The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
- abbywinfield
- Dec 15, 2017
- 3 min read
"Part Two"
Since sharing my experience from Graduate Fashion Week with you, I had thought about reflecting way back onto early January 2017 when yet again visiting London to exhibit something unusual, something exciting and some things beautiful. A freezing cold London it was back then when I took a trip a college trip to The Barbican Art Gallery, The Design Museum & Victoria and Albert Museum. Specifically I wanted to share a few of my favourite things from The Barbican & an exhibition which I fell in love with.
The Barbican Art Gallery presented The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined. The exhibition was a display drawn from public and private collections worldwide which featured over 120 styles raging from historical to contemporary costumes and ready to wear looks. Studying the Fashion movement through twenty different eras and themes, this exhibited 500 years of fashion. Almost as if we were literally walking through a timeline of history. Somehow this was portrayed as a ‘different’ kind of fashion project as The Vulgar was the first exhibition to explore the utterly compelling taste in fashion, welcoming over 40 designers from both past and present to provide a questionable taste of style. This as a whole had been made up by Judith Clark and Adam Philips. When visiting this I thought they had created a brilliant and wide concept of taste for everybody creating such an enjoyable exhibition about fashion from the past and into the present.
Although I am more interested in contemporary style, contemporary designers included Chanel, Prada, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton and Pam Hogg. My absolute favourite had to be Viktor and Rolf, Emma Ensemble, Van Gogh Girls collection spring/summer 2015. They showed such great potential displaying a mixed use of materials. Their flower print A-line baby doll dresses paired with outstanding straw hats that caused a strong attraction for a collection of increasingly bold colours and sculptural looks. The Lauren Ensemble, Autumn/Winter 2016 collection is totally different, this being created using a selection of fabrics and garments from previous seasons of their fashion career. Although still starting from scratch, Viktor and Rolf used mementos from various past collections as a basis for their new creations. Including items from the designers archive were of assistance when putting together newly decorated garments. Ruffles and weaves were a main focus through the theme. This is what gave the collection such a strong quality of detail and stunning focus. The over use of fabric and possibly archived materials is what gave the outfits a powerful movement through the design of the garments especially as this was the ‘main body’ of their work.
In a complete contrast, Christian Lacroix, qui a le droit wedding dress was a creation far different. Richly embroidered with silk and metallic threads, made in 1993 this somehow portrayed a look that represented the history of fashion, meaning this had an appearance of past style. ‘Qui a le droit’ meaning ‘who has the right?’ questions whether a contemporary bride should wear a dress associated with purity. You could easily notice how the design focused on a typical wedding dress form that became fashionable in the early nineteenth century so it was less surprising from the overall look of Christian Lacroix’s style. This kept the similar essentials of a classical wedding dress design (only in my opinion.)
Playing with different themes, they had set the stage for everybody to wonder, question and reflect in how costumes are considered vulgar.
What is Vulgar?
Vulgar can be expressed in good and bad taste, this changes through time considering the changes through the fashion movement over years and decades.
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