Architect in fashion, dangerous graft

Architect in fashion in 2015, who are they? and what do they do? Hazardous contamination! Creative confusion and constructive chaos. Creators of forms and dreams. Both plan answers to the needs of society.

Architect in fashion, evolution of a work that continually reinvents itself

We are a lot, perhaps too many, and when we get distracted we let ourselves overwhelmed by excessive relativism.

There is the architect in fashion that makes the designer,  the one who designs shops; the designer who designs clothes as sculptures (and the Azzadine‘s exhibition “Couture Sculptures” in Rome is just one example) and buildings that start a trend. Too artistic to be considered technical, too creative and too expensive for the common imagination. The architect, as the designer is the ultimate personal, social and cultural expression; mirror of  the interests, ambitions and needs of the historical moment.

Looking at fashion and architecture over the centuries it is possible to perceive the evolution of a city intercepting changes.

Fashion “inhabit bodies” and architecture “dress places“: this is what the philosopher of the twentieth century Walter Benjamin said and added “the two disciplines belong to the darkness of the lived moment, the dream consciousness of the collective.”

Architects and designers have always cooperated. The designers have sometimes done studies in Architecture (Tom Ford to name one) and architects have become designers  (Gianfranco Ferre to name another). When this happens the combination is obvious, but there is much more.

They are the main characters of two worlds that draw from both social and symbolic representations; two worlds that meet continuously and that is why the protagonists of both invade the territories.

Evolution of the figure of the architect in fashion

In the 90’s fashion designers have begun to ask to the architects to work for a recognizable image of the spaces where their collections should dwell. The flagship stores have not only strengthened the role of the architect as a deus ex machina of the space where fashion lives. Today every designer has his architect who builds the brand image in the world.

Peter Marino, the American architect with rock and dark attitudes, from his New York headquarters works for Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and many others. He is also known for his photos as a motorbiker and a close friend of Arnault (LVMH boss). He is the most popular luxury architect of our times and looks like something in between Freddy Mercury and the motorcyclist singer of the Village People. He loves his Harley Davidson and his collection of porcelain. The interiors he designs are light and ephemeral. He always has in mind the end user’s experience and the one of those who visit the store.

«I attribute every brand an identity like the one of a person, so I approach a project considering the countless details. The store is the first vehicle marketing of a brand and has to transmit to the consumer the idea that the product you buy is something really unique and exclusive, as the brand identity is. » Peter Marino

Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch eclectic theoretical making of chaos and contamination his contemporary avant-garde, is now the right arm of Miuccia for Prada. In 2001 the journalists of The Guardian coined the neologism: the Pradarchitect indicating the complete fusion of the two worlds. In the same year Vittorio Gregotti worried that architecture can be conditioned by the ephemeral fashion world by binding to the media manipulation.

Then there is the Japanese Toyo Ito for Tod‘s, the Japanese Kazuyo Sejima for Dior, Hermes for Renzo Piano and the designer for Gucci.

After all architecture is a social art, not just an aesthetic show. Eclectic, eccentric, exuberant and never predictable. Sometimes a little ‘too cerebral”  and so an architect in fashion makes its way in a number of ways. Almost always he \ she decides to show an idea of fashion influenced by the idea of space, influenced by lifestyle.

Art nouveau and inspirations on a floral dress that inhabits a body as on a space that inhabits a place.

   

Abito Asos

Foto Elisa Bellino, The Ladycracy