Why I love Fashion

Why I love Fashion   

It’s probably true to say that I was one of those teenagers described as “creative”. But, although I liked art, I didn’t really understand fashion at that age. Neither did my friends, who – though obsessed with wearing the latest trends – didn’t seem to realize that it was meant to be more than a desperate bid to look like everyone else. But in that past and primitive era we didn’t have access to internet, and our parents were no great examples of style, so what did we know?

I realized there was more to fashion some years later, when I discovered the designers themselves – yes, that’s right, I discovered that “fashion” was really “fashion design”. Clothing that my teenage friends would not have been seen dead in could be found in upscale designer stores. And racks of clothing were suddenly as interesting and creative as paintings on a gallery wall.

Studying fashion design at college meant learning about the history of fashion and fashion designers, as well as learning how to design and work with fabric. I had an immediate liking for Japanese designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Comme des Garcons (headed by Rei Kawakubo), as well as others such as Rifat Ozbek, Hugo Boss, and Donna Karan. All of these designers appeared to embody a kind of – dare I say it – ‘intelligence’, working with different fabrics to produce something new and interesting. ‘Trends’ seemed a secondary concern to many designers.

I liked Miyake, for example, not only for the simplicity of his style, but his ability to mix modern and traditional fabrics, and, indeed, to work with unexpected materials such as plastic and even treated paper. Since then he has established his ‘Pleats Please’ line, working with new technology to produce clothing that is wearable and stylish, yet recognizable as his design.

I also liked the fact that designers often seemed to come from other backgrounds (Yamamoto had studied law, and Ozbek had studied architecture), and that fashion design brought together lots of different artistic and cultural influences. Design students were expected to do some serious research into different artistic movements, artists and cultures, as well as into design. Fashion students – and those fashion designers I met – seemed possessed of a joie de vivre.

For one project we were required to take a suit jacket apart, to see exactly how it was constructed. It was at that moment that I understood that there really was a whole lot more to fashion than is generally recognized – literally and figuratively. I was amazed to discover about forty layers of fabric, cut and stitched in different, complicated ways, with some pieces larger, others small strips, some stitched diagonally, etc. Who thinks about that, when they put on a suit jacket? Or even knows that all of that is hidden inside, between the outer cloth and the lining? When I look at a suit, couture dress, or well-designed garment, I am always aware that there is so much more going on than most people realize.