Week 10: Zoe Martin

Week 10

Institutions, Networks, and the Future of Asian (American) Fashion

Asian On My Mind

Zoe Martin

In “Asian On My Mind” Nguyen discusses Asian American Fashion on the global industry scale. An interesting point in the article is a difference between Western and Asian-American fashion.  “Euro-American couturiers have been concerned with staging the body in ways that  emphasize certain body parts, largely  for  erotic  effect.” In contrast, Asian fashion is largely architectural. I can see the evidence of this in designers. For instance, Jean Paul Gaultier is a French haute couture fashion designer known for his embrace of eroticism and pushing conventional norms. He is notably famous for designing one of Madonna’s iconic costumes with the cone bustier. This is also evident historically with the design elements used throughout the history of Western fashion such as the paniers and bustle.

 

In comparison, Asian designers such as Rei Kawakubo (Commes des Garcon) play with the shape and form of clothing, creating more architectural forms. This could be derived from the more conservative traditional costumes of Asia such as the kimono, hanbok, ao dai, and terno. I love the playful element of this more architectural fashion--it creates limitless possibilities with clothing. It allows the designer to play with the contrast in shape, weight, material, and more. For instance, Commes des Garcons Fall 2019 Ready-to-Wear collection experiments with all of these elements to produce wonderful outcomes. 

As an Asian-American fashion designer I hope to find the balance between the exaggeration of certain body parts and architectural pieces to find the right amount of sexy and conservative within my designs. I think that this contrast in Eastern and Western fashion is something I never considered myself but can draw upon for my own designs as I grew up with both Asian and American influences.