Famous Dutch trend ‘forecaster’ Lidewij Edelkoort has clearly dealt
with the matter that had been gnawing away at her for some time,
resulting in a good dressing down for everyone – schools, the press,
the catwalks, in short the whole fashion system. This has led to the
creation of the manifesto, baptised ‘Anti-fashion,’ a pithy text that
she insisted on reading herself to a packed (and full) room when she
passed through Paris last Tuesday and Wednesday as a prelude to her
design house Trend Union presenting its new predictions for the
2016/17 autumn and winter season.
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As a trend consultant she insists from the outset, as if to apologise:
“I love fashion. Passionately”. She did not really need to remind us
of that: Time Magazine did not name her as one of the 25 most
influential people in fashion for nothing in 2008. Today it is
universally agreed that everyone takes note of what Lidewij Edelkoort
has to say: the success, never disputed, of her reviews View on Colour
and Bloom bears witness to the richness of her creative suggestions.
Her trend brochures aimed at the fashion and textile, design, interior
design, and beauty and well-being industries are distributed around
the world.
“Our ‘fashion system’ is completely obsolete”
She goes on to say “I love fashion, yet I could not have not written
this text entitled ‘Anti-fashion.’ This professional manifesto finds
that fashion has undergone a radical change rendering the current
‘fashion system’ completely obsolete.” This starts with education.
“Fashion schools and colleges continue to teach young students to
become catwalk designers, divas. They keep on being led to believe
that what awaits them is a life of fame outside of the rules. In other
words schools are continuing to teach the principle of unsociable
individuality to young people whose environment, in these days of
social networks, is based on sharing and creating together. In
reality, training in fashion has gone out of fashion.”
“A world with no interest in textiles”
The forecaster emphasises that “for the first time in its history
fashion, supposedly ahead of the times, it is unable to react to the
period.” Students are being taught to become little Karls, to create
clothes, bags, all sorts of accessories for others, to arrange the
show, brochures, communications and photography – all in three years.
And during these three years, little time ends up being dedicated to
clothes, which are just one element among many.”
The situation of the studios, sacrificed on the altar of
globalisation, makes it even more difficult to teach techniques: “this
now leads to fashion designers being trained who are not familiar with
fabric, who do not know how textiles work or how fibres react. Soon we
will only know poplin and the jersey for the rest of our lives. It’s
terrifying.” Hence the interest, in passing, in offering her clients a
new course of studies allowing a better understanding of the
mechanisms inherent to the season’s fabrics.
The press also receives a dressing down with scathing remarks about
the lack of general education of fashion editors: “We have seen, for
example, in major magazines such as Vogue or Marie-Claire triumphant
announcements rejoicing in the return of prints. Do your homework
madam editors and stop talking about prints when what is meant is
actually jacquard.”
The rest of the manifesto is in the same vein: public opinion needs to
be made aware of the fact that cheaper clothes (ludicrously, now
copying the luxury brands) manufactured in countries where the
workforce is exploited have blood on their hands; the resulting loss
of interest in local know-how, the irresponsible attitude of the media
in advocating never wearing the same outfit twice as a panacea; the
fact that designers are pushed by marketing to henceforth regard
clothing as just an accessory to other accessories such as bags and
shoes.
“When you add them up there are no longer any creators really creating
fashion. To put it simply, this is because marketing has killed the
fashion industry by over-exploiting it, by subjecting designers to
unbelievable stress (they have to do everything) and where their
originality is sacrificed in the constant quest for the slogan, by
saturating the market with products made to create nice images
designed to be ‘liked’ (in order to sell perfume) to the detriment of
clothes made to be worn.”
And where are the consumers in all this? Lidewij Edelkoort has the
feeling that the younger generations will no longer feel the need to
own a whole expanding wardrobe of their own. She gives the example of
young Chinese clients who cannot afford to buy the dream item such as
the Little Black Dress and opt without hesitation to buy one between
them. And extolling the virtues of projects that in themselves are
slightly insane, such as the ‘habibliothèque’ in Paris that offers the
possibility (while at the same time fighting against fast fashion) of
hiring designer labels at an affordable price.
Conclusion: “Clothes will be the answer to the unsettling of the
fashion system. Analysing and conceptualising a trend will only be of
interest if undertaken from an anthropological and humanist point of
view, and if we go back to the basics of ‘couture’ with its genuine
interest in the fabric and the ‘way’ that we examined them before the
invention of prêt-à-porter clothing. This is why my presentation this
evening, and those to come, will no longer talk about fashion – a
concept that no longer has a raison d’être in this day and age.
Original by Hervé Dewintre, FashionUnited’s correspondent in Paris.