“Fashion moves in space and time. It shares in the complexity of physics and mathematics, making patterns and networks, forming mazes and constellations. Through its forms we have an opportunity to re-unite art and science and to head the rift of the two cultures.”
Through my understanding of this aphorism, I believe that Breward is implying that fashion acts a bridge between two completely different worlds and is a space where creativity and artistic thought is completely intertwined with the practicality of numbers and scientific functions of the body. So often, art and science is divided and thought of as polarized groups. Even amongst the people who associate themselves in either of the two, they are split and meant to be using only either their left brain or right brain. However, fashion is embedded in science and math as much as it is with art because of its engineering and the act of rendering from 2D to a 3 dimensional space. Even its manufacturing process stems from technology, and the engineering of textiles and systems of people. Fashion itself is incredibly complex because it is connected to the human psyche and reveals one’s perception of themselves, of the world around them, and what they want to communicate to others.
“Fashion can be about confirmation, of self and others. But it is also about anxiety, ambiguity and worry. As an aid to understanding psychological complexities it is unsurpassed.”
What a person wears is motivated by their environment (both physical and social), how they feel in that environment, and what role or space they want to take up in it. Many subcultures have been formed throughout the decades because groups of people have felt alienated or disempowered by the society and mainstream culture that surrounded them. Through these feelings of anxiety and ambiguity of where they stand in society, people have been able to find comfort in finding likeminded people through dress. However, others who feel similar anxiety about their place in society, instead choose to assimilate into the trends of what everyone else is wearing in that place and time period in order to feel the comfort of fitting in.
