Fashion History & Theory

Week 4

You are what you wear:

Fashion and Identity

Dr Jonathan Faiers
 Identity: who or what a person or thing is

individuality, personality

the characteristics determining who or what

a person or thing is

a close similarity or affinity

Cover of first issue of i –D magazine 1980

Is it possible to construct her
identity through her clothes?
“In all societies the body is ‘dressed’,
and everywhere dress and adornment
play symbolic, communicative and
aesthetic roles. Dress is always
‘unspeakably meaningful’”.
Elizabeth Wilson Adorned in Dreams 1985
www.thesartorialist.com
 Thursday, October 25, 2012
On
the Street……Downtown, Johannesburg, S
A

http://www.thesartorialist.com/

The web, blogs

and identity

Monday, October 22, 2012

Wednesday, October 24, 2012 If You’re Thinking About….Chinoiserie
On the Street……Rybaki St.,
Poznań, Poland
Self expression and individuality as a
marketing strategy

Burberry
http://artofthetrench.com/
Cover and page spreads from the first edition of i-D
magazine 1980
Chinese New Year edition covers i-D magazine 2012

The ‘street’ becomes high fashion

In order to understand how fashion is influenced by the
street, we also need to understand how subcultures work

Subculture:

In sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies, a subculture is a

group of people within a culture that differentiates themselves from
the larger culture to which they belong

How do they do this?

Primary methods are by dress and musical taste

“Clothing, like language, always happens somewhere in
geographical and social space. In its form, colour,
material, construction, and function – and because of
the behaviour it implies – clothing displays obvious
signs, attenuated markings or residual traces of
struggles, cross-cultural contacts, borrowings,
exchanges between economic regions or cultural areas
as well as among groups within a single society.”
Philippe Perrot Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century 1994
Name that subculture:

Punks
Hippies
Teddy Boys or Teds
Mods
Skinheads
Rockers or Greasers
Casuals
New Romantics
Subcultures represent ‘noise’ (as opposed to
sound): interference in the orderly sequence
which leads from real events and
phenomena to their representation in the
media. We should therefore not
underestimate the signifying power of
spectacular subculture not only as a
metaphor for potential anarchy ‘out there’
but as an actual mechanism of semantic
disorder: a kind of temporary blockage in
the system of representation.

Deformity, transformation,
refusal – the construction of
style in subculture
Dick Hebdidge Subculture: The Meaning of Style 1979
 How subcultural dress operates:

Confrontation: Clothing that challenges or provokes a

reaction in the viewer

Appropriation: Clothing that is taken from other groups,

other cultures, other classes

Collision: Clothing of different styles, periods

and function that is assembled
together on the body

Subversion: Clothing that has had its original meaning and

message altered, clothing that questions the
ideology of the original wearer

Identification: Clothing that identifies the wearer with

others of the same subcultural group

Separation: Clothing that singles out the wearer as

separate from the norm
Punk
...we inhabit pre-existing narratives and unceasingly
refabricate the forms that suit us. Here the goal of the image
is to introduce playacting into systems of representation to
keep them from becoming frozen, to detach forms from the
alienating background where they become stuck if we take
them for granted.
Nicolas Bourriaud Postproduction
Teddy Boys
 Drape jacket

Brothel Creepers
Bootlace Tie

Western/cowboy style
 Fashions from
1910

Malcolm McLaren
‘Teddy Boy’ late 1950s
‘Edwardian’ style fashion 1958 Let it Rock 1971

Showaddywaddy 1970s Ted revival pop group

Mods

Modern jazz = modernists

Mods

Drugs, coffee and Italian culture

Scooters and Parkas
Appropriation of military wear
Skinheads
Boots and braces: working class
‘nostalgic’ dress as subcultural
and confrontational
Crombie coat:
Middle/Upper class
appropriation – subversion
of tradition
 1805 John Crombie establishes
his woollen mill in Aberdeen,
Scotland

Crombie is swiftly established as an iconic British brand

manufacturing coats for royalty, celebrities, politicians
and military figures from the mid nineteenth century
until today
14 hole DM’s (Dr Marten’s)
Workwear Boot
‘Steels’ = steel toe cap
Alpha flight jacket = military appropriation
Fred Perry: The ‘Subcultural’ Brand
 The importance of music to subculture
mods

Mod revival late 70s,

early 80s = Two tone
punk

Jamie Reid = influential

designer, helped
construct the graphic
‘look’ of punk.

