The Japanese Avant Garde Fashion

Though fashion is considered to be very relevant to women, there are also many women who are against fashion, finding it to be “oppressive” and damaging to their gender (Hollows 139).

The fashion industry is rapidly growing and constantly generating new fashion trends almost weekly. Fashion for some may seem ridiculous and unnecessary; but fashion is not just a meaningless usage of article of clothing or farcical materials sew together for coverage. There is more to fashion than meets the eyes, fashion is precious and significant. It is a reflection of self-image, it speak the ream about who we are and how we review ourselves. Not only is fashion the reflection of self-image but also the reflection of our history as Coco Channel have said, “Fashion is not something that exist in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.” Fashion

International fashion was popular in the 1980s. “Japanese designers dominated the fashion world in 1983. Featuring the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Kansai, Rei Kawakubo and Mitsuhiro Matsuda — unknowns in the western world up to that point — the formless, dark elegant styles influenced designers around the globe” (www.retrowaste.com). Also people went back in time to the Renaissance. Later the year, fashion travelled into the future with space like looks. Other than going international, shoulders were customized frequently. In 1985, people wore wider shoulders as a famous designer of this idea was Calvin Klein. Also, in 1989, jackets featured smaller shoulder pads and even animal prints. A popular designer of this trend was Gianfranco Ferre. Other than shoulders jackets all together were also popular. Women in 1984 wore an outfit called, menswear, which consisted of a sports jacket and trousers. Also in 1986, wool coats were the trend of the season which brought a cool and fresh look. In conclusion, fashion was enormous as it is still evolving

86) Coined as a term by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, Deconstruction reached the peak of its acclaim in the early 1970’s. The movement rebelled against Structuralism which reads a given text as a single cohesive whole, and leaves no room for flexibility. In Structuralism, there are right and wrong answers, in Deconstruction however, there is never a perception of right or wrong, it is simply a constructed or deconstructed view of the text. Deconstruction strives to take the perceived meaning of the text, and distort that meaning until it becomes the complete opposite of the first meaning. Parker states in his book, How to Interpret Literature, “Deconstructionist interpretation frequently follows what has come to be called a double reading.” (pg. 89) The first reading and critic usually follows a lens which a Structuralist would argue is the ‘true’ meaning of the text. The second reading takes this binary, stable interpretation and begins to argue against it, destabilizing the proposed meaning. “It is not hard to do a double reading, because we can always find something that troubles or breaks up the system. But it is harder to do a double reading well, because to do it well we have to find something that breaks up the system in interesting ways.” (Parker, pg. 89) The object of a Deconstructionist approach is to convince the reader that they are right, and then convince the reader that there is an even better interpretation. Looking at multiple meanings provide the reader with perceptions and ideas that are often not accepted in society, and therefore gives voices to minority groups such as Feminism, Queer, and Youth Theories, fairly recent lenses in the literary

this was deeply thought about in terms of modern style of fashion. The fashion styles from the nineteenth period are following one another in the book and the text is written precisely. The particular part of the individual styles are explained in the book and have viewpoints, on the manners and presentation that people had when wearing the garments, this indicated unquestionable questions within the style in the clothing that was worn.

Deconstruction or poststructuralist is a type of literary criticism that took its roots in the 1960’s. Jacques Derrida gave birth to the theory when he set out to demonstrate that all language is associated with mental images that we produce due to previous experiences. This system of literary scrutiny interprets meaning as effects from variances between words rather than their indication to the things they represent. This philosophical theory strives to reveal subconscious inconsistencies in a composition by examining deeply beneath its apparent meaning. Derrida’s theory teaches that texts are unstable and queries about the beliefs of words to embody reality.

Men usually wear Western-style suits for work and out on the street. They also wear Western clothes when going out or relaxing at home

When I visited the De Young Museum, I found a lot of postmodernism architectures and sculptures. After took off the bus, the first sight is the full picture of De Young Museum and the twist tower. Through the analysis of the structure of twist tower, the designer cut off the entity, to add, to reshape and to deform the modeling. Then divided them into modules stratified, partially distorted, and eventually became a postmodern architecture. This is the so-called deconstruction. The main idea is to use nonlinear or non Euclidean geometry to form the deformation of the relationship between architectural elements.

During our life we construct many different identities of who we want to portray ourselves as to the rest of society; fashion plays a vital role in generating who we are. With the ideas from Storry and Childs they state that “the way that we dress can either serve to confirm or to subvert various facets of our identities, such as our gender,

To discover the traditional beauty of a Japan which is disappearing; to emphasise the importance of industrially produced clothes by using synthetic materials; to demonstrate the secret beauty of Japanese women. I am striving to create clothes which give paramount importance to the movement of the body. Rather than fashion that one puts on, I want to produce fashion that one takes off...for that is where the beauty of man’s primitive spirit is found. (Tokyo Vogue p44)

Portrait of an Arhat (Rakan) was created in Edo period of the Japanese art culture. This period started in 1615-1868 when culture expression started to really blossom for the Japanese culture (Singer). From statues, lavish paintings, and religion the art speaks vibrant vibrations. This culturally diverse period gets its name from the city of Edo, known as Tokyo modern day. Which became the headquarters of the government when Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542 – 1616) unified the country (Department of Asian Art). The Tokugawa regime was started in 1603, when the emperor, in “recognition of Ieyasu’s supremacy on the battlefield”, appointed him shogun. Shogun is the highest military position you can carry in Japan (Singer). After this Japan had strict laws on not using motor vehicles were put into place. Going into the 1630s, contact with the outside world was stopped through “official prohibition of foreigners” (Department of Asian Art). Around 1720 Edo had a population of “more than one million residents having more population than London or Paris at the time” (Singer). According to Art of Edo Japan Kyoto, was city of temples and shrines. It was the leading center of arts and crafts production with a population of close to 400,000 (Singer).

What is avant-garde and how does it fit into South African contemporary fashion design? In order for one to determine if you are for or against avant-garde, and specifically in relations to South African avant-garde, one must first define

This essay aims to analyse the key role that the surrealist movement has played on fashion and the fashion industry. Both from a historical point of view, as well as its continued impact on fashion today, as a source of inspiration for contemporary fashion designers.

Abstract-Deconstructivism is a post-modern architectural style or movement which appeared in the 1980s, based on the idea of freedom of form. Architecture earlier was only based on the concept of pure geometry. Jacques Derrida, a philosopher, introduced the idea of deconstruction which challenges the characteristics of harmony and symmetry in architecture and allows for the birth of complexity. This brought about a major change in the way that architecture was usually read. The language changed. Deconstructivist projects can be looked at through multiple lenses. They deal with complexities, contradictions and ambiguity. Following two projects of deconstructivism style, the first being, The Memorial for the Murdered Jews and second, The Jewish

The author, a blatant supporter of Avant-Garde art defines it as the revolutionary style that was indicative of the progression of human thought and culture. The brave new frontier that was the hall-mark of the 20th century, a distinctive style was solely a product of their generation of artists. Avant-Garde art represent art that has been freed from the constraints of rules