VOGUE

This image is scanned from William Packer's The Art of VOGUE Covers 1909 - 1940, page 112, ISBN: 0 - 7064 - 1724 - 0


This image is scanned from William Packer's The Art of VOGUE Covers 1909 - 1940, page 53, ISBN: 0 - 7064 - 1724 - 0


This image is scanned from William Packer's The Art of VOGUE Covers 1909 - 1940, page 71, ISBN: 0 - 7064 - 1724 - 0


This image is scanned from William Packer's The Art of VOGUE Covers 1909 - 1940, page 78, ISBN: 0 - 7064 - 1724 - 0

This image is scanned from William Packer's The Art of VOGUE Covers 1909 - 1940, page 98, ISBN: 0 - 7064 - 1724 - 0


This image is scanned from William Packer's The Art of VOGUE Covers 1909 - 1940, page 106, ISBN: 0 - 7064 - 1724 - 0

My Trench Coat

"The trench was once a uniform. Now it is a barge of individuality - expressing who the wearer is or wants to be" - Nick Foulkes

This essay will explore my personal fetish object of remembrance. An vintage item of outer clothing referred to as the trench coat. Various reference points will include my personal memories of my late mother Madge Linthwate, a child's coat, the history overview of the trench coats design and the water-proofed fabric. There will be always the film noir sense of the hard-boiled private detective wearing a trench coat in the film studios of Hollywood in the 1940s. This garment both traditional and modern has been re-invented as a high-fashion icon of clothing for the wearer in the twenty-first century. The second-hand culture of collecting highly prized vintage clothing will also be discussed. How vintage collectors re-invent their narrative of self by wearing clothing that empowers their identities of uniqueness and yet pays homage to the mythology of the past. Today in this techno-age of infinity8 there is appreciation for the workmanship of these garments, be it man-tailored, beaded, embroidered and printed or just the fact the zip was sewn in by hand. The generous amount of material or the textile reality of feeling the fabric can also amaze and intrigue from a tractile point of view. The history of the garment can be analysed on so many levels about the former owner of such exquisite fragments of time detailing how life was lived from a personal perspective.

Whenever I feel I cannot stand the stress of studying at UTS I go vintage clothing hunting in Newtown, which has a large selection of second-hand shops. There is one place deemed to be my favourite as I have found various items of vintage clothing to either hand-wash or to be dry-cleaned to treasure and file away in garment-bags for future use. One day I was offered a mink coat with a fox fur collar which unnerved me. I had no intention of being an extension of my late mother's narrative. My mother was viewed as a true 'Continental Lady' because of her ash-blonde hair and her striking resemblance to Marlene Dietrich. My most endearing memory of my mother was of an elegant lady dressed in a black man-tailored costume, gun-metal silk stockings with a seam, and crocodile killer stiletto shoes of black. A matching handbag and perched on her head a black net fascinator with tiny black velvet bows drawing attention to the deep set eyes of emerald green. My mother's lips were painted with Helena Rubinstein's red lipstick and her nails were painted with blood red nail polish. My first memory of my favourite item of outer clothing was a coat from Harrods. This design was usually worn by royalty in England and I remember looking in the full-length mirror at the child with ash blonde curly hair. The black velvet detailing on the collar, cuffs and the pockets intrigued me along with the feel of the fabric of the coat fastened with buttons covered in velvet. This was a practical gift brought for my sixth birthday by an American relative by marriage.

The trench coat is an amazing concept of practicality evolving in the trenches in the Boer War, the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The original fabric was a crude rubberised material which was replaced by the tightly woven water-proofed fabric of gabardine patented by Thomas Burberry (Foulkes, 2007, :37). The design of this coat goes way beyond the war-time boundaries into peacetime when veterans continued to wear their garments as a barge of pride. Therefore the history of the trench coat may be traced back to England but because of the war-related travel of servicemen this coat became a globally recognised symbol of freedom. The three main trade-names associated with the trench coat are Macintosh, Aquascutum and Burberry (Foulkes, :8-9). One of the main features is the raglan sleeve first designed in the nineteen century by an aristocrat's tailor to ensure ease of dressing by Baron Raglan who had lost an arm in the battle of Waterloo. There are also the other classic elements such as the welted pockets and the two rows of ten buttons down the front of the coat. The additional storm flap on the coat which can button up around the neck to protect the wearer against the harshness of the weather. One can be further smug with the belt tightly tied to keep the warmth within with the shoulder straps used to secure binoculars, gas-masks, whistles and gloves in wartime in the last century (Foulkes, :40-46).

