Friday 21 December 2012

Military Fashion Details

My task today is to curate my own exhibition after visiting the National Army Museum in Chelsea.  I found this museum quite fascinating, and a little overwhelming at just how much army-related memorabilia it housed, and the task of narrowing down my findings to a personal exhibit of just a few items, as requested in my uni brief, quite challenging! Well here goes....

MILITARY DETAILS IN FASHION
The relationship between army attire and fashion today

This exhibition aims to show the extent to which the fashion designers of today rely on early military costume as a source of inspiration for their collections.  Year after year the military 'trend' appears on the catwalk spanning all four seasons, and the key details are usually always the same: the trench coat, the military jacket, the turned up collars, the brass buttons...It is quite remarkable how close the actual designs of the past garments are to today's pieces, and the comparisons will be exhibited clearly.  The collection of items are mostly from World War 1 and World War 2, and are contrasted alongside images from designers who use the military theme regularly in their works, including Balmain, Alexander McQueen and Burberry.

Looking at the details of the army clothing and accessories in particular, the exhibit will explore the difference in purpose of each element in the designs, for example how a button detail in the military jacket would perhaps have had a functional use in the past, whereas today it might be added for an aesthetic reason.  

"When the late‐twentieth‐century fashion editor Diana Vreeland called uniforms “the sportswear of the nineteenth century,” she was describing useful adaptations: examples of the cavalry to riding apparel, braid as reinforcement and decoration, plastrons and double‐breasted chests as double protection for the heart, and even romantic sashes that served by necessity to carry the wounded from the battlefield."

Richard Martin, and Harold Koda: Swords into Ploughshares, 1995





This is an officers uniform from the first world war.  It is mainly in the colour khaki with details in brown.  Pay close attention to the texture of the fabrics: the finely pressed cotton shirt, the smooth tweed-like coat and the rigid quality of the tie and rope trim.  The outfit is belted in the middle with a thick leather, and a small pouch attached.  Each element here serves a purpose: the colours are to blend in, camouflage tones...the shirt pressed to perfection to convey discipline and care...the rope to hold up a holster for a gun possibly...the belt to hold the outfit together and help with attachments over the shoulder sash.





These are images from Alexander McQueen's Autumn/Winter 2012 collection.  The male wears an outfit strikingly similar to the first exhibit...the same pressed, khaki shirt with tie, the trench-type coat, the tweed texture of the trousers and the leather detailing of the gloves...all in the same palette - greens and browns.  The female is in an almost identical overcoat, with matching pocket size and position, boxy-like silhouette, and cinched in at the waist with a thick leather belt.  Though the purposes are clearly different...these are obviously designed purely for fashion's sake; the colours to fit in with the current trend, the fabrics with this seasons texture and the belt to show off the female figure.





This is an army Sargent's uniform from 1815.  Mainly red with white trimming and a touch of yellow at the collar and cuffs.  It is a short jacket with detail on the shoulder and has many buttons with the British army crown on them.  


This is Balmain Spring Summer 2009.  This was a huge hit on the catwalk and inspired various high street copies.  It literally takes the same details of the original Sargent's jacket and brings it into the 21st century.  Everything is there: the shoulder embellishment, the braiding stripes down the front, the multiple buttons, the collar and cuff detailing and it keeps to the same shape and silhouette.




Here is a typical trench coat from the late 1800's.  It is made from heavyweight material to shelter the body from the terrible conditions in the trenches at war.  It has large lapels that touch the shoulders when closed over, parallel buttons running down either side at the front and is the right length to practically cover the whole body.



Above are images of designs by Burberry.  This is the classic trench coat with all the exact same detailing as the army overcoat, however this is no surprise as Thomas Burberry actually designed the original trench coat and his first commission was to the British army!

"The trenchcoat, made first and continuously by Burberry of London for Boer War and World War I service for officers needing protective cloth, closings, and latched wrists and collar, has become a basic of dress for both men and women. Its origins in officers' coats are remembered in name, but many today might more readily associate the coat with glamorous espionage andHumphrey Bogart in Casablanca, even as contemporary fashion specifications for most trenchcoats include vestigial D‐rings (designed for hand grenades) still worn by modern suburban commuter‐warriors."

Richard Martin, and Harold Koda: Swords into Ploughshares, 1995















Wednesday 19 December 2012

The Medicine Man

On a recent trip to The Wellcome Collection in North West London, I came across something very unusual and fascinating, something I had never seen before...something which made me stop and stare for quite a long time...behind the security railing, through the glass case amongst countless numbers of extraordinary items from Henry Wellcome's collection, there lay slices of preserved human skin!  These small, strangely coloured pieces of flesh were carved from an executed criminal, in France, sometime during 1850-1900's.  Etched on each was a tattoo, one of a sailor, drawn in black in an illustrative manner, with hat, moustache and stripy top and the other of a female figure with long, flowing locks of hair.



To see tattoos from such an early era was startling...I never thought about where or when tattoos originated, and who typically would sport them back then and what purpose they would serve, as I only have had experience of what I see in the modern world, where the tattoo is generally a fashion symbol, sentimental gesture or mistake!  A lot of people in this generation will probably have at least one (myself included).  

Through research, I discovered that tattooing is one of the oldest forms of body art and was first seen, in the western world, on 18th century sailors returning from trips abroad, where it was already popular with the natives.  It was also seen on a lot of prisoners from the time and it seems that this skin marking was a way of branding certain people, of making them stand out in a mainly negative context;

     "While tattoos and other forms of body modifications have stood since the earliest encounters with Polynesians as a hallmark of the primitive, the display of tattooed 'natives'...helped solidify these notions of the primitive Other.  This was particularly true where native exhibits were contrasted with the highest achievements of Western society to both accentuate the primitiveness of the natives and to emphasise the civilisation of the Western world...influential in constructing a narrative about tattooed people as savages..."
                                                                                             Bodies of Inscription.  Margo DeMello









These are images, from around 1940+, taken from the Sergei Vasiliev Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery

I wondered what actually changed, and made the tattoo not something to convey savagery but to show expression of self, and individuality, as a lot of people might describe it today.  How could something that was once a mark of criminality evolve into 'artwork' which people proudly display on their bodies for the world to see?...That is fashion, an ever developing, constantly evolving industry.  

     "The origins of this transition can be found in the lifestyles of sailors and what this represented to many working-class men back home: adventure, travel, exotic lands and people, and a free spirit...they were the middlemen through which the tattoo was transformed from a mark of primitivism to a mark of adventure."
                                                                                             Bodies of Inscription.  Margo DeMello

Although it cannot be said that this view of tattooed people today is shared by all; of course some folk, probably of the older generation, see tattoos still as negative as they once were, while others, particularly the younger generation are enticed to permanently ink their bodies perhaps with the influence in today's increased media and celebrity culture.  No doubt the vast majority of young males who now have full sleeve tattoos covering their arms where inspired by the likes of David Beckham, who could not be further from the perceptions of the earlier idea of a tattooed man.



Angelina Jolie adding to her tattoo collection



Rihanna's various body art



My small & discreet ink, an Arabic symbol meaning 'peace'