Finalised Digital Print – What do you think?

So this is my finalised print, which would go into selected panels into my designs. would really love some opinions on it :).

Print created from photography, experiments and drawings.

Has theatrics inspired modern day eccentrics?

There have always been similarities between theatre costume and the fashion-clothing industry, not just in the designs of clothing and the dramatic potential of haute couture, which brings together the possible performing aspects of wearing such exaggerated clothing that you would not normally comfortably wear in day-to-day life, but the confidence in wearing such ‘Avant-Garde’ garments is that it allows people to express themselves with confidence in the similar way actors and actresses dress to help them step into their characters. Possibly even to help mundane people give themselves the confidence and self-esteem needed for everyday life.

 

In this essay using research and referencing from all different sources including market research reports, web blogs, and journal articles I would like to investigate whether ancient theatre has actually inspired the modern persons way of dressing using designers such as Alexander McQueen and street trends such as Punk and the eccentric fashion of performers such as Lady Gaga.

 

Theatre has always inspired culture in small ways ever since the beginning, firstly through word of mouth and then later on through literature, but it was in the Ancient Greek times between 550 BC and 220 BC that the theatrical culture really flourished. It was in Athens, which was the significant cultural power during this period that the festival of ‘Dionysia’ really became popular. The festival of ‘Dionysia’ was a huge celebration in honour of the god ‘Dionysis’ who was the god of fertility and wine and was later considered a patron of the arts. As part of the celebration to Dionysis Athens would put on a play in their amphitheaters where male actors would put on large masks with exaggerated expressions and dramatic blunt costumes, sometimes with large appendages to help the audience see who the actors were trying to portray and what emotion they were supposed to have. Greek comedies often used costume elements for comedic effect, such as the Chiton which is a draped garment held together by the shoulder which were worn much too short for comic effect. “Male characters wore progastrida, a phallus, exaggerating the male anatomy. Female characters would wear prosternaid, unrealistic, large fake chests and other costumes such as the depiction of animals that tended to be less realistic.” – Old Greek Theatre By Emily Pate.   Besides the exaggerated costumes that would emphasize the body Greek theatre relied heavily on masks to illustrate a character’s features and emotion, which were generally large masks that would cover the entire face. The only openings in the masks were small squares or round mouthpieces, possibly for the amplifying of the actor’s voice, and small holes for the eyes. As there were only on average three actors on stage at a time, each actor had to wear several masks during one performance to help play different characters. The more comical the performance, the more exaggerated and less realistic the masks would be. Athens exported this celebration festival to numerous colonies and allies to help promote a common cultural identity. Athens overall has had a significant and sustained impact on northern culture as a whole.

Ancient Roman theatre greatly mirrored the Greeks. The few differences however are that the Romans pretty much dropped most of the religious aspects of the festivals and focused on the comedy side of theatre. Yet the costumes and masks mostly remained the same.

 

It was the Venetians who used the idea of masks and exaggerated clothing to cover themselves to their advantage. For roughly eight hundred years the Republic (Romans) enjoyed the position of unrivaled power in Europe. Venice being argumentally the most extravagant and beautiful city had shipyards that were in great demand and brought in enough money that each citizen enjoyed a high standard of living. Being the Republics prized city the Venetians had a level of social wealth unequalled still to this day. It was these citizens who developed a very unique culture, in which the concealing of the identity in daily life became paramount in daily activity. Part of the attraction was the secrecy of it all, being a very small city to begin with; it was more than likely everyone knew everyone else’s business, unless no one knew who you were.

An additional bonus to the masks was that they served as a great importance to leveling the social status, so police officers and spies could casually question citizens without fear of their true identity being discovered while the people being questioned could answer without fear of retribution. The morale of the people was maintained through the use of the masks. For with no faces, everyone had voices. I strongly believe that theatre and drama could have indeed inspired the confidence of the Venetians. Without the Greeks first introducing the dramatic festivals and theatrical plays, would these Venetians have had the idea in the first place to put on these masks and rebel against everything they believe in? As they have seen actors do in their favorite plays, or just possibly found another way to get around the rules and regulations of the Republic? I personally believe that the Venetians would have found a way to act out like they did, but on a smaller scale even without the Grecians help, as no civilization can act so dramatically without being slightly eccentric in the first place. Either way the Greeks had heavily influenced the venetians with their drama and theatrics, which contributed to the breakdown of true identity that the venetians took advantage of.

The amount of travellers coming through the city meant sexual promiscuity was common and accepted. As no one knew who was actually doing it. Gambling went on throughout the day and night, on the streets, houses, even in convents. The populace even embraced homosexuality, which in every other situation was condemned at the time. Even the nuns and monks of the clergy, bejeweled and dressed in the latest imported creations, wore masks and engaged in the same acts as the majority of their fellow citizens. Rome turned a blind eye, as long as Venice continued to make generous donations. It was this sort of outrageous behavior that concerned and surprised me and upon investigation further found it amazing. How can these citizens act in such an outrageous and exaggerated way so quickly? Did the masks give the venetians the confidence needed or did they just amplify what the venetians were already doing?

