Street Trends influence Designers

A political climate and youth expressing their individuality with a desire to belong to a group brings street fashion to the view of the public. Looks that differ from mainstream fashions and social roles, street trends become a symbol for the group of young people. Each trend can be associated with a philosophy, with art, literature or music. The trend defines a group of young people. Young people reject the popular fashion in order to express individuality but at the same time, show acceptance of a group. 

The mixing of music, film inspiration and underground attitude influences the street fashion. Social trends and artistic endeavors blend into expression in dress.

On the runway, fashion is influenced by social and political forces and street fashion is reinterpreted, following the path back to the street. When the cycle is completed, the street trend shifts to something else because the need for individuality is great.

Today there is a trend in society for people working closer to the earth in their manner and style: organic and green. Recycling clothes is part of this trend; cutting apart old clothes, styling and layering whatever is available, creating cohesion with color or simply black and white.  

Street Trends influence

The current economy is being compared to the Great Depression of 1930's. Depression Chic is creeping onto the runway. The look of "Americana" is  derived from cotton farm dresses, Amish attire, somber colors, suspenders, and brim hats.

The Folkies play music inspired by Old Time or original country music of the nineteenth century. Folk music is associated to Hippies for the influence of 1960's music, however Folkies play original works and dress in depression era looks and keep short hair. 

In Appalachia, the Old Time music and hand sewn garments can be viewed as street fashion of mountain roads and coal mine rails. 

Street Trends

Dress and music again work together and influence the runway. Hip Hop from New York and later Los Angeles is recognized by oversized proportions, hoodies, and sneakers. Low slouch at the waist for pants and ball caps worn backwards also defines the look.

Seen in the 1970's, Hip Hop music include MC-ing (rapping and beatbox) and DJ-ing (repeated music motifs with fingers on the turntable). Breakdancing is also associated to Hip Hop. Clothes consist of red, black, and green, kufis (or fez), loose running suits, Nike sneakers and Starter Jackets.

On the runway, hats and short down coats, hooded sweatsuits and low waist or full cut jeans and cargo pants provide a hip-hop feel.

Street Trends

1970's and 1980's once again hold associations with music and fashion.

Disco with synthetic fabrics, jewel colors and jumpsuits help the dancer with soft fabrics and flexible fit. The white suit worn for the film Saturday Night Fever, is associated with Disco.

Jewel tones & white suits on the runway provide a 1970's street influence. 

Punk with heavy boots and outrageous hair styles influences the runway. An anti-establishment trend in Britain that influenced the early 1980's fashion, Punk itself is influenced by glam rock, skinheads, rude boys, greasers and mods. Custom jackets (studs, pins, or chains), worn t-shirts, multiple belts, and tule skirts with jeans are punk.

Vivienne Westwood and her association with Malcolm Mclaren, fuel Punk. Her mini-crini (1985) is said to be inspired by ballet, Petroshka. 

Street Trends

The 1960's and 1970's include Beatnik, Mod and Hippie street fashion.

Anti-war movement and flower power brings the hippie look as youth on the California coast embrace looks from a number of eras and cultures. Long hair and denim jeans also define this trend. Once again music, is associated with fashion (Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg are friends).

An anti-materialism philosophy, poetry and literature (Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg), bring together the Greenwich Beat Generation. Serious and austere, the look includes eye wear, beret, and dark colors.

In Britain, Mary Quant opens a boutique on the Kings Road; the Bazaar. A desire to express sophistication is achieved with Modernism and minimal dress: the mini dress is created. 

These fashion trends can be seen on the runway decades later. Long flowing and  printed dresses, sandals, vests and patches; dark glasses, beret, tall boots and turtleneck; very short skirt, clean lines, and primary colors, can evoke recognition of these street fashions.

Street Trends

In the 1950's Teddy Boy fashion included bubble gum colors paired with black. Drainpipe trouser and long jackets, neck ties, and waistcoats as well as triple layered shoes. Girls wore tall hair and full skirts. The look is associated with Rock-n-Roll music of the time.

However, look is derived from King Edward in clothes created by Savile Row tailors in Britain.

On the runway, designers are influenced by this look. The Rock-a-Billie influence can be also noticed in the TopShop design.

