traditional costume as high fashion?

I drew a comparision between today's high fashion designers and Trinidad's traditional costumes. Similarities in shapes, geometries and attention to body movement and restrictions exist in both cases. Nowadays the traditional costume is a dying element in the nations carnival. Today they resort to costumes that though eye catching they rarely acknowledge the arquitectonic spaces that can be created. Varying elements and techniques to achieve the desired effects that both realms of design seek to acquire are left to be explored. I hope to explore these techniques. I have acknowledge that in today's trinidad carnival it has become more about the glitter and beads and less about the art form. Though some designers have tried to bring it back the masses still flock toward the sequins and beads. I beleive there is some sort of middle ground where both can coincide. Having tried my hand at jewelry making , I thought about the existing elements of todays costume and how they can be played with ,altered and reinvented. These pieces include the headpiece, neckpiece/shoulder piece, arm bands, leg bands and waist bands.

Oskar Schlemmer

Associated with the Bahaus school, Oskar was a sculptor, artist and designer who worked with the human form as his subject. This form he reduced to basic geometrical shapes that illustrated the human body as a system of proportions and functions which held true to a basic structure.

Well known for his Triadic Ballet, Schlemmer through costume and choreography drew relationship between the body and the space it occupies and also the body in relation to other bodies around it.The costumes when worn were sometimes transformed into living scuplture as the body structure and system of joints brought it alive.

Unbelievable fashion Vogue 2008

This is a fashion editorial from teh Vogue December 2008 UK Issue. In the name of high fashion its features risk taking designers such as Alexander McQueen, Comme des Garcons, Gareth Pugh, Hussein Chalayan, Issey Miyake, John Galliano, Thierry Mulgas, Hussein Chalayan, Rei Kawakubo, Viktor & Rolf and Yohji Yamamoto.

"Through the generations of designers there are visionaries who conjure fabulous creations that go beyond the boundaries of the imagination, transporting us to other worlds."

UK Vogue December 2008
Photography by Nick Knight

This is the very effect that costumes during carnival can take on, its is crossing over into the second world and realm of play and ecstatic revelation. It is in swinging between the oridinary world and the second temporary world of carnival and play that high fashion becomes costumes and costumes indeed become high fashion.

costume designing

So I've decided. I'm making these killer costumes. I broke it down to the modern costume parts of today's carnival costumes in Trinidad, that consist mainly of the headpiece, neckpiece, leg and arm bands, waist bands and bra. The designs at present rarely push the limit with the possilibities theses components can create. I've been finding inspiration in existing jewelery pieces and also while playing around with the components of the jewelery I was working on previously. Basically its a system of attaching something to the body then attaching something to that something. The process continues from there.In its simplest form, its a jump ring, that is a circular metal ring that has an opening. By opening its you can loop another ring to it and continue the chain. This basic construction is the basis for majority of jewellery pieces. I hope to work as well with grommets and metal snaps closures. I realized in alot of design the single unit alone looks uneventful, but in multiples its creates a language of its own. By finding a variety of ways to attach things to the basic formwork of the previously mentioned components I can prehaps form something that can create a rhythm ,a movement, a sound or simply something to be enjoyed by the effectiveness of multiples.I'm making something in order to think about it and not the other way around.

I've attached two inspiring videos, first is the Trinidadian Mas Designer Peter Minshall who is known for creating fabulous costumes that he refers to as 'dancing mobiles', second is American artist Nick Cave who stumbled upon the idea of the sound suit while building a scupltureout of twigs, as the body moved in it ,the rustling of the twigs against each other created sounds. From there he made 50 more sound suits. It's this sort of stumbling upon something new that I hope to encounter.

So the mission to play and create continues. I found myself in the beading aisle of Micheal's and all hell broke loose. I stayed up for the past two nights linking hoop to hoop and bead to hoop and connecting bead to bead. The way it flowed was interesting, not quite knowing the next step but just bead by bead... it because a judgement call on what 'looked right' whatever right is. I think i like this enough to keep at it. I also started playing with different gauges of wire to create devil horns.

BLUE

This is the Blue devil painting i spoke about previously.

The Trinidad Carnival By Errol Hill

As the glorious morning approachs, the true masker becomes a changed person. For weks he has been getting into his part. No seasoned actor ever worked harder on a role. He has Visualized his character a hundred times over. He has watched its outward form take shape slowly under skillful hands. All that remains for his complete metamorphosis is to enter his costume and step into the street. For two days he will be the living embodiment of his most fancied imagination. ...

Contest, competition. the desire to excel all others in perfection of representation is the keynote of the Trinidad carnival.Here, two maskers. meeting in the middle of the road, stand facing each other, displaying their costumes with peacock spread, rocking on their heels arms outstretched, pivoting to the music, each confident he has outshone the others in fidelity and magnificence.

pg 84-85

So halloween just passed and in the excitement of creating my costume,I realized that this is the one holiday or event that can try to compare to what its like in the build up of carnival and preparing your costume.
I had more fun preparing my costume than at the party itself. I was mrs. pac-man and we went all out creating the giant yellow head. Supplies were boughts, sketches were made, and its varying pieces were cut out as neatly as possible, trying my hardest to have a costume that appeared well crafted and well thought of. I took great pride in the final product and was happy to debut it.
We made the joke that if we put this much effort into our thesis we would be out of here in no time. Its funny how creating something as silly as mrs. pacman consumed my every thought. I dedicated hours to its craftmanship because I wanted to impress others with its size ands well thought out detail.
What is this thing we experience when we create a costume that represents something that is not us? Why are we so dedicated to it?
I guess it only happens once a year, same as any festival such as carnival and thats part of its attraction. It comes and goes and leaves you longing for the next time you can have an excuse to enterntain yourself with the absurd.
Another point I would like to make is the disorienting factor of wearing the pacman headdress.
I had severe tunnel vision and it was frustrating and dizzying at times. I thought to myself most carnival costumes dont have this limitation and its with that, the excitement of wearing the costume was greater and more fullfilling. Most other costumes wearers were happy to sport spandex for majority of the night, not the most forgiving material when it comes to body appearances however the best for flexibilty and mobility. Most carnival costumes resort to the use of spandex or stretching fabric, not boxed in pacman heads . Its a freedom thing.However why is it that we are so terrified to wear spandex for the other days of the year but everyone is happy to sport it on halloween, not seeming to have any qualms about it .

This is just me thinking.

Also I've started a painting and almost finished a painting ... and in the name of "play" i've been experimenting with dripping paint and making a fun mess of things (of course still keeping with my usual style of painting, but kicking it up a notch :)). I'm liking it ... now I want to just work on bigger canvas. I'm working my way up. I'll show you soon enough.