The Met Costume Institute, Manus X Machina Exhibit

Amazing! I could say a lot but instead here are some pictures!

Bodily Geometries

It's an interesting thing, our relationship with our bodies; even this construction implies them as separate entities our cerebral selves have some uneasy and often tenuous discourse with. And yet of course we are corporeal - the reminder often unpleasant to academics. Is it why they are so often dismissive of fashion, because fashion is so obviously embodied, and thus stands in opposition of intellect and art? It is certainly not artful by the Kantian standards, for it is entirely too immediate, corporeal and female (Kant's aesthetics, on the other hand, sees art as exclusively cerebral, appreciated only by remote senses of vision and hearing, and unambiguously male.) So contempt for fashion, often couched in language of triviality of such pursuits, seem to stem more often than not from the contempt for the feminine and the embodied, illustrating how entwined the two are to this day in collective psyche.

So anyway, bodies. I wrote before about how we present, highlight, conceal our bodies through dress; I wrote about flattering and not-sexy dressing. But I don't think I ever talked about my perceptions of my own body and how the idea of it shapes much of what I wear and how I wear it.

However, first things first: another designer I recently fell in love with is Lara Khoury who hails from Beirut, Lebanon.  Her latest collection is beautiful, softly draped with an occasional punctuation of deconstructed elements and structured shapes. The collection speaks to and of a multitude of experiences - softness and rawness, immigration and staying behind, severity and excess. The pleated dresses juxtaposed against heavy coats, wide woolen pants next to tulle, the plurality of shapes and hemlines. High necks and exposed backs, sweeping and draping, this collection is about cleaving, in both senses of the world: the designer's  description speaks of the experiences of the Lebanese diaspora and their families who stayed behind, of tearing away and hugging close. The collection miraculously hangs together (cleaving again) despite its seeming contradictions of pastels and stark black and whites, modest necklines and exposed skin. Leaving and staying, torn raw and sealed in a beautiful lantern of pleated tulle.

As I said, in love.

Contrary to my instinct, I didn't go for the structured pieces - partly because I wanted to try something new, partly due to my realization that I might have more than a reasonable number of sculpted white tops. Instead, I went for a different shape altogether, softly draped and voluminous. 

The piece is beautifully made and constructed, in cotton gauze with subtly arresting unraveling edges and interesting shape. And yet, my first reaction was, "Is it supposed to fit like this?" (The designer was kind enough to reassure me that it was indeed the right fit).

I am no stranger to oversized fits. Figure flattery is not high on the list of my dressing priorities. The top is gorgeous and I love it to bits, but seeing it on myself was an interesting if unfamiliar experience. It felt different somehow. I had to wonder what's  going on.

Of course, most of my oversized pieces are quite sculptural, often in stiff woven fabrics like this Cin+Oko top and Litkovskaya pants:

(Shoes are rag&bone mules)

The volume these clothes create is a separate  space in which my body exists without filling it.

 It is a carapace, an exoskeleton, a shell that does not suggest softness. And this angularity is actually what I am used to projecting by the way I dress, and I think it is rooted in self-perception. Conflating femininity and softness is a cliche; I do wonder about it though, only because I perceive my body as fairly sharp, fairly angular, with bone and muscle defining its shape to me rather than breasts or hips. In my self-image, I am never soft (even when I am).

I can do slouchy as well:

Even though this cashmere sweater by Protagonist is fairly soft, it has enough weight to create its own shape, with my body maintaining its separate distinct identity  underneath. The skirt is a nice counterpoint in another substantial knit (merino wool, Iris&Ink). Proenza Schouler boots work here, I think, instead of more expected pumps. They feel more grounded against the shades of white, heavy and flat.

And finally, here's the Lara Khoury top: it is oversized and yet drapes close to my body, neither following its shape precisely as a tailored fit would nor making a shell for it. Instead, it imposes its softness over my contour, and I suspect that this is why it felt so alien at first. 

(I'm wearing Lara Khoury blouse with Isabel Marant pants and Carin Wester shoes.)

I love it, and it does something different from my usual clothes. I wanted to try something  new but didn't expect the novelty to be so conceptual, so dizzying at first. This single piece made me realize that even though I think of dressing in terms of silhouettes,  I have failed to recognize the importance I've assigned to angularity and stiff shapes, basing my entire wardrobe on it. Even the strictly feminine pieces I wear tend to be sharp (such as high heels in the otherwise masculine look) rather than floppy and soft. But now I think I  am ready to play a bit with softer versions of femininity.

