A deconstructive system: fashion
Gizem Kiziltunali.
Abstract
Deconstruction in fashion is described as the making of incomplete and destroyed
pieces of clothing. This process results in an endless creation with flavors from
past, present and future. Besides being a stance of anti-fashion, deconstruction is a
way of theorizing fashion as a system. In this paper, I argue that fashion, as a
whole, is deconstruction. Firstly, fashion deconstructs itself so as to reconstruct and
become fashionable again. Secondly, just like deconstruction, fashion does not
create but reinterprets designs from past, present and future possibilities and lastly,
this interpretive innovation process remains unfinished- forever recycling itself.
This paper has two parts. First, it describes the contextual field of deconstructive
fashion in theoretical terms. Deconstruction involves distorting conventional
meaning patterns. Coined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida,
deconstruction is described as a term in his book Of Grammatology in 1967.
Fashion was first named as deconstruction by the ‘fashion writers following the
Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in 1988 at MOMA’ (Gill, 1998). Second,
the paper looks at the practice of deconstructive fashion through the work of a key
designer of this method Hussein Chalayan. Chalayan made his appearance in the
fashion scene in 1990s and marked this decade with his edgy and deconstructive
designs. Chalayan’s deconstructive memory dress from his collection Echoform
(A/W 99-00) shows the deconstructive nature of fashion. Fashion’s deconstructive
operational mechanism is exemplified in Chalayan’s denim made memory dress.
Baring the suggestion of past time, the design of this garment repeats itself in its
similar replications with slight differences, marking out the elements of fashion’s
own system: an annihilation of itself so as to be recreated, repetition with touches
of minor differences (innovation), a constantly recycled nostalgia both in materials
and designs and endless meaning and interpretation possibilities.
Keywords: deconstruction, Derrida, fashion system, repetition, annihilation,
Hussein Chalayan, reinterpretation, recycling, bricolage, decomposition.
*****
1. Introduction
Deconstruction in fashion appeared as a technique in 1980s. Garments were
officially termed as deconstructive in 1988 by the fashion critics following the
Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition at MOMA. (Koda 1993 in Gill 1998, 26)
Deconstruction in fashion, as it is already implied in the word ‘deconstruction’
itself, involves the making of ‘incomplete’, destroyed, ‘unfinished’, recycled and
grungy clothes (Gill, 25). Deconstruction in fashion made its breakthrough by the
innovative designs of Yohji Yamamoto, Martin Margiela, Rei Kawakubo designing
under Comme des Garçons, Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester and Issey
Miyake. Instead of being considered purely as a technique, it should be
acknowledged that deconstruction has an important theoretical dimension. It is a
scholarly way of ‘exposing (the) operations …. The structure and discourses’ of the
fashion system, its mechanism, language and communicative aspects (Wilson
1985, 250). In this paper, I argue that fashion is deconstructive in its nature. This is
because it offers annihilation, recreation, fluctuation and resistance to stability in
its operational process.
After the influx of the deconstructive designers in the 1980s, 1990s witnessed the
emergence of another designer with a similar deconstructive approach to fashion;
British/Turkish-Cypriot designer Hussein Chalayan’s first influence on this period
was his deconstructive graduation collection, Tangent Flows (1993), in which
garments were buried under the earth, later to be dug up. Chalayan displayed the
effects of nature that wholly changed the garments (the chemical and physical
effects). In this paper, I focus on Chalayan’s Memory dress from his Echoform
(A/W 99-00) collection, in order to depict elements of fashion’s deconstructive
nature.
The Memory dress by Hussein Chalayan shows how fashion works both in
practical and theoretical terms, in contast to the perception of fashion as mainly a
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practice-based realm. Fashion is deconstruction, and its operational mechanism is
similar to the philosophical theory of Derridean deconstruction. Fashion cannot be
confined to a single definition, for it covers the entirety of postmodernity and
Derridean deconstruction. It goes against homogeneity, breaks down impositions of
stability through its change factor and puts instability at its core by means of
generating an endless signification process where meaning becomes fluctuant,
ambiguous and unstable. All these factors point to fashion’s strong affiliation with
theory and philosophy, which are the most effective tools for a thorough
understanding of the operational mechanism of the fashion system. Theory’s
‘serious relation of fashion’ will continue to challenge thoughts and perspectives
that confine fashion to a realm of mere practice grounding (Gill, 29).
