Of Beauty And Oblivion

WORDING BY GIUPPY D'AURA

If there is one assumption about today’s fashion which is hard to be challenged is that all the most important and influential trends are inspired by the past. The two main trends, indeed, are both reminiscent of the past: one, based on de-structuration is led by Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga and reflects on structures in a way that is akin to what Martin Margiela did in the Eighties and Nineties; the other one is dominated by embellishment and excessive décor and trickles down from Alessandro Michele at Gucci who deliberately copies clothes of several past decades, if not centuries.

This nostalgia for past things is partly due to the illusion that everything has already been made and nothing new can really be accomplished, yet, luckily, this is not necessarily true. But of course, we can forgive both Michele and Gvasalia given their refined taste and ability to create in their own way and increase their brand figures, especially amongst Millennials.

A similar trend can be registered in the style of contemporary fashion photography and video production. It is not uncommon to see young photographers taking pictures with old fashion film, Polaroid and other types of instant cameras, or, worse, adding specific textures to the skin of the models during the post-production process in order to mimic film, and, again, invoking a vintage way of creating images. This is also true for videos: there are many notable examples of directors who use old VHS-cameras to intentionally produce low-quality images that are often very far from looking “low”. All these ways of producing fashion images can be seen as a mannerism, a little charm, a way of producing new images that today feels new only because our fast-forgetting minds have pushed that aesthetic into oblivion, as it always, always, happens with fashion.

The vintage look, given by film, Polaroid, or textures added with Photoshop, becomes a medium in itself and communicates the photographer’s idea once again confirming the truth of the most obvious yet inexhaustible quote by Marshall McLuhan “the medium is the message”.

Now the real question to be answered is: in the look of these clothes, pictures, videos or accessories, do we actually love the style in itself or rather the sweet smell of long gone decades that they emanate?