The
purpose of couture has always been to create an escape from the
harshness of reality to a fantastical world. It has surely never been
wearability or being commercial, so why is it now almost coming to
the point of looking like ordinary street wear? The prices aren't
coming down, and the clientele isn't necessarily expanding into new
consumer markets. It's still only the upper class and the hollywood
stars that occasionally wear these couture creations, and mainly to
red carpet events.
Street
wear has long been known to inspire some designers' collections, when
it used to be the other way around, and this is nothing new. Now
however, haute couture designers are implementing the same technique,
and this is undeniably affecting the extravagant nature of the
creations.
There
is a certain negative aspect to this as well. As Leandra Medine notes
”with
wearability invariably comes commercial-ability, which is precisely
the kind of soul crushing matter that depletes the whimsy of its
indigenous imagination, that doesn’t let it simply be what it is
and instead plants the kind of seed that is expected to blossom into
a sartorial magnate”.
It is an
extreme point of view, but she does have a point. Are people's
personal style, however bland and basic becoming the new glamour? And
if so, is the ingenuity of these designers lessening, or do we just
not understand the artistic intention behind their glamourisation of
normality deeply enough?
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| Valentino, Dior and Chanel SS 15 Haute Couture |
But this
is the consumer's normality, which most likely has nothing to do with
an innovative creator's idea of normality. Are we all just trying to
fit into the same mold curated to us by society, including the
couturiers? I always saw couturiers as people who walk their own
path, unaware of other people's opinions and criticism. Which is
exactly how it should be, an artist should not have to ask for
permission to create a painting of his perception of the world, or
try to create a painting that would appeal to the general public. It
just simply sells better.
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