Relevant in terms of Georg Simmel and the contrasting desire towards differentiation and change.
Documenting the works of Helmut Lang, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, and Hussein Chalayan, it also features interviews with Ann Demeulemeester, Rick Owens, and Raf Simons, as well as London’s very own ‘enfant terribles’ John Galliano and Alexander McQueen.
Dark, Violent, Conceptual. This new European fashion was in tune with the cultural and political upheaval of the era. From techno to grunge, from Chernobyl to the economic crisis.
Baptised ‘anti-fashion’ because its annihilated the glamorous aspect that had triumphed until then, this veritable aesthetic manifesto which shook fashion up with its deconstruction, disproportion, recycling and fashion show performances was to make a lasting mark on the style of the end of the century.
Yoji Yamomoto ‘fashion is like air, naturally we break the air so are influenced or polluted… I don’t chase the trend’.
Revolutionised European Fashion
Rei Kawakubo women no longer needed to be submissive to men and they should assert themselves like garçons – like boys. Out when the geisha of her childhood and out went the sexily dressed western doll, in came a new woman who did not seek to please.
People were a little confused, they thought it was an art exhibition. Concrete boutiques with the hangers set out 5cm apart from one another.
The deliberately unfinished clothes nevertheless delighted a highly enthusiastic group of women who were questioning things and dared to do so. Many artists and intellectuals embraced a new vision of luxury, loosely cut clothes cut from rare materials imported from Japan that were very comfortable.
At the start of the 1990s, the world entered a phase of instability. The break up of the Soviet Block – The Gulf War launched by the lure of oil products, the triumph of rampant capitalism with ecological repercussions. The youth expressed its unease with these worrying young affairs via the nihilist grunge movement.
The grunge movement started in Seattle in the 1980’s with groups such as Nirvarna, Alison Chains, Pearl Jam. The philosophy is disappearing as opposed to appearing. Is grunge a way of saying ‘no’ to having to look good? The United States is the country with the most standardised body aesthetics, inevitably any excessed from the norm usually experiences a counter-trend. People don’t strive to have a look they strive to have a ‘non-look’. In fact, all the energy initially came from a certain revolt.
After the Japanese, it was in Belgium in Antwerp that an anti-fashion clan started taking over. Six pupils from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts who became known as the Antwerp 6 invented a fashion that was to match the times.
The first of the 6 to change the world was Martin Margiela who was noticed by Jean Paul Gaultier when he won the Antwerp Academy award.
Salvation Army – 1992. A response to our overflowing, ultra-consumerist dustbins, fashion had never dared to do anything like that, so I think it was normal that we felt scandalised by Martin’s message and aesthetics because we couldn’t relate him to anything else (well, we could actually draw a parallel with art).
With money saving ideas, Margiela ignited the tradition of fashion shows which became veritable happenings. He made Anna Wintour take a subway trip to slum it in a suburban wasteland where they could meet real kids. He then invited them to his own artists squat style workshop, serving red wine in plastic cups before showing them the Super 8 film that would replace the seasons fashion show.
Just as a musician makes music and a painter paints, I make clothes to communicate, to allow a product to convey emotion.
People no longer chose clothes as a disguise, they chose them to express something – thats the whole difference between the 1980’s and 1990’s. People no longer use clothes to ‘wow’ other people, they use them to feel good about themselves, it’s very personal.
It’s the star system, we identify with it. You have to identify with a product, a man or a woman, it makes kids dream. Advertising companies realised that by giving us prominence, their products would sell better. Putting a name to faces makes products more profitable in a way.
Calvin Klein banked on celebrity model Kate Moss in their adverts which were broadcast over and over again on MTV. The new generation of consumers identified with the ads and bought volumes of perfume and underpants.
The codes of beauty were no longer quite the same.
Minimalism – things were now being cleaned up, simplified and streamlined. The expression ‘less is more’ moved from the architects language on to the catwalks.
Helmut Lang’s minimalism was influenced by Architecture, by German expressionism, by Bauhaus, by Vienna.
The image of strictness was very subtly offset by fantasy.
In 1997, Helmut Lang had a hunch that the industry ways changing, he left Paris for New York and replaced the sacrosanct fashion show by a video presentation on internet.
The communication which was very important in our industry is like a very old pattern, it hasn’t changed for twenty and we all talk about being very global and international and very connected. This is something we really wanted to explore and make it a lot more modern, we don’t want it to be pretentious or an art video. It’s information about what we are doing.
German designer Jil Sander surfed on the wave of minimalism, pairing it down with a white shirt and black suit, she dressed a new power woman. No longer the woman of the 80’s who tried to make her mark by expanding her shoulders, no longer Rei Kawakubo’s woman who rejected old style femininity. Jil Sander’s power woman was not afraid to dress like a man, as long as she was wearing luxury fabrics.
It was an era of raves, techno, trance and house music and Margiela’s move proved to be a canny one. Being incognito was the mood of the moment and the prevailing electronic movements championed anonymity. From Daft Punk to Underground Resistance, musicians and DJs hid their faces behind masks and their names behind pseudonyms.
Raf Simons championed the change for menswear.
With the rise of internet, fashion became global.
Luxury boutiques took this appetite for major labels logos very seriously.
Amongst the eccentricities of John Galliano And Alexander McQueen, was Hussein Chalayan who was still firmly attached to the rebel independence of the anti-fashion movement . At the end of the 20th century, people were concerned at the arrival of the new Millenium. Aware of this climate of unease, Chalayan produced a response to it.
‘There is no future, i’m interested in timelessness and what future is now, what is future? How do I know whats going to happen to me in five minutes time? That’s the future, you can’t define it, you don’t know what that is.
Every Chalayan fashion show was like experimentation, he went as far as full on exploration of the rise of the fundamentalism that was making headline news.
Because the whole thing evolved from the sense of defining your territory, culturally and graphically, it just felt like a natural thing to do. The sense of isolation can be deathly and mummy-like and I went towards that. (looking at ideas the middle-east has about women).
Rei Kawakubo’s shows struck new territory like bombshells without ever repeating itself. She even went as far as violently distorting the human body with hunchbacks and other growths – questioning the traditional criteria of beauty.
Conversely Yoji Yamomoto deviated from the eccentricities of his earlier career. Collection after collection, he blended two almost opposing fashion collections with great panache, that of the French designers and Japanese ones.
Prada Group – Helmut Lang and Jil Sander were bought out and then bowed out themselves. In 2003 Diesel bought Margiela.
Margiela continued to transform each one of his fashion shows into a laboratory then left his house in 2009.
At the start of the millenium, Rick Owens said ‘I think that there is a fundamental need for people to gather together and experience beauty in a ceremony.’