Art and Fashion - Essay Example

? Art and Fashion al Affiliation Fashion and art borrow from each other. They had been used in the late 20th century to promote and transform looks among the celebrities. Due to the acceptance of the music and artists themselves, the arts were used to design the fashion outfits, and create memorable looks among the celebrities and influential people, before being sold out to the people. The performing artists and their musical culture inspired designers’ work, who used the style and the visual art they portrayed on the stage, to design such taste of collections that became fashionable with the acceptance of many. The punk, rock, hip hop, and emerging pop music and performance brought out strongly, the fusion of art and fashion in the century. Jewelry, make up and body arts as decoration also used artistic and cultural concepts to elaborate on the person's appearance. This paper discusses several creative designs of the influential Vivienne Westwood, associated with punk looks and fashion, and Jean Paul Gaultier, known to challenge cultural and gender boundaries when it came to fashion. Keywords: Culture, Designs, Art, Fashion, Music, Decorative, Jewelry, Metallic Chains, Hip Hop, Punk, Rock, Fabrics, Collection Introduction Art has evolved over the years to influence and spur old and new developments in the different industries. In the last half of the 20th century, the diverse works of art tremendously progressed to change the lifestyle of societies, not to mention the massive contribution of both art and fashion in the political, economic, and social spheres. There has always seemed to be a convergence in fashion and artistic works, which effectively influenced the performance in both industries. In the century’s last decades, it emerged to be difficult for one to distinguish art from fashion works, because they had moved forth to intertwine. They both engage each other in their designs, and have a sense of being familiar with the social contexts and borrowing ideas, and meaning from either the current trends, or the common and varying old cultures, and historical identities. Today, more works and performances in the media industry and marketing departments are the indistinguishable efforts, where art and fashion are being deployed. Although the boom of the fashion industry came between the 60s and 90s, expounding more on the incorporation of each works across the industries, the chronology of using fashion designs in theatre costumes for appealing performances, and acceptance of employing the arts to design garments of different fabrics and texture patterns across the trading lands as of early 90s, demonstrate how early the relational trend began developing. Taking an example of the early 20s chemise dresses, the garments were designed to resemble a plain tubular shape like the painter’s canvas, which beside the underlying textile cotton was well decorated with ornamentation and beading aesthetics (“Fashion and art” n.d.). It was evident with the growth of the arts and the market expansion in the fashion industry that one could hardly mention or produce one of the products or works without including the other. Performing Arts in the Fashion Industry Performing arts, especially music influence was the greatest factor that contributed to clothing designs in the late 20th century. After the 50s, the music industry artists in rock, hip hop and punk music took the center stage of influence to the different genders and young people’s dressing. As a result, what people wore would tell more about their lifestyle, preference in music just by the clothes they wore at the time. Music became part of design in fashion and textile industries as the increasing support for the musical genre and influential artists came up. According to McNeil, tracing back from the former 19th century, “art and aesthetic theory played a major role in the transformation of western European dress and North American colonial dress in the Enlightenment” (2011, p. 22). With the desire for association with the new modern wave of lifestyle, the different music genres were all changing into a fashion trend of their times. Hip hop: The artists and the culture in hip hop genre of music that originated from the Jamaicans to New York and Los Angeles, before spreading quickly to other parts of the western nations had changed the looks on people’s dressing and fashion. Men’s and women’s fashion trends strongly reflected the hip hop stars and cultures, whose influence had a bold fashion sense, considering the dress up of a hip hop artist at the time. The urban fashion scene was influenced by the 80s emergence of hip hop music styles, that became attractive to the people and supporters , especially with the designs of the outfits the performing artists wore (Kangol caps, designer shoes, thick golden chains, parachute pants and several finger rings) (“what did men,”2013). The African