Form Without Function?
Is fashion really design? A good design springs from the dance between form and function. Fashion has form, many forms in fact. But where is the other side of the fashion coin? Well-designed items are ones which look good while serving a purpose — a chair one cannot sit upon is hardly a chair. Yet to analyze the design of a gold-sequined clutch, barely large enough to house a thought, based equally on aesthetics and utility requires a bit more reflection. Do we hold fashion to a different set of standards than other aspects of design? What essential purpose does fashion serve?
Perhaps the most obvious example of the ambiguous function of fashion is the high heel. The footwear was popularized in the 1530’s in France by the vertically-challenged Catherine de’ Medici when she brought heels from Florence for her wedding with the Duke of Orleans. The appeal of a bit of added height is apparent in the shoes’ longevity, and today the style of the heel is a major part of the flux of what’s in and what’s not in the modern fashion industry. Yet, were one to analyze the usability of shoes based on the assumption that their purpose is to protect the feet, the popularity of heels would be baffling. Though they may make a good murder weapon in creative crime drama plots, while attempting to reach model-like height and litheness women have suffered much discomfort and spent considerable hard-earned money on cabs.
The constant strive for something fresh and unique has driven some in every era to create garments so dramatic, so outlandish, that the wearer can hardly walk, let alone sit down or (heaven forbid) eat. Currently volume clothing is a popular trend. In the spirit of playfulness, proportions are tweaked and very large gathers of fabric float around often very thin women. Though original in their ethereal and futuristic apparition, some of these items are so large that they would need a second ticket in order to fly on a plane or see a movie. How do we apply such styles? Though the fabric may be divine, do we really need so much of it that it becomes impossible to turn around in the workplace without knocking over someone’s coffee cup?
If fashionable clothing is so impractical, then why do we desire it? Perhaps the answer is more complex. Throughout human history, clothing has been used as a means of distinguishing people from different cultures and social status. In ancient Rome, for example, only the senators were allowed to wear garments dyed with expensive Tyrian purple. Currently, there are no laws preventing the masses from wearing haute couture, but the steep price does the job sufficiently. Plus, as with some volume pieces, high fashion can be by nature so unusual, were the exorbitant price not enough to prevent common usage, sheer impracticality would. What says luxury more poignantly than spending thousands of dollars on diamond-encrusted sandals to be worn but once?
Perhaps haute couture is not intended to be worn, but is to be seen rather as a form of social theater, and maybe that is what people want and expect from it. If its expression is largely artistic, then the element of function which defines it as design rather than art must be a social one. Apparel as a social tool is evident not only amongst the fashion elites, but in the fashion choices everyone makes every day. People use dress to convey messages to each other about who they are. It is a way to define social identity. Many movements have used dress to convey a message of rebellion or rejection of social constrictions. Sometimes the voice is lost in the crowd, other times it influences the way the general public views fashion and eventually becomes absorbed into the mainstream. In our fast-paced world, street fashion like that related to hip-hop culture is so influential that it is popularized within a year or so and thus loses its edge.
So what is the true function of fashion? When seen in this way, the most apparent and real purpose of fashion appears not to be keeping us warm or protecting our defenseless bodies, but as a means to identify ourselves to those around us. Whether we use it to project prestige or rebel against the status quo, it is a language in which to describe the role we want to play on the stage of the world.
Written by d/visible contributor Emily Hanson
