When Clothes Become Fashion

1. Fashion is a Social Construct, Not Just Clothes.

Clothing is supplemented by semblance and illusion, which are defined as increased value or additional usefulness; in short, as fashion.

Beyond mere garments. Fashion is not simply clothing; it is a social construct, defined by collective agreement on what is "in" or "out." While clothing serves functional purposes like protection and aesthetics, fashion imbues it with a social purpose, transforming it into a statement of identity and belonging. This distinction clarifies that seasonal changes in garments do not automatically equate to changes in fashion.

Social validity is key. Unlike clothing, which is defined by its enduring form and seasonal renewal in economic terms, fashion's fundamental significance lies in its social dynamics. Its validity is negotiated communicatively within society, making it variable, multilayered, and discontinuous. This social negotiation allows for the continual redefinition of tolerance limits, enabling the acceptance of innovative creations and the emergence of new fashions.

Staging and communication. The journey from clothing to fashion begins with its staging on the catwalk and through photography and advertising. These mediums grant clothing the "semblance and illusion of fashion," introducing it to a wider audience. This process highlights that fashion is far more than its appearance; it is a complex interplay of function, meaning, and social communication, where mimicry and the spread of "memes" (cultural ideas) play a crucial role in its dissemination.

2. Fashion Operates as a Self-Referential System.

Fashion is a self-referential system focused on self-organisation and the cyclic auto-reproduction of systemic elements.

Autonomous dynamics. Fashion, akin to politics or art, functions as an autonomous, self-referential, and operatively closed social system, as theorized by Niklas Luhmann. This means the fashion system produces fashion from within, independent of external causal influences like the economic system. Its core area exists "as itself," constantly generating new creations and enduring even in times of crisis.

Autopoiesis and stability. The system's self-organization, or autopoiesis, ensures its continuous existence through the production of innovations. Fashion's stability arises from its inherent instabilities, constantly creating new forms and contents to avoid collapse. This internal dynamic allows it to adapt its organization in response to environmental changes, rather than being directly controlled by them, demonstrating a paradigm of organized complexity.

Binary code and structural linkage. Fashion operates on a binary code of "in" and "out," signifying fashionable versus old-fashioned, rather than beautiful versus ugly. While self-referential, fashion maintains crucial structural linkages with other social systems like economics, media, music, and art. This exchange with its environment allows fashion to reflect the zeitgeist and remain dynamic, unlike rigid traditional costumes or uniforms.

3. Creativity Fuels Fashion's Constant Reinvention.

Creativity is a natural quality . . . It is the capacity for evolution . . . In reality, human creativity is something natural and simple . . . it is just that man’s image of his own creativity is too lofty.

Beyond sandcastles. Creativity in fashion design goes beyond everyday ingenuity, involving original conceptual and design potentials. It draws on diverse cognitive dispositions, including:

• Analogical and associative thinking
• Curiosity and a wealth of imagination
• Constructive abilities and knowledge
  This complex interplay allows designers to introduce genuinely new elements or solutions, pushing the boundaries of what is considered possible in clothing.

Brain's role in innovation. Human creativity stems from the dynamic communication between the rational left and intuitive right cerebral hemispheres. This neuronal network is essential for innovative designs, enabling both outstanding aesthetics and structural integrity. Unlike computers, the human brain's flexibility, capacity for subjective thought, and willingness to take risks are fundamental to generating truly novel ideas, operating in the "open perhaps" of fuzzy logic.

Freedom and frustration. Essential preconditions for creative production include freedom of thought, emotion, and action. Necessity often paralyzes rather than inspires, while frustration with existing norms can trigger creative breakthroughs. Designers like Mary Quant, Jil Sander, and Gabrielle Chanel revolutionized fashion by addressing their dissatisfaction with the status quo, leading to unique design languages and consistent styles.

4. Innovation Arises from Provocation and Transformation.

The provocative, the shocking and the radical originate in thought processes before being realised as something tangible and perceivable.

Challenging perception. Provocation in fashion design consciously alters an object's characteristics to generate paradoxical, unrealistic, or unusual consequences, aiming for a fresh perception of both clothing and the body. This involves crossing real and intellectual borders, deviating from perceptual and emotional norms. Alexander McQueen, for instance, integrated provocation by creating a wide gap between his creations and general clothing images, demanding interpretive effort from the recipient.

Overforming and deforming. Designers employ extreme forms to capture attention and challenge customary aesthetics. Rei Kawakubo's "Body Meets Dress" collection, with its asymmetrical padding, deformed the body to question traditional beauty ideals, while Viktor & Rolf's "Russian Doll" over-dressed a model to the point of immobility, transforming her into a textile object. These extreme manipulations highlight the sculptural potential of clothing and its ability to redefine the human silhouette.

