Christian Louboutin Vs. Guido Mocafico

Dead fashion, living art

See more, the photos of Brian Ulrich

Fashion is Art

Balenciaga scarf, Vogue Nippon, 2005

The Uniform

Slim Aarons, 1957

Whenever a subculture willingly agrees to dress alike it is simply an accepted group style. But when a pre-fromed identity is thrust upon individuals unwillingly, it is a uniform. All uniforms suppress individuality. By wearing the uniform, the wearer enters into the an overdetermined form. The values expressed by the uniform are neutral, standard and submissive, pleasing to the establishment.

Fred Wilson, Guarded View, 1991: Wilson dressed black male mannequins in the uniforms worn by the museum guards at four preeminent New York City museums, commenting on the selective African American presence in the museums.

Longchamp F 2009

Vanessa Beecroft, VB 39, 1999

The uniform is a direct association with power which can bring status to the powerless. This is the case with military uniforms, which are worn with pride. Historically drafted soldiers were too poor to afford the best clothing. The uniform not only unified the soldiers but gave them a sense of personal esteem.

Galliano, S 2009

Warhol, Camouflage Double, 1987

"V-Bay" editorial, V magazine 42

Steven Meisel, "State of Emergency," Italian Vogue, 2005

Ellen Von Unwerth, Italian Vogue

Hussein Chalayan, S 1998

Rick Owens, S 2009

Steven Meisel, Lanvin, F 2007

Valentino, S 2008

Matthew Barney, Cremaster 1, 1995

Helmut Newton, Playboy Bunny, 1979

Jean Charles de Castlebajac, F 2008

Ralph Lauren for Wimbeldon, top 2009 and bottom 2008

Martin Margiela's lab coat uniform for shop employees

Burberry, F 2009

By contrast to the unique, exaggerated forms that characterize both art and couture, most mass produced ready-to-wear apparel functions like uniforms. H&M, American Apparel, Gap and Uniqlo are the uniforms of the working class. While they are not forced to wear these mass brands they are economically restricted to unadorned options.

The worker's uniform is a sign of submission. The worker must submit all desire and individuality to less than attractive clothing. It aims to make them invisible, as if to hide their work from the leisure class. But the uniformed worker is a moment of truth of capitalism, the dark shadow of self-directed desire fulfillment as contingent on the oppression of others.

Jeff Wall, Cleaning Man at Barcelona Pavilion, 1999

Dan Graham in Harper's Bazaar

Figurative (1965), reproduced in Harper's Bazaar, March 1968

In a gesture of strategic context, artist Dan Graham submitted his work "Figurative" to Harper's Bazaar as an advertisement. The art work is a list of senseless numbers that appears to advertise nothing. Yet next to conventional ads, the monetary receipt format exposes the fashion magazine as capitalist propaganda ultimately concerned with the bottom line.

Stephen Sprouse

by Lisa McAnulty

Stephen Sprouse, Debbie Harry Green Dress Polaroid

The Influence of Art Tastemakers on Fashion, Stephen Sprouse: According to Caroline Cox, Sprouse acknowledged “the clichés of youthful rebellion [and] toyed with items of subcultural style, which through overuse in popular imagery became mainstream.” Through his design he was able to reach many different target audiences with the help of his industry connections to fame. He also “contributed to the longevity of the punk style,” and but brought an edge to the concept of punk.

UK Vogue on Sprouse

Later in his life he did collaborations with Louis Vuitton (higher end), and Target (lower end, where he did a patriotic line). But what seemed very important was having culturally influential friends who helped to get his name known. Sprouse was introduced to Andy Warhol and the Factory which heightened his career to a different level. Warhol can be considered a tastemaker, having an influence on a level similar to such institutions as the MoMa due to his ability to influence popular culture and taste of the mainstream sensibility. Although museums had been able to dictate what was ‘fashionable’ or considered tasteful for years, a new breed of tastemakers was born in post-modern New York. The artists were having more of a say due to the cultural changes going on in the city at the time.

