It is said, that your dressing speaks volumes about your personality. How true is that? If we believe this, then fashion is expression. So, is fashion an art or an expression? Well, art is also an artist’s way to express. Art also has many forms. A painting, a sculpture, poetry, a music composition, an innovative dish, all of these is different form of arts. It’s said and widely believed, that artist’s thoughts are reflected in his work. If that is true then it can be concluded that any form of art is an expression of the creative mind behind that art.
Fashion is versatile in its form and in its meaning as well. For a layman, fashion is an expression of their personality. For a designer it is a work of art. Fashion means different things to different people. Fashion to some is the way they dress up, for some it is a medium to express their personality, their moods. In this context it is expression. Fashion for someone, is creating something new… and whenever creativity comes into play, the end result has to be an art piece. The meaning of fashion changes from one context to another, from one individual to another. Recently, there was a very interesting article in a newspaper. It said, young designers experimenting with art in fashion.
In between the words, one could easily read that fashion was being focused as an art work. It had a story of a couple based out of New Delhi, who specialize in hand painted t-shirts by the brand ‘Maati’. This was an initiative started somewhere around 2007, it was commendable to see how they have translated paintings on a garment in the form of t-shirts. Those t-shirts are just not a piece of garment, but real paintings (true work of art) on a t-shirt for their customers. For them, fashion is art, for a customer picking up one of those tee’s is their way to express their moods. They paint meditating Buddha, kathakali dancer, tribal lady, an entire ‘Dhobi Ghat’ on their t-shirts.
Another story talked about two friends, who got together and had pieces of art on anything you could think of in terms of accessories. Hand-painted bags, slip-ons, jootis, clutch bags, hair beads, jewelery. This is a very niche form of fashion, but such things do make us believe that fashion is an art and not just an expression.
