The Aesthetic Era of Textile

"Postmodernism is a short-hand for a vague, general ‘zeitgeist’.”

Postmodernity was the era of modernism when excess individualization began. Modernity conceived the object in terms of production, postmodernity conceives of it in terms of consumption. There isn’t one set meaning to an object or a garment anymore. Both postmodernity and its fashion were based on various new and different ideas. This differentiation created a desire for new things and for the latest model. So there was a cycle of desire for endless difference. Now in most cases, our needs are met and the mystical value of something is more important than the use value.

With excess production of clothing, people combined the variety of forms. Combining and assembling things to form something new is called bricolage. The idea of adaptability is also postmodern.

A lot changed in the 1960s, including people's ideas about textiles. In the 1960s, the American and European textile industries were undergoing a technological revolution. The fabrics and cloths being produced were more than just attractive, they represented something about the world at that time. Textiles were cool, hip, and definitive statements about the role of the individual within a changing world. They were, in a word, groovy.

After World War II, all of the technological advancements of the war were applied to commercial products. This quickly came to include textiles, as synthetic fibers were used to create industrial products like tires, then domestic fabrics like sheets, curtains, rugs, and clothing.

Polyester, one of the most famous synthetics, was first introduced in the 1950s, but it really became a definitive material of choice in the 1960s. The material spandex was patented in 1959, Kevlar was produced in 1965, and by 1968, synthetic fibers surpassed natural fibers in the U.S.A. for the first time in history.

But who creates these patterns? Textile designers are artists who create the images and patterns woven or printed on textiles. Sometimes, a company then manufactures the textile based on the design. The designer can also create the image on fabric using methods like block printing or screen printing.

Techniques

Synthetic textiles really took off in the 1960s, and their emergence influenced further changes, including how we decorated them. In the 1960s, pop artists like Andy Warhol devoted their attention to screen printing as a way to explore modern culture. Screen printing had already been applied to some textiles by this point, but it became more popular in the 1960s. Curtains, bed sheets, clothes, rugs, and other items were decorated not just by dyeing the individual threads prior to weaving, but by screen printing whole designs onto the completed fabric, generally with synthetic dyes and inks. Like the synthetic fibres, screen printing became synonymous with the technological growth of America and Western Europe.

Gucci Tennis shoes, 1984.

Missoni x Converse, Auckland racer, 2013

Gucci tennis shoes based on classic tennis shoes but with the Gucci logo and on classic tennis shoes from the 1970’s. They are a recycled style. A combination of the old and the new. The 'plurality of styles', as mentioned, is a characteristic of postmodernism. The combination of high fashion and sportswear sparked a trend that influenced brands from decades to come. These shoes are the result of the postmodern idea of mixing cultures, making them accessible to all.

Sketches, paintings and collages for textiles patterns, 1982 - 86, Nathalie du Pasquier & Memphis. Du Pasquier was one of the founding members of the Memphis collective. 'After its 1981 debut, Memphis dominated the early 1980s design scene with its post-modernist style.' Du Pasquier's bright colours and chaotic geometric shapes came a recognizable feature of Memhpis' design.

Designed and manufactured by Issey Miyake's Reality Lab. This ready-to-wear collection was created using complex mathematical shapes. Issey Miyake's Reality Lab used a computer program to construct 3D shapes from a single piece of material. The garments fold out from simple flat forms into wearable shapes. The fabric was woven from threads made through melting plastic bottles. Issey Miyake's work is unique in its synthesis of high tech materials, radical shapes and cuts. The collection deals with postmodern issues of fashion wastage and the garments are made using high-tech procedures.

Gianni Versace spring/summer 1991 silk, glass An example of a postmodern textile. The use of a recycled motif - Andy Warhol's screen print of Marilyn Monroe.

Here lets concentrate on people who design printed fabrics:

John Galliano

Galliano enrolled at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in 1981. His graduating collection in 1984, inspired by the French Revolution and entitled “Les Incroyables,” was bought in its entirety by the independent London fashion boutique, Browns. Galliano soon established his own label and enjoyed the support of various financial backers. His collections were both dramatic and intricate.

Alexander McQueen

Alexander McQueen was a designer whose dazzling creativity and startling originality were expressed through the technical virtuosity of his fashions and the conceptual complexity of his runway presentations, suggestive of avant-garde installation and performance art. His vision of fashion relentlessly questioned and challenged the requisites of clothing. Rare among designers, he saw beyond clothing’s physical constraints to its ideational and ideological possibilities. For McQueen, fashion and politics were linked inexorably, as were fashion and emotions. Through his runway presentations, McQueen validated powerful emotions as compelling and undeniable sources of aesthetic experience. Like a painter or writer of the Romantic Movement, McQueen associated unfettered emotionalism with the appreciation of beauty. But it was precisely his romantic yearnings that propelled his creativity and advanced fashion in directions both unimagined and unprecedented.

Zika Ascher

A later designer who worked in England was Czech-born Zika Ascher (1910 - 1992).Once in London, they started a design company. Ascher cajoled famous artists like Picasso and Matisse to create textile patterns that he made into colourful square scarves. Ascher and his wife also created their own designs, bold screen printed imagery in vivid colours and lively patterns that were used by high-end fashion designers like Dior and Givenchy.

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