art in fashion is DEAD

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Chapters:
0:00 intro
1:14 a brief history of fashion
2:24 the fashion renissance
5:48 the problem of irony
8:43 irony in fashion today
11:38 final words
in this video we discuss: kiko kostadinov, raf simons, rick owens, maison margiela, comme des garcons, rei kawakubo, undercover jun takahashi, alexander McQueen, the antwerp six, vivene Westwood, balenciaga, demna gsvalia, vetements, saint laurent, David foster wallace

[@quill_master9454]

imagine if the whole video was ironic, and he actually likes printed shirts with "legalise nuclear bombs" witten on them.

[@mattusandreasen4813]

He could seem like the type of person to wear that

[@gabrielmenoscal9911]

💀💀💀

[@uenostation5445]

i'd buy.

[@Collie_Pollie]

"I've always said I am not an artist. For me, fashion design is a business. It's just one of the ways of doing business... but I also stem perhaps from wanting people to be free and independent... It's a convenient and simple way of giving that independence because everybody has to wear clothes... For me fashion design is just an expression of what I feel about life. But it is also commercial" , “Fashion is not art. The aims of fashion and art are different and there is no need to compare them.” - Rei Kawakubo

[@isaackasay5629]

i love rei but the irony here is kinda wild. its weird to draw a divide between the concepts fashion and art, but then also claim you use fashion to express how you feel about life. art is quite literally the expression of experience and emotion. as much as i love her work and what shes done for fashion she can be awfully pretentious at times.

[@ciko7064]

Don’t worry I’ll put a call in

[@ghandibanks]

We counting on you

[@adriangarcia5212]

🫡🙏

[@jcutfiend]

demna's work is genuinely devoid of meaning, he claims that his meaning is to point out the flaws in fashion, such as the corporatism of kering and lvmh, but when he ends up beating the same horse into the ground every collection, its clear that he's lazy and creatively bankrupt.

[@jerd1313]

Are you braindead? How does anything in Demna's newer work show "creatively bankrupt." Also please let me know any active designers better than Demna.

[@MJHFTBN]

He’s a satanist, sold his soul to become popular.

[@qwertyboo]

It's an excuse, pretentiousness

[@yushen7492]

the question of irony has already been resolved in fashion. it's just that the resolution 'is realised' by people who are 16-18, the rest of us are just catching up. btw this issue happened in art before and has been resolved by "metamodernism". fashion always follows art. now art today has its own 'problems' but that's a different topic anyway, just follow the kids more, see their perception btw fashion will be changed, as anything always is, by the outsiders.

[@yuppppi529]

most fire comment ive read this week

[@matthewgent5908]

Irony is defo a big player in fashion but I’m not sure you get to say art in fashion is dead by just citing Balenciaga’s influence on trickle down T-shirt brands. Demna had his point to make, and for my taste it’s a little one note this many years later but plenty of fashion houses are still successfully making art. Rick Owens, Thom Brown, Daniel Roseberry at Schiaparelli, JW Anderson at Loewe just off the top of my head create thoughtful collections that’s aren’t hype or trend led. Perhaps it’s fair to acknowledge that elsewhere we’re seeing more referencing and less innovation, and that the quantity of collections required to keep up with consumerism means fashion for art’s sake is less viable in the mainstream.

[@rdegans7809]

Karsten the type of dude to reference David Foster Wallace, South Park and Alexander McQueen in the same breath

[@nicj4154]

All facts. Irony in fashion has devolved from being a particular modality ( just one of many) to being an utter crutch. The decline of not-vapid irony in fashion seems like it could be symptomatic of a bigger trend of watering down... cultural homogenization and appropriation, the decline of poser shaming, performative activism, and dopamine additicion, 3-second attention span having ass mfs are all woes that seem similar to this issue n fashion. If you even just look at the way some people use the word "ironically" in day to day convo, it's often completely misunderstood (e.i. ppl saying "ironically" when they mean "coincidentally"). People want archive or vintage for the buzzword of it being archive or vintage without any knowledge of the heritage of pieces. Everything is a reference of a reference, of a reference etc etc (and as time passes and context becmes increasinly removed). Not to sound like old man streaming @ clouds but subculture is hardly even exists anymore. Name any recent trend; y2k, numetal, mallcore, 90s skate gear, etc, for instance.. Most who are into it are just cosplaying and larping with zero reference point for what they're sampling from. The ppl at the forefront of the trends either , 1, never grew out of said style or, 2, were revisiting it in the in an inquisitive way.... then came the wave of copy cat, irony for irony's sake mfs. Man this is kinda all over the place... but anyway Family guy pseudo irony was a great example. How many people do you know who point out social issues but don't actively do anything about it? Then out of that group of ppl... there's a slew who are only participating because it's on trend. In it's current meta, the hollow use of irony in fashion is even worse than performative activism

