—buy less but buy better…"
Fashion and celebrity are huge business, as seen in Time magazine.
A recession really weeds out the hyped, uneconomical and dated businesses. This is true for commerce and society across the board, beginning with finance companies to the ending of dictatorships... I saw the same happening to 'frivolous fashion'.
Fashion media, which drives a fast paced, highly competitive, image dependent industry was changing hugely, the blog and fashion websites were/are taking over the old standard fashion marketing tool - the magazine.
Within the editorials - Photographers, Designers, Models, Bloggers, Editors, show guests, street fashionistas all inverted their gaze toward one another. No longer were elite guest lists respected, the 'style bibles' weren't the first to publish the shows. Most importantly for me was the classic view we got of a fashion show; from the end of a stage, under custom lighting, wearing designer makeup and hairstyles, wearing the latest outfit in an idealised manner, had near completely gone from (the new) mainstream fashion media. Now we have coverage of backstage, casually dressed models in half finished hair and makeup, entering and exiting shows. The people who make the show experience itself were/are taking center stage.
The Bloggers were still dedicated to fashion shows, but depicting everyone except the catwalk show itself! It was a liberation from the controls of the fashion 'brand', instead embracing individuals in the street, true personalities of models, equalising the designer to the photographer to the bouncer, all interactions received equal attention using amateur photography and video, for anyone to view.
"The future has to be bright. It is the nature of fashion to evolve, only this time it might evolve more than ever, with seat belts optional."
March 2007 Concept Boards: The last supper board was my final concept - celebrities of the time gathering around Anna Wintour - Editor of Vogue US 'The style bible', I had a clear vision that the supply and demand for fame, celebrity, idols etc., all commodities were going to change dramatically, thus fashion - from production to PR had to change, in order to cater to a totally new market.
Branding for the website infamousdesigners.com
The idea for the website was to have ordinary people followed through images and letters, similar yet more thorough than myspace (or facebook, which became available in Sept '07), for the viewer to gain an almost real connection with these people's lives, beginning with an intimate look into their bedrooms, we got a sense of their lives only through their consumption - books, clothes, art, music, the order and disorder etc. Then the subjects were followed (through photographs) to further give the viewer a connection with the subjects' culture. The ideals of the subjects were written by myself, they ranged from realistic, ultra consumerist, to spiritual idealist.
The idea was to show how easy it is to create an interest in a person, and for them to become an idol. Then give people a chance to 'buy into' that idol's life through a clothing collection. The patterns for the collection were made from drape taken from one of the subjects - body bags were made to fit one subject perfectly, and control everyone else into four particular positions the subject regularly assumed. Essentially pointing out what we knew as aspirational consumer ideals (Kate Moss's jeans, James Bond's car, Tom Ford's underwear, Gwen Stephani's hair colour) were limiting, not liberating. What we wanted to aspire to during and after the recession would be near opposite to what we currently desired through the media around 2007.
Study of the muse: Kiri
Study of the muse: Kate
Some textile design made to represent the muse Kiri (not used in final designs).
As the muse for the small collection I chose Kiri as the 'ideal'. Kiri's aesthetic, nature and style are very natural, innocent, and care free - all things I admired in her and what I believed would be important elements of style in a (post) recession fashion market.
First drawings and mock-ups.
Final designs.
The draping process, done on Kiri, and first 'toiles' made in calico.
The final designs: The outer made from non-breathable, non-stretch, acrid smelling PVC. With a simple see-through silk chiffon slip underneath to juxtapose the weight and control of the 'body bag' - with human, natural, free forming, see-through, pure qualities.
The below pictures are a kind of glorification of the body bags, showing how one might play with the idea of control, as fashion does. Months after the collection was presented these pictures were described as 'Lady Gaga like'...
Some interesting collections came out after my final presentation (20 November, 2007).
Balenciaga created a collection using plastic and latex for Fall 2008 (shown 26 Feb 2008). Though my vision was more a departure from controlling cuts, inhuman fabrics and pretentious style, aka "rigorous line and shiny, high-tech surfaces", these ideals were popular throughout much of the '00s. My vision was more about the return to humanism and self in clothing, these ideals were seen in post recession '08 collections with a major trend of 'innocence'.