D.I.Y. = do it
yourself,
collage,
bricolage
 From the French: (coller, to glue, ) Collage is a technique of an art production,
Collage: primarily used in the visual arts, where the artwork is made from an assemblage
of different forms, thus creating a new whole.

Bricolage: In cultural studies bricolage is used to mean the processes by which people acquire
objects from across social divisions to create new cultural identities. In particular, it is
a feature of subcultures such as, for example, the punk movement. Here, objects that
possess one meaning (or no meaning) in the dominant culture are acquired and given
a new, often subversive meaning. For example, the safety pin became a form of
decoration in punk culture.

Polysemy: is the capacity for a sign (e.g., a word, phrase, etc.) or signs to have multiple related
meanings
The French the use the word bricolage to describe a way of making
something new from assorted - found, at hand - bits and pieces; it is a
very apt way of describing the Punks’ approach to dress (and, indeed,
to music, politics, philosophy). The objective was/is to mix together
the most diverse, and unexpected, absurd and downright
contradictory combinations of styles. Scavenging from ‘primitive’ tribal
peoples, clandestine fetishists, a host of other style tribes (Bikers,
Skinheads, Glam Rockers, Teddy Boys), 50s kitsch, 40s glamour, tacky
sci-fi movies, military uniforms, etc., etc., etc., the Punks assembled for
themselves individualised, unique looks and defied classification. Punk,
in other words, was - from the start - such a rich rag bag of alternatives
and contradictions that no coherent Next Big Thing could possibly have
evolved from its eclectic diversity.’  
Ted Polhemus The Supermarket of Style
 Importance of hairstyles to subcultures: Mods

Vidal Sassoon: 5 point

geometric cut

Skinheads and suedeheads No.1,2,or3

DA ( ‘Duck’s Arse’)Hairstyle Teddy boys
‘The aftermath of Punk saw a transition from the more or less
orderly linear history of modernism (a ‘history’ perceived of
as such) to the simultaneity of parallel universes (multiple
channels on a TV set waiting to be ‘surfed’) that characterises
the Post-Modern Age. While up to and including Punk a
‘story’ unfolds, Post-Punk it becomes harder and harder to
discern an intelligible dramatic ‘narrative’. While previously
the options were limited, the choices simple (Hipster/Square,
Mod/Rocker, Hippy/Punk), now - Post-Punk - a veritable
Supermarket of Style came into being, with ‘tribal’ options
lined up like tins of soup on a supermarket shelf. History had
ended. Now everything was possible. And all at the same
time.’
Ted Polhemus from The Supermarket of Style
Brand label obsession
New romantics: escape into fantasy, history,
‘costume’, role play
Styles which start life on the streetcorner have a way of ending up
on the backs of top models on the world’s most prestigious
fashion catwalks. This shouldn’t surprise us because, as we have
seen, the authenticity which streetstyle is deemed to represent is
a precious commodity. Everyone wants a piece of it
Ted Polhemus Streetstyle

Walter van Beirendonck

A/W 2012/13 Lust Never
Sleeps
Subcultural style a constant source of inspiration for
mainstream fashion
D Squared A/W 2008
Bottega Veneta ‘Future Teddy Boys’ A/W 2010
Junya Watanabe A/W 2006/7
Givenchy S/S 2013
Givenchy S/S 2013
Information about the trip to London and the V&A show will be posted on
Blackboard next week
Tickets are limited so it will be on a first come first served basis!