In the 1940s there was the actor Humphrey Bogart wearing the trench coat in 'The Big Sleep' film noir landscape of blackmail and murder. The character Phillip Marlowe was the perfect example of the hard-boiled private detective in Hollywood cinema. Bogart wore the trademark Aquascutum's Kingsway-style trench coat in most of his films such as 'Casablanca' and 'Beat the Devil'. The only contender to challenge Bogey as the reining trench coat film star was Peter Sellers. Inspector Clouseau was a bungling idiot who through his misadventures he was somehow transformed into a style god because of his trench coat.

My Trench Coat

copyright © Marjorie Savill Linthwaite 2009

All rights reserved.

The concept of the online 'My Trench Coat' is a revised/improved format of the paper-based medium 'My Trench Coat' copyright © Marjorie Savill Linthwaite 2009 All rights reserved. 50134 Culture, Writing and Textuality subject 2009.

Serene Aguirre

In the twenty-first century there is the need for fashion designers to think outside the square. The University of Technology Sydney is an ideal place to learn this empowering concept. How would you define a creative, you would have to refer to this article based on my interview of Serene Aguirre. In life one should have the freedom of being able to push beyond the artistic boundaries. Designers have to recycle the history of fashion into garments truly worthy of this century. Serene is just one example of this new millennium style designers.

Marjorie: What are your plans for the future?

Serene: I would like to pursue Fashion/Commercial Illustration.

Marjorie: How would you define your concept of design?

Serene: The world is full of problems, and it is up to designers to spot these problems and come up with creative solutions. Design is a creative problem solving.

Marjorie: What did you learn at UTS in relation to your degree?

Serene: UTS exposed me to several facets of the fashion industry that I otherwise would not have known. The fashion degree gives students an insight into several areas of the fashion industry, not just design, so that they are able to choose which direction they would like to take upon graduating. The curriculum also equips students with the skills to be able to pursue these interests.

Marjorie: What inspires you, the past, the present, and the future concepts of fashion, or the reality of the materials, textures, and the colours?

Serene: When it comes to design, images inspire me. By images, I mean art, film and photography. Whether I'm designing a range or a series of illustrations, I like to tell a story. These images will set the mood for what I am designing, ie. what the range or illustration will be about. The textures, fabrics, and the colours soon follow after that.

Marjorie: What is your ideal concept when it comes to designing, the simple, the complex or something that has yet to be defined?

Serene: I think design should be quite simple - by complicating a design. The designer risks creating more problems for the user, which would go against the belief that designers are creative problem solvers.

Marjorie: What is your favourite colour?

Serene: I like blues and greens - more often than not, these colours do end up sneaking their way into my designs.

Marjorie: What is your favourite flower?

Serene: I don't really have a favourite flower. I do like white flowers though. The combination of white (the flowers) and green (the leaves/stems) are always soothing.

Marjorie: What is your favourite season: Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter?

Serene: I enjoy designing for Spring/Summer; the colour palettes are more vibrant and the fabrics are lighter and airy - designs just take on a 'happier' more whimical feel.

'Serene Aguirre' Interview

copyright © Marjorie Savill Linthwaite 2009

All rights reserved.