American cultures were well expressed by the hip hop music, with most fashion houses in America and Europe focusing to design men’s wear that reflected hip hop cultures, and the people’s preferences at the time. At the same time, since the dressing spurred by the culture seemed to have no limits, the clothing fashion houses designed clothes that would distinguish casual wears from office wear. Jewelry: Big jewelry worn and expressed in the hip hop songs as a culture that expressed power and wealth was well accepted by the people, which steered societies’ embrace of metal chains and lots of jewels as part of their everyday casual wear. Even an average man knew the essence of putting on what they called ‘blings,’ if not the luxurious gold chains, on their neck, other metallic necklaces worth a fortune at the time, the numerous, expensive metallic watches, sometimes worn on both wrists, or an array of rings on fingers was a common trend for most youths or supporters of the music. The likes of Big Daddy Kane heavily worn chains were what most young men emulated. Unlike men, the heavy neck metallic chains were not common with women, instead gold like charm bracelets, pearls and golden and circular earrings were common borrowing from the popular style of Madonna. With clothing, bright colors and baggy pants were associated with hip hop music. According to Kardes et al, the popular fashionable figure, LL Cool J wore brightly colored bomber jackets, sweat suits and the Adidas sneakers with oversized shoelaces (2011). This was when the couture culture for men first emerged strongly, to avoid concentration on women’s fashion designs alone. Influential designers like Alfred Fiandaca, Gaultier, Jean Paul and Vivienne Westwood designed new types of suits, that not only provided a variety when it came to the colors, but put more emphasis on the appearance of the big shoulders as a fashionable trend . The designs of the business suits, also called the power suits were carefully designed clothing that required sophisticated and subtle tailoring, especially when it came to the fabrics cutting and hand stitching (McDermotte, n.d.). The art of embroiling and stitching produced classical and official suits worn by leaders like Margaret Thatcher and other aspiring women leaders who ventured in eminent positions. The designs worked out to provide the men and women with suitable skirts and pant suits to choose from, based on their taste. Of course, most men preferred dark colors, but women would try their taste on the odds. Punk and rock music: The two musical cultures had a common feature of influential abilities on the hairstyles and make up. It caused men to go beyond the normal embraced masculine characters to adopt some of the styles and decorative works, used commonly among the female gender. The unique styles of Michael Jackson, Poison band, and Boy George, whose common dressing from studded leather jackets, studded boots, oversized tops, torn jeans, flair trousers, Afros and spiky hair, piercing, the punk spiky jewelry fashion, and shredded clothing inspired the fashion house designers. Most of the consequent costumes used by the artists in musical shows and production were the designed production of the eminent fashion houses. (Westwood/ Mclaren, 1978) (Schneider, 2013) Vivienne Westwood’s designs can be described as the pivotal influence of fame and fashion associated with punk rock clothing from loose T-shirts with printed messages to leather jackets. According to Schneier, Westwood’s contribution was the design of the anarchy idea implemented in the art of designing clothes and looks that was the focal interest, to create an image of rebellion as an icon through appearance from hair styles to dressings, which when put together, created the look associated with punk artists and cultures (2013).Together with her husband in the fashion careers industry, Vivienne’s designs, especially the collections at the renamed seditionaries and sex shops in the 70s supported the punk rock ethos, and contributed in shaping the look as it can be described today. In most of her Punk designs, she incorporated tartan fabrics, shredded materials and some hard metal elements (safety pins, chains and zippers) (Jovinelly, 2013). As the collection stores became famous with lots of visitors and in the punk scenes, Vivienne designs incorporated the images and messages of heroes on the clothes production, especially the T-shirts as illustrated above. Jean Paul’s designs expressed the visual art by using distinctive ideas to come up with unique styles. One of his most outstanding designed collections was the female underwear styles and high healed shoes worn by appealing celebrities like Madonna. His designs stood out as expressive outfits that went beyond the cultures and diversities of many, to strengthen sexuality, break boundaries, and the set limits in what female and men could wear. According to Gorlinski, “his