[@davidrabinowitz5973]

Your'e bugging, men's art fashion is so strong right now, JW Anderson / Loewe, Grace Wales Bonner, Kiko, Merine Serre, Craig Green, Maximilian Davis, Daniel Lee, the list goes on and on. Are you a fashion fan or a Tik Tok fashion fan? This take is so bizarrely disconnected with the real state of the fashion community.

[@Glotaku]

Punk really isn’t just a movement it is movement in itself

[@phart325]

i think we gotta diq ride the irony train till the end _FOR_ it to end and make way for sincerity. people will eventually get tired of it. the reason we aren’t getting as much clothing with as much embued meaning and impact is simply because - what hasnt already been said? and being fed with so much info, events and generative AI technology people’s values are shifting. Art is not seen the same way it used to. Primitivism and Technological advancement has been at constant headbutts since the age of manufacturing, and i’m left to wonder what will remain

[@andrew_pruitt]

I don't think we can really say if something is or isn't art, but we can have opinions on whether or not it's of any quality/merit.

[@remnant1670]

Agreed

[@n0dick]

Greek statue avatar ahh opinion

[@karstenkroening]

LOL

[@radiocabea]

Hey karsten, great video! just to let you know that the audio for this video is EXTREMELY low. youtube reports almost -17dB bellow target ._. a piece of feedback is to turn the sound of the whole video up before you upload

[@FFVII]

Huge step up in the content, on every single part of it, great vid bro

[@jontorres8408]

I feel like it’s just the natural progression of art the way paintings went from renaissance paintings to post modern

[@King-ex4df]

Yeah I'm not too much of a fan of this video I feel like he came in with a pretty biased view towards Balenciaga and other small brands. Saying Balenciaga is not art is just the most average "I'm into fashion dude" statement. It would have been better to say he doesn't like it, but to place HBA and Balenciaga/Vetements in categories of "irony meaning nothing" is just a boring take with not much nuance

[@alexiss3250]

Really nice video! What is the name of the song at the end please ? /)

[@Haileyy52682]

the way i just thinking about this and then this notification came up ahhhhh

[@THRMLVZN]

Brands like Fugazi by Trevor Gorji are doing art through fashion in a phenomenal way. However, as we gravitate towards aesthetics faster and faster and further from deeper meaning/culture/soul we will see brands executing the art of fashion in a way that is commendable in its own right without directly having a deeper meaning with brands such as Badson.

[@Nicopolis777]

love your content both in the sincere format here on youtube and your ironic memes

[@Devananta-Rafiq]

Morelikely fashionable art that sells is dead, meaning the hyper-commodification of fashion kills the artsy aspect of it. There are always art in fashion but they don't sell much, just like couture is just a business of burning money. Art will stay, maybe Karsten is just nihilistic lol.

[@plunderman9001]

I think especially in this digital age we need more authentic art in fashion that really expresses the human condition. With AI on the rise I think we will be in greater need for finding our humanity, and one thing that makes humans special is our ability to sympathize and express emotion. More than ever we need to find what makes us special and express it through our own heart felt creations. AI can't take our humanity. We are unique creatures.

[@tentickterror8308]

where did you get that necklace

[@user-jh7sk4lp3x]

What is the first track in the video?

[@theespottedgiraffe_5368]

I think demna is a legitimately good designer but the fact he keeps trying to be “punk” while being at a house held by a multi conglomerate is inherently impossible.

[@malicemisa1]

He's trying to be what Rick Owens is

[@odinxrk1424]

Demnas work is definitely just hyper-ironic and works off of shock value, I mean he even admitted himself last year that he doesn't want to do this tacky stuff anymore and wants to create real clothes, whatever that means to him.

[@AngleGrinder70]

This is the way that it goes so that we can get a resurgence of better and better designers, people who appreciate the older shows but recognize the relevance of these newer more capital driven shows. I do hope that balenciaga can step away from the shock value and commodity that makes the brand currently, and return to how Cristobal left it (the renowned couture brand)

[@philuminati]

In this context about the lost art in fashion, what do you think about Professor E?

