Fashion and Artification in the French Luxury Fashion Industry

Luxury Fashion, Art Worlds and Artification

Becker (1982) defines art as a form of culture that is produced in a system of collective activity, otherwise referred to as an art world. Art is defined as what participants in a specific art world consider to be art. Fashion is a generic term for forms of culture that change frequently and that diffuse rapidly and widely. An alternative definition is that fashions in clothing are what fashion designers and fashion organizations produce.

Like art as conceptualized by Becker (1982), fashion is a collective activity. In fashion systems, organizations, institutions and individuals interact with one another to create, legitimate, and disseminate a particular form of culture. Fashion has been described as ‘the product of a chain of a great many individual decisions made by people interconnected within the various niches in the industry’ (Kawamura, 2005: 53; see also Mora, 2006). These decisions contribute in different ways to the level of creativity in the fashion product. A partial list of actors, in addition to designers, who are involved in the production of ready-to-wear clothing includes: ‘assistant designers, sample-cutters, sample-makers, production pattern-makers and then factories that finalize the garments’ (Kawamura, 2005: 51). Cultural intermediaries who transmit information from those engaged in the creative and production processes of fashion design to consumers include photographers, journalists, fashion magazine editors, models, agents, advertising agencies, distributors, shopkeepers, buyers for department stores, salespersons, and fashion museum curators. Cultural intermediaries shape the product, make it marketable, and locate ideas that can be assimilated by the system. The fashion designer, like the artist, generally receives all the credit for the cultural goods that are created in these systems.

Fashion design (like other applied arts, such as architecture, interior decoration, and furniture design) differs from fine art in that its system of collective relationships constitutes an ‘aesthetic economy’. In aesthetic economies, both economic calculations and aesthetic issues are important aspects of cultural production: ‘economic calculations are intertwined with cultural concerns and are linked to cultural knowledge, capital, and acquired taste, and to social, cultural and institutional relations’ (Entwisle, 2002: 319). In the fine arts, economic considerations tend to be minimal in the production of art although, once an art object exists, it may or may not acquire economic value. In other words, the fine artist is likely to create art works whether or not they can be sold.

A major difference between fashion and fine art is the issue of utility, which is an important aspect of the commercial value of fashion, while the criterion of non-utility is very important in art. Fashion designers create artefacts for customers that are intended to be useful, even though the utility of certain types of dresses, such as wedding gowns and ball gowns, is quite limited.

To summarize, both fine art and fashion design are created in systems of collaborative relationships. Fashion systems differ from art worlds in the relative emphasis on economic considerations and in the utility of what is produced, as I will illustrate through a brief history of French haute couture and luxury ready-to-wear fashion.

French Fashion Systems: Haute Couture and Luxury Ready-to-Wear

In the middle of the 19th century, Charles Frederick Worth reversed the traditional structural relationship between client and artisan by dictating to his clients what they should wear rather than following their orders in the traditional role of an artisan (Lipovetsky, 1987). Later, he was instrumental in the creation of the first trade organization for couturiers that greatly increased their power and privileges (Lipovetsky, 1987). Couturiers were not artisans who made clothes; they conceived ideas for clothes that were made by others.

In spite of the fact that the creation of fashionable clothing is a collective enterprise, couturiers, then and now, have always taken full credit for the result. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, couturiers claimed the status of artists. Their designs carried their names and were protected by copyright. According to Lipovetsky (1987: 96), couturiers ‘presented themselves as “artists of luxury” who collected works of art, lived in sumptuous and refined settings, surrounded themselves with poets and painters, and created costumes for the theatre’. In the 1930s, Schiaparelli collaborated with surrealist artists, such as Dali and Cocteau, designing clothes that illustrated the aesthetic principles of surrealism. During the 20th century, the social status of couturiers entering the occupation steadily increased (Crane, 2000).