women’s collections, for instance, often incorporated masculine jackets, hats, and leather, and his menswear frequently featured such feminine elements as skirts, corsets, and gossamery fabric” (2013). The designs were intense works of arts to come up with structured patterns by sorting out the fabrics and mixtures of materials, playing around with colors and diverse cuttings of textiles to create not only exceptional imaginative collections, but enable transformation and blending in the fashion industry. His interpretation of the art strengthened his ambitions in testing the popular notion of gender, and exposing the fashion through fitting and sexually appealing clothing among the society. (Perez, 2013) (Hogarty, 2012) The undergarments and the outer outfits gained acceptance in the western world, as he designed more collections that destabilized the gender stereotype. Jean Paul successfully used his art skills to deliver the fashionable cone bra that was inspired by the historical Italian soldier’s breastplates. In the world of film production, the designer produced profound aesthetic expressions in clothing that would take the viewer in the past, sometimes imaginative world, which gave films a memorable image and the entertaining mood (“From the Hunger,” 2012). Jean was the amplifier of the visual and performing arts, and without any doubt, his costumes designed to fit the scene in kika, fifth element, city of the first children, and the love story (the cook, the thief, his wife, and her lover) heavily contributed to identify the characters’ emotional roles in the film. With the two designers clothing and fashion collection, it would be right to reason that fashion and arts rely on each other, creating blending images and illusions in reality and in film productions such that distinguishing the works of arts from fashion tends to be difficult (Griggs, 2011). Their works in the fashion industry demonstrated integrated ideas in art, and couture to produce more elaborate visual and wearable arts. Decorations: The tattoos as the body arts that dated back in some few centuries changed from the wealth associated identities, to decorative social fashions for the people. Cultural community's interpretation of tattoos gained fame with the emergence of rock music, where the people expressed their culture and also individual values through it. As of the late 20th century, tattoos became a fashionable identity among the males and females, a cultural emblem associated with varying reasons (attractiveness been the major purpose), with the period emerging to be the rebirth or social relocation of the body arts, supported by the tattooists creation of customs and large scale tattoos (Rapp, 2010). The body besides been clothed, was intensively used as a medium for painting, and of expression in fashion through the creativity. Other incorporation of arts and fashion was in beading. Although beadings were much more common in African designs, the western world had learned the art of decorating with beads. Instead, as the late 20th century came in, different beads (glass beads) were patterned to create a style of look, especially on female dresses and necklaces. Women wore either simply designed metallic necklaces or those shiny, glassy beaded necklaces that were generally lighter and appealing to them. The make up arts were a common thing on the stage and in TV and film productions. Basically, the art as the fashion trend practiced by both men and women entailed painting faces in various patterns that well elaborated their looks, by employing the dark or bright, but bold colors to give the profound appearance on crucial areas like the eyes and cheekbones (“80’s makeup,” n.d.). The art used would highlight these body parts to not only create a surface appearance, but transform the wearers regardless of their skin color or the time of the day. In the modern make up, the early 80s and 90s fashion is what has been revisited. Conclusion Fashion and art accept and blend well in widespread ideas. Each has an engagement in allowing the piece of item being worked on to transform its appearance, whether it’s in painting, printing on clothes, creating patterns, sorting colors or using decorative and make ups. Clearly, fashion has extended to use and promote art in the different collections. The depiction of the models and on the runway and the exhibitions were a clear corporation of the arts and fashion. They compliment each other, and that’s how they ended up influencing the consumer behavior, as the fashion trend in the cultures of the late 20th century. Reference List 80s Makeup. (n.d.). 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Seditionaries 'Anarchist Punk Skull' black label t shirt. [Photograph] Retrieved from http://punkflyer.com/seditionariesclothing.html What did Men wear in the 80s? (2013). Retrieved from http://mens-fashion.lovetoknow.com/What_Did_Men_Wear_in_the_80s Read More