Fashion and the Notion of Waste

7/29/2019 Fashion and the Notion of Waste

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UCA Rochester

Academic Year 2012/13

BA Photography Contemporary Practice

The Commission

Ulrich Lehmann

Fashion In The Context of Waste


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Ulrich Lehmann


Proposed structure for the presentation:

- Introduction: Images of Waste- Sustainable Concepts:

Fashion Cycles

Slow Fashion

Recycling

Repair

Upcycling

- Components of fashion photography- Conclusion


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Ulrich Lehmann


Introduction: Images of Waste


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Free image from http://conservationreport.com/2010/11/,

illustrating L.A. Countys ban on plastic bags


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Sylvie Fleury, Shopping Bags, 1992


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Jrgen Teller, advertising campaign for Marc Jacobs, 2008


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Hanna Liden, Untitled (Deli Bag Self Portrait), 2010


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Erwin Wurm, One-minute-sculpture (for Self Service), 1999


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Ulrich Lehmann

Fashion & the Notion of Waste

Sustainable Concepts:

Fashion Cycles

Slow Fashion

Recycling

Repair

Upcycling


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Those Expences that most Promote Trade, are in Cloaths and Lodging:

In Adorning the Body and the House, There are a Thousand Traders

Imploy'd in providing Food. Belonging to Cloaths, is Fashion; which

is the shape or Form of Apparel. In some places, it is fixt and

certain; as all over Asia, and in Spain; but in France, England, and

other places, the Dress alters; Fashion or the alteration of Dress,

is a great Promoter of Trade, because it occasions the Expence of

Cloaths, before the Old ones are worn out: It is the Spirit and Life

of Trade; It makes a Circulation, and gives a Value by Turns, to all

sorts of Commodities; keeps the great Body of Trade in Motion; it is

an Invention to Dress a Man, as if he lived in a perpetual Spring;

he never sees the Autum of his Cloaths: [...]

The Promoting of New Fashions, ought to be Encouraged, because it

provides a Livelihood for a great Part of Mankind.

Nicolas Barbon, Discourse on Trade, London: Milbourn, 1690, [p.15]

Fashion Cycles


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The uncertainty of fashions does increase necessitous poor.

It has two great mischiefs in it. 1st, The journeymen are

miserable in winter for want of work, the mercers and

master-weavers not daring to lay out their stocks to keep

the journeymen employed before the spring comes, and they

know what the fashion will then be; 2ndly, In the spring the

journeymen are not sufficient, but the master-weavers mustdraw in many prentices, that they may supply the trade of

the kingdom in a quarter or half a year, which robs the

plough of hands, drains the country of labourers, and in a

great part stocks the city with beggars, and starves some in

winter that are ashamed to beg.

John Bellers, Essays About the Poor, Manufactures, Trade,

Plantations & Immorality, London: Sowle, 1699, p.9

Fashion Cycles


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In the same way as technical impediments, so, too, those usages which

have grown with the growth of trade were and still are proclaimed byinterested capitalists as obstacles due to the nature of the work. This was

a favourite cry of the cotton lords at the time they were first threatened

with the Factory Acts. Although their industry more than any other depends

on navigation, yet experience has given them the lie. Since then, every

pretended obstruction to business has been treated by the Factory

inspectors as a mere sham. The thoroughly conscientious investigations of

the Childrens Employment Commission prove that the effect of the

regulation of the hours of work, in some industries, was to spread the mass

of labour previously employed more evenly over the whole year that this

regulation was the first rational bridle on the murderous, meaningless

caprices of fashion, caprices that consort so badly with the system of

modern industry; that the development of ocean navigation and of the means

of communication generally, has swept away the technical basis on which

season-work was really supported, and that all other so-called

unconquerable difficulties vanish before larger buildings, additional

machinery, increase in the number of workpeople employed, and the

alterations caused by all these in the mode of conducting the wholesale

trade. But for all that, capital never becomes reconciled to such changes

and this is admitted over and over again by its own representatives

except under the pressure of a General Act of Parliament for the

compulsory regulation of the hours of labour.

Karl Marx, The Capital, vol.1 [1867],in: Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels,

Collected Works, vol.35, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1996, pp.450-51

Fashion Cycles


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When design is tied to sales rather than to product function, as it

is increasingly, and when marketing strategy is based on frequent

style changes, there are certain almost inevitable results:16a

tendency to the use of inferior materials; short cuts in the time

necessary for sound product development; and a neglect of quality and

adequate inspection. The effect of such built-in obsolescence is a

disguised price increase to the consumer in the form of shorter

product life, and often, heavier repair bills.

Dexter W. Masters [head of Americas Consumers Union], quoted in:

Vance Packard, The Waste Makers, London: Penguin, 1960, p.127.

-> implications for the representation of

fashion and fashionable commodities:

is a different value system implied?!

Fashion Cycles


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The term Slow Fashion was adopted first from the Slow Food Movement in 2007 by the

Centre for Sustainable Fashion in the UK. In its definition it contains alternatives

to seasonal trends and support for a sustainable fashion movement.

Aspects like local production (defined distribution networks), strengthening craft

to ensure longevity and deliberate acts of making, communal consumption, etc. were

adopted from Slow Food to the contemporary clothing industry.

The Slow Fashion/Clothing Movement was intended to reject all mass-produced

clothing, initially accepting only clothes that are made by hand, but more recently

has broadened to include many interpretations and is practiced in various ways.