The Kimono: Cultural Identity

"For it has well been said that the most wonderful aesthetic products of Japan are not its ivories, nor its bronzes, nor its porcelains, nor its swords, nor any of its marvels in metal or lacquer - but its women" (Lafcadio Hearn)

This essay is going to introduce the photo-textual realities of the silk kimono as a Japanese cultural statement of identity. Various examples of Japanese wood-block prints and photographs will provide the visual imagery needed to inform the reader. There will also an overview of the history of how Japanese clothing evolved through the centuries. The impact of the tactile medium of the graphic designs on the different types of material and the sensuous feel of silk on skin when used as a fabric for kimonos will be also discussed. Today in the twenty-first century, as in the past centuries, the appearance of the clothed human body is judged on what message we chose to express. The human body is purely the frame on which the graphic work-of-art of the clothing is displayed to provide the fashion narrative of communication in this new-techno-age. In this information society, the transference of the embedding binary codes for your website is the norm for the technocrat. Therefore, the coded message of the choice of clothing will depend on how one would wish to interpreted by the viewer. One intriguing example would be the 'geisha' who walks with grace and dignity wrapped up in kimonos of silk is indeed the "icon of Japanese traditional culture" (Van Riel :82).
Geisha: Visual Art-Form This geisha is a visual snapshot of the past on how the high-class courtesan of the ShImabara's brothel district used to dress as a woman available for anything of a sexual nature if the fee was high enough. The neck and the face are painted in the china-doll porcelain-like mask of chalk with blood-red lips of promise with red rogue partly drawn around the Oriental eyes. Only a geisha can wear this period wig and elaborate hair ornaments whose body is draped within these kimonos of silk/brocade with the obi tied in the front. These vintage kimonos are worth several hundred thousand dollars and therefore were worn by courtesans mirroring the eroticism of the Japanese wood-block prints of centuries past. (Van Riel :92). The kimono of a geisha is usually very plain with traditional Japanese pattern themes and the obi is usually minimalist with a small strip of tapestry. Hairstyles are usually represented as a simple bun on the nape of the neck (Geisha (Geiko).

Tayuu: High Class Courtesantext pending (there is the need to research this subject and I have found an ideal book in my personal library)

Lady: Imperial Court

It was the accepted custom, during the Heian period (794 - 1185) for the ladies of the Japanese imperial court to wear this multi-layered kimono combination. These luxurious costumes of silk were referred to as 'juni-hitoe' which translates into "the twelve-layer dress". This mode of dressing comprises of an outer kimono of silk with a pleated apron concealing the feet which were considered to be a sexual fetish object. The under-kimonos of silk could be as many as twenty garments. The total shape of the female human body had disappeared within the voluminous layers of the sensuality of silk. Entire households would be judged, by the way these ladies arranged their kimono layers of silk with over two hundred different combinations of colour to select from to create the right narrative of refinement. The everyday lifestyle of these ladies consisted of sitting on the cold floors of the imperial court. By the 10th century, the accepted concept of the ideal beauty would depend on the complexity of the needlework and the dyeing of the silk fabric of the kimonos. This traditional shape of the kimono has remained unchanged to the present day because one cannot improve on the perfection of this two-dimensional design (Koren :44-46).

Overview: Japanese History of Clothing

The need to cover the human body dates back to the beginning of time, and for the Japanese, this was grounded in the magical concept of protection. This ancient tradition is still relevant today in the way most Japanese are dressed to attract the good energy and repel the bad (Koren :10). The Neolithic Japanese of both genders used to wear two items of clothing made from vegetable/wood fibers to cover the upper and lower parts of the human body. A cord or a sash was tied at the waist of the upper item of clothing right up to 300 B.C. (Koren :44). This clothing evolved into the early examples of the kimono-like garment among the farming, fishing and the lower-class samurai communities (Koren: 54). A basic colouring agent was derived from the indigo plant to produce a blue dye with dark undertones for the kimonos and the pants. The materials had to be re-dyed many times until the cloth has achieved the right degree of colour (Koren :57). This dye fades very quickly as a result of washing the cloth and the garments had to be continually re-dyed to maintain the dark bluish shade. (Koren :66). The colour of these garments was used as an identity signifier of their role in society over 325 years ago in Japan (Koren :57). The plant indigo was considered to a insect-repellent by the farmers and also useful for keeping snakes at bay (Koren :66).

