The Avant Garde

The revolutionary avant-garde art movements of the early 20th Century were: Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism and Constructivism. Although they celebrated different ideas, they all had similar ways of working and had the same political aim - to destroy autonomous art, so it could become part of everyday life again. Artists moved into design in order to bring art to the masses. They turned their hand to fashion & textile design, graphic design and product design. They also collaborated with designers of the period, for example, Salvador Dali worked in collaboration with the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli on many pieces. Sonia Delaunay, Stepanova and Popova were all female avant-garde artists-turned prolific print & fashion designers of the period.

  Beachwear,  Sonia Delaunay, 1927

      Textile Design, Stepanova, 1924        

                   

Dress, Popova, 1924

'Avant-garde' was originally a french military term meaning 'advanced guard', referring to a troupe of highly skilled and specialised soldiers, sent out to scout and survey a field before the whole army advanced. So the term was used to describe the above art movements, owing to their forward thinking, experimental and extreme ways of exploring art.

Some fashion designers that I might describe as avant-garde today would be: Alexander McQueen, Gareth Pugh, Jean Paul Gaultier, Viktor & Rolf and Thiery Mugler. For me, their iconic 'avante-garde' pieces are something that the average woman of today would generally not wear. Mainly due to their impractical shapes and revealing parts of the body that is normally perceived and inappropriate even in  today's western society. Although the work of the original avant-garde designers look quite wearable by today' standards, during the period that they were designed, they must have been exciting, daring and revolutionary. The loose fitting, drop waisted dresses in bright geometric prints would have been a shocking contrast to the tight waisted corsets and full skirts of the Victorian era, and the new beachwear showed a lot more flesh than Victorian fashion ever permitted. Which begs the question - will we find today's avant-garde fashions wearable in 80 years time?

Gareth Pugh, A/W, '11-'12

  Thiery Mugler, 1995