Throughout reading the first chapter of ‘FASHION MEDIA, PAST AND PRESENT. 1. TASTE, FASHION AND THE FRENCH FASHION MAGAZINE by Sandra Miller’. I felt that Miller was passionate about how threatened the fashion industry was and is by the art industry, how once they collaborated with one another but now no more. The collaboration gave a superiority to the fashion industry, it was the source of inspiration for many artists and was the ‘leader’ within their relationship.
Within the article there has been a strong reference of the influence of the French Revolution and how this redefined the placement of the French within Fashion; there is a reclusive block missing from the Parisian fashion timeline, this is conclusively down to The French Revolution. Especially as it was referred to as ‘the bloodiest revolution in European History’ Miller.S (2013) ‘TASTE, FASHION AND THE FRENCH FASHION MAGAZINE’, within ‘FASHION MEDIA, PAST AND PRESENT’, New York, Bloomsbury Academic 2014. p17.
One element discussed within the beginning of the sub-section of ‘TASTE AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE CRITIC’ was the ‘experience of beauty transcended personal opinion’; to me it gave a different insight between the aesthetic acceptance and the appreciation of artwork; giving the context of ‘taste’. Throughout the article Miller has used numerous references which have credited her work; several being Anthony Ashley-Cooper, David Hume and Edmund Blake; their more philosophical work is based with “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’-affirming that there is no common denominator in our lives’.
I extended research to discover more about the French Revolution, trying to understand how the people must have felt during this time and why the revolution started; within the article Miller uses the words ‘a society about to disappear’. These words became eerie and unsettling.
Finding a painting depicting an aristocratic lady ‘suckling’ Miller.S (2013) ‘TASTE, FASHION AND THE FRENCH FASHION MAGAZINE’, within ‘FASHION MEDIA, PAST AND PRESENT’, New York, Bloomsbury Academic 2014 p17 her baby. The high aristocratic life was about to collapse to the Revolution, a barrier once separating artist Pierre-Thomas Le Clerc from his work was giving way.
I watched a video that exercised the history of revolution through a song performed by Jeffery Lewis. Lewis claimed that the revolution was ‘the biggest change that shaped our western world today’, this I agree with. It removed the relationship that artists and designers have and the content of what they paint. The revolution created a pause within the Fashion industry and designers became less intrigued with Paris and sought inspiration from the remaining close world, London, Britain.
The most significant element for me is the recognition that fashion is something to take seriously, it’s a necessary subject and isn’t something to be dismissed.Within the book: ‘ADORNED IN DREAMS, FASHION AND MODERNITY’ by Elizabeth Wilson after a quote by Lehmann, Ulrich (1999), ‘Tigersprung’. Following this Wilson says, ‘Thus fashion, most marginalised of all arts, lives at the heart of history’. Clearly this shows that Fashion is the essence of history, the most intense and large aspects of art in a sense, Fashion is history.
Miller.S (2013) ‘TASTE, FASHION AND THE FRENCH FASHION MAGAZINE’, within ‘FASHION MEDIA, PAST AND PRESENT’, New York, Bloomsbury Academic 2014 p13-21
History (n.a) ‘FRENCH REVOLUTION’
http://www.history.com/topics/french-revolution
(9th November 2017)
Wilson.E (1985) ‘ADORNED IN DREAMS, FASHION AND MODERNITY’, I.B Tauris & Co. Ltd London, New York. P227.