In answer to my question I thought about modern day Mime artists. Mime artists wear very blunt white make up to cover up their face and partnered with plain black clothes and white gloves helps the mime to further create the ‘illusion’ for the audience. This allows the mimes face to become no face and yet every face all at once, giving the mime the advantage of silently becoming any character of his or her choosing. According to the dictionary mime is, “The art or technique of portraying a character, mood, idea, or narration by gestures and bodily movements” which unsurprisingly comes from the ancient Greeks and Romans ludicrous actions and gestures when they try to portray they’re characters. I personally don’t think they would be as effective as a mime artist if they’re face wasn’t covered in makeup and I would be more distracted by the face with their outrageous gestures and body movements.  This helps me believe that the masks gave the Venetians a new personality, a clean slate in the same way a mime artist would paint their face.

 

Street trends today embrace their rebelliousness in similar ways to the Venetians, Whether it is simply that they hate the world and wish to show it through an absence of colour such as Goth, wear scars and cuts as sleeves to physically show their pain at everyone such as Emo or just have such strong anti-establishment views that they show their opinions through theatrical use of clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, tattoos, jewelery and body modification, such as Punk.

From personal experience with such trends I always seem to wonder if some, or most of these people are just following a crowd. Wearing their odd styles as a uniform to help them fit in. With a survey I decided to find out exactly what other people think of such trends, as it’s very interesting if they differ from my own.  After asking the question ‘What do you think of Street Tribe styles such as Goth, Punk or Emo?’ the majority of 42.9% said, “It defines who they are” while only 14.3% said, “They are just copying others.” – Anonymous, Hiding behind an armour, Surveymonkey.com.  So straight away the majority already disagrees with me to some extent, while I completely understand their opinion, I still believe that a lot of the people claiming to be Punks, Emos or Goths etcetera wear unordinary clothes to help them feel a part of something. It goes to show that what they wear is a modern version of armour, giving them the courage to stand up to what they supposedly believe in, which they wouldn’t normally do wearing normal mundane clothes, a reflection of Venetians living in the modern day world.

Apart from asking people’s views on such street trends I then asked the question ‘Do you think they use their fashion sense to protect them from the world? And if yes why?’ one person replied, “No, they are just trying to fit in to an alternative group.” While another replied, “Yes, sometimes people hide behind a mask of their clothing so people can’t really see them.” – Anonymous, Hiding behind an armour, Surveymonkey.com. This just backs up my opinion of people just wearing these clothes to fit into something.

Early Punk being the exception being the only subculture that I believe used to actually mean what they were protesting about, they were not just following the crowd. In the mid 1970’s they used a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film for which they largely voiced their concern for individual freedom and anti-establishment views. It literally came out of nowhere; People emerged from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia wearing outrageous theatrical clothing made out of everyday objects. Ripped clothing would be held together by safety pins or duct tape. Bin bag dresses; Kilts, Leather jackets and t-shirts were customized with hand painted band logos, pins, buttons, studs and razor blades. Wearing these outrageous outfits gave them the confidence to voice their opinions that they were not previously doing. “In the early days at least, their integrity was measured by their ability to create their own costume, and therefore persona, which resisted commercial influence.” Quote from The Language of Youth subculture by Sue Widdicombe, Page 11.While some punks were true to their cause, others took advantage of their diversity and reputation and like the Venetians, took advantage of being able to do anything they wanted.

 

Goths on the other hand seem to be the opposite. They didn’t really want you to look at them, yet they stood out from the crowd with their dark Victorian influenced clothing. Goths are an exaggeration of the darker side of the human psyche. They represent outwardly the thoughts that linger in the back of everyone’s mind. Goths tend to make their feelings about death a little more open than the rest of the world. They voice their opinion about such things as death without actually saying anything, using their dark clothing to say what the want rather than the over dramatic protests that the Punks did. Goth started during the early 1980’s in England and was actually an offshoot of the post-punk genre. Using similar theatrical clothing as the Punks, the Goths wear dark colours emphasizing the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate parts of the 19^th century with some eccentric people going into BDSM style for the shock factor. As is true for most people, there are some who reflect on their attitudes, actions and motivations, and there are some who don’t. There are those who aren’t aware of the meaning of the symbols they wear. You’ll find many people wearing a cross, pentagram, or ankh because they think it looks cool. It becomes a matter of fashion rather than awareness of what the symbol means and why they wear it. Not everyone clearly understands their actions and habits or the reasons behind them. “The image of behavior as role-playing, borrowed from the theatre, presents people as directing their actions on the basis of their conceptions of how others see them. The choice of another form whose perspective we view our own behavior of the process of identification.” Quote from Comparative Youth by Michael Brake, page17.

