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Looking
Into the Mirror: Self-Reflective Fashion
Self-referential
fashion. Isn't all fashion self-centered, introverted, self-referential for all
intents and purposes, you ask? Just look at all those handbags, wallets,
sunglasses and T-shirts bearing a fashion house's logo -what are they talking
about, if not themselves? In that sense, yes, fashion can often be narcissistic
and self celebratory.
However,
there is also the kind of fashion which turns to itself not in selfish
admiration of its own image, but, “using its own tools”, to deconstruct itself.
While fashion is known for its playful referencing of almost anything in
culture -ranging from famous artworks to military uniforms-, self-referential
fashion shifts the attention back to itself in order to expose and critically
reflect on its own processes. It is not, then, a gratuitous self-elogy of
fashion, by fashion, but rather, a self-conscious exploration of fashion by
itself, resulting in what one may call meta-fashion*.
Probably
the designer best known to create self-referential fashion is Margiela. In
fact, you could even buy meta-fashion for less sometime last year courtesy of Maison
Martin Margiela's line for H&M (And since we're being self-referential,
Katarina wrote an article about this collaboration in Scriptus' second issue
–you can check it out on myauc.nl). Margiela often produces garments whose
'insides' (in other words, the structural parts that would normally be concealed)
are presented to the viewer -either because the clothes are 'inside out', or
because the finished product is, by normal standards, ‘unfinished’, raw. Thus,
by exposing, in the house's own words, “the grammar of clothing”, Margiela
renders the creation process of the garments explicit.
Another instance
of self-referentiality, in which fashion can reflect upon itself critically and
even parody itself, is fashion shows. In a context that is all about fashion
showing itself off as artistic, beautiful and powerful, (Amsterdam’s very own) Viktor
& Rolf chose to stage a spectacle that would expose itself as ridiculous,
elitist, overly narcissistic. Each model that walked down the runway was
attached to their own individual spotlights pointing at them, and they were
each accompanied by different music to suit the concept that their appearance
was creating. The collection, in another clear reference to self-referentiality
(if one can even use that expression), was called "The Fashion Show".
The
question that inevitably arises is, can such self-referential critique be
valid, when it is exercised from within the system? Is it enough for Viktor
& Rolf to expose the uglier, less perfect side of the fashion industry,
while they remain part of it? Does this self-referential parody, in the end,
have any value besides that of novelty and shock?
You may
disagree with me, dear reader, but I'm afraid that with such a postmodern
device as self-reference, the answer that I'm about to give you is to be
expected: the fashion 'authors' are essentially putting the ball back in our
court. Meta-fashion depends on its viewer to interpret it; in the end, it is up
to us to decide that something needs improving in fashion. It is consequently
us, as consumers of its cultural product, that must make that change happen. So
the real question is: what do we want
from fashion?
*the
literature majors among us will appreciate the relation of this term with its
cousin, 'meta-fiction', which refers to fictional narratives that refer to themselves.
Conversely, then, meta-fashion is fashion that refers to itself; in other
words, product referring to the process of its own creation.
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