[@olastrandh2977]

Great video, good points. I will try my best.

[@lonelystation-pi6le]

I feel like funny/ironic fashion definitely has its place and can be fun, but that's exactly what it is, it's not supposed to be deep. I totally agree that it is quite upsetting to see how meaning and depth is taken away from the forefront of fashion though. The mainstream is often times soulless and money driven and that's okay, it doesn't define art (except for the people who can't dig any deeper). It's the same with most art industries now, no art form is ever ''dead'' or ''ruined'', the real shit will always exist, you just have to know where to look. (generally speaking here) Besides, i think Demna reflected the overdriven, absurd, and nihilistic state of the world pretty well. If you ask me that is precisely a reflection of the human condition, it's almost like the equivalent of hyperpop of fashion. I'm not the biggest fan of the impact it has had, but i do find it quite interesting nonetheless. Oddly enough I don't think you should look at the big art industries from an artistic point of view, that is often just going to disappoint you. These massive corporations are not here to make art, often times only just to emulate it and make money, so why expect anything meaningful and deeper from them? I think seeing the industries and art as separate things can help a lot. The same principle applies to a lot of things, arts, music, fashion, you name it. Sincerity and depth will always exist as long as there are people, just don't expect it from the big corps. I'm more familiar with the music industry, but i think that the situation is quite similar with fashion too. With all that being said, i don't think that fashion or any arts should always have some deep meaning to them, it can be fun and dumb and it is equally as valid as more meaningful art, just different.

[@eforenything]

This was a brilliant video. Art in fashion is dying. And I think the irony is a plague. Very well put. Ps I’m bringing art back to fashion. You will know me some day.

[@yokchew90]

I dont know about art but all i know is i want my clothes to drape or feel alittle different from the others but familiar. Depends on where i am, but sometimes i dont want to look like wtf am i doing when everybody is kinda in simple clothes and dressed down

[@niklasjaggi7891]

forget the video, you’re apartment looks so cool 😭

[@Tripn]

7:11 u just described the meaning. is being cynical not tied to emotions? are they not expressing their emotions?

[@Tripn]

you may not fuck with the meaning but to say its not their is absurd

[@Tripn]

psuedo art seems like such a reach. we live in a post lil b world where anything is art. u dont need to be a philosphical genius to create good art

[@1tenone]

@@TripnI would say even more, there's no such thing as philosophical genius in fashion at all. I mean McQueen was genius, but he wasn't genious because he "portrayed some world problematics" or had " deep thought meanings" with his collections. He was genius in the artistic imagery he produced. It doesn't take much philosophical intellect to say "war bad" or "polution bad" or "greed bad".It took them intellect to make the fashion. That's why we discuss fashion and not social statmements from political speeches, cuz in the end we came into fashion for fashion. If painters could simply write down their thesisis instead of painting they wouldn't paint.

[@LeanEnthusiast]

THAT EVA TEE IS ABSOLUTELY FIREE

[@blondkarloff]

hello sirs, dis is Diimna Gasvalya from customer service. how can i help you sirs?

[@adamkikuta]

really liked this video bro

[@duncanlester]

While I agree that ironic graphic t-shirts don't qualify as art, I would say this is not representative of all that designers are putting out. Looking at Loewe, Dries Van Noten, Uma Wang, Thom Browne, John Galliano at Margiela, and so on, there are lots of designers infusing meaning into there collections that go beyond irony. Additionally, I would argue there are plenty of Japanese designers putting out really experimental clothing. When it comes down to it, creating art with in the seasonal business model of the fashion industry is difficult, but I would argue it is a very exciting time in fashion right now.

[@ninjap_bb9025]

Me and Mrs had a good laugh at the cringe! Keep doing you bro ❤

[@unescapedly]

really great commentary. however i feel the same things you talked about with margiela's examination of the patriarchy is applicable to much of yves saint laurent's work , and i think it's shallow to cast him off as "aesthetic" fashion.

[@karstenkroening]

Ah yes, I think for sake of brevity I may have sort of shortened and simplified things, but Yves Saint Laurent certainly has a part of that story. I would say both are important though I think Margiela was just more intentional. Everything is just much more nuanced and complicated haha

[@user-tl9qh4bo5s]

Point de vue intéressant ! From France 🇫🇷 !!