This sort of naïve behaviour confirms my suspicions that a lot of people, especially the Goths who are renowned for wanting to be alone, are just trying to part of a group. They are using the gothic idea to make themselves a part of something bigger.

Goth is just one example of many how the evolution of the culture of Punk seems to be slowly disintegrating as it branches off into more subcultures. While we still see the odd Punk or Goth around, everyone seems to be more subtle about it. Rather than the full frontal dramatic protests in the 70’s you’ll only see a slight rebelliousness in clothing and or hairstyles, This is where designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Alexander Mcqueen have made a great impact, with their out of this world fashion sense, they create amazing styles that are completely eccentric and rebellious, without being over the top (unless you want to be over the top). No one can claim that if you wear Mcqueen, Westwood or Galliano Etcetera that they don’t want to be seen or heard.

 

Vivienne Westwood is largely responsible for bringing the eccentric rebelliousness of the Punk scene to mainstream fashion. She came to public notice when she was making clothes for Malcolm Mclarens boutique; it was her ability to synthesize clothing with music that helped shape the 70’s punk culture. Being inspired by the rebelliousness of the Punk scene Dame Westwood used the idea of outrageous looks and behaviour to get her views across in the same way the punks would do, but instead of using literature, music, dance and film etc, she concentrated in getting her point across through her very outrageous fashion shows.

“Now then with the climate problem, of course I hate the idea of them chopping the rainforest down. I hate the idea of all the animals dying, but even more I’m really terrified of what is going to happen to human beings in one generation. Most of our planet will be uninhabitable unless we work now, so I’ve been using my fashion shows to talk about this.” quote from Vivienne Westwood, from ‘Vivienne Westwood is fashion’s global punk warrior’ by Katharine Zarrella.

Dame Westwood would use rebelliousness and shock factor as a way to gain the public’s attention, with her famous ginger messy hair and continuously going knicker-less for even the Queen of England you could not simply ignore her antics. Makes you think of the Greeks and how the Greek actors would wear outrageous costumes and make exaggerated gestures to keep the audience’s attention.

Her inspired creative freedom, interesting collections and fusions of historical and ethnic dress and cut had a huge influence on designers of the last several decades, such as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and even one of the most notable fashion icons in the world of fashion such as Daphne Guinness. With Vivienne Westwood s eccentric taste for fashion, she has set a path for a whole new generation of Fashion rebels.

 

Alexander McQueen would also be one of the most notable clothing designers with out of the box, original designs and tastes in the cutthroat world of fashion.  Iconicly incorporating human hair into his designs, huge 12inch platforms, weird and wonderful shows such as ‘Highland Rape’ where models wore torn disheveled outfits festooned with what appeared to be feminine hygiene paraphernalia to famously stitching ‘Im a C**T’ in the lining of a jacket that was for the prince of Wales. The combination of his masterful tailoring, haute couture sensibility and his bad boy antics got him a lot of publicity for his amazing theatrical fashion shows and designs.

“When you see a woman wearing McQueen, there’s certain hardness to the clothes that make her look powerful. It kind of fends people off. You have to have a lot of balls to talk to a woman wearing my clothes.”  A life in fashion: How Alexander McQueen became ‘the most influential designer of his generation.’  McQueen wanted the women he dressed to be powerful and confident in their own skin, he even once described his work as ‘armour’ that would be worn by celebrities from Joan Collins, fashion icon Daphne Guinness to the eccentric musical genius Lady Gaga.

“The clothes I design are strong – they are meant to build confidence”. Alexander McQueen, http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com. His clothes fevered with his creativity were coupled with a desire to shock and awe.  From crazy feather or even fresh flower covered gowns to romantic corseted silhouettes, McQueen’s grand gestures were always backed up by his amazing attention to detail and tailoring. It was all a show to McQueen, most if not all his catwalk shows were based around story or theory, so the audience experienced emotions of hope, desire, distress and anger through his catwalk shows using very clever elaborate scenery and models. He changed boring old runways into an experience that went beyond the world of fashion into the realms of emotional, psychological and theatrical assault. Sam Gainsbury being his partner in crime when it came to the shows could orchestrate almost anything, no matter how extreme or weird. There would always be something threateningly elemental in his shows, whether it is fire, ice, water, flying or wild animals McQueen always demanded the shows to be an assault of your senses. From girls walking through water with live butterfly’s attached to petrifying his audience with a ‘little red riding hood’ sending a pair of wolves straining on their leashes to sniff along the first row.

