Monday, February 13, 2006


How the Runway Took Off

Came across this interesting piece by Amanda Fortini at Slate.com. It's a brief history of the fashion show.


Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty. Click image to expand.

Fashion scholars have penned histories of the high heel, the corset, and the little black dress, but no one has yet written a definitive history of the fashion show. The omission is curious. The problem may be that the fashion show, like any performative enterprise, is by nature ephemeral. Or perhaps it's that the fashion crowd, always in pursuit of the next thing, lacks the archival impulse: Why hash over yesterday's clothes? Whatever the reason, as Valerie Steele, chief curator and director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told me: "The topic of fashion shows remains to find its historian."

Read the full article here.

6 comments:

Alice said...

Thank you for that insight. :)

I wish you'd not been anonymous in your little "instigation" and thus engaged in some healthy discussion.

Control mechanisms by a few or help that is sought out by the masses.... a clearer perspective can be sought in the simple theory of demand and supply.

Nothing can exist without there being the need for it.

How you choose your definitions, is a reflection of your mind.

-Meera

Kochukandhari said...

Hi, found your site while searching for Manish Arora. Enjoyed your site but wish you would focus on Indian fashion more. There's enough and more on international fashion.

Alice said...

Thanks Rivka... i hear you! :)

Kochukandhari said...

Rivka just means Rebecca really in Russian apparently. I wasn't sure I wanted anyone to know my real name when I started blogging and now I just like its sound.
You're right Indian fashion is extensively covered in magazines and on TV but the quality of much of the coverage leaves a lot to be desired to the educated viewer/reader.
As you can imagine you are talking to a frustrated fashion blogger. It's tough to blog from way out in Kottayam! I wish we had something like an Indian version of Fashiontribes or even a style.com.
Hope you'll be covering the Fashion Weeks...

Alice said...

Well your nick then is pretty fascinating.

I know what you mean, but to tell the truth, i've worked upclose with some Indian designers and most of their work fails to elicit any great response from me.. as most of them usually flog it out of talented assistant designers.

But i realise the lacuna there.

Kochukandhari said...

Your idea sounds like fun, lets do it!

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