Romantic, Dowdy, Shameless – on Fashion, Taste and Time (2020)

Romantic, Dowdy, Shameless – on Fashion, Taste and Time //  WS 19/20  // Design project starting from 5th Semester
Fashion and time are interlinked. Temporality itself and temporal references are key characteristics of the field. Fashion has always been a highly referential system, juggling and tapping its own history in order to re-contextualize past, alter present and create future in vestimentary expressions. The pleasure of ephemerality lies at its core, constantly setting distinguishing lines between old and new identities, shifting and dissolving them as soon as their marked in time. Fashion has always been occupying the interim between past and future, blurring the lines between affirmation and distinction, between dejá-vu and jamais-vu.
Fashion time seems not to be linear, going from one point towards another, but rather doubling back on itself. It is like walking through a labyrinth, where points can be mutually proximate and distant as paths run close to each other. (Caroline Evans, 2007)
Designers offer a reading of our time and propose a personal vision on future identities. This multitude of proposals holds account of the simultaneousness of potential futures as it holds account of the simultaneousness of differing understandings of our present. Is there the potential for fashion to be an expert on time and temporality? How to use signifiers of time and the diverse historic narratives to inform the future? How to turn retro-formalism into pro-active future development?

In this project the participants looked into fashion’s own sourcing and the selection and management of past knowledge for future creation. The project aimed to experiment materially with historical predecessors and exercise the development of individual proposals, training both forecasting thinking and artistic signature using the fluid temporality in fashion as a chance for developing personal perspectives on familiar sources.

Lecturer: Gast Prof. Franziska Schreiber/ KM Lars Paschke / Ivan Korolev / Elise Gettliffe / Stefanie Biedermann

 

 

//  Frederik Britzlmair  „The garment. The object. The essence“

„How to construct value within the paradigmatic changes of the ornament“
In 1908 Adolf Loos observed in his text: „Ornament and Crime“ an increasingly symbolic understanding of comoodities and the interchangeability (limited in timeand meaning) of those throughout the usage of ornaments. This state of symbolism has been manifistating itself over the last century and is now more than everaffecting fashion and design.Troughout the suit, I want to explore how to construct value within the paradigmatic changes of the ornament.

 

 

//  Camilla Volbert  „I have no vision“

I have artistic skill but no creativity or motivation. I can’t draw/ paint without copying an image/object. What do I do?
I have no vision. I have no talent. I am the poet of sin
I can’t draw/paint. What do I do?
Revolt and Reconstruction
I have no vision, I exist.
What do you do?
I am the picture of myself as I am.
I am my own audience.
Revolt
Reconstruct

Designing is disappointing. Designing is chasing an imagination, an ideal form of your idea, your Eidolon; something you will never be able to reach, something that will always leave you disappointed and frustrated. Designing is devaluing certain aesthetics. Designing means assuming that aesthetics hold an underlying value, something inevitable and  legitimate. Designing is judging your own and other people’s work. Designing is being scared that you don’t have some sort of special talent, a creative gift that gives you your raison d´être, that distinguishes you from everyone else. Designing is hoping to be better than other people. Eidolon is an image or representation of an idea; a representation of an ideal form; an apparition of some actual or imaginary entity, or of some aspect of reality. It is a phantom, a ghost or elusive entity. It‘s your-picture-of-yourself-not-as-you-are-but-as-you-would-like-the-world-to-see-you. What if I can accept this state in between? What if I can reclaim this Eidolon?

 

 

// Justin Carlo Rivera  „Body Movements and the Collective Performance“

Body Movements and the Collective Performance” is a site specific installation and performance, defining a safe space and sharing a moment through fashion, movements and collective spirituality. It presents a utopian future, where people use the power of creativity as a tool for positive self-expression and a solution for finding a common ground.

 

 

//  Rita Rozhkova„Moire Physique“

Moiré Physique is a research-based project that examines materiality and ways of its representation in fashion and illustration throughout different historical periods. It specifically looks at the fabric moiré antique as a case study and aims at creating ways of translating its optics and texture through light and shadow thus creating an archive where the fabric is the subject-matter and a medium to express it. In addition, it explores the qualities of digital moire as potential means of camouflaging in the era of permanent surveillence and endangered privacy.