The paradoxical event of apparel: lameness and the bifurcating catwalk

• Main Author: Tatton, Annie (Author)
• Other Authors: Douglas, Andrew (Contributor), O'Connor, Maria (Contributor)
• Format: Others
• Published: Auckland University of Technology, 2011-05-11T23:42:38Z.
• Subjects: Mucus; Paradox; Fashion; Gender; Lameness; Catwalk; Fluid economy; Bifurcation; Thesis
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 This project explores overlapping concerns between fashion and spatial design by way of a catwalk event. It does this by investigating historical and contemporary presumptions about the spatial tectonics and forms of embodiment mandated by the catwalk as a performative platform central to the fashion system. The focus is on both the appareled body and its site specific placement. Through the devising of a catwalk event, this project aims to elaborate on the paradoxes inherent in the fashion show and their linkage to broader sociocultural economies of gender. If the spatial operation of the fashion catwalk presupposes the frictionless glide and circulation of apparel and models in a drawn-out transmission whose final end is the unfashionable and discarded garment, the presence of non-proficient, limping bodies on the catwalk presupposes a different transmission route, one whose passage never quite frees itself from the surface and scene of its appearing. In such a scenario the indifference of the catwalk itself finds entanglement with the gestural economy of the bodies it jetties. I explore the potentialities afforded by such a bifurcation of expectations and support asking: what happens when fashion on the catwalk becomes lame; in what way does the catwalk presuppose the bodies it extends; and what becomes of the fashion system in the face of corporeal disablement?