by David Akanji
Welcome to AULT, the arts and culture column of The Poor Print, written by David Akanji (me). AULT exists to refocus our minds, re-engaging ourselves with art and cultural understandings. I’ll be focusing on current opinions/events/issues in the art world, but more importantly how we as students, citizens, and humans fit into it. If there are any topics or events you want covered, reach out to me at david.akanji [at] oriel.ox.ac.uk
The first AULT of the year invites you on a journey of conceptual ideas – exploring ascents and descents in a variety of ways. We’ll see how it has been explored in fashion, and what it can mean in our lives as we make our way through this new year.
This issue’s discussion stems from the theme of the Oxford Fashion Gala 2024. You needn’t tell me your attendance plans – I already know all reading will be present! When choosing the theme for the gala, ‘descent’ came strongly to mind. The noun tells us of a ‘path down’. This can be interpreted in the physical sense, spiritual or moral sense, even an emotional and mental sense. Many of these ideas were explored in Issey Miyake’s Spring/Summer ’22 collection titled A Voyage in Descent.
Miyake framed this collection around a physical descent – into the deep-sea ‘stages’ of feeling and emotion. This was first seen with looks depicting the tranquillity and peace felt in the water. Light beams dancing through the shallow space guiding the way downwards. He explored the silence of this entry, sinking into the abyss with nothing but the noise in your own mind. Issey is known for his mastery of fabric manipulation creating infinite pleats that contour and warp. In this collection, he plays with prints and the traditional freehand dyeing technique hikizome. The subsequent series depicts ‘carved’ garments that are fluid with cutouts, a swimming series that have garments constructed with shapes created by waves and sea creatures. At every point intentional conceptual design was implemented by Miyake – brought to life by the videographic direction of Kodama.
The fashion gala pays homage to this collection, inviting budding designers to conceptually envision a voyage in the positive axis. This can conjure ideas of space travel, celestial worship, or euphoric feelings – but also fear. Fear of the cosmic silence, size and isolation or fear of heights. The design brief written (in a very flowery manner) by me reads:
Oxford Fashion Gala 2024
A Voyage in Ascent
As an ode to Miyake’s SS22 collection: A Voyage in Descent which presented a journey into the abyss, we encourage you to journey upwards. The positive side of the vertical scale shows an increase, improvement and elevation. This can be extrapolated into our 3D world and exploration of the heavens and stars. Celestial bodies that ornament the sky with rings, belts and orbits, dominating the expansive vertical. In a dance of eclipses, collisions and constellations. Space travel isn’t necessary to meet our celestial rulers; we can ascend via mediation, worship and adoration of gods that take the form of planetary orbs. Providers of wisdom, power, fertility and sustenance. By all means, stay on Earth, scale mountains, how important in function and practicality? While not so fantastical, aviation draws upon the evolutionary beauty of birds and insects as they traverse the higher planes. As we elevate atmospherically, it is not a euphoric ascent, our human form is pushed to its limits, even NASA’s metal chariots clang and creak. What does one feel as they first ascend, a trepidation of heights contrasted to the soporific silence of space?
Still too high up for you? You needn’t leave your building. Stairs lead up not only to the pearly gates. Ascent is a daily ritual, how has fashion facilitated this movement, how have the times changed? The sagittal plane is also a conduit for time. We can look to the Chinese Mandarin for this interpretation, an ascent in time is an exploration into the past “sháng”. How can the upstroke of the past write the future of fashion?
So inflate your balloons, watch them ascend and voyage all the way to the Oxford Fashion Gala in May 2024.
While these ideas are fun and interesting to depict through fashion and art, it can be beneficial to evaluate ascent in our daily lives. We ascend floors of buildings many times a day – is the ease of this everyone’s truth? Daily ascent is something that can prove to be inaccessible; do we value the accessibility we have? How can we help ensure that the accessibility needs of our peers are being met? We can also mentally and emotionally be uplifted; while we all know we cannot forcefully will ourselves to be mentally transcendent, we can at least help our peers and community. How can we uplift the random person we walked by in Second Quad? A smile? A ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’? How can we uplift our peers who are locked in the Oriel library deep in an essay or problem sheet crisis? Of course, by the end of this, we are not all going to be shining pendants without a dot of worry, anxiety and all it means to be human. But we can start by looking out for each other.
Photograph from the Issey Miyake SS22 digital show:
Characterised fluid movement through spiral knitted fabric to produce an organic silhouette.
Credit: Issey Miyake
Poster for the Oxford Fashion Gala 2024:
A Voyage in Ascent
Credit: The Oxford Fashion Gala
(Instagram @theoxfordfashiongala)
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