Vivienne Westwood | Ceci N'est pas une Art blog

With the death of Modernism, came the death of Modernist values, Decoration was not seen as an unnecessary feminine thing, and feminine (thankfully) no longer meant “inferior”. Post modernism embraced what was previously taboo, enforcing the belief that if you like something, you shouldn’t be ashamed of it, it didn’t matter how superficial everyone thought your wardrobe was , you wore it with pride.

Clothing was no longer a representation of social hierarchies, the rebirth of opulence was for everyone, as much as possible, and could be as fantastic, impractical, or downright obscene as you liked. The obvious example of this would of course be Vivienne Westwood’s “Sex” store, which opened in 1971, and helped give birth to the punk movement.

From here, fashion only got better and better. Technically seeing as post modern means “after modernism”, all the designers here are so. But mostly this is just a post on amazing futuristic fashion which may not be here without that movement:

Thierry Mugler, is well known for creating stunning, yet impractical pieces, such as his infamous metal corsets.

His “tamer” clothing however, often has very beautiful sillouettes.

Also typical of this movement was Hussein Chalayan, who used smart technologies and materials to create beautiful, robotic dresses that appeared from hats and even coffee tables as if by magic.

Both of these designers have an incredibly futuristic feel to them, which is reminiscent of Hajime Sorayama’s” Gynoid” Paintings.

Gareth Pugh, is also one for interesting yet impractical sillouettes. Creating exquisite and futuristic headpieces.

Anrealage is a Recent Japanese brand that uses shapes to create the idea of movement, such as in their 2012 collection “time”, where the clothes are designed with a path of action.

“Bone” is a 2013 collection which drags crinolines from the pages of history into modern day fashion. I wish crinolines were still practical for everyday wear.

In keeping with the mid Victorian style is Alice AUAA with their gothic collections that are almost a sort of Avant Garde gothic Lolita.

Framework persists in Christian Dada’s 2012 Tokyo fashion week collection.

Jeremy Scott creates some really beautiful furry rainbow clothes, but he uses real fur in his designs unfortunately.

Johan Ku creates Avante garde knitwear, creating sculptures that hang over the body rather than clothes.

Samuel Cirnansck goes back to the roots of post modern fashion with his 2011 bridalwear fashion which features pony bits/ gags/ and in some cases arm bindings. Whether this is used as an expression of libertine sexuality or as a place to sexually objectify women and try to render women helpless seems unclear, but I really hope it’s the former.

But maybe, one of the best bits about the progressive fashion of postmodernism was when they threw the gender binaries out the window. Not only was androgyny an accepted thing, it was seen as so cool! At the forefront of this were pop stars like David Bowie, and Annie Lennox who smashed social norms with a mallet and paved the way for a glorious new age of ambiguity in gender.