In the post-war period, most of the pre-war firms disappeared and several new firms were created. However, after 1980, few haute couture firms were created (Crane, 1997), because the clientele for these exceptionally expensive clothes, which were made with luxurious materials and required hundreds of hours of skilled workmanship, steadily diminished. Haute couture firms that survived developed lines of ready-to-wear clothing. The globalization of the fashion market greatly increased the costs of running these businesses. Consequently, they tended to be purchased by luxury-goods conglomerates which turned couturiers’ names into brands that sold accessories, perfume and other products. In this environment, couturiers gradually lost their autonomy and became, in effect, employees. Managers of luxury-goods conglomerates evaluated their designers in relation to the success of their brands (Hume, 2007). One manager was quoted as saying: ‘the real boss is the brand’ (Hume, 2007: 4). While La Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne still controlled entry into the highest ranks of the profession (Kawamura, 2004: 44), couturiers’ positions in these organizations tended to be very precarious (Horyn, 2006). The possibility of asserting a couturier’s right to copyright over his designs was virtually eliminated because of the highly mediatized environment in which these collections were shown. ¹ Images were relayed globally on the internet as soon as they were displayed and copied almost immediately by fast fashion distributors in Europe and mass-market producers in Asia. Counterfeiting of luxury goods was rampant (Ducourtieux, 2006). As the occupation of couturier became less viable, young designers who called themselves créateurs created small luxury ready-to-wear firms for which they designed clothes that were made industrially.

The highly competitive environment in which both types of firms were forced to operate led some of them to violate the norms concerning beauty and utility that traditionally influenced haute couture. ² They challenged its meanings and conventions, using several strategies, which have analogies to those of the avant-garde in painting and sculpture.

The first of these strategies is the use of materials that have not previously been considered appropriate for luxurious clothing, such as metal and plastic. For example, Martin Margiela, early in his career, challenged the notion that only expensive and beautiful materials were suitable for luxury fashion design by using second-hand clothes to make his garments.

A second strategy, transgression, is to create clothes that challenge the basic conventions underlying western clothing, such as symmetry and perfection of craftsmanship. The Japanese designer, Rei Kawakubo, created dresses with unsymmetrical hems (Sudjic, 1990). Another taboo she challenged was that of the perfection of craftsmanship by presenting clothes with holes or other imperfections. A third strategy is subversion of aesthetic conventions, a strategy that has been particularly identified in France with the work of Jean-Paul Gaultier (Delbourg-Delphis, 1983). Examples in his work include placing clothes traditionally used for a specific purpose in another very different context (e.g. use of a corset as outerwear) or desacralizing major couture icons, like the Chanel suit jacket, by adding a toilet chain as a belt.

A fourth strategy is pastiche, which can be described as the continual reshuffling of fragments of pre-existing texts from both the arts and popular culture. This postmodernist approach was especially identified in France with the designs of John Galliano when he worked for Dior. An example is an outfit shown in one of his shows in which a hat, jacket and boots associated with 17th-century musketeers are associated with a mini skirt, a train, and a décolleté bustier worn by a voluptuous female model (Crane, 2000).

Does the use of stylistic devices associated with the avant-garde by fashion designers mean that their works constitute the equivalent of an artistic avant-garde? Alternatively, one can argue that some innovative collections constitute an aesthetic revolution in fashion but not in art. A major problem with applying the concept of avant-garde to fashion designers is the commercial context in which their work is framed. Many luxury fashion designers have attempted to frame their collections in a way that minimizes the commercial context. They have created stores that appropriate the appearance of art galleries, with white walls and floors and a minimum of garments on display, but the fashion objects on display do not acquire the same ‘aura’ as art objects, in part because they are not unique objects (Benjamin, 1969).

The most spectacular framing device for the designer is the fashion show, which has been compared to performance art. In the 1990s, the collections of some British designers constituted a major change, both in how clothes were presented to buyers and the press, as well as in the contexts where they were shown, such as in train stations and abandoned warehouses. These designers were working for firms owned by luxury conglomerates that allocated huge budgets to stage spectacular events. Some of the clothes were designed to be unique ‘showpieces’ and were not intended to be put into production. However, Evans (2003: 70 n13) disputes the claim that these shows were a form of performance art, stating:

The comparison of fashion with performance art […] fails to acknowledge the commercial reality of fashion shows […] The contemporary fashion show’s allegiance with art served, in reality, merely to enhance its status and commercial value in an increasingly sophisticated market.

Do designers who have been labelled avant-garde perceive themselves as artists? Rei Kawakubo has denied that she is an artist (Kawamura, 2004: 141). Her biographer (Sudjic, 1990: 11) states: ‘Nor do (her) clothes belong to the rarefied world of art for art’s sake: a shrewd business intelligence guides their production . . . economic success is an essential part of maintaining her creative independence.’

