Wednesday, December 3, 2014

How are fashion and architecture related? - potential role of architecture as an element having the ability to shape space for the fashion...

In his great classic, Notre-Dame de Paris
[ later called The Hunchback of Notre-Dame], Victor Hugo
writes,


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Indeed, from the beginning of
things...architecture was the great book of humanity, the chief expression of man in his
various stages of development, whether as force or as
intellect.


Architecture, therefore, was developed parallel
with human thought...and fixed all that floating symbolism in an eternal visible,
palpable form....



Like
fashion, then, architecture is a reflection of a culture.  The tastes, the ideals, and
the functions of that culture are reflected in both fashion and architecture.  During
the period that is known as Baroque, for instance, which began around 1600 and extended
into the 18th century, the architecture had an imposing, formal, and dramatic expression
reflective of the Roman Catholic Church which inspired it.  In France, it reflected the
opulence of the aristocracy.  The Opera House in Paris is an example of this Baroque
style; quite appropriately, it reflects the dramatic gestures of opera itself.  Of
course, the fashion of this period was reflective of the same opulent and bold, dramatic
expression.


In more modern times, the American architect,
Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) expressed the idea of art in harmony with function when he
said,



It is
the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and
metaphysical, of all things human and all things super human, of all true manifestations
of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression,
that form follows function.  This is the
law.



Sullivan's architecture
reflects this emphasis upon form following function.  Credited as the creator of the
modern skyscraper, Sullivan mentored Frank Llyod Wright, who also made use of interior
light and open spaces.  Louis Sullivan was an inspiration to a group of architects in
Chicago who came to be known as the Prairie School.  The works of this school are
marked by solid construction and discipline in the use of ornamentation.  Horizontal
lines evoked and related to the flat prairie of
Illinois.                                                            


A
contemporary of Sullivan's, fashion designer Coco Chanel, created the fashionable
"little black dress" and trademark suits that reflected her concept of form following
function. Chanel's first taste of clothing came from a dress that she fashioned from
jersey, a jersey that she had worn to protect her from the cold.  In 1925, Chanel
designed her legendary suit with collarless jacket and well-fitted skirt.  Her designs,
which borrowed from men's fashion, emphasized comfort over the constraints of
then-popular female fashions.

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