My bio-father always said...my greatest challenge is teaching to you to understand the value of the dollar. What is the value of money? A definition of pro-capitalism debate aside...fashion and gender expression has always been a part of my life but my continued struggle is questioning the value of not the dollar...but the value of fashion design. How do you measure creativity and/or credibility?
I came across this article by The Business Of Fashion entitled The Psychology Of The Designer Bag
I found this article so interesting because it questions why people purchase designer bags and as myself an avid collector and seller of them..makes me question how the bags such as the Chanel 2.55 and Hermes Birkin designed over a 100 years ago have created a brand new economics and social construction which continues to motivate and influence cis-woman of the fashion industry. What does this mean for gender and future genders? Binary and Non-Binary Gender? What do we value, will value, and continue to value?
As this article basically makes the case that the only real function of a designer bag..is to make you feel good, regardless of it’s utility.
Make you feel good. Makes me think whether or not my love for fashion is rooted in misery and depression but that’s another story.
When we think about designer bags, often what comes to mind is it’s value. What makes a designer bag valuable, and how did designer bags become economically valuable? A couple years ago I watched a documentary called Cutie and the Boxer which documented an older artist named Ushio Shinohara and their continued struggle to sell art, making money, and survive as an artist in the 21’st century residing in New York City. There is a scene from the movie where a curator and collector visit Shinohara’s studio looking to purchase a piece of work for the MOMA. Museum of Modern Art. I vividly remember that the rep from MOMA was requesting to see one of his earlier works that was significant to a particular time period of art in New York City. The boxer paintings. In that moment I hard realized this may be the secret to the value of art and possibly design. The value of the art would maybe be not rooted in the quality, in the context, in the function, or even the quantity...but actually rooted in it’s historical and cultural significance of the time period it was produced.
Most people wouldn’t know that the Vuitton family of Louis Vuitton invented stackable luggage in 1854, or Thomas Burberry was actually an engineer for the British government in 1856 inventing waterproof fabric for the military patenting it with the famous tartan or Coco Chanel designing the first hand bag with a chain in the 1920’s minimizing the idea of femininity at time period of plumes and feathers.
Year 2012..were monumental years for myself as a fashion designer because it was at a time in my career where I did not understand the reasoning for particular moments of media success. For the longest time I have never understood why people found value in the dresses I was making or the fashion shows I was producing. My work had not been particularly made well, or made with expensive fabrics but when Gawker and the New York Observer had written about my second show where I had used the V for Vendetta masks on the models, it all made sense to me.
The collection I had done was entitled..
“FALL/WINTER 2012 entitled Hierarchy Of Needs” Here is a statement made on the collection and my rationale for producing the show.
The collection had been planned to appear as a normal fashion show set in the south of France with balloon trees and pluming, draped frocks, but at the last second Adrienne had the models faces covered with Vendetta Masks. This was a clear reference to Occupy Wall Street that had been happening at the time where protesters were living in on the streets of Wall Street protesting the corruption of capitalism. The show garnered the most mainstream media coverage to date where the New York Observer and Gawker Media both had questioned the use of masks in the show. It is always a challenge for a fashion designer to research and design originality but our ability to recognize our privilege to design and produce commentary is much more challenging. How do we change the system in order to improve the lives of people who also have disabilities, people of colour, transgender and non binary youth? Change our priorities. This collection was a perfect example of shifting our attention using graphic and fashion design in order to beginning the process of questioning the existence of fashion and what it has become in the 2010’s. Giving the commentary to someone else instead of speaking for them. Adrienne’s over goal is still yet to be achieved which is; shifting the commentary of gender...how do we use fashion and fashion theory as a tool for producing gender equality and pronoun respect? Fashion will continue to exist but style is dead, trends are dead, our responsibly NOW as fashion designers “should be” to help the INDIVIDUAL transition and become their own trope, their own individual.
