Fashion in the North: JW Anderson Disobedient Bodies

Fashion and the North are two words that don’t seem to fit together for many in the South. But I can promise you that it’s not all just whippets and flat caps up here. Growing up in the North, in a small town from West Yorkshire, I’ve always felt rather left out and excluded from the fashion industry. Coming home and trying to think of somewhere to go besides from the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (which after visiting and looking at the same statues 135x times sadly just isn’t that thrilling anymore) I felt a frustration that there weren’t any fashion exhibitions showcasing up here like the ones exhibiting in the South.

But recently, I have been noticing a shift from certain members of the community trying to bring Fashion to the North, and the North to Fashion. In particular, Lou Stoppard from SHOWStudio and academic Adam Murray have been unpacking Northern identity and it’s influences in Fashion in a recent exhibition and an on going SHOWStudio project. Then, it was announced that fashion designer JW Anderson was curating an exhibition at The Hepworth Gallery Wakefield that explores how the human body has been reimagined over the course of the last century.

Last weekend, I finally got the chance to visit and it was SO worth it! For any of you who live in the North or fancy a trip up to Wakefield (not that there is much else exciting to do there if I’m totally honest) then I would totally recommend it. The best part for me was being able to see in person some of the pieces from iconic designers and collections that I’ve only ever seen online or read about in books. For instance, Comme Des Garcons ‘Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ collection, Issey Miyake lantern dress and a 1950s Christian Dior emerald dress. Not to mention the room of oversized jumpers that you could interact and play with – to which I got myself very comfortable with, as you’ll see in one of the images.

And if you don’t get a chance to visit, then I hope you’ll enjoy having a browse through some of these images that I managed to capture. Each piece was numbered and came with a brief description and background of the item that I’ll include in this post so you can gain a better understanding of what you’re seeing. Enjoy!

1. Henry Moore Reclining Figure, 1936

Certainly one of the more iconic statues that comes to mind for me when I think of Henry Moore and the reclining figures was a subject that Moore engaged with a lot throughout his work. Constantly experimenting with how he could change the position of the body in relation to the limbs, resulting in these abstract looking figures.

2. Issey Miyake Bamboo Pleats Dress, AW 1989/90 ‘Bamboo Collection’

This exquisite pleating of course belongs to the master of pleats, Issey Miyake. This Bamboo Pleats dress is from Miyake’s first collection featuring his pleated designs, to which he then launched a stand-alone line in 1993 iconically known as Pleats Please. 

3. Comme Des Garcons Blue flat coat, ‘2D’ collection, AW12

‘Two dimensions are the future’ is what Rei Kawakubo predicted when she released this collection of stiff, paper-doll like garments in block cutout shapes. ‘The collection played with ideas of flatness and reduction, and can perhaps be read as a comment on the way in which our experience of the world is increasingly negotiated via two-dimensional images’.

4. Christian Dior, Patchouli esembel, AW 1952 Haute Couture collection

I knew this was Dior as soon as I saw it. This dress ’embodies the major shift in post-war fashion and the 1950s shapes that are still popular today’. How gorgeous is that emerald green colour! Divine.

5. Comme Des Garcons ‘Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body’ collection, SS 1997

Yet again, recognisably the work of Rei Kawakubo at Comme as soon as I saw it. ‘Rei Kawakubo’s conceptual work has always speculated on, and critiqued, the traditional protocols of fashionable dressing established in the West, and never more than in this seminal collection for Comme Des Garcons.’ On the screen, you can also see a video from Merce Cunningham’s Scenario (1997) performance, where the clothing altered the performers proportions, as well as balance and their spatial relationship to one another.

6. Loewe Clear Ensemble, SS 2016

‘These clear plastic garments were made using a heat-seal technique eliminating the presence of seams. Worn over bare skin or under garments, they play with contrasting ideas of protection and the reveal’.

7. JW Anderson 28 Oversized Jumpers

Possibly my favourite part of the exhibition, as I love anything that you can interact and engage with. Following his SS 2017 menswear collection in which he made a series of elongated jumpers in combination knits, Anderson wanted to create an opportunity for visitors to have a tactile experience. ‘For Anderson, this also draws on the immediately recognisable experience of pulling on your own clothes’.

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