Some examples of slow fashion practices include:

- opposing or boycotting mass-produced fashion;

- choosing artisanal products to support smaller businesses, fair trade and clothesmade locally;

- acquiring second-hand or vintage clothing and donating unwanted garments;

- choosing clothing made with sustainable, ethically-made or recycled fabrics;

- buying quality garments that will last longer, transcend trends and arerepairable;

- championing DIY-clothing: making, mending, customizing, altering, and up-cyclingyour own clothing;

- slowing the rate of fashion consumption: buying fewer clothes less often.

Slow Fashion


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Slow Fashion

-> as slow fashion purports to refute the commercialstructure of the fashion system, does it simultaneously

ignore its signifiers of gender, class, age, etc.?

-> as a consumer-led movement that intends to change the

status of clothing as commodities it can offer which

alternative(s) and apply what type of pressure to

producers?

-> even when clothes are regarded first as functional

objects they still denote appearances; how is this

reflected in their representation (is there e.g. slow

fashion photography)?

-> aesthetics/concepts (green, eco, ethical, etc.)

can be adapted to suit current trends in fashion; themovement itself is consumed into fashion cycles?!


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Hans Peter Feldmann, All Clothes of a Woman [series of 72 b/w photos], 1974


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Bless no.04: bags (28/03/1998)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyyzKM5MDTk&feature=related

Recycling


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Bless no.10: scarf (28/03/2000)

Recycling


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Upcyclinghttp://www.junkystyling.co.uk/about/history/


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Repairing started with the idea that repair is

underestimated as a creative, cultural and economic

force. If we dont consider repair a contemporary

activity we will loose an incredibly rich body of

knowledge one that contributes to human independence

and pleasure. The situation is especially puzzling when

you consider current global interest in other ideasrelated to sustainability, such as recycling and the

cradle-to-cradle philosophy.

Through repairing we raise awareness of a mentality, a

culture and a practice that not so long ago was

completely integrated into life and the way we designed

it.

Quote adopted from: http://www.platform21.nl/page/4315/en

Repair


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Repair


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Some implications for photography:

- considering waste (materials, energy, logistics, etc.)- sustainable distribution networks-> immateriality of the image production

- complicity with industry (editorial work, advertising, re-use, intellectual copyright, etc.)

- recycling (adopting/copying existing images, discardedmaterials, etc.)

- appropriation as non-material approach (refutation ofconstantly renewed originality)

- using contemporary representation to update existingcommodities

- repairing attitudes to consumption through representation


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Richard Prince, Untitled (Fashion Helmet), 1982,

Chromogenic print, 59.5 x 40.7 cm,

The Art Institute of Chicago


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Todd Hiro (photo)/Pijo Visser (styling), Call, Chase, Follow, editorial for S Magazine, No.13, Fall/Winter 2011


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Maya Villiger (photo, collage)/Sasha Kelly(styling), Cut and Paste, editorial for Oyster, No.97, February/March 2012, pp.48/49


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Charlie Engman, photo for Odyssey editorial for Oyster, No.97, February/March 2012, pp.142/43


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Some components of fashion photography:

- contemporariness- notions of beauty vs. fashionability (eternal vs. ephemeral)- specialist context for dissemination and publication- production as co-operation with buyers, editors, designers, stylists,make-up artists, etc.

- articulation of the commodity- objectification (fetishization) of the body- canonised language of gestures/expressions to parallel meaning ofclothes

- narrative of the (fashion) editorial vs. abstraction of motifs/signifiers

- relation to text (caption, logo, brand, etc.)


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- contemporariness


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Ezra Petroonio/Joan Braun/Yara de Nicola/Morgan ODonovan, The Obsessions, spreads for self service, No.35, Fall/Winter 2011, pp.62/63


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Roxanne Lowit (portraits)/Olivier Zahm (photos), purple night spreads forpurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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- notions of beauty vs. fashionability (eternal vs. ephemeral)


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Venetia Scott (photo & styling), untitled editorial for self service, No.35, Fall/Winter 2011


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- specialist context for dissemination and publication


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Nathaniel Goldberg (photo)/Naomi Ikes (styling), editorial forpurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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- production as co-operation with buyers, editors, designers, stylists,make-up artists, etc.


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Sybille Walter (photo)/Mauricio Nardi (styling), editorial for novembre, No.4, Fall/Winter 2011, pp.38/39


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- articulation of the commodity


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Florian Joye & Florence Ttier (photo)/Clemence Cahu (styling), editorial for novembre, No.4, Fall/Winter 2011, pp.36/37


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- objectification (fetishization) of the body


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Olivier Zahm (photo)/Yasmin Elami (styling), editorial forpurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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- canonised language of gestures/expressions to parallel meaning ofclothes


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Steven Meisel, Louis Vuitton advertising campaign, Spring/Summer 2012, spread frompurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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- narrative of the (fashion) editorial vs. abstraction of motifs/signifiers


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Max Snow (photo)/Vanessa Train (styling), editorial forpurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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- relation to text (caption, logo, brand, etc.)


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Terry Richardson (photo)/Carine Roitfeld (styling), editorial forpurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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Jrgen Teller, Cline advertising campaign, Spring/Summer 2012, spread frompurple fashion, vol.III, no.17 (SS 2012)


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Conclusion

- considering waste (materials, energy, logistics, etc.)

- sustainable distribution networks-> immateriality of the image production

- relation to industry (editorial work, advertising, re-use, intellectual copyright, etc.)

- recycling (adopting/copying existing images, discardedmaterials, etc.)

- appropriation as non-material approach (refutation ofconstantly renewed originality)

- using contemporary representation to update existingcommodities

- repairing attitudes to consumption through representation


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Thank You

Documents

Fashion and the Notion of Waste