Stephen Sprouse happened to be one of the many talented people that Warhol chose to hang around. There was a scene surrounding Warhol, and trends were set in popular culture based on who Warhol was seen with, and what he was doing both in life and art. As Elizabeth Currid said, “the art and culture scene still congregated in nightlife, though it became less about performance and actual artistic production, and more about the networking and the exchange of knowledge necessary to establishing oneself in the field.”

Stephen Sprouse, TV Sketch

Sprouse was able to use Warhol’s old Factory space, which acted as a platform for the display of his clothing. The factory space, which in the past was used as a place for art creation and display, now had a new context and meaning when switched from an art context to a fashion context. Fashion and art were becoming more and more synonymous with the scene of New York in the late 80’s. Culture was more importantly becoming a part of the fashion industry. With this phenomenon appearing, “nation and international publicity was directed at artists in a manner that illustrates the distorted values of the culture industry.

Sprouse’s ability to dabble in both art and fashion collaborations was also one of his greatest assets. Although his business strategy was not the strongest, he managed to always keep a positive reputation, whether his style was out at the moment or not. His later collaborations with Louis Vuitton are still highly sought after, especially after his death from heart failure in 2004.

Stephen Sprouse, Iggy on the Cross

Sprouse was an example of the result of tastemakers dictating what is fashionable. He was supported by magazines, huge clothing chains (Bergdorf’s, Bendel’s, etc), and by the many iconic and influential artists he worked with. It is these collaborations that will keep both of these worlds running in the future.

Chanel & Art

by Lina Jönsson

”I want to be part of what’s happening,” Coco Chanel

Chanel is a luxury fashion brand that often crosses the fashion border to sponsor and collaborate with the world of art. The brand’s motivation as well as the effects of such collaborations, for both Chanel and the artists, have been under a lot of scrutiny. Are their collaborations just a “marketing gimmick”?

Chanel Mobile Art, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, 2007-8

When Chanel collaborates with artists, they put an even more luxurious cachet on the brand and build an even deeper connection to their customers. For the artist, collaborations with luxury brands like Chanel open up a new world of commerce and opportunities.

Chanel is an annual sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival

The intentions with the sponsorships might be questionable but for a brand like Chanel, it ultimately reaches a global audience. Their most loyal consumers have appreciated corporate support of the arts and are not yet intimidated by the marketing associations.

Martin Margiela & Tom Sachs

by Stefanie Fagerberg

Martin Margiela, F 1998

In the 1980s and 90s, the general trend for fashion houses was to become iconic labels feeding on, and encouraging excessive consumerism. Martin Margiela is a designer who did not over indulge his brands image, commercialize his products, or adapt an aggressive marketing strategy, and chose rather to sell his clothes for what they were, clothes. Tom Sachs is an artist who uses brands comprehensively in his artwork, and seems to be commenting on the overrated power that brands are given in our society. Martin Margiela’s extremely low profile as a designer, and his minimalist brand logo and simplicity during the period between 1998 and 2004, can be compared to Tom Sachs’s extensive use of renowned brands in his artwork from 1995 to 2001.

Martin Margiela, S 2001

Martin Margiela was born in Belgium in 1957. He emerged as a designer in the late 1980s, amidst the wave of deconstruction, with contemporaries becoming superstars and pseudo-celebrities. He chose anonymity and refused to be photographed or appear before the press, staying backstage after the presentation of the collections, and agreeing only rarely to do exceptional interviews. Margiela was an innovator in the PR-driven fashion business.

His trademarks include:

his white aesthetic

use of old forms remodeled to make new garments

and his use of old mannequins and hangers to show his collections

Deconstruction

minimal brand logo

Models faces/eyes covered

Use of recycled materials

Stores not listed in phonebook or identified by window displays

Photographic campaigns embodied the spiritualist photography of the 19th century

Stores model white aesthetic as does packaging

Salespeople use white lab coats

Tom Sachs was born in 1966 and grew up in Connecticut. He was first noticed when he installed a nativity scene for Barney’s store window in 1994, whose main star was a Chanel-clad Hello Kitty. His interest in American consumerism, pop culture and social mores has since led to the creation of a body of work that include, in some form or other, a re-creation of various modern icons of consumerism.

