HONESTLY IN FASHION

Posted on July 4, 2013 by Marco Maggetto

The more I get older, the more I understand fashion is just an art mirror. The more I visit museums and exhibitions, the more I see fashion interns taking photos to be brainstormed and used by creatives of any genre. I like when they  get inspired by art, I feel sick when they copy it entirely. With Gaga taken to the court by French artist Orlane ( and her stylist Formichetti finally unmasked as a non original) I’d like to think fashion is going through a more honest period. Not that Gaga was fashionable in any way, but her stylist was treated like a fashion god…and the truth is, he just invented hot water as we say here in Italy. Balenciaga was a fashion god, he was taking inspiration from Velazques off course, but the result was never plagiarism. Au contrair, his clothes were considered, and still are, avant garde.  What is the point of replicating if you cannot make it better? Being commercial is vital but taking something conceptual or abstract and turn it into an object to be sold in million of pieces, that is really sad. Take the picture I post above. It was taken by Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, an American guy born in Wisconsin in 1910. He lived his life doing the most different kind of jobs but at the same time he was making “things”. Photos of his wife Marie as a pin-up, thousands, colorful apocalyptic landscape paintings, sculptures made from chicken bones, ceramic and cast cement. Von Bruenchenhein was a natural artist, he didn’t know he was one  and lived his life as a normal person untill a curator, or art lover, found his impressive body of work and decided it was deserving some attention. And some time passed and Massimilano Gioni included him into “Il Palazzo Enciclopedico” (Biennale di Venezia). But as I was standing there in front of his pictures, I noticed the same old  fashion intern taking pictures non stop. He wasn’t even reading why those pictures were there, nor was trying to feel them. He was there just to rob. And I prayed, and I begged . Who really want to see this marvelous artist to be outraged for a 9.99  dollars skirt? Not an art lover, for sure.