"A little unorthodox perhaps..."
I have always found the relationship between creation and destruction quite a marvelous symbiosis. Life itself is a continual cycle, and where one piece of beauty may end, another piece of beauty begins. That beauty may take the form of a new life, a new memory, a new emotion or indeed a whole new way of looking and appreciating the world. I suppose that it is true that light shines the brightest when surrounded by darkness.
The balance between the forces of creation and destruction in fashion is an interesting one to behold. One may find a designer spending weeks labouring over the conscious destruction of a garment in order to find the balance they feel in their self that needs to be expressed. Creative destruction is after all one of the most alluring of design concepts, even if the allure of the idea itself may often be mysterious when taken in abstract. You may not be overly excited over the prospects of seeing a sweater with frayed hems and patched over holes, and yet in person there may just be that artfully styled piece which calls out to you.
Personally I have always found the conscious aging and wearing in of garments to be a finish best left to others to wear. I prefer to wear garments which in time come to display my own story, whether that be through fading, tears or holes that have to be darned or patched. Whilst I appreciate the art of masterfully faded and aged clothing, or indeed stylized destruction, the process of the natural destruction and conscious revitalizing of clothing is far more appealing to me.
There is however an area of fashion where I find the juxtaposition and play between creation and destruction highly fascinating, and that would be in fashion photography. I was recently looking over the Fall '09 lookbook from the Serbian designer Tijana Pavlov, and was struck by the beautiful location of the shoot. The collection had a dark and wonderfully brooding futuristic feel to it, and as such it could have been easy for the shoot to have been set across an equally dark and shadowy landscape. Yet the abandoned ruins of an industrial complex created the perfect setting for the lookbook, with a beautifully post-apocalyptic and destructive feel.
It may often seem like the easy setting for your industrial or functional inspired look, and yet it can often be a setting that actually detracts from the shot. Indeed one does not want a location to overpower a collection in any real way, unless of course one sets out with the mind to truly express a concept as a whole in the lookbook. Here I believe that the careful composition taking into consideration the natural lighting and beautifully subtle colours of the backdrop truly create outstanding shots. Whilst there is certainly a clean finish, especially taking into account the actual clothing, a sense of gritty realism is not far, especially in the emotive close ups. There is always that contrast between the new and clean feel of the clothing and the background, and yet here the colour play was such that the image easily fell into place as a whole.
I was also rather taken by the collection itself, specifically the outerwear pieces. The long fitted coats had a particularly dark charm to them, and with such garments I can never quite shake the mental image of myself swishing the coat as I turn to walk away. I was fascinated by the choice of belting around the upper part on a few of the jackets, for it seemed to create an interesting bondage like feel, especially with regards to the cropped leather jacket. I have always felt the concept of bondage and restraints quite akin to outerwear, for after all, the primary function of a jacket or coat is for use as protection from the elements. We have that infantile desire to be protected, and in a way, I suppose that the belting fulfills that need at some subconscious level.
Currently playing: Building Steam From A Grain Of Salt - DJ Shadow
xxxx
The balance between the forces of creation and destruction in fashion is an interesting one to behold. One may find a designer spending weeks labouring over the conscious destruction of a garment in order to find the balance they feel in their self that needs to be expressed. Creative destruction is after all one of the most alluring of design concepts, even if the allure of the idea itself may often be mysterious when taken in abstract. You may not be overly excited over the prospects of seeing a sweater with frayed hems and patched over holes, and yet in person there may just be that artfully styled piece which calls out to you.
Personally I have always found the conscious aging and wearing in of garments to be a finish best left to others to wear. I prefer to wear garments which in time come to display my own story, whether that be through fading, tears or holes that have to be darned or patched. Whilst I appreciate the art of masterfully faded and aged clothing, or indeed stylized destruction, the process of the natural destruction and conscious revitalizing of clothing is far more appealing to me.
There is however an area of fashion where I find the juxtaposition and play between creation and destruction highly fascinating, and that would be in fashion photography. I was recently looking over the Fall '09 lookbook from the Serbian designer Tijana Pavlov, and was struck by the beautiful location of the shoot. The collection had a dark and wonderfully brooding futuristic feel to it, and as such it could have been easy for the shoot to have been set across an equally dark and shadowy landscape. Yet the abandoned ruins of an industrial complex created the perfect setting for the lookbook, with a beautifully post-apocalyptic and destructive feel.
It may often seem like the easy setting for your industrial or functional inspired look, and yet it can often be a setting that actually detracts from the shot. Indeed one does not want a location to overpower a collection in any real way, unless of course one sets out with the mind to truly express a concept as a whole in the lookbook. Here I believe that the careful composition taking into consideration the natural lighting and beautifully subtle colours of the backdrop truly create outstanding shots. Whilst there is certainly a clean finish, especially taking into account the actual clothing, a sense of gritty realism is not far, especially in the emotive close ups. There is always that contrast between the new and clean feel of the clothing and the background, and yet here the colour play was such that the image easily fell into place as a whole.
I was also rather taken by the collection itself, specifically the outerwear pieces. The long fitted coats had a particularly dark charm to them, and with such garments I can never quite shake the mental image of myself swishing the coat as I turn to walk away. I was fascinated by the choice of belting around the upper part on a few of the jackets, for it seemed to create an interesting bondage like feel, especially with regards to the cropped leather jacket. I have always felt the concept of bondage and restraints quite akin to outerwear, for after all, the primary function of a jacket or coat is for use as protection from the elements. We have that infantile desire to be protected, and in a way, I suppose that the belting fulfills that need at some subconscious level.
Currently playing: Building Steam From A Grain Of Salt - DJ Shadow
xxxx