How do we use clothes to cover and reveal?

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Fashion as Design

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The Museum of Modern Art

Fashion as Design

487 ratings

Among all objects of design, our clothes are the most universal and intimate. Like other kinds of design, fashion thrives on productive tensions between form and function, automation and craftsmanship, standardization and customization, universality and self-expression, and pragmatism and utopian vision. It exists in the service of others, and it can have profound consequences—social, political, cultural, economic, and environmental. Fashion as Design focuses on a selection of more than 70 garments and accessories from around the world, ranging from kente cloth to jeans to 3D-printed dresses. Through these garments, we’re going to look closely at what we wear, why we wear it, how it’s made, and what it means. You’ll hear directly from a range of designers, makers, historians, and others working with clothing every day—and, in some cases, reinventing it for the future. Studio visits, interviews, and other resources introduce the history and development of each garment and their changing uses, meanings, and impact over time. Course Learning Objectives: Develop critical tools to appreciate and contextualize fashion design—from everyday clothing to couture garments—through many different perspectives. Trace the history, development, and impact of garments over time, and explore how they may be reinvented. Investigate garments through multiple lenses including politics, identity, and economics. Understand more about the lifecycle of clothing, from its design and production to its marketing, distribution, and consumption. Better comprehend the choices you make about fashion with respect to the visual language of dress, individual and collective identities, and issues such as labor practices, sustainability, and body politics.

From the lesson

Modesty

Modesty has many varied expressions that can be informed by social, religious, or political identifications, as well as by personal choice. But whether covered up or exposed, our bodies are often battlegrounds for continually shifting societal claims around morality, agency, and etiquette.

How do we use clothes to cover and reveal?5:42

Meet the Instructors

Paola Antonelli
Senior Curator, Department of Architecture & Design, and Director, Department of Research & Development
Department of Architecture & Design
Michelle Millar Fisher
Curatorial Assistant
Department of Architecture and Design
Stephanie Kramer
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture & Design
Anna Burckhardt
Curatorial Assistant
Department of Architecture & Design

So, welcome to week six where our topic is modesty.

Modesty in fashion, Steph,

I know what modesty is,

or I think I know what modesty is.

To me it means, something that's understated,

that is holding oneself back slightly,

is not putting oneself on display.

Is there something that you think of in fashion with modesty?

I'm reminded I used to always tell my father when I was a child,

if you say you're modest, that means you're immodest.

So it's something that's almost unspoken.

I think modesty means different things for different people.

When we talk about it related to clothes,

I think everybody's minds immediately go to what we reveal and what we cover.

This can relate to the body as well as internally,

what we are revealing,

and what we are exposing.

And I think that,

it's something that's very personal.

Right. And also depends culturally where we are.

Yes.

Chronologically where we are in terms of the historical moment.

So, we've decided this week to break things up into areas of the body.

So, we're going to start with the head and the neck.

One of the works that we'll look at is the turtleneck.

And so, something that really had its moments. Well it's had many moments actually.

And you can go through the whole of the last century and pick out many,

many different figures in the public eye,

but also very quotidian examples of the turtleneck.

It had a moment in the 1920s,

definitely moments in the 50s,

was the stereotype of the beatnik in many ways,

a very kind of fashion-constructed stereotype in the 60s as well.

Activism.

Absolutely, activism.

We can get the Black Panthers in it too.

You'll get to see Hana Tajima's reflection on the turtleneck.

And she does a really interesting thing when she connects

the modesty implied in the turtleneck.

And she thinks about them both psychologically and physically.

So, what we can choose to reveal and hide based on the clothing that we share,

but also the connections and connotations of that clothing.

She connects the turtleneck with the hijab.

So, you get to think about those two items in tandem with one another.

We'll also talk about swimwear.

So, specific examples.

Well swimwear I think is a very direct example of how

different bathing costumes have changed at different points

in time to reveal and cover different parts of the body.

There's definitely been a lot controversy over

the ways in which we present ourselves when we're getting into water,

which seems odd actually in some cases.

But for example, Speedo,

a company that reproduced other types of hosiery basically,

before the late 1920s,

started to produce swimwear.

And an Australian medalist was almost not

able to get her medal because what she was wearing apparently

was too revealing at that point in time.

So the birth of the bikini as we know it today is traced to the 1940s.

It was an atomic birth which you will learn as you get more in-depth into the week.

It was really seen as a risque thing for women to be revealing newer areas of the body.

Two piece bathing suits were already being worn.

However, the bikini lowered to reveal the navel.

And yet, we still have conversations about what is okay,

and what's not okay to wear on the beach.

And so many of you may have read headlines over the last year or two about the burkini,

something that was developed in the early 2000s by a designer in Australia,

to allow women who wanted to cover either for religious reasons,

reasons of modesty, or even just to make sure that their skin was protected from the sun.

It's become a garment that has been taken up on mass.

And yet, in the last year and a half or so, on

French beaches in particular,

there's been a reaction to and even edicts banning its use on the seafront.

And so it's really interesting to think you have two garments.

The bikini, and the burkini,

that essentially do the opposite in terms of coverage,

and yet they are both deemed immodest in different context.

So, the next part of the body that we're going to talk about are legs.

And legs historically, for women especially,

have been a site of conversation and controversy around issues of modesty.

In the 1920s, you saw a very drastic move of the hemline

to just below the knee which now is considered fairly modest.

And so, this is a moment in time when the hemline conversation really first emerged,

a conversation which culminated in the 1960s when the miniskirt really had its heyday.

I think culturally, politically, socially, and economically,

were able to track what we mean by modesty both in terms of garments,

but also more widely through thinking about how they fit or don't fit on women's bodies.

So, it's a discussion that is definitely an open ended one, and good to have.

Then modesty can also take a totally different tact.

One that is more psychological.

And that's where we come in with our contemporary conclusion,

the surgical mask which is one of Michelle's favorite items of the course.

And the exhibition.

Yeah. So, the surgical mask,

something developed really in the early part of the 20th century.

In Japanese, youth culture of the last 10, 15 years,

the surgical mask has been a way to demarcate public and private space.

So, the wearing of it moves beyond

a polite expression of making sure that

you're not going to in infect somebody with your cold.

And a fashion statement.

It becomes something that is

a sartorial expression of a dividing line between you and the rest of the world.

Taken as a whole,

I think hopefully you'll come away with the idea

that modesty really is a multivalent subject.

And as Michelle just so eloquently explained about the surgical mask,

it's not just necessarily about covering up your body for people's gaze,

it's covering up areas of your body for other reasons as well.

Or deciding not to.

Yes.

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