Arnhem Mode Biennale: A Bridge too Fair
A review on the shape shifting influence of Arnhem Mode Biennale’s main exhibition
Arnhem is not only a major meeting point for professionals and fashion students from all over the world, but the exhibitions and other events organised in this fairly small city in the Netherlands are also a sample that helps us understand where fashion stands in the beginning of a new century.
Exhibitions, films, fashion shows, workshops, performances, and publications are held for a month every two years in a biennale that has become a major international trendsetting event, and the biggest names in fashion are more than happy to participate in it. The Arnhem Mode Biennale focuses on fashion as an art more than as a product, which is not so surprising knowing that its artistic director is graphics-obsessed, Vermeer admirer, illustrator Piet Paris, author of many sultry geometric fashion statements. Through Arnhem Mode Biennale, Paris states that fashion is not only garments or products to be sold, but also a more abstract approach to beauty and the human body. He has indeed elaborated this throughout this year’s main subject, “Shape”.
Fashion is a changing shape. Throughout centuries, the human body has been perceived as beautiful or ugly according to it, and fashion’s primary function has been to modify that shape according to the beauty canons of each era. What is considered beautiful at one moment may be viewed as barbaric at another. But how has shape evolved in a world with multiple interpretations of beauty? As an answer to this question, more than 80 designers from all over the world (from established labels like Lanvin to young rising talents such as Jose Castro and Spijkers en Spijkers) have come together over nine interlinked pavilions that unite the Arnhem City Hall and the neighbouring Eusebius Church, each one showing samples of their most representative work. But they all have something in common: an avant-garde vision of fashion, believing more in the essence of form than in the excess of decoration — a big trend on all catwalks in the last decade. In a time when we are re-thinking politics and society, why not give priority to the basis of well-made fashion?
Each designer has a different working method and a personal approach to creating volume, and Paris divides all fashion designers into three groups according to the method they use when working on shape. The most traditional view on form, and probably the most body conscious, can count some of today’s most popular fashion designers amongst its fans such as Lanvin, Giambattista Valli, Proenza Schouler, Rick Owens and Christopher Kane. They all create subtle, flamboyant, sometimes otherworldly fabric effects by working on the mannequin, with the method of draping (“Moulage”). They exaggerate key body parts to create illusions such as a perfectly hourglass shaped feminine figure or a more powerful silhouette.
Alber Elbaz is currently one of the most respected personalities in the industry. He has brought back to fashion a taste for sophisticated femininity and an understated elegance. His clothes are always well tailored and his draping effects fall perfectly on women’s bodies, always enhancing some of its most attractive parts. Rick Owens does the same, only aiming to create a more ambiguous and mysterious silhouette. Rising British talent Christopher Kane has evolved quite a bit since his first collection, but something remains constant in his creative process: Kane uses fabric details, like origami effects, ruffles or circles, to achieve shape.
Rei Kawakubo at Comme des Garçons forms shape from a different approach. And so do Kate and Laura Mulleavy, founders of the CFDA award winning, California-based label Rodarte. They use a much more avant-garde and intangible method, starting work from their personal experiential creative worlds. It is raw, shocking and often brutal interpretation of what shape is, but, paradoxically, it never ceases to be delicate and exquisite, bringing a new concept of femininity: Kawakubo always uses subtle fabrics like tulle with which she creates “millefeuille” effects. The American duo Rodarte prefer much more fluent shapes, and they stress the masculine-feminine dichotomy by mixing opposite colours and styles.
Viktor & Rolf are the perfect example of what Dutch talent is about. The revolutionary duo has changed the way we view fashion with their excessive, colourful, Alice in Wonderland-like designs. Their interpretation of form is purely conceptual: they develop an original idea throughout the whole collection, creating surreal, excessive, dreamlike garments. They perceive shape and volume as being extra-corporeal, and shape in their shows is usually created more by fabric work and objects existing around the models than by the models themselves (the show in which models looked like they were in bed, as well as one in which they were but a support for a light installation have already become part of fashion history). Theirs is a very extreme interpretation of what volume is, and new generations of young designers all around the world are strongly influenced by this transgressive point of view.
Another one of the protagonists of this year’s Biennale can’t really be labelled in any of these three categories. Stephen Jones, the famous British milliner, is indeed one of the most talented figures on the actual fashion panorama. He concentrates on one of the most forgotten part of the body nowadays, the head, and creates extravagant headgear meant for unique and daring women. Jones has explored all possible volumes and shapes, from vertical to horizontal, from masculine to feminine, from wrapping shapes to expanding shapes. There is something of joyousness to his creations. Jones is definitely a poet of hats: each one of them is like a metaphor, a door to another world. And ultimately, that’s what every designer — whatever his or her philosophy — aims to achieve.
This year’s Arnhem Mode Biennale is perfectly complete: apart from the ‘Shape’ exhibitions there are many other interesting events, including video installations, fashion shows, symposia and the presentation of the best alumni to have graduated from the ArtEZ academy (the local fashion school as well as one of the most creative schools in Europe). The Arnhem Mode Biennale exhibits the work of many influential fashion houses and also presents some of the new talents on the international landscape. It is certainly a fashion event, but it has deeper social and cultural commitments. It promotes Dutch fashion internationally, and, at the same time, it teams up with socially engaged organisations. In a world of changing values, in which fashion as we know it is at stake, it is extremely important to stand up and be counted with events like this one that not only gives fashion a new credibility internationally, but also promotes new values, new talents and new points of view in fashion.
Marta Represa lives and works in Paris. She is a freelance fashion writer and stylist.
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