In his 2002 lecture at Wexner Center taking place in Ohio, Chalayan stated that,
Nothing is shiny and new; everything has a history … A ‘60s dress gets
cut away to reveal its past as a medieval dress…. The design is a wish or a
curse that casts the garment and its wearer into a time warp through
historical periods, like a sudden tumble through the sediment of an
archeological dig (in Evans 2003, 57).
This statement accounts for the intertextual nature of fashion, its annihilative and
creative operational mechanism, emphasis on instability and its production of
meanings. This paper examines two aspects of the deconstruction in fashion. The
first is process, which accounts for the operational mechanism of fashion through
demonstrating it by Chalayan’s Memory dress. The second is history, which refers
to the contextual field of deconstruction, how it appeared as a concept in
philosophy, and its brief history in the fashion scene.
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2. Process
In his Echoform Collection, ‘Chalayan preoccupied with themes of memory and
echo, produced a wide range of near-identical denim dresses that he imagined as
imbued with the memory of other garments’ (Evans, 57).The Memory dress (see
fig. 1)was presented in repetitions in the photographs taken by Courtesy Marcus
Tomlinson. In order to represent the garment’s deconstructive characteristic, each
new capture presenting the dress showed missing parts. These parts included
stitches on its lapel and design. It also had cut off pockets and lines. There were
missing parts of the design’s features in general. (57) Each time the garment was
presented, another part had been removed, and a part that was missing in the
previous version had been restored.
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(Figure 1) Hussein Chalayan, Echoform, Memory dress, Autumn-Winter 1999-2000
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It is the gradual shift in the details of the Memory dress that represents the course
of fashion flowing. Fashion means change, it connotes mobility. This is why
expressions such as ‘out of fashion’, ‘so last year’ have been created, referring to
the mechanism of fashion. These features of fashion are reflected in the different
versions of The Memory dress in the photographs.
The Memory dress symbolically depicts the fashion system’s engagement with
concepts such as intertextuality, nostalgia, and a bricolage of combining the past
and present. What is lacking in one picture is completed in the next and what is
completed will be lacking in the following versions, only to be brought back again
later. Bricolage and intertextuality are key elements that maintain fashion’s
existence. Fashion is inclined to be influenced by the events happening in different
contexts, eras and developments in the world. (Blumer 2007, 239) These things
evoke past (history) and present (zeitgeist). Therefore, the influence of these
factors on fashion results in a bricolage of details, an intertextuality that signify
different contexts. Derrida (1981) states that ‘whether in the order of spoken or
written discourse, no element can function as a sign without referring to another
element which itself is not simply present’ (26). The relation amongst the signs
taking place in spoken/written language also takes place in fashion due to the
recycling of elements from various contexts and times.
Bricolage and intertextuality are the sources of change within repetition. The
design details add touches of variation into the fashion system, and create new
trends and styles. When we think about clothes, we think of the endlessly repeated
items of skirts, trousers, blouses and shirts. What makes these everyday items
different, and what contributes to change in fashion are the colors, design patterns,
etc. applied to the garments in an intertextually recycled format (‘60s return,
vintage and retro trends in fashion, etc.). However, this situation proves to be
paradoxical, for it shows ‘fashion’s impossibility against its own rhetoric’, and this
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is because being ‘innovative while at the same time showing … dependence on the
history … ensures that (fashion) can never be innovative’ (Gill, 31). This
contradiction creates a cynical perspective on fashion’s premise of change.