Transformative design. Transformation involves altering a form or structure without losing its substance, aiming to tap fresh energies and achieve new goals. This includes:

• Subtraction and Inversion: Hussein Chalayan's "Manifest Destiny" (2003) with fabric nets, or Viktor & Rolf's "Upside Down" (2006) interchanging top and bottom.
• Material Experimentation: Paco Rabanne's use of hard plastic and metal, or Helen Storey's dissolving fabrics.
• Transformables: Lucy Orta's "Habitent" (1992) rain cape that becomes a tent.
  These strategies push the boundaries of wearability, often blurring the line between fashion and art.

5. Fashion Blurs Boundaries with Art and Design.

Art is, because it is art, artificial and thus extremely unnatural.

Art's purpose and fashion's claim. While traditionally "fine art" is seen as purposeless and "applied art" (design) as functional, both serve purposes like expression, decoration, or communication. Fashion approaches art when it is recruited from ideas, emotions, and experiments, regardless of wearability or saleability. Designers like Viktor & Rolf and Hussein Chalayan create pieces that transcend commercial utility, becoming "theatrical-artistic-vestimentary syntheses of the arts."

Clothing as artistic medium. Artists have long used clothing symbolically, as a fetish, surrogate, or representative of the human being. Marcel Duchamp's "Gilet pour Benjamin Péret" (1958) and Brian Jungen's sneaker-totems exemplify this. In turn, fashion designers incorporate artistic techniques and concepts, blurring the lines.

• Cindy Sherman and Erwin Wurm adapt fashion in art to critique it.
• Jana Sterbak's "Vanitas, Flesh Dress" (1987) uses raw meat to explore themes of body and decay.
  These works highlight how both art and clothing construct and manipulate the image of the body.

Design's aesthetic and functional blend. Design is defined by its claim to a relation between form and usage, exploring the "genetic code" of an object to satisfy complex needs. Good design balances aesthetic, functional, and communicative criteria. Fashion design, as applied art, aims to make things comprehensible and pleasurable to wear, reflecting the "soul of an epoch." This convergence is evident in exhibitions where designer fashion is presented as cultural artifacts, separate from pure commerce, challenging the notion of "who is going to wear that."

6. Context Crossing Drives Fashion's Evolution.

The new emerges with the aid of the imagination, the capacity to conceive something as a supplement to what exists in the sense of complementing it.

Beyond genuine ideas. Context crossings, or "hybrids," are a powerful innovation strategy in fashion, often stemming from associative thinking rather than entirely new ideas. They involve constructing relations between previously unconnected ideas or structures, leading to a revaluation of meaning. This can be seen in:

• Material revaluation: Paco Rabanne adapting metal or glass for dresses.
• Cultural recontextualization: Coco Chanel transforming a regional "farmer's jacket" into international haute couture.
• Functional re-purposing: The anorak evolving from Inuit clothing to global sportswear.

Global assimilation. This strategy involves assimilating diverse local traditions and reassembling them into new, globally available wholes. The "ethno look," popularized by designers like Kenzo and John Galliano, combines elements from various cultures (Peruvian, Mongolian, Yemeni) into a multicultural aesthetic. This disregard for strict local identities, driven by curiosity and openness, is a hallmark of postmodern fashion, creating a "world without borders" in terms of style.

Paradox and re-design. Context crossing also embraces paradox, fusing contradictions to create newness. Examples include:

• Moschino's playful inversion of fashion signs (jeans as a jacket).
• Gianni Versace's "Bondage" collection, transforming sadomasochistic connotations into luxury fashion.
• Helmut Lang's minimalist ornamentation using dress-suit trimmings on sportswear.
  These "re-designing" efforts, whether through adding, deleting, inverting, or merging elements, constantly redefine what is considered fashionable and acceptable, leading to hybrids like cargo pants or trekking sandals.

7. Technology and the Body Redefine Fashion's Future.

The key phrase 'second skin' embodies a vision for the future in which a synthetic material similar to human skin is integrated into the skin, repairing itself and growing back, and producing colours or logos on the skin itself—according to how the material has been processed.

Wearables and smart textiles. The integration of electronics and new technologies into clothing marks a new era, transforming garments into "wearables" or "smart clothes." These functional electronic objects, like GEOX jackets with integrated touchpads or MP3 players, prioritize maximizing function and performance. The vision extends to textiles that react to light, heat, or touch, and even self-repairing fabrics, moving beyond mere aesthetics to offer functions largely independent of the user.

Cyborgs and bio-design. The concept of the "cyborg" (cybernetic organism) explores the fusion of biological and artificial parts, pushing the boundaries of human enhancement. This includes:

• Brain implants for increased cognitive capacity.
• Body jewelry functioning as brain-computer interfaces.
• Prostheses becoming visible, designed elements, as seen in Alexander McQueen's work.
  This vision suggests a future where the human body itself becomes a primary design object, blurring the lines between nature and artifice, and potentially leading to a "bio-machine ready for adaptation."

