Christopher Breward’s aphorisms from his foreword to Fashion Studies
- Fashion has a tendency to construct its own cannons. Like every cultural form these should be documented and then subjected to debate and challenge. Art historians are expert creators and destroyers of these cannons, as surely as modernism follows romanticism. Like art historians, fashion scholars need to look and question.
Fashion has a tendency to bring about sensational breakthroughs as does everything else in the realm of creativity. Due to its dynamic nature, fashion urges designers to be different and unlike any every time because of which we’re constantly being introduced to new ideas and concepts that don’t necessarily have to be in the right interest of fashion. It is because of this reason that we must all scrutinize the ideas that are trying to be sold to us. Criticism can make or break these initiatives of change and this is what art historians have been doing over the centuries in the realm of art. Their non-bias and critical viewpoints manage to sift all initiatives and further only those breakthroughs that are worthy of being cannons and driving the industry forward. In the same manner, even fashion scholars must be critical of the changes designers are trying to bring about in the world of fashion. I strongly feel this holds true because we mustn’t just follow trends blindly. We must always try to protect the true essence of and the impeccable legacy of fashion. As the designers and creatives of tomorrow we must assume the role of its guardians as well.
- Fashion is not necessarily spectacular (though often conforms to the theory of the society of the spectacle). It can also be demotic, ordinary, mundane, routine and humble. It is the stuff of the ethnographer and the anthropologist.
Fashion is not only the luxurious. Luxury to most designers of course is a temptation and defines what beauty means to them. It is also what entitles them to exclusivity. People in general also have a mindset that only couture is fashion however this is not so. Fashion is not only couture but also what we wear every day, streetwear, uniforms, casuals, sportswear and so on. Time and again it’s been proven that even simplicity or the mundane is not only fashion but can also find itself at the same level of luxury and exclusivity couture without having to be ornamental. This for me definitely holds true. A plethora of real time examples for this would be the celebration of Sara Berman’s Closet at the Met, the culture of sportswear that now find itself tandem to couture, or even luxury design houses that design with a sense of minimalism like Céline.