At the beginning of his career, Issy Miyake advocated an approach to clothing as visual culture rather than as utilitarian artefacts (Holborn, 1995: 22). His intention was to stimulate the imagination through clothing. During his long career, his work has been exhibited in many museums, but his design has involved not only dramatic experiments with fabrics, one of which appeared on the cover of Artforum, but an increasing concern with practicality and ‘clothes for real life’ (Holborn, 1995: 50). He views design as teamwork; his career has involved constant collaboration (Holborn, 1995: 78, 104). John Galliano, who produced exceptionally creative fashion shows, stated: ‘I am here to make people dream, to seduce them and to make them want to buy beautiful clothes . . . That is my duty’ (quoted in Jones and Rushton, 2006: 68, my italics).

In other words, the goal of designers who transgress the norms of fashion design is not to acquire the status of artists but to access a form of symbolic capital that improves their status as fashion designers. As such, their avant-garde creations often attract a great deal of attention in the media and sometimes influence subsequent developments in fashion.

Although these designers were protected by their trade organization (La Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-Porter des Couturiers et des Créateurs de Mode), they faced many of the same constraints as couturiers. The globalization of the clientele for designer clothing gave an advantage to luxury conglomerates. They were able to invest in stores and distribution systems in major world markets, and they could pay for elaborate fashion shows and advertisements to display designer clothes (Crane 1987, 2000). It became very difficult for young designers to succeed in France without being associated with one of the luxury conglomerates. Like their counterparts in couture firms, their autonomy was limited in those firms.

The Case of Fashion Collectibles

Ironically, fashion is most likely to be treated as an art form when it is no longer ‘in fashion’, presumably because such clothes have lost their practical utility. The criterion of non-utility is very important in art. The recognition of the value of fashion collectibles by other types of cultural organizations suggests that they have acquired artistic value as a form of cultural heritage.

The value of fashion artefacts as a form of cultural heritage began to be recognized in the 1970s with the creation of fashion museums in France, Japan and the USA. ³ Today there are fashion museums all over the world, including in other countries in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain) and in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea). Beginning in 1983 with an exhibition of the couture designs of Yves Saint-Laurent at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, art museums have occasionally organized retrospectives of the work of fashion designers, alive or deceased (Steele, 2008). Crossing the threshold of sharing art museum space may be an indication that the status of fashion is in transition.

However, fashion museums differ in important ways from art museums. A major difference between fashion exhibitions in museums and art exhibitions in museums is the susceptibility of the former to pressure from powerful fashion organizations. Exhibitions in fashion museums have often been perceived as marketing tools by fashion companies particularly if they are celebrations of the work of living designers who benefit from the publicity (Steele, 2008). When art museums have exhibited the works of fashion designers, curators of these exhibitions have been accused of ‘selling out’, as was the case of the Armani exhibition in New York at the Guggenheim Museum and the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum (Anderson, 2000). The difficulties that fashion exhibitions have faced in acquiring credibility suggest that fashion collectibles have only partially achieved the status of cultural heritage.

Fashion collectibles rarely appear in art galleries. Occasionally, fashion collectibles, considered as ‘clothes art’, are exhibited in art galleries but are not intended to be worn (Wollen et al., 1998). These garments may even be constructed in such a way that it is impossible to wear them. The artistic norm of non-utility is observed.

The aesthetic criteria for evaluating fashionable collectibles and fashionable clothing in general are underdeveloped, as indicated in a recent review of scholarly works on fashion (Gonzalez, 2010). Most scholarly discussions of fashion theorize the characteristics and effects of fashion that is in fashion, rather than the aesthetic criteria of fashion collectibles. In fact, most such discussions ignore the possibility and implications of fashion collectibles. Analyzing fashion collectibles is different from recounting fashion history. The latter tends to be a description of a succession of creators and styles, while an aesthetic analysis of fashion collectibles would attempt to identify the salient qualities of specific fashion collectibles and the relative importance of intrinsic qualities, such as formal criteria and uniqueness as compared to external criteria, such as audience effect (Tseëlon, 2012: 113).

Another indication that fashion collectibles have become a form of cultural heritage is the fact that designer clothes are sold in auction markets. For example, fashion entered the French auction market in 1987 (Bénaïm, 1992: 22). In France, the major buyers appear to be fashion museums, private collectors, couture houses (which buy back their own creations) and occasionally the French government on behalf of a fashion museum.

