Lecture 3 - 1980’s part II
Excess
Experiment
Ego
The way you look was important. You wanted to BE someone. Creating an image even though
you weren’t. Unique, extraordinary. KEY ELEMENT FROM THAT PERIOD.
The introduction of the Japanese aesthetics
Yohji Yamamotho & Comme Des Garçons (1983)
These designers question beauty and appearance.
Either received critique like it was trashy or people really liked it.
→ at the same time Mugler and Gauthier doing something very different in Paris.
= opposite aesthetics
1981 : another set of innovative aesthetics, the way they treated designs, concept was radically
different from before and during the 80’s.
Silhouette consists of layers, bulkiness, misplaced volume, frayed edges, holes in theme → at that
time it had never been seen before, new aspects
DECONSTRUCTION (breaking up conventions, ideas about clothing conventional and
practical level, questioning everything that relating accepted beauty and appearance)
, Miyake → invited to Paris to show his collection, from that moment the western society became
aware of this aesthetics
Yamamoto reinforced this idea later on.
Emphasis is on the movement of the cloth instead of the body. Different way that the model
moves.
The 3 of them have a similar style but :
Kawakubo and Yamamoto were presented as one as they had a clear and different signature.
Also bc they did a lot of similar things, they came together in 1981, similar approaches (both used
doc martens shoes in their catwalks). Designed clothing that was really Japanese, something that
the western world had never seen before. They had already built their logo in japan and had a lot
of recognition but at the time Japanese people tended to dress more in a western way and not in
a Japanese way like both designers proposed.
Different from sleek lines from Armani, sculptured forms from Azzedine and Gauthier.
Images of their first collection
Whole silhoutte is voluminous, symmetry is
demonstrated, knotted fabric for CDG
→ deconstructing fabric.
Excess
Experiment
Ego
The way you look was important. You wanted to BE someone. Creating an image even though
you weren’t. Unique, extraordinary. KEY ELEMENT FROM THAT PERIOD.
The introduction of the Japanese aesthetics
Yohji Yamamotho & Comme Des Garçons (1983)
These designers question beauty and appearance.
Either received critique like it was trashy or people really liked it.
→ at the same time Mugler and Gauthier doing something very different in Paris.
= opposite aesthetics
1981 : another set of innovative aesthetics, the way they treated designs, concept was radically
different from before and during the 80’s.
Silhouette consists of layers, bulkiness, misplaced volume, frayed edges, holes in theme → at that
time it had never been seen before, new aspects
DECONSTRUCTION (breaking up conventions, ideas about clothing conventional and
practical level, questioning everything that relating accepted beauty and appearance)
, Miyake → invited to Paris to show his collection, from that moment the western society became
aware of this aesthetics
Yamamoto reinforced this idea later on.
Emphasis is on the movement of the cloth instead of the body. Different way that the model
moves.
The 3 of them have a similar style but :
Kawakubo and Yamamoto were presented as one as they had a clear and different signature.
Also bc they did a lot of similar things, they came together in 1981, similar approaches (both used
doc martens shoes in their catwalks). Designed clothing that was really Japanese, something that
the western world had never seen before. They had already built their logo in japan and had a lot
of recognition but at the time Japanese people tended to dress more in a western way and not in
a Japanese way like both designers proposed.
Different from sleek lines from Armani, sculptured forms from Azzedine and Gauthier.
Images of their first collection
Whole silhoutte is voluminous, symmetry is
demonstrated, knotted fabric for CDG
→ deconstructing fabric.