[@1tenone]

The idea that "true art" must resolve some emotions or problematics is the most pseudo-intelligent view on art. Artistic expression doesn't have to portray some social problematics or pop topics in order to be "viable", it's just tastless neophyte elitism. For example, Demna doesn't try to push some "thematic of the day", like war (although he did, but it obviously was never of any significant focus in his work) to make a meaningful artistic expression. He artisticly articulates category of clothes with clothes themselves. He analyzes idustry through this exact industry. In many ways, same as Margiela did. Margiela never tried to hide his passions and expression tools behind some populist thematics, neither is Demna. Portraying some topic through visual langauge isn't as inellectual as you might think, and for sure not in any way more intellectual then the works that don't follow this path. I'm not against criticizing Demna (more topics to discuss for us all), but this type of analyzing art is very outdated (I mean the whole Andy Warhol controversy ended before a big portion of the people participating in this topic were even born, me included).

[@1tenone]

And also, change the record, Demna stopped being ironic at least since leaving Vetements, nobody uses this word to justify his work, you're fighting windmills here (I know you weren't talking solely about Demna but considering all the supplement imagery you havily implied him as your example so I'm also using him as an example, although again, you're talking about ironic fashion almost like it's a new total paradim of fashion, but how much ironic designers except Demna can you actually name? Masayuki Ino? Guram Gvasalia? Any actual high-tier houses except Balenciaga who do "ironic" fashion?)

[@skinnyjeansrule]

Balenciaga took "fashion killer" a little too seriously

[@louisvau4132]

I think the only good high fashion designer atm is demna, he is the only one that manages to bring new things to the table in a good way. Every other current Designer doesnt do anything new and when they do its just instagram bait pieces. And instead of doing new designs everyone just rereleases old pieces to get sales. And even tho i like Demnas work i know that the only reason he gets to work at Balenciaga is to make Money for Kering, even tho he is talented and has a great Vision.

[@Art-lm4ik]

CCP, Kiko, Rick?

[@louisvau4132]

@@Art-lm4ik like i said ofc rick is the goat but his last 4 shows looked exactly the same, version 400 of the kiss heals kiko imo was way way better before and who tf cares for new ccp stuff

[@louisvau4132]

@@Art-lm4ik im talking about current designs not brands overall

[@ajpizza4312]

i like what glen martins and kiko are doing

[@philuminati]

turn up the sound a little :)

[@BrazenBull001]

I still like Rick I don't give a fuck

[@Xena10000]

Karsten da 🐐no 🧢!

[@Bigcheese747]

Look at the brand house of errors

[@recentlyhannah]

When you say there's *no* art in fashion I just get the feeling you're not looking... What about Thebe Magugu, is he not telling compelling stories while making beautiful and genuine clothes? What about Thom Browne, while yes absolutely ridiculous, but devoid of meaning? I don't think so. What about Kid Super... Or look at Sf1OG, Ernest W Baker, even Martine Rose while aesthetically similar to Demna basing it around a very real and relatable inspiration from her life. I get what you are saying but its also just very easy to hate on Demnas Balenciaga while cherry picking fashions best moments from the 90s

[@burntpin]

kiko 😈

[@leonardochavez5535]

Deemna

[@sirmartin3311]

i don't think is really helpful as a viewer to pin point the flaws of other designers or brands (that are doing well and have an audience) if you wanna look at fashion as art you have to understand that there might be a possibility that you are missing something, you dont know the true intentions behind the clothes and you never will. sure some of these guys just want money, fame, or they like to be edgy, but this also is telling you something about them that isn´t necessarily bad. so to say that irony in clothes is not bringing anything to the table is not understanding that there might be something you are not seeing. fashion now is what it is and if you are open minded enough you can understand that looking back with nostalgia will always happen as long as you don't accept new ideas. Also there is a lot of brand and designers rn doing so called ''art'' so i don't think there is a problem at all.

[@jurassicthunder]

industrial revolution and it's consequences.

[@daydream1009]

very nice video, great information

[@berlinwallneverfall1991]

The only man who can save us

[@ghandibanks]

This ironic fashion era will end. It’s clear that actual art and sincerity will win.

[@Haileyy52682]

And irony's okay, I suppose Culture is to blame You try and mask your pain in the most postmodern way You lack substance when you say Something like, "Oh, what a shame" It's just a self-referential way That stops you having to be human

[@c0nsumed]

some people just can’t keep their mouths shut 😭. horrible take

[@Art-lm4ik]

found the demna dickrider

[@wikkidize]

what does bro expect when something becomes popular