London Fashion Week 2011

Above:  screenprint from the Daily Telegraph website.

We are currently in the middle of London Fashion Week 2011 (opened by Samantha Cameron).  Fashion is about more than just clothes, it influences art, advertising, lifestyles, aspirations, consumerism and behaviour.  If you understand what shapes current fashion you can get a good idea of what is likely to influence culture and society.

Above:  last month I went to see the Masters of Style exhibition at Somerset House.  It was a fascinating exhibition as it looked behind the big names to the photographic artists that created the conceptual ideas that underpin all great art and design.  It was as if the exhibition was lifting off the outer shell to show you the mechanics that made everything work.

Above:  the exhibition catalogue was very well done and is a useful reference work on how to create glamour, assurance, and elegance (I mean this in a practical way).

Above:  three photographers who have worked for Dolce & Gabbana were featured - Scianna, Meisel, Klein.  All their work is fabulous.  Wonderful 1980s work by Scianna.

Above:  for Gucci the work of Stadler, Testino, McDean and Van Lamsweerde / Matadin are showcased.  You have to admire the way they create moods and feelings from two dimensional images. 
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Above:  big new photo by Dolce & Gabbana that appeared in the national press this week.  D&G photography, although it is sometimes controversial, is always worth looking at.  The use of colour is incredible here, also shadows and textures.  Also the narrative - why are they looking askance into the distance?  Why are they wearing formal dress in a run-down part of a city?  What is the importance of the reference to Pier Paolo Pasolini's film Mama Roma (in which Pasolini famously described his country after 1945 as populated by whores, pimps and thieves)?

Above:  full-page Gucci ad that appeared on the OBC of today's Guardian magazine.  On a technical level the photographer has done a brilliant job in illustrating the idea of "intense".  There is an ad which goes with the campaign http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7K2GAoBTuc4&feature=relmfu where the woman (Evan Rachel Wood) seems to be paying the man (Chris Evans) immediately after they have sex.  So another oblique reference to prostitution?  If prostitution is a theme of designers this autumn it is going to be in the High Street next year.  I'm not judging anyone - this is just how it looks to me.

Above:  this double-page spread for Tommy Hilfiger, also in today's Guardian magazine, caught my eye.  It is a very ambitious photograph that completely works in every way (you can split the image up into sections and each one is perfectly balanced and composed).  But what intrigued me was not the number of participants (16!) but the ideological message that seems to be encoded.  This is obviously an extended family; hierarchical (mother and father are the ones who are seated); wholesome (sporty, young, healthy); comfortable but not too wealthy (this could be the hall of any four-bedroom house); harmonious; subtly diverse etc.  It is a representation of a perfect society.  It is certainly art, but it might also be propaganda.

Above:  seeing the Hilfiger ad made me think of the great family paintings of the 18th and 19th century.  This is the Wigram family (a digital photograph of a photocopy of a drawing of a painting - if anyone knows where the original painting can be seen please let me know).  Again this is more than just a simple visual record of a moment in time - it is intended to project a visual message.