Body of MA Dissertation 1
Please note, this piece is © 2006 Kimberly Hall. Do not copy, steal, or reproduce without permission. If you're interested in my work, please drop me a line. Thanks. You can start here
Dad in Paris print I developed for my MA collection All Stories Have Endings at Central Saint Martins, 2006.
All Stories Have Endings
Kimberly Ellen Hall
May 6, 2006
I have designed a collection of garments that change over time. There is a strong narrative element to the collection that invites the participation of the wearer to create meaning and allows communication. There are four main concepts that feed the process that I used to develop my ideas. They are that clothes can communicate on several levels, that time and change are the essence of fashion, that time and change are essentially narrative, and that the basis for a strong collection is the relationship between the wearer, object, and maker.
COMMUNICATION
Clothing can be considered a sign much in the same way language can be deconstructed into signs. In explaining the structuralist Saussure’s principle of linguistic value, Lupton and Miller write, “The meaning of a sign does not reside within the sign itself, but is generated from the surrounding system.” (Lupton & Miller: 2000: p.53) This idea of indivisibility between signs and their environment is essential to the notion of communication.
Clothing has been used as a sign throughout history. In 17th century England, labouring men wore different coloured ribbons on their caps to publicise their job specialities at hiring fairs. (Breward: 1994: pp.98-99) In U.S. gay culture, different coloured handkerchiefs have been used to denote sexual preference and facilitate sexual encounters by broadcasting this information.
Using clothing or accessories to communicate this kind of information to other members of society is easy to recognise, but there are other ways that clothing can function as a tool of communication among members of a social group. Clothing is often used as a value model to produce cultural values in a visual display that runs deeper than words or propaganda could. For example in Soviet society before the 1960s it was considered unpatriotic to indulge in corrupt capitalistic practices of fashion, the communist ideals being reflected in this disinterest in fashion (Horn & Gurel: 1981: p.341). On the other hand, in the U.S. during the 1970s the growing men’s interest in fashion reflects the counter culture movement and sexual revolution of the time.
Clothing can carry meaning on a personal level as well as a cultural one. The authors of Fashion and Textile Overview refer to J. Desmond’s idea that, “Certain products can be perceived by the consumer as having significant properties which are transferred to the consumer on purchase and use.” (Gale & Kaur: 2004: p.128) This was in reference to designer brands and fashion “must-haves” and the way the products work on a deeper level than just fulfilling a functional need. In the buying and using of these products the consumer doesn’t just get a physical tool, but also a marker or symbol of meaning or feeling.
Robin Givhan wrote about how the fashion industry is taking advantage of this phenomenon in the Washington Post, “Slowly and quietly, fashion has shifted its attention from selling products toward hawking pure image. Instead of selling a shirt or a logo-covered handbag merchants are selling a mood, an atmosphere, a fantasy. They sell sexuality and rebellion, hipness and cool.” She also discusses how marketing and branding have risen steadily in the industry because there is no longer much difference in the marketplace. The only differentiating factor is the image that is being sold. (Givhan: 2004: [Internet] p.D01)
No matter how much industry relies on marketing strategies to differentiate their products, there are actual physical properties of clothing that enable this personal communication to occur. In Material Memories, Susan Stewart recognizes the power of touch,
Theories like body mapping in the Alexander Technique of massage builds from the idea that our inner feelings are indivisible from our physical self. It’s based on the notion that improving how you feel physically (through understanding how your body fits together) will improve how you feel inside. (Gehman)
There is also a visual aspect of dressing that can communicate individual messages. Clothes have an “undercoding” that we read when we view a clothed person. It communicates subtle notions and hard-to-specify complexities. This fills a social need different from the larger cultural ones. (Davis: 1992: pp.10-11) It communicates difficult and subtle concepts that other means of straightforward communication cannot explain. Ambiguity and ambivalence are a part of our human make-up and we relate them through alternative means like clothing and dressing.
One woman who filled out my questionnaire about dress habits (see Appendix 2), commented on the difficulties of this aspect of dressing,
Art historians, linguists, scientists, as well as design critics have all worked to define how this kind of communication operates. In investigating design language, Lupton and Miller write about Freud’s description of our dreams and how they are organised or ‘written’ according to the principle of the rebus, which is a form of expression that employs both words and pictures. (Lupton & Miller: 2000: p.46) This form of language invites interpretation and subtlety, works both visually and textually, and is an excellent method for containing those ambivalences and ambiguities.
The BBC presented a show in August of 2005 examining the way clothes communicate called A Week of Dressing Dangerously where eight women submitted their wardrobes to fashion editor Angela Buttolph. Buttolph questioned each woman about her dreams and fears and tailored the clothes and costumes for them to wear that would put them in touch with the particular emotions they were trying to work on. One woman who was ambivalent about the long term love relationship she was in had to wear a wedding dress for a day in order to consider more deeply what her feelings were (Buttolph: 2005).
Carmela, another questionnaire respondent says it best, “[Dressing] is like music in the sense that it can enhance our emotions or sway them. Essentially, I think that like any art, dress gives us a language to express ourselves and communicate with others that our verbal vocabulary cannot match.”