The wives adapted to the harsh conditions by developing an individualized form of folk textiles as well as various methods of patching and re-stitching any garment that was torn or shabby (Koren :66). Therefore, the art of decoration was achieved to enhance otherwise plain cloth through the processes of either ikat weaving, stencil dyeing and tie-dyeing (Koren :54). Quilting was necessary, because of the cold climate and today these garments are admired for the coarseness of their textures and originality of their patterns. The materials for these garments consisted of the fibers of hemp and bast which was replaced with the more refined nature of cotton (Koren :54). The city merchants were able to afford to buy silk patterned fabric but were only permitted to wear kimonos sourced from cotton stenciled with very bold patterns (Koren :77). However, the fashion statements for the Japanese imperial court were imported, directly from the T'ang Court, China in the sixth century and consisted of silk shirts, trousers, robes and underskirts. This habit of importing silk textiles, clothing-making techniques and designs from China, Korea, India and Southeast Asia would continue throughout the centuries(Koren :45).

Visual Culture: New-Techno-Age

The first impressions are very important If you wish to engage in the networking game in this communication and information society of the twenty-first century. Otherwise if the code of the clothing is misread, you will be bypassed for others, who are sending the right visual messages of engagement (Koren :12). To be a Japanese, man or woman is to play the role of the character, aIIotted to you on 'life's stage' and thus belong with the right type of clothes applicable to the script. In Japan for centuries, the art of imitating the conceptual realities of how other people dress has been considered to be the norm. Therefore, this cultural mind-set of recycling the other's taste of fashion has always been practiced in this country (Koren :17-18). The most extreme form of mirroring the others' appearance is having the epicanthic folds removed from the eyelids. This type of Westernized cosmetic surgery for Japanese girls/women was a by-product of American advertisements showing tall blond, blue-eyed and long-legged tanned models after World War 2 (Paul :80). To be able to wear Western-style clothing you would first have to transform the face to mirror the ideal reflection of American beauty (Koren :19).

Westernized Concept: Kimono

In the 1980s there was a revival of this traditional concept of material shaping the body with the kimono within the Western-inspired fashions of Japanese designers. The textual reality of the material was paramount and the garments were draped on the human female body in more than ample degree of cloth. Therefore the garment, became the focus of attention, instead of the Western obsession with the shape of the body. One had to to learn to move with grace and allure instead of revealing too much as is the case with most Western clothing (Koren :22). Futurologists believed that the new Japanese fashion concept in the last century did cater for the individual through the addition of the layered style of dressing. The hidden body just wanting to be discovered within the volumes of material. This art-form of the narrative is not apparent until the wearer slips into this new environment of identity recycled within the textures, patterns, colours and shapes of fabric (Koren :28-29).

Empowerment: Fabric Design

In the twentieth century, computers started to play an important role in the invention of textual design of the cloth so ensuring that one-of-kind length of material can be produced (Koren :76). Some Japanese fashion designers also asked for assistance from various textile producers who can produce three-dimensional surface-based fabric instead of the usual textual designed material which is flat and rigid. The ability of a textile producer to be able to combine and re-invent the very nature of the fabric is truly inspiring. This outcome from a combined black and white palette of 140 threads of fibers which ensures the living soul of the material will be heard and experienced by the wearer. There is also the tendency to try to copy the apparent hand-made cloth from the past with all the imperfections as a reminder of what this tactile sensation of touch was like before the age of machinery-based fabrics (Koren :72).
Tradition: Silk-Making

To find the sense of the past, you must first leave Tokyo and go in search of the workshops of the traditional centuries-old techniques of hand-spinning, dyeing and weaving the silk worthy of the kimono. Cocoons of dead silkworms are hanging from the rafters of the wooden beams of these workshops based on this ancient craft of silk production. There is just an overview in three examples of Japanese wood-block prints about the craft of extracting the silk from the cocoon husks.

