Context crossings are based not necessarily on genuine ideas, but far more on as- sociative thinking. They represent an ability to construct relations between uncon- nected ideas or structures, that is to see inspiring links between separate phenomena.
Context crossings are a technique promoting, for example cultural innovations and lead to a revaluation in the sense of identity switching. The reassessment of values represents a new outcome, but it is not the trigger of change (cf. p. 94). Context cross- ings in the sense of fusion, adaptation, revaluation, increased valuation, anachronism and paradoxes are among its tried and trusted strategies. Here, iconic and emotional logic plays a decisive role; it is more important than mathematical logic.
Paco Rabanne deprives material of its logic when he adapts metal platelets, pieces of glass or wooden balls in place of soft-to-the-touch textiles for his dress creations, so arriving at innovations. Coco Chanel transferred the regional identity of an alpine ‘farmer’s jacket’ to the international haute couture of a Chanel jacket. The anorak developed from the clothing of the Inuit into a global functional gar- ment and sportswear, and finally universal street wear. By devaluating the clothing’s original function—that is its origins, tradition, environment, functional task, material and so forth—the original reference is questioned and the garment is made ‘free’, or, in other words, globally available. Such revaluations of context and particularly the ensuing availability are also seen as a precondition to globalisation. It is precisely the global strength of fashion and its self-referential system (its autopoiesis; cf. p. 24) that is expressed in this lack of respect for cultural independence and social conven- tions. In the crossing of borders, the borderline experience becomes an activity, a constructive self-benefit.
As far as design is concerned, this means being bold enough and assimilating everything. Depending on the context, we may regard this as frivolous when reli- gious values are used, as the misappropriation of cultural values in the ethno look, as a social encroachment in the case of jeans or as a linking of ideas in the sense of lateral thinking (cf. p. 37). Whether a society succeeds in asserting itself in global competition is dependent not least on whether it not only tolerates lateral thinkers, but even promotes their way of thinking.
In his treatise On the New, Boris Groys comes to the conclusion that in general, innovations must be understood as the result of context crossing.46 As examples in
art, he cites all those things that were previously outside the art context, like Marcel Duchamp’s bottle dryer, the black square by Kasimir Malevich and the everyday objects in the art of Andy Warhol. The artist explodes traditions—that is, he crosses boundaries.
In the revaluation of values, the original (‘authentic’) values are led to a fresh outcome. The commonplace becomes noble; the outlawed becomes establishment. In Gianni Versace’s fetishist Bondage prêt-à-porter collection of 1991/1992, the sadomasochist (SM) connotations lost their aggressiveness and were perverted into luxury fashion. The Moschino label plays with an inversion of the signs and func- tions of fashion. Franco Moschino made a pair of jeans into a jacket by adapting the waist into a neckline and creating a kind of lapel using belt loops and a wide, gold- studded leather belt. A sailor shirt made in black leather by Jean-Paul Gaultier is both a proper-naive sailor shirt and hard-rocker clothing, or it is neither/nor. In Chalayan’s
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collection Afterwords (cf. p. 65) a context crossing takes place via the defunctionalis- ing of a room into the functional quality of clothing, thus leading to a revaluation. In design it is a matter of an affirmative, meaningful language, whereas in fine art it is about self-reflection and analysis. It becomes clear that these two languages, or rather contexts—design and fine art—are connected in Hussein Chalayan’s col- lections Afterwords and Before Minus Now. Chalayan is an idea and concept artist, who—perhaps quite by chance—has chosen clothing as his form and medium.
Polyvalence develops when sport fashion is accepted, or even desired as a fusion of functional and fashionable clothing. In the case of trainers, therefore, high- performance models from the upper price range function as symbols of affiliation for certain subcultures and give the wearer entry into specific music clubs. The sports- wear manufacturer Nike admits that 80 per cent of products are not used according to their actual purpose.
An anachronism occurs, for example, when Gianni Versace combines a denim jacket with a silk crinoline-like skirt with a Renaissance-style pattern in his Neo-
Baroque Composition from the Spring/Summer 1992 collection.
Paradox is viewed as the fusion of contradictions to arrive at something new. Contradiction succeeds by exploding conventions, leading—according to the convention—to paradox. For instance, such a contradiction may emerge as a con- sequence of the negation of self-referentiality: the slip as trousers or the corset as an upper garment; it is true when it is false and false when it is true (according to the Greek philosopher and logician Eubulides of Miletus, ca. 400 bc). The paradox of customary concepts of morality lies in the fact that the slip or underpants cover our shame but have to be covered in their turn. This moral notion exists in all monotheist religions in contrast to natural religions, in the areas of which the loincloth covers the pubic area and is therefore an outer garment.47 Apart from the latter, the under-
wear (particularly so-called sexy underwear) belongs to the intimate sphere and is therefore a part of the body rather than the clothing, or it is an interface between the body and clothes.48
Context crossing in the sense of paradox also permits the (supposedly) incompat- ible (the nonsticky sticky stuff). The new via the incompatible means that a thin, light material (e.g. the synthetic fleece Polar-Tec) is nonetheless warm; a new pair of jeans is nonetheless full of holes, frayed and expensive (like those by Gucci, 2001). The latter can be seen as a fashionable innovation but not as a product innovation, for old, holey jeans are familiar to us. This fake ultrarealism is the basis of today’s so-called authentic articles.
Context crossings lead to hybrids (crosses, fusions) like traditional costume fash- ions, trekking sandals or cargo pants. Military combat pants were perverted at the end of the twentieth century into fashionable urban trousers known as cargo pants. Helmut Lang introduced the trimming (with a galloon, a satin ribbon) from the out- side leg seams of dress-suit trousers to both avant-garde business wear and everyday sportswear as minimalist ornamentation for men’s pants in avant-garde fashion.