It only took me 3 years…but I’ve finally gotten round to updating here with some of my HND coursework – which should hopefully explain in more detail the reasonings behind my final imagery for each unit. Classic Fashion was the second unit on my 2nd year – and you can view my final outcomes here: Classic Fashion Final Images

‘East meets West’

“Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

This may be read as saying that ‘it is indisputable that geographic points of the compass will never meet in this life, but that when two strong men [or equals] meet, the accidents of birth, whether of nationality, race, or family, do not matter at all—the Asian and the European are equals.”

Extract from ‘The Ballad of East and West’

The purpose of this essay is to discuss the relationship between cultural, fashion and photography, and the concept of ‘East meets West’ – where contemporary and classical fashions merge elaborate fantasy, escapism, fragility and fairytale elements together, to create visual metaphorical statements of that you are unlikely to see on the high street.

Haute Couture (which is bluntly just the French translation of ‘high fashion’ in English despite it’s common usage) and high-end fashion is driven by the designers desires to produce new fashions and lifestyle statements. The fashions they produce are conceptual rather than practical, a physical showcase of their works as an ultimate moment, an instant showcasing beautiful and elegant female models that presents their wares as the acts of a provocateur and boundary pushers.

Photography is the observed culmination of cultural performances, a metaphorical lens where we gain a literal visual insight into the world, into new cultures and their unique lifestyles. Photography opens a window into the fashion drivers within a culture, and the cultural drivers of its fashion.

Different cultures breed different cultural focuses, values and paradigms. This means that forces in the fashions and photographic styles are all inherently culture-bound by the culture’s backgrounds, perspectives and history. So to understand different cultures, it is critical to understand what drives those cultural aspects.

We can acquire cultural knowledge through casual, informal, and direct observations and experiences. Understanding other cultures begins with recognising the difference and diversity in the way people think, talk, act, eat, play, live and die. Along with these perspectives, to fully understand a culture you also need to recognise forces behind the values and the beliefs they engender in the culture of that community, in order to understand the importance of these ritualistic constructs.

Within the concept of ‘East meets West’, Western fashion designers have mined and dissected iconic Asian cultures for sartorial inspiration, creating hybrid concepts that reference centuries-old fashions that embrace ‘oriental chic’ racial diversity. In that sense, high-end fashion narrates a story about the effects of global cultural interactions over the latter half of the twentieth century and references them as the contents printed on the glossy pages of high-end fashion magazines and the visual triggers of the catwalk.

In Western cultures the usually propagated visual stereotypes in fashion are very young models which are used to commodify high-end fashion as a youth cult. The implications between the “West” and the “East,” is presupposed by the cultural contrasts between strong youth-biased consumerism in “Western” cultures and the converse healthy respect for older generations in Asian cultures. However the fashion industry as a whole is faced with a challenge, how to reflect the tectonic demographic shift that is afflicting the developed fashion markets both in countries in the West and in the East, especially in countries like Japan, Korea and now even China, where older women are now massively outnumbering the young. So how do they sell their product, the ultimate image of youth, to the older demographic?

‘After decades of successfully catering to baby-boomer women, many clothing retailers are struggling to find the right look for them – classic enough to be age-appropriate but not too granny-ish. Some have turned their back on older women altogether, chasing web-savvy teens and twenty-somethings instead.“Older shoppers have the disposable income but they are not necessarily spending it on clothes, because many retailers are not targeting them successfully,” says Maureen Hinton, director of research and analysis at Verdict, the retail consultancy. “Most store groups are chasing younger shoppers, who are more driven by fashion and so are much easier to understand.”

Fashion: A mature market

The answer is so simple it is staring the fashion industry in the face – to use older models. Despite the fashion industry’s reluctance, some major model agencies such as Models 1 have recognised the need to have a roster of older models and they have a niche ‘Classic’ division providing niche models aged 28 or older. And there are good reasons to do this.

‘Japan is the most advanced market when it comes to retailers gearing products to older customers. More than one in four Japanese are aged 65 or older, making it the first country to hit the 25 per cent mark.Aeon, Japan’s largest supermarket group and mall operator, has identified the “senior shift” as a key strategic opportunity and is now targeting what it calls the “Grand Generation”.’

Fashion: A mature market

While the fashion industry as a whole chases youth-based consumerism, a demographic with limited and often low incomes, they are chasing the wrong target. In a world where older people, often even so-called pensioners, not only have higher disposable incomes than the young but they also have more money readily available to spend, they are also more selective how they spend it and more discerning what they spend their money on.

‘Photographer Nick Knight believes the success of older models is part of a broader cultural change. “We don’t live in such a youth-based culture as we did 50 years ago,” he says. “The internet is where most people get their fashion information from now, and we’re seeing all manner of different cultures and values.”’

Older models: the women in their 60s, 70s and 80s who are shaking up fashion

So how do photographers communicate that age is not a barrier to fashion? Photographers like Paolo Roversi have been using older models for some time, indeed Roversi has featured older models since at least 2005, and usually these models are not the aesthetic template of a typical fashion model, but often other worldly or ethereal, qualities that are not usually apparent in young models.

