Ah, again a post of
my favorite topic – fashion. Today’s lecture was about fashion and fashion
industry as an economic business. As a curiosity, I can tell you that I learnt
that fashion comes from the Latin word "modus", which means manner or
manière. Actually I did already know that. But somehow I had forgotten it.
People tend to do so. Some goes with fashion. A throwaway business. How
many of us remember DKNY’s fall collection from 2006? Can such a waste culture
be art or an art industry?
I don’t know how
many times I have mentioned but fashion is
a creative business. Is it then art? Maybe not always. But I have actually
never thought about that there are many different levels of creativity. Or
fashion. One designer can focus on creative freedom and think that it is not
important to make money. Expressionism and handicraft thinking go before
capitalism and mass production. When the focus is on designer collections, the
image of the company is important. There exists a will to grow but the problem
is lack of knowledge how to do it. Most advanced category is naturally the
strong brand thinking. These designers are going abroad and think more or less
commercially. But can you say that one group would be more “noble” than the
other one? Probably not, at least if you talk about Finnish labels such as IVANA
Helsinki, Annikki Karvinen, Luhta or Suominen. In Finland the fashion market is quite
small and you really can’t talk about haute couture here.
Fashion has a
collective nature. Everyone has always an opinion what is nice, what is ugly.
Fashion has grown up from being a small, special handicraft field only the rich
could afford to a huge mass production industry influencing our everyday life,
on all society levels. There is probably not a single person in the whole world
who would not have heard of Louis Vuitton. Still, by having sky high prices
these brands are something only a minority of the world’s population can
afford. But there is always piracy to fulfill the manic desire people have to
be part of this extraordinary. I think a speaker at the fashion event in Copenhagen on 14th
of August 2010, said quite well: Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the World’s
Greatest Catwalk” (Melchior 2011). What he meant was not only the physical
length of the catwalk but also the quotidian nature of fashion: every man women,
child and aunt can be part of it. You do not need to be rich, beautiful or
special to be part of fashion. Or as an author, Marie Riegels Melchior it puts
in her article about Danish fashion industry (2011): there is a clear change
from “class fashion” to “consumer fashion”. It would be a so noble and nice
idea to state that the fashion shows’ purpose would be to entertain and present
great pieces of art. Unfortunately, the purpose is mainly to attract the
attention of local and international retailers and consumers. I don’t say that
something couldn’t be artistic and commercialized at the same time, but at
least the original idea of fashion as a handicraft has here gone quite far.
The other course
topic today was lifestyle entrepreneurship and in my opinion, these two topics are,
at least to some extent interrelated. In both cases we are buying image and
cultural value rather than a product’s functionality. If I would want a good
bag to carry my books in I would buy an ordinary backpack, not a designer bag
from Mulberry. And when I’m buying Nike’s runners, I’m doing it because I want
to be part of the “Nike society”, where everybody is fit, healthy and tanned. Naturally,
I don’t assume that Nike’s shoes
would immediately make me fit. But the human mind is tricky – you want to belong somewhere. You are what you buy.
Finally, I only need
to say that fashion changes and people fall in love. Once again. And after a
while they become bored, angry and annoyed. Just to fall in love with the next
collection. Love in this case is in your eyes but at least it is always
similar. Somehow it is safe to know that.
At the moment, I have
fallen in love with Acne's spring 2012 collection. Let's see for how long. Am I
as chic and bohemian as the models? Maybe
not. But I wouldn’t say no for one orange pencil skirt and a green parka.
You can read Marie
Riegels Melchior’s article Catwalking the Nation: Challenges and Possibilities
in the Case of Danish Fashion Industry (2011) here
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