“I like blowing people’s minds. It’s a buzz. Like a fix, for 20 minutes. I like the spontaneity of doing it there and then. We broke the mold by not using the fashion-show-production people. I found Sam Gainsbury, who’d been doing pop video. So it became more cinematic.” McQueen the Showman, Style.com.

 

A close friend of Alexander McQueen and a fashion icon herself is Daphne Guinness.

“He was so bright, he could see things in five dimensions. He changed my life.” The real Daphne Guinness by Derek Blasberg. Daphne Guinness is considered an important figure in the world of fashion, as a notable face, a collector, and an icon. She creates and invents many objects and garments herself when she can’t find what she is looking for. She is always there to make a statement.

“Fashion is a topic she loves, but loathes discussing it at length. In the same breath, she will discount her completely original and magnificently complex outfits as ‘merely something I do to put a smile on people faces’ and then provides a laundry list of visual references she incorporated into her looks.” The real Daphne Guinness by Derek Blasberg. Miss Guinness being the heir to the Guinness Empire seeks to inspire confidence in young women through her intensely cultivated elegance and style. She has emerged as the modern pied piper of fashion, a leader who’s been called an inspiration to everyone from Tom Ford to Lady Gaga, from the retired Valentio to virtually the entire Internet and blogosphere.

“Life is like a stage for Daphne, says Valentino. Funeral or balls, she always makes a performance.” Quote from Valentino for The real Daphne Guinness. She merely puts together an original look and calls it art, with combinations of Modern, Historical, Edgy and classic is where she really showed of her theatrical flair. She is a muse to the stars; she doesn’t just simply model for photographers, clothing designers or milliners, she collaborates. She has used the excuse that her inspiration comes from fashion being about the political history, you can actually see defining moments that were due to revolutions or changes in politics.  For example at the end of the Roman era, there was a whole move against togas as they were seen as an icon of the Roman Empire. In the same way the 60’s were a reaction to the 50’s, in my opinion we seem to be just endlessly recycling the past, not creating anything new. Maybe that could be why Daphne dresses the way she does. Fashion especially Haute Couture is dying, its stopped becoming clothing made for people to wear, and started becoming an advertisement for brands, like a dying art form. Mundane people follow the fashion of stars and celebrities in Hollywood and red carpets that at the moment doesn’t seem to be going anywhere interesting, because it seems to be a small group of stylists who are controlling everything anyone is wearing. You need your own look and style so you can be who you want to be, to say what you want to say. Whether you use your fashion as an armour to help you hide yourself or not.

“It’s against the world. I am just going to armour myself up to the teeth until no one can get me.” Daphne Guinness quoted for Interview by Peter Brant the second. This is why in my opinion, Daphne Guinness is an inspiration. She is trying to bring back the theatrical effect and views in mundane clothes

 

Inspired by Guinness’s freedom with fashion is one of the biggest pop icons of the century Lady Gaga.

“Isabella and Daphne are two exceptional human beings, women, and icons, more than that! They have helped me look inside myself. I’ve examined their lives and their personalities in order to understand myself better. Daphne, like Isabella, is a huge source of inspiration for me. It is as if we are all cut from the same cloth”. Gaga’s reply to Cathy Horyn of the New York Times when asked about any influence by Daphne Guinness.  The music industry is a great example of how Greek and Roman theatre have greatly inspired modern fashion and theatrics. The new generations aspire to be pop icons in the same way audiences used to go to theatre shows to be a part of some big show. Music videos and concerts are the modern version of the Greek amphitheater.

“It’s all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it’s everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us.” Lady Gaga interview MTV. This is exactly what the music industry should be about; it should be one big interactive show.  Theatrics and insanity sell in the same way sex sells. The only problem I foresee is do we want the younger generation to participate in the breakdown of personal identity? Daphne Guinness try’s to be true to herself when wearing weird styles, Does Lady Gaga do the same or is she pretending to be someone she is not, just to sell her music? In a Survey from surveymonkey.com I asked people’s opinions on Lady Gaga. I asked the question ‘Do you think she uses her eccentric fashion style as an armour?’ the majority said ‘yes’ which I thought was interesting considering her public revolution of her own body hating issues, and since has helped people young and old be brave enough to face their body problems and conquer them.

 

Throughout history people both conventional and unconventional have used theatrics and eccentricity to either stand out or to hide behind. So theatrics has not just inspired modern day eccentrics, it has inspired throughout history. Without that inspiration would the innovators of the time periods come forth and embraced the freedom as the Greeks, Venetians, Trends and designers did?  As a species, the human race has gained enough confidence to question everything and to expand our knowledge. Theatrics have inspired art, poetry, dance and literature. Without that inspiration, how can we develop as a civilization. Theatre is the catalyst of eccentricity and will continue to inspire furthermore.