Women's History and Diversity in Fashion

Besides March being the women's history month, this is also the time the fashion industry seems to reflect on its own lack of diversity -- even Anna Wintour's letter in March Vogue was dedicated to lamenting the harrowing whiteness of fashion. It seems especially interesting since fashion industry, traditionally dominated by women and gay men, has often found itself in the fringes in terms of respectability. And yet it remained perfectly content to exclude people of color, apart from occasional breathless infatuation with, say, Lupita Nyong'o, bordering on fetishistic. But I digress.

Diversity is one of those concepts that is fairly easy to pay lip service to, and it is also easy to complain about lack of diversity on runways etc. I am however a strong believer that while "voting with your wallet" might not always be the best strategy, directly supporting women- and especially women of color-owned businesses is a realistic way of effecting change. To that effect, here's a quick roundup of fashion designers who deserve our support.

1) H+OKO -- I heard about this new company recently, and fell in love with their edgy and yet work-appropriate minimalism.

How gorgeous is this top? While it's slightly reminiscent of Jil Sander, Nigerian-American Cin Oko and Korean-born Kay Ha are bringing their own sensibility and aesthetic to their first collection. The clothes are gorgeous, well-constructed, and appropriate to a variety of situation -- 9 am to 5 am, as the creators call it. They are currently running a Kickstarter, and I hope it gets funded. And this is a great, direct way to actually have an effect on increasing diversity in the fashion industry, not to mention, domestically-produced (they are based in NYC) clothing.

2) Another New York brand I wrote about before is Mandarin & General, which continues to produce lovely clothes inspired by traditional Chinese garb, by Taiwanese-born Peggy Tan. This is a line created by a cultural insider, and as such represents true authenticity as opposed to appropriative "inspiration".
It is also gorgeous, and the pieces, while beautiful by themselves, can be combined into unexpected proportions and interesting play on textures:

3) Finally, our perennial favorite -- Van Hongo, by the Japanese-born Izumi Hongo. You can find the review od her 2013 collections here, as well as links to reviews of all previous seasons., Her newest season, SS 2014 demonstrates her continued commitment to increasingly simple silhouettes and attention to textiles:

This collection is called The Layered Garden, and the layered looks and the pastel colors do evoke an image of a watercolor, with slightly blurred outlines and the colors ever so gently diluted. I appreciate how with every collection there are always references to what came  before (crossover tops, slouchy trousers) but also always something new, and how it seems to be progressing toward cleaner and simpler shapes. I really have been enjoying very basic yet interesting shapes lately, and this collection really hit a sweet spot. Her online shop has a great selection of knits, and those are amazing -- layered and complex, and truly unusual in their texture and technique.

So here you have it. For those of us who are interested in a plurality of viewpoints represented in fashion, it's a great time to step up and support independent designers. 

Ethnic Fashion, Cultural Insiders, and Razu Mikhina

I have written quite a bit on othering that occurs via fashion, including the notion of "ethnic" clothing being an extension of a culturally distinct group (also please see the Threadbared post that summarizes many of these points cogently). But I also think that the less appreciated side-effect of that is the fact that "ethnic" clothing has been explicitly excluded from fashion.

I the fashion world, "ethnic" or "national" clothing has been allocated its own weird niche: in the hierarchy from couture to pret-a-porter to mass market to high street, everyone recognizes each of these rungs as a part of the same system, which explicitly excludes clothing that is timeless, national in character, locally produced and worn, and uninfluenced by the fashion shows and magazines. The only way this clothing is allowed to enter the mainstream is by being appropriated -- be it "tribal" and "ethnic" prints that are swarming the runways, be they "locally sourced" textiles environmentally responsible fashion companies are shilling, or be it a scarf some personal style blogger picked at "this quaint market in Turkey" and styled with her required assortment of Isabel Marant and Zara. That is, ethnic clothing as it exists is antithetical to the very notion of fashion, and this rigid divide serves to exclude certain people from participation in fashion industry.

Now, an act of self-appropriation -- when, say, Duro Olowu makes a successful fashion career largely drawing on his Nigerian roots (and all the power to him!) -- seems to be the only way for a cultural insider to participate in mainstream fashion without abandoning clothing bound to its cultural context. Because outside appropriation is by definition shallow, cursory, and tone-deaf. The visually distinct groups are defined by the crude "tribal" caricatures, with little thought given to their unique characteristics, so we end up with monstrosities like "African prints" and "Asian influences".

