New Books

As far as possible at the moment I am trying to make the best use of the books and materials I already have in my own ''library'', and also from those other free resources, such as the websites of newspapers and magazines (though the UK Times and Sunday Times websites are now subscription based, so I guess I'll be researching elsewhere from now on). Yet sometimes there are some books you just have to have your own copy of, as waiting for the library to get them in takes too long (besides, I tend to make a lot of pencil notations in my own books, something librarians tend to frown upon!). Aside from Magaret Maynard's book Out of Line: Australian Women and Style, published in 2001, there are very few publications on the Australian fashion scene, which is one of my potential case studies in my research into the Fashion City. So it was with great excitement that I came across this new publication from Thames & Hudson called Fashion: Australian and New Zealand Designers, by Mitchell Oakley Smith, an associate Editor at GQ Australia. While the book will probably not win any awards for its rather unimaginative title, the contents promise a good overview of Australian and New Zealand fashion designers who have emerged over the last two decades. The book covers some, now internationally well-known, stalwarts of the OZ/NZ fashion industry, profiling Akira, Alica McCall, Collette Dinnigan, Easton Person, Karen Walker, Nom*D, Zambesi, Willow and Sass & Bide. Lesser known names, at least to those of us in the Northern hemisphere, include Arnsdorf, Birthday Suit, Camilla and Marc, Dhini, Flamingo Sands, Lisa Ho, Pistols At Dawn, Something Else and Vanishing Elephant. Overall this book offers a visual treatise of the work of the profiled designers, together with a brief insight into their backgrounds and positioning within the Australian-New Zealand fashion scene. Similar to much of the world today, this particular fashion scene offers up a melting-pot of styles and influences, imbibed with a hard-working ethic on the part of the designers. As Oakley Smith states in his introduction:

The breakdown of the barrier that once existed between the secular fashion industry and the general public has been seen as the democratisation of fashion. Not detrimental to its growth or prestige, local fashion has gained attention, interest and, ultimately, respect of its public.

(Oakley Smith, 2010: pp xi)

It is interesting to note, however, that whatever recognition designers gain in their ''home-market'', it still remains necessary to for their reputations to be secured and confirmed outside of that of ''home market'', with catwalk shows and press coverage in the so-called ''first-tier'' Fashion Cities, such as Paris, London Milan and New York. This is something not limited to Australian and New Zealand designers, as even those based here in London have often not been recognised as leading talents in their field, in part because fashion is deemed ''too frivolous'', or because many British designers, particularly at the higher-end of the market, make the bulk of their income from exporting their work abroad.




The second book to enter my possession recently is the first look at the work of Alexander McQueen, subtitled Genius of a Generation, by Kristin Knox. Rather disappointingly this publication from A&C Black appears to have been a bit of a ''rush-job''. While up-to-date, including mention of McQueen's untimely recent death, the text offers only a rather superficial insight into the work of a man aptly labeled a ''genius''. Unlike many of his peers, McQueen was admired in part because he was perhaps one of the few, and perhaps last, designers to have served an ''apprenticeship'' in the traditional sense, working his way up from toiling away in the cutting rooms of Savile Row, to stints working with Romeo Gigli and Koji Tatsuno, and then an MA at Central St. Martin's, moving on to set up his own label, picking up the gig of Creative Director at Givenchy, and finally developing his own-name brand under the auspices of the PPR-owned Gucci Group. Amazingly, while his work has been exhibited in several fashion exhibitions, including the recent Zwart: Meesterlijk Zwart in Mode en Kostuum at MoMu in Antwerp, there has yet, as far as I am aware, to be a fully dedicated exhibition to McQueen and his truely outstanding contribution to fashion culture. The main plus-side of this book is the visual treatise it gives of McQueen's oeuvre, spanning his early collections up to the Autumn/Winter collection of 2010. As Knox references, while McQueen was sometimes dubbed a ''misogynist'' by the media, trussing up his models in masks, corsets and brutal looking jewellery, this rather misses the point, as looking closer, his collections can be viewed as providing a kind of modern ''armour'', aiding the confidence of a woman unafraid of facing the challenges of the contemporary world. It is a great shame for us that McQueen felt he was not able himself to continue producing work in the same confident manner he had so often delivered, yet I hope soon to view an exhibition of his work that is as celebratory and as challenging as his own catwalk presentations so often were.

