Showing Manifestation of Current Visual Arts Through Fashion (Essay Sample)

Name:
Tutor:
Course:
Date:
Image 1: Showing manifestation of current visual arts through Fashion
This images was taken from the September spring fashion collections of 2008, an event that takes place each year in New York. The cultural codes might be at play in the use of the image is the long standing tradition that seeks to create a romanticized Orient. The knowledge that western readers need to have in order to interpret certain messages of this image is the definition of orientalism today and how it is portrayed in the current world. He argued that depictions of the West on the Orient are driven by the historical European colonialism and aim of a political domination over the East. However, this perception by Said distorts the visual art and well-meaning outlook of western "Orientalists." (Mirzoeff p. 26)
The western designers are not prone to the perpetuation of a contradictory image of the exotic Orient. This images reflects that the apparent contradiction argued by Said are not in the minds of designers. In fashion everything happens systematically because it is often a reflection of the cultural, social and political currents taking place at any given time in the society. This images presents Oriental styles that reflects a positive understanding of the Orient by the Western designers.
Paul Smith one of the designers of the fashion was referred by both Petros Petrohilos, the make-up artist and Peter Gray the hair stylist as a candid designer who successfully unveiled the allusion to the imaginary Orient/East. The image portrayed in this paper helps to explore the Orient in the eyes of Western designers. This particular images reflects on exhibitions that take place world across which can be seen as a current visual art that retaliates to the thesis of Edward Said. What this images proposes from the mind of the designers is to terminate the argument of Said which is predominantly political using a fashion show context (Hourani 40).
This image reflects on a remarkable way of healing scars or an interesting way of changing perceptions. Shortly after September 11th designer Miguel Adrover was strongly criticized by critics because he had presented an "Egyptian" inspired collection of fashion. The incident was serious to the extent that sales of Adrover designs dropped extremely resulting to the close of his company. The message that this scenario portrayed to the designers (mainly in America), was that they would need to keep away the Middle East in their inspiration exhibitions for some time.
That occurrence did not amount to an agreement with Said’s theory of Orientalism. The images above marked a strong influence of the Middle Eastern on the catwalks as well as the return of Adrover to the fashion industry (Mirzoeff p. 24). This images appearing not only in magazines but also communicated through media in television, in the runways at Ralph Lauren and Phillip Lim, in Malo introducing arabesque tiles and in lusciously dressed gowns at Donna Karan’s show. Fashion has become a booming global business because it influences on what the world will wearing next season. However, besides the business aspect, the images above helps to describe orientalism in one of the components of today’s visual art.
Notable figures such as Princess Aljuhani Deena Abdulaziz have been instrumental in introducing the concept of orientalism through fashion to American designers such as Peter Som, Behnaz Sarafpour and Proenza Schouler. This image therefore helps in interpreting Orientalism through fashio...