THESTYLEFIBULA
Levi’s 501 in the USSR – Symbol of Identity, Consumer Culture and Gender
Consumer goods are the bricks with which we build our culture and create private and public meanings for our possessions. Thus, we identify ourselves by means of goods – available market resources – establishing a certain hyperreality by Jean Baudrillard around us. Then self-doubt, as a result of cultural contradictions caused by marketing manipulations, appears…
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Haute Couture – In Retrospect
“Haute Couture should be fun, foolish and almost unwearable.” Christian Lacroix Nowadays custom-fitted clothing of couture status produces not only in Paris but also in other fashion capitals such as New York, London, and Milan. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of haute couture, once started in Paris, still stays there with its colourful and vivacious history. Let’s…
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The Orchestra of Haute Couture
“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” – Aristotle The Fashion Syndicate As officially recognized father of haute couture, Charles Frederick Worth was not only concerned about haute couture clothing but also about all the practical details and legal status of the hand-made craftsmanship. As…
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Haute Couture – The “Pouf” of French Gross National Product
“If you want to establish an international presence you can’t do so from New York. You need the consecration of Paris.” Oscar De La Renta When hearing the expression “Haute Couture” (pronounced OTE koo-TUR), you immediately think of France, and Paris in particular. There is no coincidence in that association, since the home country of…
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Unfinished Portrait by Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso was one of the pioneers in the modernist revolution of portraiture, which is called “portrait situation”, engaging the psychological interest of the artist for the subject (the model). Pablo Picasso’s approach to portraiture is similar to an analysis where the psychological dynamics, translating the artist’s feelings and experience, is the key. Picasso phrased…
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Futuristic Odyssey of Smart Fashion
Who of us today remember the new futuristic story “Things to Come” (1936) directed by William Cameron Menzies, displaying “social and political forces and possibilities”? Well, we can at least recall “A Space Odyssey”, which is an epic science-fiction story first told in 1968 and in 2001 produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick . In…
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A Three-Piece Suit for Vladimir Lenin
One hundred years ago today (October 25 according to the old calendar), the October Revolution led by the Bolshevik party headed by Russian emigré Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin forever changed the history of Russia. On that day Petrograd was suffering a stormy weather. In the morning at 10 am Lenin, wearing a three-piece suit, was writing his…
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Commodification of Counterculture in Fashion Advertising
The year was 1976, when the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen went to number one and despite that fact, the band was refused air time by the BBC. Meanwhile, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, who were dressing the band, reopened their famous shop Let it Rock at 430 King Road offering transformed straps and zips…
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“Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams.”
In 1898, when the Ritz Hotel in Paris first opened its doors to a “glittering reception”, caviar with champagne came very soon to be one of the signatures of the bar menu. Indeed, caviar is associated with something luxury, exquisite and extravagant at the same time. What is caviar? The term caviar (sometimes called Russian…
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