Fashion Victims

Photo by Guy Bourdin

As part of my research into the Fashion City, and looking at practices within the fashion business, The Guardian newspaper published an interesting, if dis-heartening, article last weekend. Entitled ''Fashion Victims'', the focus of the article was on the tough conditions faced by those working in the ''glamorous'' industry of fashion. Rather than looking at the appalling conditions of factory workers in developing countries, which perhaps no-one can now deny happens, instead this article focused on a situation much closer to home: that of the fashion intern.

For many aspiring fashion designers looking to get a foot-in-the-door, the fashion internship, or work placement, has become a rite of passage. Working un-paid, or on the basis of receiving ''expenses'' for travel, has become a standard practice here in the UK. As this article high-lights, for many a start-up fashion brand this kind of labour is not just a temporary option, it is often essential to the running of a fashion brands operations, particularly in the build-up to events such as London Fashion Week. In particular, having the experience of working for a smaller firm has the advantage that as internee you are often given greater levels of responsibility, working on aspects of a business that can make a real difference. Yet this article investigated much more alarming practices, not at a start-up firm, but that of a well-established and internationally-known name, that of Alexander McQueen. While it might seem rather disingenuous of The Guardian to focus on the operations of the recently deceased McQueen, it certainly focuses attention on a ''hidden'' aspect of the fashion industry that is not widely known to the general public. Currently, in the UK interns, i.e. those working in unpaid positions, can only be ''hired'' for one month, with flexible working hours and conditions, i.e. days and time worked is to be negotiated, so for example a student could work 2/3 days to fit in with study or paid work commitments. After this time period, the firm who has contracted them must draw up a contract and pay them the minimum rate of pay as set by the UK government. Yet according to the example in the article, some interns have been expected to work beyond this time limit, with no pay, and often working 12 hour days, 6 or 7 days a week. While astonishing that this can happen in 21st Century London, it is, unfortunately, not entirely surprising.


Photo by Guy Bourdin

A few years ago, as this article also highlights, I too was interning, with experience of firms in both the fashion and cosmetic sectors, where it was not unusual for interns to outnumber actual, full-time employees of the company. In this situation, you do begin to wonder if this is really ''normal'', or indeed sustainable practice, not to mention begin thinking if such ''experience'' gaining is really so worth while when you are not getting proper recognition for your input i.e. payment. For instance, during one placement it happened that one manager and my fellow intern had a day off, and the other manager was sick, so I was expected to effectively be ''in charge'' of running the PR office for that day, and while, luckily, nothing came up that I wasn't able to manage, it was the day when almost the entire cohort of UK top-glossy magazines called up to request information or product samples. The subsequent monetary value of this press coverage from this day ran into thousands of £s, all good ''experience'' (there perhaps isn't an editor I now couldn't handle), but it does make you think twice about how it is possible that it can be ''okay'' for you to do a job for free that other people get paid (a significant) amount to do. There is perhaps no easy answer to this solution, particularly for those who come from less ''privileged'' backgrounds who cannot afford to work for free, in-definitely, in the hope of getting hired for a ''real'' job. Yet seeing as this practice is very much considered a ''rite of passage'', with many I have spoken to in the industry stating they have all had to work unpaid at some point, it seems there is little incentive for changes to be made. Yet it seems that rather than interns completing an internship or series of internships with the incentive of a gaining a paid job, it seems as if many firms are happy to rely on an ever changing pool of fresh and naive aspirants wishing to gain ''experience''. Yet the very nature and quality of this experience needs to be addressed. It seems that once again the fashion industry is having the mirror held up to reveal its warts and blemishes. Rather than turning away from its responsibilities, perhaps it is time for the industry, including colleges, fashion designers and brands, and relevant bodies like Skillset and the British Fashion Council, to band together and look again at how to improve and regulate the fashion intern schemes, perhaps through a bench-marking system.