Tom Sachs, Chanel Chainsaw, 1996

Sachs has made a name for himself as an artist who makes a visual social commentary of society's dependence on designer labels, and the inherent status they connote, by taking capitalist culture, remixing it, and then spitting it back out again at us with an underlying social message. By juxtaposing luxury brands with evil, or less enjoyable products, he challenges the idea that ‘high fashion can do no evil’, and in fact highlights the fact that everyone and everything, including our idolized fashion brands, are capable of the ugly.

Tom Sachs, Hermes Gift Meal, 1998

Sachs mimics popular culture and values humor while Margiela was staying away from the popular way of doing things. Sachs’ art actively satirized America’s shift from an industrial to a consumer society, Margiela was a designer who was an exception to his contemporaries, and remained distant from intrusive marketing and excessive image-building. It would be safe to assume that Margiela is not a brand we can expect to see on a future Sachs’ art piece. They are both making a statement on the image-obsessed society of the 1990s and popular ideas concerning consumption, branding, commercial imagery and objects of money and power. They both used recycled materials - challenging the popular habit of disposing of old materials; and showed the process of making the garment or sculpture – revealing the work behind a finished product. Margiela’s creations went against the fashion of his time, as his house stood for the complete opposite of capitalist excess. Both Margiela and Sachs have a similar color palette – sticking to white and black. Margiela and Sachs were pushing norms of what was considered to be fashion or art and the public’s values, by their innovative choice of presentation, materials and marketing strategies. Overall, both these creators draw our attention to the darker side of the capitalist modernity that high-end fashion belongs to and defy the power of the iconic brand, attempting to be appreciated for their work, and not their label.

Prada & Tom Sachs

by Nina Fernström

Germano Celant, Director of Fondazione Prada, with Miuccia Prada, 2008

Art patronage and the relationship between fashion house and artist as seen in Prada and Tom Sachs from 1997 to 2006: There are benefits and complexities in the interface between art and business. Prada has long been a fashion house with an art interest. They opened the Fondazione Prada in Milan in 1995, a space dedicated to the showcasing international contemporary artists and housing the private collection of Miuccia Prada. American sculpture Tom Sachs is famous for his bricolage works and has a long track record of provocation and numerous subversive comments on commercialization, including Prada.

Inside Fondazione Prada, Milan and the new space by Rem Koolhaas, expected 2011

The referencing to Prada in Sachs’ work began with the “Prada Toilet”, an un-commissioned cardboard toilet created by the artist in 1997. Prada is said to have offered an unlimited supply of shoeboxes for the piece. In 1998, Sachs again used Prada packaging this time to build a model of a German concentration camp, which he entitled the “Prada Death Camp.” The controversial sculpture was shown at the Jewish Museum in New York, not surprisingly causing outrage.

Tom Sachs
”Prada Toilet”, 1997

Prada’s endorsement of Sachs' controversial work and of art that criticized their own working practices left people confused and bewildered. In 2006, Prada commissioned Sachs to produce an exhibition at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. The exhibition was a retrospective of Sachs’ work including a few new large works such as “The Island” and “Balaenoptera Musculus” – a giant life size model of a whale.

Toma Sachs, “Balaenoptera Musculus”, 2006, “Chevy Caprice”, 1987-2007, Fondazione Prada, April-June 2006

The extension of patronage from corporation to artist prompts questions regarding the nature, purpose and outcome of such acts: Is it an efficient, thought-through corporate strategy or merely an act of giving Prada a more edgy appeal? In the case of Prada and Tom Sachs it becomes clear that Prada is able to build further on the artistic identity of the brand by “borrowing” the edgy appeal of Tom Sachs. They are fully aware that the contents of his work will upset a wide audience but also mindful of the fact that reactions drive publicity which in turn drives sales. Prada is able to play down their commercial role and differentiate themselves in an ever-expanding luxury-brands market. By portraying the company as a meaningful brand they are able to reconnect with their target customer: the intellectual and culturally aware.

Tom Sachs, “The Island”, 2008, Fondazione Prada, April-June 2006

For Tom Sachs the backing of Prada can, besides the obvious benefits of financial support, work as a neutralizing force on the critique of his work. There is also of course the potential attraction of a wider target group for his art and for exhibitions.