Musicians decades later still bring it to life.

Street trends

The zoot suit of the 1940's was worn mostly by Latino population features a full legged trouser with pegged cuffs and long, wide shouldered jacket.

Cab Calloway wears a zoot suit for the 1943 film Stormy Weather, however he is typically photographed in all white tails. In areas of the midwestern United States, where populations are African descent, the zoot suit is sill visible.

On the runway, designers are inspired by this look. Emanuel  Ungaro and Ruffian are two examples with the pairing of full legged trouser and long jacket; note the choice for the lapel.  

www.vam.ac.uk

www.style.com

Street Trends

Street trends such as hippie, punk, and hip hop are used as inspiration on the runway reversing the elite designer to the street fashion flow.

Street fashion is politically motivated in a desire to make a social statement, create a group identity, or be an active participant in adorning the body.

Fashion and Historical Artistic Styles

Current fashion and is interlaced with popular media: over 100 years of movie film.

Post Modern Art: appropriation

Schiaparelli: hat 1937

Terry Gilliam: Brazil 1985

The internet.

Costume Design in the Movies, Elizabeth Leese, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. 1976

Artists and fashion

Pop Art: beauty in mass culture

Andy Warhol: fashion illustrations, "blotted ink" style, many shoes, 1958

Andy Warhol Fashion, forwarded by Linan Dosran, Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco, 2004

Women's Fashion

1920's and 1970's fashion and illustration of sexual revolution and changing role for women.

Art Deco: exoticism, stylized motifs, influenced by the Fauves, Cubists, and Futurists.

Paul Poiret, stencil technique of pochoir prints: 1922

Flappers enjoy the simplified silhouette of their functional clothes.

Liberation and post modernism: new sensibilities

Diane Von Furstenberg: wrap dress 1975

Disco dancers get out of their hippie jeans and into Qiana dresses.

French Art Deco Fashions in pochoir prints from the 1920's, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., Atglen, PA 1998

Art Deco Fashion, Suzanne Lussier, Bulfinch Press, Boston, 2003

100 Years of Style by Decade and Designer, Vol 5 N-Z, Linda Watson, Chelsea House Publishers, Philidelphia 1999 

Post War Fashions

1950's and 1980's design  and fashion is influenced by post war optimism and economic prosperity -  end of WW II and Cold War.

Round forms in mid-century design are intended to project generosity.

Russel Wright: ceramic pitcher

Dior introduces the New Look 1947

Marilyn Monroe 

Bright colors, big hair, big mobile phones 1982

Modonna

Crosscurrents: Art, Fashion, Design 1890-1989, Tony and Claes Lewenhaupt, Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.  NY 1989

The New Look: Design in the Fifties, Lesley Jackson, Thames and Hudson, NY 1991

Romantic Art and Crinoline Fashion

After the Neoclassical period that followed the French Revolution, the mood is set with the colors that evoke an emotional understanding of the picturesque Romantic landscape. 

 A View of Fort Putnam, Thomas Cole 1825.

Crinoline fashion alters the feminine form with ballooning sleeves and big skirts. 

Fashion Design

Fashion Design in the form of dolls, engraved fashion plates, sketches, renderings, illustrations, draped forms on mannequins, photography, digital imagery, and film reflect historical styles in art. Social and cultural events, values and knowledge is reflected in art. Art and Fashion exist together and define history in a visual way. Tangible articles of clothing may or may not exist, however fashion is documented. The intangible qualities of fashion are expressed by the illustrator, draper and photographer and interpreted by the viewer. Auxiliary sources (literature, written and recorded verbal accounts) can be used to corroborate information and determine the link between fashion, art and culture in a given time period or place.

THE CORSET

Garments that cover and support the bust, wrap and bind the breasts include variations of leather bands, strips of cloth ( ancient Crete, Rome), the bassiere (Old French braciere: arm protector), the bra and

the corset

This first example, I made from cotton duck and calico. The center row of clasps (the busk) is made of steel. Within narrow vertical pockets steel corsetry (bones) support the garment and make it rigid. The lacing up the back runs through two rows of metal grommets. I used a commercial pattern (such as the Fashion Historian Martha McCain) for this corset designed to emulate nineteenth century fashion.

www. merriam-webster.com www.richardthethread.com

Today the corset exist in an undergarment form in styles of dress as well as structured and boned bodice forms such as evening gowns.

