FORTUITUS FASHION

I knew deep inside my hear that Frankfurt am Main is not the most fashionable city in the world when I decided to move here almost two years ago, and yet, it is however the home of thousands of museum, which, could be more unexpectedly enriching. My early days were filled with museum visits, and as my mum used to say, "When you want to meet crazy people, go to club. The ones who could use their brain go to museum". So I did. To museums.

Since it's not city like Paris per se, I didn't expect to find something fashionable. But remember the Senckenberg Stones? Yup. Surprising discovery of pretty stones among fossils and taxidermies. You know what? It happened again.

Yesterday I randomly went to  Museum für angewandte Kunst, The Museum of Applied Art Frankfurt. What did you expect when you see this building?

Note: The museum is the building on the right, the white sleek modern-designed boring one.

Coming inside, I couldn't help but notice a commonplace occurrence in a modern-styled building, a lot of space left empty. On the first floor (or second, I don't know what they call it. The one after you get one floor upwards), I saw an artful work of Alex Wollner, a prominent photographer and visual designer from Brazil. 

And then I walked on. And the magic happened. 

There's fashion section, and the first thing I saw was Aleander McQueen autumn winter 2009 show displayed through a projector. I didn't dare to dream that there'd be even a string or button from that collection that's on display, but I gasped. The fortune goddess heard my deeper desire. An Alexander McQueen black mantel on a mannequin set like model on the show. 

I know it's not the complete number. It's just the coat without the dress and shoes, but still. And I heard that piece was the very piece from the runway show!

Photo by Marcio Madeira

As if it weren't enough, there's also Maison Martin Margiela. Aint kidding.

The museum noted,

"Outside in the Dark" will accompany visitors to the dark side of happiness, take him on a journey into the dark , to a necessary transition into the unknown, to what remains when we strip away our roles.

Designers like Ann Demeulemeester, Yohji Yamamoto, Alexander McQueen, were considered as 'anti-fashion', a movement as a rebellion against common and popular fashion in the '80s. They started what later inspired other designers like Gareth Pugh, showing old colours of black, with concept of deconstruction and radicalism.

These ideas of a contemporary fashion were for numerous designers of the next generation to the measure of his own designs. It no longer was to dress the (post) modern man , but rather the questioning of universal life concepts. Without even being part of a theoretical discourse, these designers began to start with self. Instead of a general idea of ​​life to work , they explored the idea of their own life . In the rejection of the great utopias of the postmodern ideas , they chose to retreat the path of contemplation and melancholy, in search of its own core.

What I love about the exhibition, titled Draußen im Dunkel, Outside in The Dark, is it shows how fashion has another side. The shadowed side. Not necessarily a down-turn or a bad things, but rather, a dissentience to the trend 'dictated' by major editors and magazines. Or market. In fact, this kind of concept shows the further approach to art done by fashion, because what you see is something pure, something real, something not tainted by business. Because fashion, is much more than just a certain cut, colour or a certain length skirt, which can be mapped as must-haves for the coming season in glossy magazines. It is thin membrane diffusion layer between our everyday world and that other side, on which the fashion designers exploring the limits of human existence, feelings and desire.

 Sadly, the exhibition ends to-day. Sad.






Signorfandi, fashion is not art? Think again...