Plate: 1 The first print shows two women picking mulberry leaves and a third balancing two baskets of these leaves. One would assume that either the leaves are the food of the silkworms or the cocoons of silkworms attached to the leaves as I am unable to read the Japanese script in the text bubble (The Art Institute of Chicago :78-79).

Plate 2: The second print shows a woman boiling the empty cocoon husks of the silkworms and the long creamy silky threads being wound up onto some kind of wooden spindle (The Art Institute of Chicago : 83).

The Kimono: Cultural Identity
copyright © Marjorie Savill Linthwaite 2009

All rights reserved.

REFERENCE

The concept of the online 'The Kimono: Cultural Identity' is a revised/improved format of the paper-based medium 'Kimono' copyright © Marjorie Savill Linthwaite 2008 All rights reserved. Poetics and Culture subject 2008.

Work in Progress

Links: The Indigo Page / Japanese Folk Textiles / Old Photos of Japan

/ Innocence to Deviance: The Fetishisation of Japanese Women in Western Fiction, 1890s - 1990s

UTS Graduation Collection 2008

'Fashion props'

photograph courtesy of James 2008

'Attention to detail'

photograph courtesy of James 2008

'Marjorie'

photograph courtesy of James 2008

'The Others'

Fashion Designer: Alexandra Rost



'La Femme Dandy'

Fashion Designer: Charlotte Hicks



'UNDESIGN'

Fashion Designer: Nilou Zibaee



'La Femme Dandy'

'The Others'

'UNDESIGN'

photograph courtesy of James 2008.

'Classic Twist' - Women's Wear Collection 2009/10

Fashion Designer: Da Ni Oh

'The Blade and the Bow'

Fashion Designer: Philippa Waters

'Winter in a Summer Place' (Winter in Sicily)

Fashion Designer: Stephanie Lade



'Winter in a Summer Place' (Winter in Sicily)

The Blade and the Bow

'Classic Twist' - Women's Wear Collection 2009 / 10

photograph courtesy of James 2008



'Bon-Bon'

Fashion Designer: Riko, Wan Cheng Chan



'Nouveau'

Fashion Designer: Serene Aguirre



'Mizu'

Fashion Designer Kerrie Lim Sam



'Nouveau'

'Mizu'

'Bon-Bon'

photograph courtesy of James 2008.



'Playful emotion'

Fashion Designer: Kylie Hetherington



'Moderne Time'

Fashion Designer: Michelle Nelson



'Playful emotion'

'Moderne Time'

photograph courtesy of James 2008

The 'Dispossessed - Runaways and Railway Trains'

Fashion Designer: Holly Sugden

'Playboy' (Men's Resort Wear)

Fashion Designer: Tetsuya Maruta



The 'Dispossessed - Runaways and Railways Trains'

'Playboy' (Men's Resort Wear)

photograph courtesy of James 2008



'Formations'

Fashion Designer: Dannie Duong



'Nuance'

Fashion Designer: Nicole McGuire

'Bodies': Spring / Summer 09-10

Fashion Designer: Anthea Nicolaou



'Formations'

'Bodies' Spring / Summer 09 -10

'Nuance'

photograph courtesy of James 2008

'Sanctuary on the Forest Floor'

Fashion Designer: Kieu Dinh

'Cellular Abstractions'

Fashion Designer: Laura Fazio



'Weightless'

Fashion Designer: Daniella Nasso



'Weightless'

'Cellular Abstractions'

'Sanctuary on the Forest Floor'

photograph courtesy of James 2008



'Hybrid'

Fashion Designer: Jung Kyung (Ashley) Jae

'Derive'

Fashion Designer: Annette Natalie Traczyk



'Tran/sient'

Fashion Designer: Melany Kusumawaty



'Hybrid'

'Trans / sient'

'Derive'

photograph courtesy of James 2008



'Twenty-first century sense of textual realities'

photograph courtesy of James 2008


Photographs copyright © Marjorie Savill Linthwaite 2008
All rights reserved.

Additional Photographs copyright © James 2008
All rights reserved.