On the other hand, Russian culture is an interesting case of being fascinating to the West and thus commonly appropriated, and yet the ethnicity tied to the culture lacking distinct visual characteristics. It is because of that, I think, the Western admirers of Russian culture rarely go for the folk component of the current culture -- such as traditional crafts and patterns -- and instead focus their attention on the mish-mash of the historical and imagined ethnic, much like Yves Saint-Laurent's 1976-77 Russian collection and Ralph Lauren's 1993. Both combine nods to the 19th century Russian empire and peasant dress:

This is the type of appropriation that renders any discussion of authenticity moot: much like is the case in literature, any criticism of inaccuracy is usually met with "well, it's only inspired by Russia!" defense. The trouble with it, of course, is that people perpetrating the appropriative acts and those defending them are the dominant cultural voices, who are unable to distinguish between a real culture and its imitation. Thus, we largely live in the world where many cultures are represented not by themselves, but by the dominant voices trying to articulate what those cultures ought to be like. And while the original ethnic dress remain firmly outside of fashion mainstream (much like folklore remains outside of the Western literary tradition), the cultural insiders making their voice heard within the mainstream become terribly important: without them, it's all just a distorted mirror held up by outsiders, who keep congratulating themselves on being inclusive and worldly.

For Russian fashion, such cultural insiders are rare. While there are many talented designers hailing from Russia, many of whom are even known in the West, most of them are a part of the fashion mainstream without relying much on their cultural background (which is by no means a criticism), and if they do draw on Russian history (most notably, Ulyana Segeenko), they do so via the elevated historical references to the height of the Russian Empire rather than more humble folk craft.

Now then. All this brings me to the one designer I wanted to talk about!  Daria Razumikhina of Razu Mikhina -- a designer who actually incorporates a lot of traditional techniques, such as appliques, embroidery, and soutache (we all know how I feel about soutache, right?) At the same time, this is the collection that is firmly connected to the present of its source culture (Razu Mikhina store is located in Moscow, and the lace she uses is made in Vologda, a famous center of traditional crafts), reasonably priced, especially compared to mostly four-figure designer duds, and imminently wearable.

 This coat, which I own, is not only gorgeous in its own right, it is also timeless. The design is quite simple, just like most of her shapes:

But the detailing is what makes it. While traditional, it is also artistic and unique, and often not too serious. Also, everything is domestically manufactured.

The clothes move well, and are plain fun to wear:

And this, to me, what ultimately ethnic and cultural influences in fashion should be: referential of the source culture yet interpreted through the designer's unique point of view, done by the cultural insider, and modern. Once such fashion becomes established, perhaps our view of the role of clothing will expand enough to allow for ethnic clothing, unfiltered through one person't perspective and dominant narrative, to be included in the conversation. One can dream.

Delpozo

In a surprising twist of fashion fate, I recently got invited to a trunkshow in New York -- moreover, it was a Delpozo trunkshow, hosted by Moda Operandi at the Queen Sofia Spanish Institute on Park Avenue. Since I am a fan of 1) Delpozo; 2) Moda Operandi; 3) Spain (especially Catalonia), I went, and Genevieve kindly agreed to accompany me. It was great!

Here's the thing about Delpozo: this is their latest RTW collection, Fall/Winter 2014 (which, incidentally, is what we got to see in person and close up during this trunkshow.) You can see why people are really excited about Delpozo's revival, and why their new designer, Josep Font, is deserving of every single nice thing that is being said about him. I love the combination of sculptural shapes with delicate detailing, and the color palette that combines the refined beige with poppy mustards and inky blues, classic black and marled grays with icy blue pastels, the very strong silhouettes of the coats with chiffon evening wear. This collection has everything: tailoring and draping, delicacy and strength, and in its forms it is somewhat reminiscent (albeit not referential) of another Spanish designer -- Cristobal Balenciaga. It might seem an obvious comparison, based on nationality, but I would argue that some of it is due to shared cultural touchstones: both have created outerwear reminiscent of traditional matador jackets. Moreover,  Font's background in architecture gives him the grounding and the skill to create proportions and shapes not bound by the usual expectations of figure flattery -- something Balenciaga has eschewed, relying instead on strong shoulder and sculptural volume.

At the trunkshow, I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Mr. Font, who was very sweet and unassuming and let me take his picture! So that was my fangirl moment of the day. Later, of course, I learned that I really should focus the camera while looking through my glasses, not above them.

Another lesson learned: if invited to a fashion thing, arriving early is a good strategy -- with few people, there are good opportunities to take pictures of racks and racks of clothing, nice wall paintings, as well as models wearing gorgeous outfits.

(Josep Font with the model)

(Can you tell how much I love this capelet? Yeah, this much.)

And final lesson: if I am ever to host a swanky event, invest in a great looking venue and some faux leopards.

All in all, another great outing. And I got to wear my new favorite coat by Daria Razumikhina! With a VanHongo skirt, because OF COURSE.