Hence, despite the change factor, fashion does not change through pure creation,
rather creation through repetition of certain details and factors is what contributes
to fashion’s constant movement. This is because fashion borrows meanings but
does not render them permanent. Rather, meanings ‘are put in a repository so they
can come back’ (Black 2009, 507). These meanings are borrowed from past,
present and future. Claire Wilcox (2011), curator in the V&A's department of
textiles and dress, refers to this situation as a ‘slide forwards and backwards in
time’ (158). In this sense, fashion makes future possible in the present, because
through the present signs of the garments, there is always a possibility of seeing
into the future of new fashion trends. In other words, the present details hint at the
future ones. The appearing-disappearing details (signs) on the Memory dress
provide the symbolic possibilities of foreseeing and predicting the form of the next
version. This situation accounts for fashion’s operational mechanism, which works
as ‘an orderly preparation for the immediate future’ and as a way of ‘adjusting to
what is on the horizon (Blumer, 245).
The deconstruction, reconstruction practices taking place on the Memory dress
result in an infinite cycle, constituted by signification, meaning and interpretive
elements. During the deconstructing and reconstructing process, the garment is
repeatedly interpreted and reinterpreted, because the signs and details continually
change. As a result of this process, a garment can be imbued with many potential
meanings. Prudence Black, PhD from the Department of Gender and Cultural
Studies at the University of Sydney, describes this process as follows, ‘in terms of
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semiotic systems, the detail is a vector as it points elsewhere from a given position.
That elsewhere … is another system… a linking device’ which, as a consequence,
leads to other significations, meanings and interpretations (508).These meanings
are inevitably condemned to annihilation by some other detail, leading to a new
meaning pattern and interpretive detail that are continuously emerging in the
system of fashion. At this point, it could be said that fashion is ‘a cultural
phenomenon’ that rejects singularity in the realm of meaning, in favor of fluidity,
fluctuation and transition (Bernice 1981, 28).
Fashion resists any certainty regarding its description because it is difficult to
understand ‘the elusive double bluffs’ and ‘the infinite regress in the mirror of the
meanings of fashion’ ; any attempt therefore, to confine fashion to a limitation of
meaning would ‘leave us unsatisfied’ (Wilson 2003,10). This is because the
concept of fashion is a postmodern phenomenon that favors heterogeneity and
multiplicity, both in its definition and practices. Fredric Jameson (1990), literary
critic and political theorist, sees this stance of fashion as a resistance against grand
narratives and ‘overarching theories’, where ‘textual play’ and heterogeneity of
‘practices’ and ‘discourses’ come into play as substitutions (20).
3. History
Deconstruction is a technique developed by Jacques Derrida in his book Of
Grammatology written in 1967. In French, the term Deconstruction has two
meanings. The first meaning pattern relates to a grammatical context, and the
second definition has mechanical connotations. In its grammatical meaning, it
refers to the disordering of the configuration of words while in a mechanical
context, it connotes the destructuring and relocation of a machine (Mcquillan
2000, 1).
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There exists a close relationship between Heidegger’s concept of ‘destruction’ and
Derridean deconstruction.
In his book Being and Time (Zeit und Sein1996),
Heidegger destructs the Western perspective on ontology through the generation of
a new ‘interpretation of the history of Western philosophy’ (Wild 1963, 665).
Influenced by Heidegger’s rejection of Western philosophy on the issue of
existence, Derrida grounds his standpoint of Western metaphysics on Heidegger’s
vision. Derrida sees Western tradition as an all-encompassing realm of truth which,
like Heidegger’s perspective of Western ontology, fails to take into account
‘Being’. Adapting Heidegger’s views to his own, Derrida defies Western traditions
on meaning. Hence, while Heidegger destroys Western ontology, Derrida
deconstructs texts based on grand narratives generated by Western thought.
According to Derridean perspective, like the concept of fashion itself, the term
‘deconstruction’ resists any solid definition for itself for its main ideal is to uproot
any idea, concept, narrative or foundation that is confined to limits. It could be said
that the term is nihilistic in its connotations because it has no laws, no specific
method and no major instruction to follow. It is opposed to any solid explanation,
pattern, order or state of fixed permanence.