FASHION=TIME+CHANGE
The ambiguous vocabulary of signs in dress is not a static message. Strictly defined the word ‘fashion’ involves transformation, making, and change. “Clearly, any definition of ‘fashion’ seeking to grasp what distinguishes it from style, custom, conventional or acceptable dress or prevalent modes must place its emphasis on the element of ‘change’ we often associate with the term.” (Davis: 1992: p.14) What first comes to mind when considering change and fashion is the regular change of styles that comes around seasonally. But this simple change over time is what creates that vocabulary for the wearer to use. Current fashion is a bridge between the past and the future. Styles are reworked from the past and have influence on the runway and in the press as harbingers of the future—what will be worn next. (Davis: 1992: pp.129-131)
Critics have attempted to pin down a system or cycle of how fashions change on a timeline, but Roland Barthes view seems most appropriate and meaningful in regards to how wearers use fashion to relate to others and communicate about themselves:
The long term or historical aspect of fashion creates the larger cultural narrative. It is this short term irregularity that creates the building blocks that can develop into a personal narrative.
The power of objects changing over time has been exploited by a number of designers and artists. The artist Thomas Hirschhorn uses time in his piece ‘Alter to Raymond Carver’ which was set out on Twentieth Street in New York: “These alters will eventually disappear. The average duration is two weeks. The disappearance of the altar is as important as its presence. The memory of what is important doesn’t need a monument.” (Hirschhorn) Parc de la Villette in Paris with it’s unusual grid of folies is an architectural example of a place that changes over time. It’s meant to never be finished and in a state of constant change. (Potteiger & Purinton: 1998: pp.203-4)
Figure 1: Dress made from woven audio tape by Alyce Santoro.
Alyce Santoro is a textile artist whose work has a sound element, and hence incorporates time into textiles. She weaves audio tape and makes the fabric into dresses and accessories (figure 2). When a tape head is run over the fabric sounds are emitted as the magnetic quality of the tape is retained in the weaving process. In this case the object itself doesn’t change its appearance over time, but the playing of the textile only exists in time. (Zappia: 2005)
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Dad in Paris print I developed for my MA collection All Stories Have Endings at Central Saint Martins, 2006.
All Stories Have Endings
Kimberly Ellen Hall
May 6, 2006
I have designed a collection of garments that change over time. There is a strong narrative element to the collection that invites the participation of the wearer to create meaning and allows communication. There are four main concepts that feed the process that I used to develop my ideas. They are that clothes can communicate on several levels, that time and change are the essence of fashion, that time and change are essentially narrative, and that the basis for a strong collection is the relationship between the wearer, object, and maker.
COMMUNICATION
Clothing can be considered a sign much in the same way language can be deconstructed into signs. In explaining the structuralist Saussure’s principle of linguistic value, Lupton and Miller write, “The meaning of a sign does not reside within the sign itself, but is generated from the surrounding system.” (Lupton & Miller: 2000: p.53) This idea of indivisibility between signs and their environment is essential to the notion of communication.
Clothing has been used as a sign throughout history. In 17th century England, labouring men wore different coloured ribbons on their caps to publicise their job specialities at hiring fairs. (Breward: 1994: pp.98-99) In U.S. gay culture, different coloured handkerchiefs have been used to denote sexual preference and facilitate sexual encounters by broadcasting this information.
Using clothing or accessories to communicate this kind of information to other members of society is easy to recognise, but there are other ways that clothing can function as a tool of communication among members of a social group. Clothing is often used as a value model to produce cultural values in a visual display that runs deeper than words or propaganda could. For example in Soviet society before the 1960s it was considered unpatriotic to indulge in corrupt capitalistic practices of fashion, the communist ideals being reflected in this disinterest in fashion (Horn & Gurel: 1981: p.341). On the other hand, in the U.S. during the 1970s the growing men’s interest in fashion reflects the counter culture movement and sexual revolution of the time.
Clothing can carry meaning on a personal level as well as a cultural one. The authors of Fashion and Textile Overview refer to J. Desmond’s idea that, “Certain products can be perceived by the consumer as having significant properties which are transferred to the consumer on purchase and use.” (Gale & Kaur: 2004: p.128) This was in reference to designer brands and fashion “must-haves” and the way the products work on a deeper level than just fulfilling a functional need. In the buying and using of these products the consumer doesn’t just get a physical tool, but also a marker or symbol of meaning or feeling.
