Eventually Becoming Naked
Sep. 10th, 2013 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueIt is fashion week in New York, which means I occasionally get to see pictures of pretty clothes, but am also subjected to hagiographic television specials in which badly-dressed male talking head after badly-dressed male talking head tells me how fashion is the center of the universe and more exciting than anything else that has ever existed. They demonstrate this by making unfortunate comments about how New York is being swarmed by flocks of exotic and mysterious creatures and bright flashes of color (because women can be any number of things, but none of those things are people).
This is an example of the problems that occur when you declare everything "art." If fashion is art rather than design, then women's bodies are canvases. Like canvases, they are inert; they are vessels upon which the artist inscribes his genius. As when chosing a canvas, the artist may pick the size and color of woman that best suits his vision, and ignore the rest. The artist does not serve the canvas; the canvas serves the artist. The artist need not retain a canvas once she is no longer "fresh," nor need the artist worry about preservation once the work is done, the strain that might be placed upon a body by a poorly-structured frame. That kind of worry is for conservators.
This is why well-paid male fashion "artists" can sit around talking about how tremendously important fashion is while themselves dressing like shlubs. Fashion in their view is not clothing. It is art that is done to women.
Thankfully, there was a segment with Diane von Furstenberg, who said the following: My job as a designer is to be a friend to the woman. I want her to know when she wakes up that she can go to her closet and there will be something comfortable and easy that will make her feel confident throughout whatever day is ahead of her.
Thank you, Diane von Furstenberg. Thank you for your design.
This is an example of the problems that occur when you declare everything "art." If fashion is art rather than design, then women's bodies are canvases. Like canvases, they are inert; they are vessels upon which the artist inscribes his genius. As when chosing a canvas, the artist may pick the size and color of woman that best suits his vision, and ignore the rest. The artist does not serve the canvas; the canvas serves the artist. The artist need not retain a canvas once she is no longer "fresh," nor need the artist worry about preservation once the work is done, the strain that might be placed upon a body by a poorly-structured frame. That kind of worry is for conservators.
This is why well-paid male fashion "artists" can sit around talking about how tremendously important fashion is while themselves dressing like shlubs. Fashion in their view is not clothing. It is art that is done to women.
Thankfully, there was a segment with Diane von Furstenberg, who said the following: My job as a designer is to be a friend to the woman. I want her to know when she wakes up that she can go to her closet and there will be something comfortable and easy that will make her feel confident throughout whatever day is ahead of her.
Thank you, Diane von Furstenberg. Thank you for your design.