Additionally, Western high-end fashion, ‘luxury’ and ‘lifestyle’ magazines do not often feature models that are Eastern, either Asian or of an Asian appearance. Ironically this is against a background of an ‘Orientalist’ fascination the West has with Asianness, and the Western stereotype that Asian women are decadent, demure, exotic, seductive and sensual, with their ‘foreign mystique’, a view that perpetuates the exoticism that surrounds women of the East.

“in 2008 Nick Knight explained that many people in the industry deem black models as non-aspirational, which appears to be the same attitude adopted in Asian markets. “I guess these companies are being told what sells and what doesn’t sell,” he explained.”

Asian Fashion Advertising’s Unfamiliar Face

It is these elements in photography that disseminates the different cultural influences that are evident in fashion from both the East and fashion from the West – from the commodity materialistic fashions worn by Western ‘Hipsters’, to traditional Eastern Geishas and the kitsch of Japan’s Harajuku – ironically a popular subculture with the youth of Chinese controlled Hong Kong.

By contrast designers of Haute Couture parade their fashions like a religious ceremony, using skilled professional photographers to infuse high fashions with abstract random themes. The imagery the photographers produce, contextualised by the situation, props, accessories and customisation is perfected by the work of professional stylists to define how the clothing communicates its values and defines its meaning to the viewer and the designer’s target market.

Time-honored elegance of the Far East alwayshas been a glamorous lure for fashionistas forits perfect blending of cuts and colors, sumptuousprints and fabrics as well as the enhanced senseof dignity Oriental clothing provides.

mikapoka: eastward-oriented lure

Japanese avant-garde photographer and film director Sayaka Maruyama has brought the East to the West. Maruyama, a graduate of the Tohoku University of Art, is now working in London with hair and head prop artist Tomihiro Kono, where Maruyama produces preternatural images which coalesces the works of high end fashion designers and aspirational brands from the West, with the zest and an accent of the East.

Maruyama used Western models, but attired in Eastern-inspired vestments in ‘The stunning editorial called ”The Empress’ New Clothes”’ for ”How to Spend It”, the lifestyle magazine of the Financial Times. The editorial showcased a collection of Eastern inspired high end fashion by leading designers, including ‘flowing silk kimonos, brocades, embroidered satin dresses … and even vintage robes … fully conveying the exotic sense of elegance and intrigue that makes more and more Western people going for Eastern wear.’

Similarly other photographers such as Alexi Lubomirski have produced shoots for leading fashion magazines such as Vogue Germany. Lubomirski interpretation of ‘East meets West’ used Eastern-influenced props to amplify the oriental overtones of the garments, and ‘portray a glamorous tourist in early 20th century China. The saturated colours add to effect that everything oriental seems alluring to Western eyes’.

Nicoline Patricia Malina has produced a similar body of ‘East meets West’ work, with a collection of Harajuku inspired images that is more abstract or surreal than Lubomirski’s, mashing Western materialistic values with both traditional Japanese and modern fashions, which produces vibrant concepts that visually assault the eyes with bright and brash colour mixes that have more in common with toxic waste than fashion.

Conclusion

To discuss the relationship between culture, fashion and photography, and the concept of ‘East meets West’ we need to examine what drives designers of Haute Couture and high-end fashion to produce new fashions and lifestyle statements as a conceptual but physical showcase of their works, against photography which gives us a literal window into the world, cultures and lifestyles that drive fashion. The concept of ‘East meets West’ is dominated by the cultural contrasts between strong youth-biased consumerism in “Western” cultures and the healthy respect for older generations in “Eastern” cultures in Asia.

Understanding different cultures means you need to understand the breadth of different cultural focuses, values and paradigms in those cultures. The forces that drive fashions and photographic styles are all inherently culture-bound by the culture’s backgrounds, perspectives and history. So to understand the relationships between fashion, photography and cultures, it is critical to understand what drives them. Cultural knowledge can be acquire through casual, informal, and direct observations and experiences. Understanding other cultures begins with recognising the difference and diversity in the way people think, talk, act, eat, play, live and die.

The fashion industry as a whole is faced with a challenge of how to respond to the demographic shift that is affecting the developed fashion markets both in the West and East, where older women outnumbering the young. While the fashion industry as a whole chases youth, this is a demographic with limited and often low incomes. The world is now where older people, even so-called pensioners, have higher disposable incomes than the young but they are also more selective how they spend it and more discerning what they spend their money on.

Photographers can use their imagery to communicate that age is not a barrier to fashion. Photographers like Paolo Roversi and Nick Knight make use of older models for good reasons. These models are not the aesthetic template of a typical fashion model, but bring with them other worldly or ethereal qualities that are not usually apparent in young models. And worldly experience.

Portraying ‘East meets West’ is both simple and complex at the same time. Photographers like Sayaka Maruyama, Alexi Lubomirski and Nicoline Patricia Malina have all produced oriental inspired images which appear simplistic on the surface, but they hide the difficulty of melding the equity of different cultures together without making the resulting imagery cliché.