Auction prices of designer clothes are an important indicator of the relative value of fashion collectibles in comparison with other types of collectibles, particularly contemporary artworks (La Gazette de l’Hotel Drouot, 2004). How do the prices attained by major fashion designers compare with the prices attained by major contemporary artists during the post-war period? What do these prices signify about the importance of fashion in contemporary society in comparison with art collectibles?

Prices of fashion collectibles in the auction market suggest that fashion collectibles are perceived by art collectors, art dealers, museums and auction houses as having relatively little economic value in comparison with contemporary artworks. It is not unusual for auction prices of artworks by leading post-war artists to attain over US$1 m – approximately €770,000 – (Azimi, 2008). For example, paintings by post-war American and British artists Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon have been auctioned for over $70 m in the past decade (Bellet and de Roux, 2007; Sabbah, 2008). By contrast, fashion collectibles created by leading post-war fashion designers are seldom sold for over €10,000.

Two auctions in 2011 support this conclusion: (1) an auction in Paris in June 2011 of 485 items designed by major 20th-century designers, mainly in the last 60 years (Artcurial, 2011) and (2) an auction in London in December 2011 of 82 items, many of them designed by major 20th-century designers (Christie’s, 2011a). In the Paris auction, the average price obtained by these items was €391. Only 6% of the items sold for over €1000. Four items sold for more than €5000. Only one item sold for over €10,000.

The London auction was more successful, but again very few items obtained high prices (Christie’s, 2011b). The average price of the items was €4053. Approximately 48% of the items sold for over €1000, but only 10 items sold for more than €5000. Only three items sold for over €10,000.

The highest price in the Paris auction (€13,631) was paid for a dress designed by Yves Saint Laurent, one of the most important French, post-war designers. Saint Laurent had designed the dress at the beginning of his career when he was employed by Dior. The highest price in the London auction (€73,961) was attained by a dress designed by Dior in 1948. By contrast, paintings by Abstract Expressionists created in the 1940s were virtually worthless then but are now worth millions (Crane, 1987).

A major factor which influences the price of fashion collectibles is celebrity validation. Dresses worn by former movie stars may be auctioned for prices as high as important artworks. In 1999, a dress made to order by an unknown designer for Marilyn Monroe was auctioned for €1.78 m (Le Monde2, 2007). In July 2011, the white dress that Marilyn Monroe wore in a famous scene in the film The Seven Year Itch was auctioned for €3.54 m in the USA (Le Monde, 2011).

Other examples of celebrity validation include: (1) a dress designed by the French couturier, Givenchy, and worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was auctioned for approximately €681,000 in 2006 (Reier, 2007); (2) a dress worn by Princess Diana shortly before her marriage to Prince Charles was auctioned in London for ₤192,000 in 2010 (International Herald Tribune, 2010); and (3) a dress owned by Elizabeth Taylor was auctioned in New York for US$362,500 in 2011 (‘Buying frenzy greets Liz Taylor dresses auction’, 2011).

Why is celebrity validation so important in auction sales of fashion collectibles? One hypothesis is that celebrity validation is important when many buyers are not familiar with the aesthetic criteria for evaluating collectibles. As a result, items with high aesthetic value may be ignored in favor of items with similar or lesser aesthetic value, which have been associated with celebrities. Comparable behaviour sometimes occurs in antique markets. For example, newly wealthy Chinese, buying antique Chinese vases at auction, prefer items that have formerly been owned by famous collectors (Melikian, 2011). Alternatively, one can argue that the high value of items associated with celebrities is due to their ‘promise of fantasy’. People pay high prices for such items in order to participate in a legend (Tseëlon, 2012: 117).

To date, the highest auction prices for fashion collectibles without celebrity validation have been attained by pieces designed by well-known, pre-war French couturiers. For example, a coat designed by Paul Poiret in 1911 was auctioned for €130,000 in 2007 (Rich, 2007). The highest price for a pre-war fashion collectible (€175,000) was obtained in 2009 for a jacket designed by Elsa Schiaparelli (Moritz, 2009).

The Schiaparelli sale indicates that a second explanation for high auction prices of fashion collectibles is an association with the fine arts. Working in the 1930s when the surrealist movement was at its height, Schiaparelli collaborated with surrealist artists and attempted to apply the principles of surrealism to fashion design (Martin, 1987). The jacket that obtained the record price was decorated with embroidery designed by Jean Cocteau, a leading surrealist artist, and carried his signature embroidered in pink thread.