Virtual fashion and cyberbodies. Digital advancements enable the creation of "fashion for the virtual 'I'," where avatars in cyberspace can convey diverse virtual identities. Designers like Christiane Luible and Alexander Lindt explore body designs for bodiless virtual entities, where clothing might be:

• Spatial coverings that change with virtual movement.
• Fragments that wander across the body.
• Nanocomponents of pure energy on the skin's surface.
  These concepts challenge traditional notions of clothing, suggesting a future where fashion exists beyond physical constraints, as pure design material for the body, and where "reality crossing" becomes commonplace.

8. The Copy is Essential to Fashion's Diffusion.

Fashion thrives on the copy in the sense of the reproduction of a work.

Originality and reproduction. The concept of the "copy" emerged in fashion with the rise of named creators like Charles Frederick Worth, whose claim to unique works brought about the idea of imitation. Fashion, unlike fine art, relies on reproduction for its very existence. The saying "clothes do not become fashion until they hit the streets" underscores that widespread adoption, often through copying, is crucial for a design to become "fashion."

From haute couture to mass market. Copies range from legal reproductions and sewing patterns to free imitations and illegal forgeries. This process makes designer fashion accessible to the mainstream, leading to a certain stylistic similarity within a season. While designers are inventors, clever followers often succeed by adapting extreme designs for broader appeal and leveraging distribution power, driving competition and market expansion.

Authenticity and appropriation. The value of a product, particularly luxury items, often drives copying, as logos and brand labels signify originality. However, designers also engage in "appropriation art," questioning the very claim to originality. Martin Margiela, for example, deconstructs and re-fashions second-hand items, while Gabrielle Chanel famously welcomed copying as a "continuing guarantee of success," believing that only significant designs are imitated. This interplay between original and copy is fundamental to fashion's dynamic nature.

9. Fashion Reflects and Shapes Societal Identity.

Fashion is a personal aesthetic perception in the collective, as the individual becomes meaningful only through the whole.

Beyond "clothes make the man." Fashion offers insights into society and culture, serving as a symbol of eroticism, power, knowledge, aesthetics, pleasure, taste, and prestige. It defines social identity, allowing individuals to express their self-construct to the outside world. This social positioning is crucial, as a person's appearance, shaped by clothing and styling, determines how they are addressed and integrated into society, making them a "social addressor."

Individuation and socialisation. While individuals perceive fashion uniquely, socialisation often triumphs over individuation. The transmission of traditions leads to an adaptation or preservation of appearance within a community, ensuring continuity. Adolescents, in particular, use clothing to construct a self-image and signal group belonging, often through extreme or imitative styles. This duality of distinction and imitation is fundamental to fashion's role in identity formation, where personal creative effort is often reduced to combining fashionable items.

Gender and body as social constructs. Fashion plays a pivotal role in "doing gender," constantly producing and reinforcing gender roles through styling and body presentation. While neurophysiology confirms biological sex differences, gender is largely a sociocultural construct, intensified and made publicly visible by fashion. The historical polarization of men's and women's fashion, and later the blurring of lines through gender-crossing styles, reflect evolving societal norms and the ongoing negotiation of identity and "performativity."

10. Styles Evolve Through Cycles of Modernity and Pluralism.

The stylistic pluralism of today’s clothing fashion is associated with the principle known as the postmodern, with the masquerade [melting-pot style; author’s note], with the short-term staging of individuality as a processual concept of identity based on the oppositional scheme of 'in' and 'out' rather than 'old' versus 'modern'.

Modernism's break with tradition. Modernism, particularly in the early 20th century, sought innovation and progress by fundamentally breaking with the past. In fashion, this was seen in:

• Italian Futurism's bold colors and metal shirts, exalting technology.
• Russian Constructivism's functional, geometric designs for ready-to-wear.
  Gabrielle Chanel's "little black dress" and functional suits embodied this "new objectivity," emphasizing simplicity and liberation from traditional constraints, often echoing the "form follows function" principle.

Postmodernism's embrace of heterogeneity. Postmodernism, emerging from the 1970s, rejected modernism's radicalism and totality, embracing diversity, pluralism, and the influence of pop culture and everyday life. It re-semantized and pluralized stylistic language, often through historical and ethnic citations, but with a new, ironic twist. Designers like Christian Lacroix, Gianni Versace, John Galliano, and Jean-Paul Gaultier reassembled historical and ethnic details into contemporary, often provocative, statements, embodying the motto "form produces visions."

Beyond postmodernism: new aesthetics. The evolution continues with "second modernism" and "post-postmodernism," which revisit earlier ideas with new interpretations. Purism and minimalism, championed by designers like Jil Sander and Helmut Lang, emphasized bold lines and quality, while "neo-ornamentation" brought back decorative elements, often as a means of individualization in an age of mass goods. These cycles demonstrate fashion's continuous reinterpretation of its own history and its ongoing dialogue with broader cultural shifts, leading to a "supermarket of styles."

Last updated: August 20, 2025