Tuesday, September 20, 2016

The Drift from Couture to Ready-to-Wear: Fashion in 2016

The popularization of the sample size after World War II permanently altered the fashion industry as we know it and made high fashion accessible to larger audiences. Aside from the influence World War I and II had on American fashion, European fashion houses (i.e., Chanel, Schiaparelli, Vionnet) gained traction and heavily influenced the fashion scene in America. Fashion houses were expected to produce a fall collection and a summer collection, or a winter and summer collection--two collections per year. Aside from the obvious change of expectations the fashion industry has for fashion houses today, we first need to address the definition of said "fashion houses" of our time. Traditionally, fashion houses referred to a single designer who operated a couturier producing hand sewn couture. Towards the late 20th century many fashion houses divided into two parts which included, a couture line and a ready-to-wear line. As time progressed, the initial focus on couture swayed to ready-to-wear, as the "rewards" for catering to the masses became greater. Ready-to-wear also known as "fast fashion" is faster to think therefor cheaper materials, cheaper labor, and overall cheaper manufacturing. While fast fashion is realistic and obviously a necessity, it should stay as the focus for brands (historically) like Levi's or (contemporary) like American Apparel.

Currently, traditional fashion houses that were once prided on their precise couture collections are now ran by large teams of "designers" focusing on mass production. The control of creative direction being under so many designers makes it impossible to believe that they all have the same vision, and more importantly that they can work together in maintaining the image the fashion house created while still producing innovative collections. A good example of this would be the fashion house of Dior. When Raf Simons resigned as creative director in 2015, Dior took many months to replace the creative director. However during this time Dior had been releasing "cruise" and "resort" collections. Christian Dior who founded this fashion house redefined elegance throughout the 1940s-50s with a reputation of creating the finest hems, cuts and silhouettes. To release collections without any vision and announcing new faces of the brand (Rihanna, Bella Hadid) without a creative director is not only depreciating the brand but leading a bad example in the industry. However, the fashion houses are not solely to blame. Mass conglomerates like LVMH, in which brands like Dior, Gucci, Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton operate under, have implemented pressure on these fashion houses to rapidly produce collections which are lacking substance and vision in light of the realization of the financial benefits of mass production. This pressure has unfortunately spread to the rest of the fashion industry resulting in careless collections built on minute trends and social media. Legendary designers like Thierry Mugler bid farewell to their companies as the fashion industry primarily focused on mass production of ready-to-wear.  The corporate nature of the industry has shunned creativity and individuality leaving young, talented designers in the dark without a platform to connect to, aspire to, and one day be part of.

While there is no one solution, I'd like to make a suggestion, please keep your fast fashion goals out of the iconic fashion houses or they may cease to exist as iconic! As for the dangers of labor behind fast fashion, keep it local and keep brands small.

1 comment:

  1. You are an artistic connoisseur.

    One thing I’m passionate about is Gymnastics and since the rise of Third Wave Feminism and other societal alterations the sport went from being about artistry to being only about pulling off the hardest acrobatic stunts.
    It’s evident after watching the olympics that female gymnastics which was previously about elegance and strength (which females do better) is now evolving into male gymnastics which is about power and strength (which males do better).
    It horrifies me that feminism and the destruction of femininity and authenticity is changing the sport I love into to something I can hardly stand to watch.

    Here are two clips comparing the top gymnastics of 2016 to that of 1976.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi_5xbd5xdE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWeecKjJb6s

    #Getmeoutofthis century

    I hope you find this interesting.

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