How many of you remember the movie "Death Becomes Her"? The dark comedy from 1992 starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Bruce Willis and Isabella Rossellini as a mockery of society in the quest of eternal youth and fear of aging to avoid ultimately facing the inevitable death is just one of multiple death-inspired movies that have been around in the past decades. From comedies to thrillers the theme has been charming the arts for a long time in different periods of the history.
Death has also been present in fashion and in a very strong way in the past 5 years. I remember back when developing the denim line for Sears Canada Fall 2008 when the buyer’s direction was “Skulls and Fangs”!! For Sears?!! As much as it was a trendy theme none of the designers thought it would fly with the traditional Sears customers, it was way too trendy for the target profile, therefore we went for it! A collection of studded crosses with embroidered roses and skulls was born and it was a hit. From the McQueen runway to the mass market, death seems to be fascinating everybody, but what does it mean in fashion? Why is it still relevant from fashionistas to the regular Joe?
Playing with the forbidden or the unknown has always been tempting, but why is it coming back nowadays? Today’s class made me think of a documentary that I watched long time ago, and please forgive me for not remembering where and when I saw it, but it was about movies in the end 60’s and beginning of the 70’s.
Before the first man walked on the moon, at the second part of the 60’s, the fascination of the unknown was about the outer space, was there any live out of the earth? This attraction influenced the arts portraying great imagery of attacks from Mars and other outer-space creatures that spanned from serious thrillers to the Flintstones! Everybody was exposed to the outer-space and all the possibilities it could hide. But what happened after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? The outer-space was no longer something unfamiliar for humanity; the conquest of the unknown was not so much...unknown.
As a reaction to this “The Exorcist” came to the big screen and so many other films touching this topic. Since outer-space was not able anymore to provide that taboo element (as it was proved to be conquered on 1969) the society needed to find a new frontier: therefore the outer-space became the outer-world.
After today’s session, my thinking goes to today’s society; aren’t we facing a similar situation? We have it all, don’t we? Information is there available for all of us... only a click away. From scenes under deep see, passing through the microscopic world, to the view of the earth from the outer-space and even our internal body and organs!!; any possible angle of our surroundings is available to us thanks to the all mighty Google and its relatives. Technology has gone so far that no matter what we are looking for, we know some studies have already been conducted and we can find trustworthy information through museums and laboratories. What is the unknown then? Of course, Death! Death comes back as it did in the early 70’s.
The ultimate mysterious frontier is appealing again; again, society wants to flirt with the old maid that hasn’t been conquered through ages. How long will this trend last? I am guessing until society finds, like a little kid, a new appealing toy to play with or until society gives up again on trying to solve the mystery; but no matter what, the death trend will come back sooner or later, because human kind has not yet been able to conquer it. So keep your skull earrings even when the trend is over... it will come back in fashion if not for you, for your daughter in a couple of decades from now.
_____
Roger ARTiga
No comments:
Post a Comment