In contrast to Derrida’s reluctance to provide a specific definition of
deconstruction, some writers have attempted to do so. Amy Spindler (1993), a
former fashion critic of the New York Times, gives the following explanation:
ORIGINS: the term first described a movement in literary analysis in the
mid-20th century, founded by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. It
was a backlash against staid literary analysis, arguing that no work can
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have a fixed meaning, based on the complexity of language and usage. (in
Gill, 35)
Geoffrey Bennington (1994), professor of French and comparative literature, on
the other hand, interprets deconstruction neither as a ‘theory’ nor as a ‘practice’
(181-82).
Deconstruction was first used as a concept in literary textual analysis. Later, it was
applied to other disciplines such as architecture (Salingaros 2008), Cinema
(Spindler 2008), science (Norris 1997), art and media (Brunette & Wills 1994),
Graphic design (Samara 2003). It was first used in the context of fashion by the
Japanese designers of 1980s.
Deconstruction in fashion is a technique developed by the avant-garde Japanese
designers of the 1980s, most notably, Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo for
Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake, and Junya Watanabe. These designers
defied conventions of the glamorous side of fashion and established their own
standards as Yuniya Kawamura (2004), assistant professor of sociology,
describes:
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. Their concepts were undoubtedly different, original, and new
compared with the rules of fashion set by orthodox legitimate designers.’
(202)
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Deconstructive fashion has a close relationship with subcultural groups such as
punks. This closeness is due to the subcultural groups’ boldness in challenging
established norms, taboos and value systems. By means of reshaping, interpreting
and distorting conventional use, Deconstructive Fashion designers create their own
uses, which have the power to shock viewers, rendering them ‘unable to read the
meanings of (the) unfamiliar style’ (Arnold 2001, 25).This is because similar to
subcultural styles that challenge taboos and norms, Deconstructive fashion
conflicts with the visual traditions of the conventional fashion system. Moreover, it
introduces new approaches that challenge and defy conventional norms in fashion.
It is important to note, however, that the 1980s was not the first time the
conventional
fashion scenario had been challenged. An example of an earlier
experiment was the Skeleton dress (see fig. 2), from Schiaparelli’s 1938 circus
collection, in
collaboration with Salvador Dali. Despite having the 1930s
silhouette, the details of the dress were composed of elements that defied
conventions of the mainstream techniques applied on garments at the time. The
designer used trapunto-quilting techniques to create the look of the human skeleton
and bones. In terms of its unusual look, the Skeleton dress generated unfamiliar
connotations to the early 20th century audience. The dress was also experimental in
its use of zipper positioned outside of the dress. Influenced by the Surrealist
movement, Schiaparelli created many other designs, such as the Tears Dress (See
fig. 3) worn with a pair of Evening Gloves (see fig. 4), and the Shoe Hat (see
fig.5). These garments were all made in collaboration with Salvador Dali and
deviated from the mainstream fashion with their surrealist and avant-garde looks
and techniques.
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(Figure 2)Elsa Schiaparelli, Circus, Skeleton Dress, 1938
(Figure 3) Elsa
Schiaparelli,
Circus,
Tears
Dress,
Summer, 1938
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(Figure 4) Elsa Schiaparelli,Circus, Pair of Evening Gloves,Summer, 1938
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(Figure 5) Elsa Schiaparelli, Fall/Winter 1937-1938 collection, Shoe Hat
4. Conclusion
It can be clearly seen that deconstruction in fashion portrays the fact that the realm
of fashion is not merely practice based, and that deconstructive fashion contains
many of the theoretical aspects of literary deconstruction. Additionally,
deconstruction in fashion sheds light on the practical side of fashion, how it
functions, what makes it function and how it maintains itself. Deconstructive
garments represent the zone in which the two key dimensions that constitute
fashion as a system meet: theory and practice. Despite its appearance in the 1980s
as a technique, it is possible to understand deconstruction as an intellectual
movement which is able to form the basis of a contemporary theory of fashion in a
more postmodern sense that invites theory and practice.
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Gizem Kiziltunali is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University,
Manchester school of art. While interested in visual analysis on fashion design and
imagery, currently she is carrying out a research on the operational mechanism of
fashion.
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