Robin Givhan wrote about how the fashion industry is taking advantage of this phenomenon in the Washington Post, “Slowly and quietly, fashion has shifted its attention from selling products toward hawking pure image. Instead of selling a shirt or a logo-covered handbag merchants are selling a mood, an atmosphere, a fantasy. They sell sexuality and rebellion, hipness and cool.” She also discusses how marketing and branding have risen steadily in the industry because there is no longer much difference in the marketplace. The only differentiating factor is the image that is being sold. (Givhan: 2004: [Internet] p.D01)
No matter how much industry relies on marketing strategies to differentiate their products, there are actual physical properties of clothing that enable this personal communication to occur. In Material Memories, Susan Stewart recognizes the power of touch,
Of all the senses, touch is most linked to emotion and feeling. To be ‘touched’ or ‘moved’ by words or things implies the process of identification and separation by which we apprehend the world aesthetically. We do not see our eyes when we see or hear our ears when we hear, but tactile perception involves perception of our own bodily state as we take in what is outside of that state. (Stewart: 1999: p.31)
Theories like body mapping in the Alexander Technique of massage builds from the idea that our inner feelings are indivisible from our physical self. It’s based on the notion that improving how you feel physically (through understanding how your body fits together) will improve how you feel inside. (Gehman)
There is also a visual aspect of dressing that can communicate individual messages. Clothes have an “undercoding” that we read when we view a clothed person. It communicates subtle notions and hard-to-specify complexities. This fills a social need different from the larger cultural ones. (Davis: 1992: pp.10-11) It communicates difficult and subtle concepts that other means of straightforward communication cannot explain. Ambiguity and ambivalence are a part of our human make-up and we relate them through alternative means like clothing and dressing.
One woman who filled out my questionnaire about dress habits (see Appendix 2), commented on the difficulties of this aspect of dressing,
As a woman, I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about how I look. Not choosing what I wear but wondering if I look fat or how people see me or wondering if they like what I have on. It’s exhausting. One of the things I love doing is hiking alone in the woods, where I wear the same crappy clothes everyday and I don’t think once about how I look or what people think of me and it is such an incredible relief. (Sarah)
Art historians, linguists, scientists, as well as design critics have all worked to define how this kind of communication operates. In investigating design language, Lupton and Miller write about Freud’s description of our dreams and how they are organised or ‘written’ according to the principle of the rebus, which is a form of expression that employs both words and pictures. (Lupton & Miller: 2000: p.46) This form of language invites interpretation and subtlety, works both visually and textually, and is an excellent method for containing those ambivalences and ambiguities.
The BBC presented a show in August of 2005 examining the way clothes communicate called A Week of Dressing Dangerously where eight women submitted their wardrobes to fashion editor Angela Buttolph. Buttolph questioned each woman about her dreams and fears and tailored the clothes and costumes for them to wear that would put them in touch with the particular emotions they were trying to work on. One woman who was ambivalent about the long term love relationship she was in had to wear a wedding dress for a day in order to consider more deeply what her feelings were (Buttolph: 2005).
Carmela, another questionnaire respondent says it best, “[Dressing] is like music in the sense that it can enhance our emotions or sway them. Essentially, I think that like any art, dress gives us a language to express ourselves and communicate with others that our verbal vocabulary cannot match.”
FASHION=TIME+CHANGE
The ambiguous vocabulary of signs in dress is not a static message. Strictly defined the word ‘fashion’ involves transformation, making, and change. “Clearly, any definition of ‘fashion’ seeking to grasp what distinguishes it from style, custom, conventional or acceptable dress or prevalent modes must place its emphasis on the element of ‘change’ we often associate with the term.” (Davis: 1992: p.14) What first comes to mind when considering change and fashion is the regular change of styles that comes around seasonally. But this simple change over time is what creates that vocabulary for the wearer to use. Current fashion is a bridge between the past and the future. Styles are reworked from the past and have influence on the runway and in the press as harbingers of the future—what will be worn next. (Davis: 1992: pp.129-131)
Critics have attempted to pin down a system or cycle of how fashions change on a timeline, but Roland Barthes view seems most appropriate and meaningful in regards to how wearers use fashion to relate to others and communicate about themselves:
Changes in fashion appear regular if we consider a relatively long historical duration and irregular if we reduce this duration to the few years preceding the time at which we place ourselves; regular from afar and anarchic up close, fashion thus seems to possess two durations: one strictly historical, the other that could be called ‘memorable’ because it puts into play the memory a woman can have of the fashions which have preceded the fashion of a given year. (Barthes: 1990: p.295)
The long term or historical aspect of fashion creates the larger cultural narrative. It is this short term irregularity that creates the building blocks that can develop into a personal narrative.
The power of objects changing over time has been exploited by a number of designers and artists. The artist Thomas Hirschhorn uses time in his piece ‘Alter to Raymond Carver’ which was set out on Twentieth Street in New York: “These alters will eventually disappear. The average duration is two weeks. The disappearance of the altar is as important as its presence. The memory of what is important doesn’t need a monument.” (Hirschhorn) Parc de la Villette in Paris with it’s unusual grid of folies is an architectural example of a place that changes over time. It’s meant to never be finished and in a state of constant change. (Potteiger & Purinton: 1998: pp.203-4)
Figure 1: Dress made from woven audio tape by Alyce Santoro.
Alyce Santoro is a textile artist whose work has a sound element, and hence incorporates time into textiles. She weaves audio tape and makes the fabric into dresses and accessories (figure 2). When a tape head is run over the fabric sounds are emitted as the magnetic quality of the tape is retained in the weaving process. In this case the object itself doesn’t change its appearance over time, but the playing of the textile only exists in time. (Zappia: 2005)
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