It's Personal
(images via Organization)
When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.
Takahiro Miyashita
I know I mention this collection far too often, but it was a moment that entirely changed my view of fashion. But unlike so many other fashion moments (whether they be images, books, films) that have influenced my way of thinking, it was one I actually experienced as it happened. Fashion moments always seem to be something you read about rather than experience first-hand, which can initially seem rather odd. But then when you think about it, perhaps it is not so strange after all. It is only ever after the fact that journalists, or historians, or curators, are able to alchemize fashion history into fashion myth. In the present, that is to say in any one of those important moments, we are often too busy experiencing life to question the significance of what is unfolding before us. Only after can we truly consider what we have seen, what we have felt, and how it has changed us.
Every show crackles with excitement, and every garment speaks to somebody, so I am fascinated by the change that occurs when a moment is transformed from the ordinary into the extraordinary. For that change to happen it must necessarily be a moment that was shared by many, and then thought by many to be important. Sometimes it is only with hindsight that one can trace back the path of influence that a moment provided, thus highlighting how special it truly was. Indeed looking back one realizes the importance of the moment (although even if unrealized the effect can still be profound). Whether it was Richard Gere wearing Armani in American Gigolo, or when the last model disappeared back into the darkness at Raf Simons' Woe Unto Those Who Spit On The Fear Generation...The Wind Will Blow It Back collection. But history is never merely a singular narrative, and neither is fashion. There are different ways of seeing, different ways of recollecting, and different ways of narrating the story.
Sometimes you find your own fashion moment. Something you experience as it happens, that changes the way you think and feel about fashion. I remember the first time I saw the runway images for A Closed Feeling. It took my breath away. I devoured look after look after look and it seemed as if Miyashita had somehow captured the stuff of my dreams and used it to paint his canvas. I remember thinking, "This is what I love about fashion". And for me, it still is. The luxury, the beauty, the drama, the melancholy, the feeling. It was pure fantasy - a fleeting moment of beauty in the grand performance of fashion, doomed to be forgotten all too quickly, but that did not matter to me. I went on to obsess over every detail, watching video of the show again and again, and feeling as if this really was something special, something extraordinary, something I would never forget. It was a beautiful moment, even if only for me. I hope there will be many, many more to come.
Number (N)ine is dead. Long live...The Soloist?
xxxx