There are corset forms in many cultures. With figures and artifacts, art and article the corset and variation forms are found in ancient history. Fashion historians agree that the padding, lacing and close fit of the cote (cotte) or kirtle worn over looser chemise or underneath the cotehardie during the Middle Ages (500 to 1500) is the beginning of the corset in western fashion.

Support and Seduction A History of Corsets and Bras by Beatrice Fontanel, Harry N Abrams, Inc. New York 1992

The Corset A Cultural History, by Valerie Steele, Yale University Press, London 2001

Corsets and Crinolines by Norah Waugh, Theatre Arts Books, New York 1954, 1970

Genealogy of the corset continued

The corsetry exists today in the form of padded, boned, close fitting or laced bodices. Diane Kruger is wearing a gown by Yves Saint Laurent: blue skirt connected to fitted black bodice.

Queen Elizabeth wore the corset as undergarment during her reign 1558-1603; Elizabethan. Her form is said to be immortalized in the padding and boning of the Effigy Garment (corset). 

During the time of Marie Antoinette (reign 1774-1792), the corset along with court dress is changed by the attitudes and political views that came about during the French Revolution. The front lacing corselet is worn over a chemise by women in the countryside. The stay and paniers worn by the upper class is rejected when Classical style returned and the Empire silhouette became fashionable.

In 1810, the corset returns - this time it is short and the corset evolves through variations and changes. Innovations and technology influence the structure, shape and availability of the undergarment. An hour glass feminine shape is desired and achieved. The female form is confined with flattened or shapely bust. 

A dramatic noted variation occurs with the desire for the S-silhouette near the beginning of the twentieth century. The corset then drops to the waist when Flappers rejected Victorian fashion for flat bust and straight silhouette of the 1920's.

The use of lycra and plastics change the corset. Attitudes about femininity and the role of woman in society influences the use and desirability of the corset. In the 1980's, designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and Pop-icon Madonna bring the undergarment in its form to be a primary garment for the torso.

On Broadway, artist and costume designer Julie Taymor designed the look for the Lion King around the idea of the corset. Both male and female roles wear corsetry. The costumes are integrated with puppetry and the structure and support of corsets is an aide. 

www.obit-mag.com

www.pbs.org

www.reconstructinghistory.com

www.fitnyc.edu

www.brooklynmuseum.org

www.arthist.cla.umn.edu

www.condenast.co.uk

www.metmuseum.org

20,000 Years of Fashion, A History of Costume and Personal Adornment. Francios Boucher. Harry N Abrams, New York 1965, 1987

Classic Fashion, Evolution and Combat

There are classic fashion pieces that remain unchanged for decades. Small details and colors may change, however the classic garment is so because its function and design are not easily improved. Like the human body (unchanged but for size and color) a classic remains constant. Garments established to cover, adorn and protect the body can evolve. Examples of classic garments include military inspired garments such as the Navy pea coat and the trench coat.

Like classic garments, the essentials have roots in utility with symbolic function or essence of original purpose. Denim Jeans are a classic garment icon as well as symbolic dress of American culture. Roots in India, the indigo and cotton fabric for dungarees

The American blue jean is made from denim; cotton twill

 

Tailored Garments

Tailoring garments includes cutting and sewing fabric pieces to fit the body. The concept can be thought to exist in ancient cultures that would have used animal skins, bones and sinew as well as cutting tools. People could survive in a variety of climates as well as be mobile wearing trousers and tunic forms of clothing. This idea has traveled through history, surviving and propelled in the mechanization of sewing during the industrial revolution.

Here are some examples of tailored garments. First is a costume I created by re-drafting a commercial pattern to emulate the Bustle fashion of the 1880's.  A corset as well as additional undergarments were sewn to wear beneath the skirt and jacket.  There are many layers to this costume; quite uncomfortable.  I was able to redraft the commercial pattern via help from images, patterns, and drafting notes for 19th century garments. These patterns were often published in books and magazines such as Godey's Lady Book.

