THE NEW FASHION INTIMACY
We used to be two close entities. The master and the devotee, the designer and his consumer – and every single glance beteween one and another lead to creation. Influence and technique, intimacy to enhance Couture.
Hence designers – Poiret, Vionnet, Lancetti or Capucci – knew their very clientèle, and created tweed suits, gilded with gold or platinum according to the particular shapes needs or desire of these consumers.
Designers dazzled their privileged clients with lush gances and pleats and delighted their envy with shape and purity, lightness or heavy embellishments mingling marginal beauty to elitism.
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How I wish I seated close to Mona Bismarck at the 1937 Balenciaga show– and how I wish she could have spotted the exquisite references that truly inspired the designer at that time. She used to be the closest client of Cristobal Balenciaga and she knew how to balance and analyse the flattering technique and the strongest elements of the shows, pointing as it did to the continuing evolution of this designer's unique couture vision.
How I now wish she knew the disciplined and beautiful form of Nicolas Ghesquière collection, and whispered to my ear- with her formal élégance – the secrets of the SS12 edgy cuts. Because it seems that the new fashion elitism deals with a certain distance maintained, conserved by the designer towards his direct clients, as if identity was nurtered in the most perfect intimacy.
We used to pair designer and women as a duo that embraced a creating process. One was essential to the other and fashion embedded their friendship through trust and understanding.
Designer held nothing back when it came to the handwork – and consumers never found themselves disapointed by their piece of art.
Nowadays - you can usually count on fashion editors to enhance the very spirit of a designer. And how they became intimely close through decades should have drown a stylistic way of worldwide sharing instead of a brutal schism of fashion culture.
How about it then ? Have we – consummers – been relagated to the background ?
Where did the intimacy between us the designers, the creators, go ?
Paris in september. A sartorial subject – 70s fluttering skirts melting with ideas and editors’ blooming inspirations. Such an exceedingly subtle time as for the explosion of creative fashion deliveries. And probably the best way to approach it in its very perticuliar intimacy.
But intimacy and aknowledgment of a confined fashion universe turned out to be subtle skills to acquire.
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This is where the 2.0 culture melts with our new fashion world. Internet as the key word to creating processes. Sharing as the new un-delicate way to see what you may be suppose to wear.
«Of course, creativity still exists in magazines and it is at its best with maverick editors who keep their artistic integrity by making their publication a personal diary of their obsessions, dreams and intellectual beliefs» Colin McDowell highlights.
But one can argue that the 2.0 process is actually prone to developp an intimate link between a Christopher Baily and his tweet followers or a Karl Lagarfeld on the Chanel website throughout his chronicles, Without sacrificing in any way the glamour of this most frequently re-invented label.
This is the very genuine idea of a « Purple Diary », or a « blog ».
Olivier Zahm dit it well : he shows. He shares. He explains and spreads the words, sharing faster the roots of what can enhance creativity.
Internet as the new close relationship between a designer and his clientele, in a way that really highlights the brand identity, the ultimate collection, but a collection followed by an explanation on the whole creating process – the hard work and the actors of the final result.
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Betrayal ? Maybe not – rather a hold hand to visual culture and a lever to communication. A new way to understand the genuine ideas and beliefs of a brand and a designer’s way of thinking : Marc Jacobs on tweeter, Maxime Simoens on facebook.
A brand new intimacy that is quite affordable to eye – and to knowledge. An amuse bouche that covers every aspects of a whole brand universe, and share an elegant package of lifestyle, identity and obvisoulsy ... shoes, coats and accessories.
Winningly expressed : a new way to talk, to ask and to enjoy a digital innovation based on this new challenging scale.
Welcome to the 2.0 fashion intimacy.
© Cam.
