Los Recursos Humanos en la Consellería de Sanidad. El Plan de Empleo

The First Wave Japanese Deconstructivist Designers: At the beginning of the 1980s designers (Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe) from Japan started to appear with an avant-garde and experimental design perspective. These designers were the first of three subversive fashion waves that would carry on till the present day.

Referring to Japanese deconstructivist fashion, Bernadine Morris (1982), former fashion writer for The New York Times, argues that, ‘the fashions that have swept in from the East represent a totally different attitude toward how clothes should look from that long established here. ... They cannot be described in conventional terms...’ (n.p.). Scholars declared it as a milestone. It is recognized as a historic landmark, when the Japanese designers completely changed the

‘conventions of construction methods’ (Bromley & Wojciechowska, 2008, p. 146) and ‘offered a meaningful alternative to the superficial, regressive and over-designed work of so many of the Western designers’ (English, 2007, p. 128).

Additionally, English (2007) writes:

Ignoring stylistic trends, the Japanese designers work within a postmodernist visual arts framework, appropriating aspects of their traditional culture and embracing new technological developments and methodologies in fashion design. Yet, at the same time, they infuse their work with meaning and memory (p. 117).

In another essay, English (2011a) explains as follows:

They made their mark in an industry far too long dominated by the hegemony of Eurocentric design, opening the way for greater multi-cultural involvement and a broader interpretation of what constitutes beauty on the catwalks of Paris (p. 85).

The ‘‘Arte Povera’’ (poor art) movement of the Italian art world influenced the first wave Japanese deconstructivist designers (Bartal, 2015, p. 66). The

Japanese designers were also under the influence of the ‘1960s Italian anti-design trend created by groups like Studio de Pas, D’Urbino, Lomazzi, Gatti, Paolini, (and) Teodoro’ (Bartal, 2015, p. 66). These creators of anti-design went against the ‘‘Good Design’’ ideals of modernism, which ‘believed in functionality, perfect ergonomics, timeless design solutions, and classic aesthetic values’

(Bartal, 2015, p. 66).

Kawakubo was very interested in how the Italian artists deconstructed ‘the imagery of the object’ and the reconstruction of brand new ones. The eccentric creations of the Italian avant-garde artists offered new possibilities that went against ‘user expectations regarding the function of the object’ (Bartal, 2015, p.

66). These avant-garde objects asked questions about the aim of design in general. The unconventional Italian designers of Arte Povera movement created artworks that ‘blurred the social class issues and sought new visual strategies’

that reconstructed the function of design, the role of the designer and the link between design and society (Bartal, 2015, p. 66). As a result, the creations of these artists were called as ‘anti-class, anti-consumer, anti-marketing, and thus anti-design’ (Bartal, 2015, p. 66). These anti-designs carried ‘social and political messages’ and these messages distinguished these designs and designers from the capitalistic system (Bartal, 2015, p. 66).

With all their innovative design perspectives and techniques, alternative approaches contradicting the preconceived norms of conventional Western fashion and close relation with the art world, the designers from Japan swept the realm of fashion with a non-European avant-garde zest. This avant-garde zest continued with the second wave of deconstructivists led by the Belgian

designers.

The Second Wave Deconstructivist Belgian Designers: Having appeared in the second half of the 1980s, Belgian designers (Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene, Dirk Bikkembergs and Marina Yee) referred as the ‘‘Antwerp Six’’, started to draw attention to their experimental designs. Belgian designer Martin Margiela (the seventh) later joined the Antwerp six. As Arrojo (2015) broadly explains the Antwerp Six:

After construction, their garments were purposefully pulled apart to create raw, frayed, tapered edges and beautiful silhouettes. The

philosophy of the Antwerp six was to deconstruct the traditional shapes and styles of fashion by using displaced seams and surface incisions. The results featured loose, elegant tailoring symbolized by the deconstruction in texture and ‘‘lived-in’’, perfectly imperfect feel (p. 5).

Ann Demeulemeester and Martin Margiela have been regarded as the most important designers of the Belgian deconstructivist fashion (Loschek, 2009, p.

187). According to Tamsin Blanchard (1998), fashion editor of The Independent, Ann Demeulemeester:

Is not interested in the idea of clothes as product. There has to be something more. Designing a new collection, she sets herself a problem to be solved (para. 7).

Each item has to have a reason to exist. Each piece is only worked on by Ann. She does not have a team like other designers. She even makes her own lasts for her shoes, sculpting until she arrives at the perfect shape (para. 8).