The second highest price (€34,689) in the London auction was obtained by a dress designed by Yves Saint Laurent in 1966. The auction price of the Yves Saint Laurent dress benefited from the way in which the dress alluded to the arts, specifically Saint Laurent’s use of a familiar motif from the work of the Dutch abstract artist, Piet Mondrian. Saint Laurent did not collaborate with artists, but he incorporated themes from the works of major artists, such as Matisse and Picasso, in his couture designs. Nevertheless, the auction prices of his designs are nowhere near the auction prices of post-war creators of comparable stature in the fine arts.

Significantly, designs created by Paco Rabanne, who is considered to be one of the most innovative designers of haute couture in the post-war period (Kamitsis, 1996), have been much less successful in the auction market. Rabanne’s creations are avant-garde in the context of fashion design, but they do not incorporate themes or motifs from the fine arts. In a recent auction (Artcurial, 2012a) of fashion collectibles created by Paco Rabanne, only two out of 73 dresses attained a price over €5000 (Artcurial, 2012b). They sold for €6880 and €10,000 respectively. According to Christie’s director of costumes and textiles, an exceptionally expensive fashion collectible ‘ties the object into popular culture and historical movements’ (Menkes, 2011).

These statistics raise the question of why the prices of contemporary art are so high, while the prices of fashion collectibles are so low. In the post-war period, the art world has built an increasingly elaborate set of institutions for selling art. The number of art collectors has soared. In major art centers such as New York, Paris, London and Berlin, the number of art galleries has steadily increased. The art world is now global; an increasing number of galleries have offices in several countries and successful or would-be successful artists exhibit in galleries on three continents. International art fairs, such as ArtBasel and ArtBasel Miami Beach, bring together artists, collectors and dealers for short periods where many major sales take place.

By contrast, the infrastructure for selling fashion collectibles is relatively underdeveloped. Few art galleries handle fashion collectibles. Auctions of fashion collectibles are relatively rare. It is difficult to estimate the numbers of private collectors, but collectors whose collections consist of clothing that has not been acquired for their own use are unlikely to be numerous. Christie’s, which names owners of objects auctioned in its sales, mentioned only five collectors for 82 objects in their December 2011 fashion auction. One of them, Billy Boy*, has been described as a ‘legendary couture collector’ (Menkes, 2011). Museums are the main market for fashion collectibles but their funds are limited.

Another less obvious but important factor that influences the prices for fashion collectibles is gender. Most fashion collectibles were created for women. Fashion is a medium that primarily serves to enhance the attributes of women. This may explain the apparent dearth of private collectors who tend to be male. For example, most art collectors are male or heterosexual couples in which the male member actually pays for the collectibles and presumably makes the final decisions concerning what will or will not be purchased (Esterow, 2008). ⁴ It is also significant that, in the contemporary art world, paintings by women sell for much less than those by men, both in art galleries and in the auction market. In 2008, I compiled a list of 52 post-war artists whose work had been auctioned for over US$1 m, and only four were women.

Will fashion collectibles increase in value in the future? Should they be considered a promising investment that will be profitable for collectors in the long run? The answer will probably depend in part on how much the aura of femininity, which surrounds them, can be transformed from a liability into an asset. This in turn would depend on an elevation in the status of women in Europe and the USA, which, in spite of enormous advances in the post-war period, still leaves much to be desired.

The value of fashion collectibles will also depend on the recognition of the aesthetic qualities of fashion collectibles, independent of their associations with the fine arts. This would entail a transformation in the status of collectibles that have a useful purpose to one in which crafts are on an equal footing with the arts.

Conclusion

To conclude, all three sectors in which fashion is produced and/or sold exhibit a pattern of partial artification. Artification appeared to advance in the occupation of haute couture in which couturiers acquired substantial prestige and autonomy but was halted in the post-war period by the decline of couture as a business, due to the loss of its clientele for its expensive wares and to the globalization of the luxury fashion industry. Most designers producing luxury ready-to-wear were also affected by changes in the organization of the luxury-fashion industry. The importance of fashion collectibles has expanded with the emergence of fashion museums and auctions of fashion collectibles. However, their status as a form of cultural heritage remains inferior to that of the fine arts.