Next is a vintage 1950's dress; a Tony Karen. I found this dress in a thrift store. Too small to fit me, it holds important information about the construction of garments from this era. Vintage as well as reprints of vintage sewing patterns can be acquired to recreate and understand how twentieth century tailored clothes were/are assembled.

The word tailored connotes the idea of a tailor in his shop cutting a suit for a businessman. This is a surviving method of tailored fashion, the military uniform is another. This Royal Naval Uniform 1864, can be seen at the National Maritime Museum. Trousers and jacket are cut to fit a man's body. 

Draped Garments

The known draping of textiles over the body dates back to ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman times. This classical style preserved in stone statuary and images on pottery has influenced fashion through history. In contemporary times and very recently,  we can see this influence in gowns worn on the red carpet in California at the Oscars. The idea of wrapping the body in cloth is not limited to the Mediterranean nor Hollywood. Cultures in East Africa and the Indian subcontinent wrap and drape the body in fabric. 

Here are some examples of drapes garments. First is my own screen printed khanga. Worn in parts of Kenya, Congo and Uganda, the khanga often features political images and commentary as well as religious symbols and written taunts or blessings. The khanga, One might say has a similar function in society as the screen printed cotton T-shirt in the United States.

Next is the dhoti, a rectangular piece of cotton wrapped around the waist. Worn by men in regions of India, the dhoti may feature stripes and edge designs woven into the fabric. Cool and comfortable, this might become an ethnic fashion trend with the recently awarded Best Picture 2009.  

An evening gown, draped by Madame Gres seen in the Metropolitan museum is my third example for the concept of draping. This example is from 1965 and has the look of the Indian sari. The long fabric over an under-structure has the characteristic folds and pleats of the draped gowns for which Madame Gres is known. 

Social Functions of Dress

Belonging to a group or organization is often a display of an emblem, crest or logo over the left chest of a garment. For men this is often a T-shirt, polo-type shirt, sport coat or jacket. 

Organizations in a society have ceremonies that require particular dress. The graduation ceremony requires a robe and sometimes a hat or hood. This graduate studies robe is nearly unchanged in design form those worn in the first universities in Europe, hundreds of years ago.

Protection and decoration, ceremony and distinction for group members can be seen in many garments. Different garments for men and for women will embrace the attributes for the different functions. The neck-tie worn by men in western cultures has specific significants when worn with attractive and contrasting shirt colors. The narrow piece of silk or wool allows for and directs one to look the face to the genitals of the wearer. This paisley pattern was chosen for its specific sexual connotation. 

Social Functions of Dress

We dress primarily to decorate and adorn our bodies to change our appearance, however there are other social functions for dress in cultures. From my closet, I find six examples.

For protection from the elements we cover our bodies with the skin, hair and feathers of other creatures, taking advantage of nature's design. A down filled vest covers the body core. The arms and legs are free to move about. 

The surface decoration of a textile becomes the decoration of the body. The embroidery and mirrors on this thin cotton tunic and pant form Pakistan decorates the neck, chest, wrist and ankles of the wearer.

Articles worn by women often differ from those worn by men. In most cultures, there is women's dress. There are specific terms to describe the garments for the different genders. An example is this Indian sari, made of silk with a cotton petticoat and blouse.

Knits

My Aron sweater is also warm. Knitted of marino wool, it dries quickly and blocks the wind.

This type of sweater is worn by Irish fisherman. Mine looks great with comfortable jeans.

Fabrics Matters

Researching textiles is as simple as looking into your closet. My acquisitions done by texture and touch, are presented in a collage to explain a bit of history.  

First, my "baby llama" swing coat. From south America, llama and alpaca are camel cousins. There soft hair is wonderful for spinning and felting, knitting and weaving.  People of Peru have known this for hundreds of years. Often mixed with other wool for garments, the fabric is very warm. This swing coat was a steel at $5.00 (585.00 for a new one)

TCB

Taking care of business. This fashion source book, in its electronic format, will be used to document my thoughts. Images posted here will communicate a visual dialogue between research and how I see the world. All new to me, I hope to display progress in my ability to handle this web logging technique. Will it be Fast as lightning?