Further, Ingrid Loschek, Professor in the History and Theory of Fashion at the University of Applied Sciences Pforzheim, (2009) writes with regards to Margiela and his unusual qualities in design as follows:

Belgian Martin Margiela is regarded as a programmatic fashion designer of deconstructivism. Martin Margiela makes the fragmentary aspect of

deconstructivism visible by bringing together things that do not belong together, such as a sleeve that is too wide in an armhole that is far too small (p. 187).

Compared to the first wave, the Belgian designers’ creations do not show any cultural or nationalistic references specific to Belgium. However, their

emergence has a direct link to their country. As explains Zborowska (2015):

Importantly, the notion of ‘deconstruction’ was emerging simultaneously with large- scale activities aimed at a revival of the rich traditions of the Belgian textile industry. ‘The Textile Plan’, announced on 1 January 1981, comprised a number of actions aimed at not only restoring the

importance of Belgium among the fashion capitals, but also creating from scratch Belgian fashion as a brand. The plan (implemented by the

Institute for Textile and Clothing of Belgium) envisaged both financial support and promotional activities under the slogan ‘Dit is Belgisch/C’est belge’ (p. 4).

The lack of cultural references of the second wave Belgian deconstructivist design compared to the first wave Japanese designers may have resulted by Belgium’s Western geographic location, which would not make an obvious fundamental difference in visual terms. Thus, Belgium’s cultural affinity with Europe and Paris may account for the lack of cultural references of Belgian designers.

Despite the fact that Belgian deconstructivist designers’ creations display a direct subversion to the conventional techniques and design perspective of Parisian fashion, Margiela is based in Paris and makes couture garments in an avant-garde way (except for his H&M project). Margiela is pointed out as a gifted dressmaker and the designer is further explained as follows:

Margiela is another talented dressmaker, whose work has always centred on the techniques and disciplines of couture- he literally takes apart old garments and reworks them in a modern idiom, and has done more to elevate recycling to an art form than any other designer. His approach may be intellectual (he is fascinated by the construction of garments),

but his finish is stitch-perfect - as Hermés, which has recently appointed him as its chief designer, knows only too well. It may seem surprising that the polished, glossy house of Hermés should appoint a designer whose trademark is deconstruction, but any designer who can

deconstruct with Margiela’s finesse can almost certainly construct with equal skill (Brampton, 1997, p. 152).

In contrast to the concept of newness and innovation in their design thinking, as a second wave deconstructivist designer, Margiela highlights the technique of reworking already existing pieces as a key principle to his garment fabrication.

The designer explains as follows, 'we find inspiration in the least likely of places and expose it through our collections. We rework forms by elevating them through our designs, and redefine the way to wear certain garments' (M.

Margiela, personal communication, July 29, 2013). On this account, he and his team show that the new in fashion can be created out of old items and this way a balance of binaries can be maintained (new being formed through the old).

Further on Margiela, Loscialpo (2010) explains the designer’s interest in the vocabulary of garment construction as follows:

Making a parody of the already excessive and, in a certain extent,

orthodox fashion of the times would have in fact been redundant. By the making of deconstructions and reproductions, Margiela’s work rather concentrated in disinterring the mechanics of the dress structure and, with them, the mechanisms of fascinations that haunt fashion (p. 5).

Having briefly introduced the first wave Japanese and the second wave Belgian deconstructivist designers, what follows will provide a more detailed account of information regarding the two waves and their subversive ways of designing. It will engage with deconstructivist techniques and visual reconfigurations of deconstruction in fashion. The majority of these manifests as a statement of anti-fashion, a rebellion against mainstream dress, and offer an alternative conceptualization of the key concerns of fashion.

General Definitions and Qualities of Deconstructivist Fashion

Across its various incarnations, deconstruction in fashion, which the thesis has so far classified in two waves is described by different scholars, practitioners and designers in a range of ways. Deconstruction in fashion stages an insurrection against the creations, techniques and the design thinking of mainstream and commercialized fashion as Kawamura (2004) points out:

They stretched the boundaries of fashion, reshaped the boundaries of fashion, reshaped the symmetry of clothes, introduced monochromic clothes, and let wrapped garments respond to the body’s shape and movement. They destroyed all previous definitions of clothing and fashion (p. 202).

Kawamura (2004) further explains that, the deconstructive designers’ ‘concepts were undoubtedly different, original, and new compared with the rules of fashion set by orthodox legitimate designers such as Chanel, Dior, and Saint Laurent’ (p. 202). In Knitwear in Fashion, Black (2002) lists the qualities of deconstruction in fashion as follows:

1. Asymmetry in terms of left-to-right-side body balance, and hemlines.

2. Utilization of non-traditional textiles and yarns. 3. Combining of contrasting weight fabrications. 4. The cutting up of traditional tailored shapes into broken and unfinished sections. 5. The purposeful use of unfinished edge to create aesthetic effect and 6. Distortion of the proportions of the body through fit to shape (p. 99).

