A pink salmon print suit of Walter van Beirendonck Male Spring/Summer 2016 (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
Vivienne Westwood’s print of bared bosoms, Chanel’s supermarket shoppers in sneakers, Galliano’s padded hips, and Manolo’s thigh-high boots for Rihanna – can high fashion sink much lower? All that is missing in this line-up of vulgarity is the Kardashian clan.
The drapery on ancient Greek statuary has influenced many designers, from Fortuny to Madame Grès to Karl Lagerfeld in his Crétoise (front left) and Casanova (front right) dresses for Chloé (Spring/Summer 1984) (Foto: MICHAEL BOWLES/GETTY IMAGES)
But is it as undeniable to outline what is vulgar in the 21st century as at the time when the word only a undeniable translation of Latin? “Vulgare” once meant “ordinary people”. No judgment. It not till later that the explanation evolved toward a definition of ostentation, bad flavor and crossing a barrier in comparison to what is appropriate in smart society. Add the kitsch and camp today.
There is still nothing a fig leaf embroidered on Vivienne Westwood’s ‘Eve’ suit (left), from ‘Voyage to Cytera’ (1989) (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
“The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined” (at London’s Barbican Art Gallery until 5 February 2017) is an eye-opener – especially in the case of the inflatable Stephen Jones hat blown-up to full-size for a John Galliano show. But also metaphorically, in the mental agility of co-curators Judith Clark and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. In words and fashion displays, they make a case beyond the easy answer that once-exclusive fashion is now for everybody.
The disproportionate silhouettes of those “mantuas” of the eighteenth century (in the foreground) to the wealth and privileges of the time (Photo: Michael Bowles / Getty Images)
“Vulgarity exposes the intelligent flavor scandal,” Phillips announces in one of his smart phrases. What is the genuine of “vulgar”? Clark’s definitions rise up to 11 different categories. Conservatives begin with copies of classicism, which means that reinvented and illustrated nymphs through the dresses of the old Greek flavor of Madame Grès and through Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé. The most particular presentations come with the Marco “Eva” dress by Vivienne Westwood with a plastic fig soil in the crotch to maintain modesty.
The Haute Couture collection through John Galliano for Christian Dior, spring/summer 2005, referenced the direct taste of post-revolutionary France (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
I asked the curator why elegant curtains deserve to be explained as vulgar. “It’s the concept of whether a copy is a decrease in something. ” Vulgar “It is still considered a bad imitation, while we do it transparent and transparent that it does not want to be,” Clark explained.
For her “In The Heart of the Multitude” collection (Spring/Summer 2014), Miuccia Prada put bold prints of women’ faces on shift dresses (Foto: MICHAEL BOWLES/GETTY IMAGES)
“Showing off” is a second category: the excessive, as overblown silhouettes from 18th-century “Mantua” dresses, requiring a sideways turn to get through the door; or huge gestures of grandeur from John Galliano’s Dior years. Add to this the rock-the-baroque decoration from Christian Lacroix or Jean Paul Gaultier and innovative sculptures as clothing from Iris van Herpen.
An elephant costume from Walter Van Beirendonck’s “Take a Ride” collection (Fall/Winter 2010-2011) with a hat by Stephen Jones (Photo: MICHAEL BOWLES/GETTY IMAGES)
A long list of designers does not do justice to the amplitude of the exhibition, which includes the planned game of Miuccia Prada in the language of paintings with external fasteners implemented or difficult impressions of female faces. They oppose the embroidery corpiños of the 18th century known as “stomach” and canopy only this mastery of the frame. One of my favorite sections entitled “Impossible Ambition”, with labels that range from the Dior de Galliano to the subcanopia that cling to symbols beyond glory. It is a correct example.
Even the Puritans of the 16th century (left) wore black dresses with ruffled lace (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
Video interviews with designers in the museum and in the catalogue (published via Koenig Books) come with intriguing observation from Stephen Jones, Manolo Blahnik, Pam Hogg, Zandra Rhodes and Walter van Beirendonck.
Yves Saint Laurent encouraged Piet Mondrian for this revolutionary 1960s dress (in the center) (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
The Belgian designer’s frankly sexual padded penis is as shocking as the puritanical lace collars are probably not to blame, with Adam Phillips claiming in the e-book that white lace opposite black dresses shows “vulgarity in purity. “
A 2012 Vivienne Westwood “Boobs” T-shirt with a flaming outfit and warm pants (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
So what is the definition of “vulgar” today?If I agree with the queen of the 60s when she said in 1967: “People call things vulgar when they are new with them”. The mini skirts that she and André Courrèges invented were so many signs of sexual availability, that they reflect the invention of the contraceptive pill, because they were fashion items.
Couture “Orient Express” by John Galliano for Christian Dior, Fall/Winter 1998-1999 (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
Clark takes up the story of the Mini Forward when she shows the famous Yves Saint Laurent couture dress that used the geometric lines of Piet Mondrian’s paintings (vulgarity as appropriation) along with an advertising edition of YSL ready-to-wear in the 80s.
(Foto: MICHAEL BOWLES/GETTY IMAGES)
Conversely, I remember the often-quoted words from iconic US Vogue editor Diana Vreeland: “Vulgarity is a very important ingredient in life… it’s got vitality.” She wrote in her autobiography: “A little bad taste is like a nice splash of paprika… it’s hearty, it’s healthy, it’s physical – I think we could use more if it. No taste is what I am against.”
Vivienne Westwood references 18th-century portraits in her haute couture collections (Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
Visually, the display is as complex as the other categories suggest. There are some quirky crossovers, as evidenced by a recent floral-edged Gucci suit by designer Alessandro Michele, shown on a platform opposite an 18th-century man’s outfit, while a sparkly lacroix dresses with a bureaucracy dressed as a backdroparray and backdroparray banks.
(Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
I asked Judith Clark, raised in 1970s Rome through Australian parents for the first 18 years of her life, if her idea of her had been influenced through the Italian clash between extravagance and purity, after describing the Revel of other mothers rushing to school. in fur coats on the ground.
(Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
“My mom was more restrained and in a way I remorse it, because it was as if others were receiving excitement from their excesses which my mom will have to have been uncomfortable with,” the curator said. “I enjoyed experimenting, so I made my own garments and when we got here to London, my sister and I are going to purchase cloth and fashion our own type of new romantic outfits. ”
(Photo: Michael Bowles/Getty Images)
The aim of this exhibition is evidently to make the viewer think about vulgarity not just in the present but in the past, when one of the historical works on display reads: ”Well-bred people do not often dress in what is called ‘the height of fashion’, as that is generally left to dandies and pretenders.”
(Foto: MICHAEL BOWLES/GETTY IMAGES)
The Barbican exhibition achieves its aim as a thought-provoking study of “the vulgar” – even without trying to keep up with the Kardashians.