After a full semester of studying the multitudinous layers that make up “fashion,” my understanding has evolved far past its conventional definitions. Fashion is the interplay between trends, style, dress, subject positions; that is dictated by conspicuous and inconspicuous articulation of who the person in the clothing/accessories is. Fashion is defined by constant contradiction, thus can never be understood via binary assumptions like “straight versus gay”— just one of twelve “either-or thinking” examples Susan B. Kaiser states in her text Fashion and Cultural Studies. Similar to how many people define themselves as bisexual, fashion personifies these spectrums on which we lie. Fashion is a reflection of this chaotic world, that is perceived, materialized, embodied, and analyzed by an observer. In the final weeks of the Intro. To Fashion course, we discussed whether fashion can be considered an art form and if it belongs alongside other displayed artworks in a museum. Suzy Menkes poses the following questions in her New York Times article Gone Global: Fashion as Art: “Is fashion really so exhibition worthy? And, more importantly, are there explicit standards by which the various shows should be judged?”1 In the context of the article, it is difficult to pin fashion down as a fine art, as it is intrinsically linked to subjective concepts and personal feelings of designers, curators, and viewers. Consequently, it is a collaboration and discussion that must continuously occur and serves to extract the most objective understanding of its place in art. To conclude, fashion is everything and anything imposed with the limitations of the body, society, materiality, time, space, and perception.
1 Suzy Menkes. “Is Fashion Really Museum Art?” The New York Times. July 04, 2011. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/fashion/is-fashion-really-museum-art.html.