Belgian designer Martin Margiela gives a typical position of contemporary approaches, who explains:

Deconstructive fashion is just as much of an art as traditional haute couture, and now the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Though deconstructive fashion began in opposition to commodified fashion, subversive designs have become intellectually accepted by the industry.

In this vein, it is essential to continue to scrutinize norms through design in order to escape convention (M. Margiela, personal communication, July 29, 2013).

Margiela’s comments exemplify the heart of the deconstructive approach by the designer; as a process of staged “subversion” which is an opposition to the mainstream fashion that then becomes absorbed. This, in turn, creates a

renewed requirement for the review of “norms”. The following section examines other such statements, in order to glean a sense of what links can be drawn on the thematics of the topic. In particular, the section focuses on those theorists and practitioners who look at the methods of construction the deconstructivist designers display through what the chapter describes as a different design thinking to that of normative, mainstream fashion. Normativity can be described as:

An evolving and incoherent cluster of hegemonic promises about the present and future experience of social belonging that can be entered into in a number of ways and that can best be tracked in terms of affective transactions (Berlant, 2007, p. 279).

Different designers agree with Margiela’s claim that deconstructivist fashion is driven by its challenge to established norms of garment making. Yet, it is

marked by the inevitable recycling back into the market, where it is transformed into a consumable commodity.

In The Fashion Design Reference and Specification Book: Everything Fashion Designers Need to Know Every Day Jay Calderin (2013), director of Creative Marketing at the School of Fashion Design in Boston, offers the following definition on deconstruction in fashion:

Deconstruction in fashion design challenges rules and breaks down traditions. The aesthetic includes unfinished, decomposed, and

reassembled applications that bring the hidden workings of a garment to the surface. These fashions show construction details that are usually removed, such as basting, or disguised, such as inside-cut pockets,

zippers, pinked edges, zigzag stitching, and seam work (p. 81).

Calderin takes Margiela’s “scrutiny” to be a strategy, one that is concerned with a sense of the “break down” of “traditions”, achieved through attention to the material details of a garment’s literal deconstruction through the “removal” of hidden details. English (2011b) similarly emphasizes the significance of a strategy of detail revelation and attention, noting that in deconstructive garment construction:

Techniques were deliberately compromised: hems were scissor-cut and uneven; fabric was knotted; deliberate holes or dropped stitches

appeared in knitting; threads used for seaming were of an opposite colour and they took on the effect of broad basting, normally used in the preliminary stages of construction. Pattern-making moved away from the modernist tropes of standardisation and modularisation, and form

became divorced from function. While only the finest fabrics were used, haute couture techniques were sabotaged; traditions of fine finishing broken; and spatial concepts re-positioned themselves in relation to the body underneath (p. 83).

English adds, “divorce” to Calderin’s “break down,” and a sense of a “broken”

body is a pattern in this form of fashion theory. The deconstructed details are also taken up in theory that emphasize an abstraction of garment making, where the design ideas come to signal as much content as the material design structure and details. In Basic Fashion Design 01: Research and Design Simon Seivewright (2012), head of Fashion Department at Northbrook College, defines deconstruction in fashion as a movement that builds on a quality of an object so as to concentrate on a ‘detail’ to reach an ‘abstract idea from the original

source’ (pp. 88-89). Referring to its reconstructive quality, Seivewright further adds that deconstruction in fashion is all about ‘breaking the information up’

similar to a ‘jigsaw puzzle’ so as to recreate it through ‘new lines, shapes and abstract forms’ (2012, pp. 88-89). Extending Seivewright’s “break up” of the

fashion body, Herbert Blau (1999), Professor of Humanities at the University of Washington, applies deconstruction as a political metaphor, noting ‘if there is a politics of fashion, leaning left or right, the practice of deconstruction, as it was in the early nineties, might have been considered the last anti-aesthetic gesture of the socialists of style’ (p. 175). Taking the surface semiotics of the

deconstructive design as a social indicator, Blau further suggests that the deconstructivist designers go against ‘glitter, and ornament’ so as to serve a

‘flea-market austerity or anaplasia of dress’ (1999, p.175).

Calderin, English, Seivewright, and Blau note the deconstructivist designers’

attention to details as a literal breaking down and breaking apart. This type of garment construction places its style of theory to claim it to be an insurrection against conventionality in fashion. In addition to the focus on the

deconstruction of functional details, theorists also attend to the questions of style that these new forms generate.

