Once I’ve read “Sex and Suit” by Anne Hollander, I’ve One of her ideas in particular seem to have struck me. According to Hollander:
“Fashion visually celebrates the irrational, preserving tension rather than seeking revolution; and it relishes the quick pleasure of provisional arrangements instead of seeking permanent esthetic solutions, or anything purely practical and useful.” (1)
That was a really hard clap back, criticizing the whole fashion industry. I guess I can somewhat agree with Hollander’s idea, or rather, accept it. From her ideas, some questions & thoughts have come into my mind such as: “what’s the main purpose of the visualities of the garment? How exactly does fashion, particularly in the dress actually give an impact to society?” and so on, so forth. When given the word fashion, most would imagine those lavish, chic, & mesmerizing fashion events. They’re iconic because they place a heavy emphasis on the effects of the pleasure of the visualities rather than the usually cheap & abstract concepts designers idealize into; which is perhaps the main reason why Hollander describes fashion as ‘irrational’. Perhaps it’s because most ‘fashion fashion’ doesn’t appeal as much about the self to, so to speak, regular fashion; their fashion doesn’t make a revolutionary impact in the first place. They do absolutely nothing at all, except to introduce to an idea that may or may not spread to the common idea. There’s not much of any use to whatever has been visually brought to us; it’s about its functionalities that come out of the idea that makes the design revolutionary; and I think that’s what Hollander sees in her ideals of fashion. She wants to be introduced with something innovative; not a piece of cloth that only pertains a vessel of limited ideas.
1 Anne Hollendar, Sex and Suit: The Evolution of Modern Dress (New York: Knopf 1994),15
