Fashion cycles and design culture



November 20, 2014

Anyone standing outside the disciplines of fashion and design research might be surprised to discover that conversations between the two are not as fluid or productive as they might be. Within the art school, for instance, the two are taught as quite distinct disciplines with their own traditions, cultures and identities. Recognising these boundaries and the potential for greater convergence, Design Culture Salon 12 set out to provoke a more direct conversation between fashion and design by asking the question ‘how do fashion cycles and design culture interact?’

Professor Chris Breward, previously Head of Research at the V&A, now Principal of Edinburgh College of Art, chaired the discussion. In his introduction, he proposed the perplexing and paradoxical situation of being in a ‘fluxive moment’, when power shifts from editor to blogger and designer to fashion forecaster appear to be simultaneously producing a ‘weird homogeneity’ in the fashion cultures of our global cities. The challenge for the evening was therefore to think about how these ideas, which have emerged from thinking about fashion, can move out across other design disciplines. How can we think of a linkage between different forms of design that share these challenges and possibilities?

Design Culture Salon 12, V&A Museum
Design Culture Salon 12, V&A Museum

The panel was composed of (L-R) Marloes ten Bhomer (designer), Cher Potter, (V&A / LCF Research Fellow), Lisa White, (Content Director of the website HomeBuildLife) and Joanne Entwistle, (Senior Lecturer at Kings College, London).

Each of the panellists spoke for five minutes, delivering their response to the evening’s question. Some of the key issues raised included the negative associations of the word ‘trend’ in contemporary design research. Fashion is often presented as in ‘collusion with capitalism’, it was suggested. As a result, fashion research has a habit of apologising for itself and ‘a lingering sense of inferiority’. This might be partly explained by the close association between fashion and the body and the often emotive, sensorial discourse this produces. Marloes ten Bhomer presented a thought-provoking challenge to the seductive idea of fashion-in-motion by highlighting the seemingly unchanging and fixed nature of fashion design classics, including the brogue and the trench coat, for example. Here, fashion can be conservative, obstructing capacities for change and innovation. Perhaps there is a role for design researchers to make sense of how these objects function in the broader cultural system and beyond the fashion cycle.

Dr Leah Armstrong, Research Officer, University of Brighton / V&A Museum

You can read a longer version of this review here.

The next Design Culture Salon will take place on the 12 December and is entitled ‘Is innovation overrated and what is the role of design here?’

Booking is free but essential.

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