The Designers and Their Styles of Undoing

This section will focus on the deconstructive designers of the first (Rei

Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake) and second wave (Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester), and the basic qualities of their design thinking. It will address various scholarly sources to treat the designers and their creations in detail.

Some theorists of deconstructive fashion appear unsympathetic, hostile, or ambiguous in their account of the processes involved, and tend to focus on the surface style effects of the deconstructive practice. Typical of these are writers

Iain Bromley and Dorota Wojciechowska (2008), who describe the garments of Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto as designs that render their wearers incapable of ‘interpret[ing]’ what they wear (p. 146). Bromley and

Wojciechowska (2008) state that these designers’ creations, ‘can be worn in more than one way, for example upside down or back to front (p. 146). They argue that the wearer becomes as important as the designer, stamping their own identity onto the garment’ (2008, p. 146). Bromley and Wojciechowska (2008) describe that as a deconstructivist designer, Kawakubo revealed inner parts of garments that were initially exclusively seen by their purchasers. They write that the designer ‘deconstruct[ed] and reassembl[ed] clothing to create a new aesthetic and feminine sensuality’ (p. 148), but caution that certain clothes of Kawakubo needed ‘diagrams’ to clarify how to be worn (p. 148). They

comment that Margiela is a designer who creates garments with ‘a poetic

appreciation of imperfection, personality and eccentricity’ (p. 158), whose ‘niche market’ is a distinctive trait of the designer:

The idea of being unique is clearly where Margiela has established a niche market utilizing Artisanal vintage clothes. Garments from the past are reworked, for example a nineteenth century huntsman’s waistcoat, to create a customized and very individual, desirable piece (2008, p. 158).

Regarding the basic qualities of Margiela, English (2007) argues that similar to

‘Hausman, Schwitters, Rauchenburg and the Arte Povera artists, the designer methods of deconstruction highlighted a brand new anti-fashion’ (2007, p. 62).

English further marks that Margiela made use of an ‘objective, scientific manner’

whereby he ‘analysed, dissected and recontextualized his garments’ (2007, p.

62). English states that evoking an ambiance of a ‘laboratory’, the designer and his assistants were clothed in ‘knee-length lab coats, an eccentric mode of dress

that was copied by his devotees worldwide’ (2007, p. 62).

In contrast with the approach to deconstructive methods by Bromley and Wojciechowska, or English, Rebecca Arnold (2001) evaluates the

deconstructivist designers’ works in terms of their ambiguity of offering a political counter movement, as well as the stylistic change of fashion, because of the sense of “unease” as a kind of discontent that they display in various contexts (p. 25). Arnold also interprets deconstructive fashion as one that illustrates the designers’ appreciation of individuality (2001, p. 25). As she writes:

Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto echoed a feeling of unease in their collections. Each sought to explore new ideas about fashion, which would show an appreciation for

‘people’s flaws and weaknesses’, rather than attempting to design new personalities for the body’s natural asymmetry (2001, p. 25).

Contrasting Dior’s take on the designer’s quest of obtaining perfection, Arnold argues that both Margiela and Kawakubo rebel against a perfection of the body, and of fashion itself (2001, p. 26). Arnold states that going against perfection, Margiela and Kawakubo, see imperfection as an ‘imperative, a route to

authenticity, to reconciliation with the past and foregrounding the marginal, in contrast to fashion’s traditional role as the purveyor of ephemeral, perfect fantasies’ (2001, p. 26).

With regards to Yohji Yamamoto’s design thinking, Roger Tredre and Brenda Polan (2009) write that the designer’s garments were hard to make sense of and that they were ‘loaded, like a difficult poem or painting, with references and symbols- often disguised or distorted- and layers of meanings’ (p. 181).

Tredre and Polan also comment on the deliberate “insurrection” that is staged by the designer’s creations, as they carry ‘a sort of theatrical ugliness which makes unusual demands on the understanding of the observer’ (2009, p. 181).

Mary Tilton (1992), writer in Threads magazine, highlights Issey Miyake’s deconstructive difference. The details of making and unmaking pleats and folds are stressed in the garments, as part of the basic design motifs the designer uses to comprise their language of abstract deconstruction. In addition, as Tilton notes, the same elements are used ‘unpredictably to model and shape

Mary Tilton (1992), writer in Threads magazine, highlights Issey Miyake’s deconstructive difference. The details of making and unmaking pleats and folds are stressed in the garments, as part of the basic design motifs the designer uses to comprise their language of abstract deconstruction. In addition, as Tilton notes, the same elements are used ‘unpredictably to model and shape