Art & Fashion Mammary Chique Janice Breen Burns
Is nude too rude for the catwalk? It may not be long before we find out. There's been an astounding rise in the number of bare breasts bouncing in the name of fashion recently, and some commentators predict fully nude models in the name of fashion are a certainty.
In the meantime, bare or barely veiled breasts and buttocks (as wobbled in Milan this week, and London the week before that, and Madrid and New York and ...) have become standard practice among many high-fashion show stylists.
But, is it rude? Bettina Liano is one designer among many famous for ramping up the sex factor
in her catwalk shows, but she says the answer is, literally, a matter of
proportion.
"It's theatre, but, think about it: it's all a bit surreal up
there on the catwalk. We're not talking huge here. Let's face it, they're not
really fleshy breasts and I think that makes them not overtly sexy.
"I'm not in the business of selling boobs, anyway. It's the show. It's the
whole image (of the label) being set, and it's not porn: it's art.''
If it is art, it's art that lures increasingly
mixed audiences to public fashion events such as the Melbourne Fashion Festival
(MFF), despite that its director, Robert Buckingham, amiably disagrees. "I don't
think people go to fashion shows just to get a glimpse of nipples. To some
extent, the semi-nudity is an opportunity for (designers) to shock and
titillate, but, at the end of the day, it comes down to the clothes. That's why
people come, because fashion has become a very social activity."
The social activity that surrounds MFF is undeniable (there's a knees-up
every night), but the catwalk's modern attraction has stretched well beyond a
"glimpse of nipple". Gossamer-sheer and lace tops are now routinely worn without
camisoles; shirts and jackets are encouraged to gape; models in micro skirts are
afforded no more modesty than a G-string offers on a meter-high catwalk above a
seated audience. And only the youngest (under 16) and most sensitive models are
counseled not to do the - inevitably immodest - catwalk jobs.
In recent months, overseas stylists have taken the next step, and dispensed
with some tops altogether. In New York, sassy British designer (like Alannah
Hill on steroids) Betsey Johnson sent models out with strip-tease, tasselled
pasties on their nipples. In Barcelona, Mireya Ruiz ringed models' breasts with
colored sequins. And there are many others, keeping pace, shock for catwalk
shock. (The Paris ready-to-wear shows for spring/summer 2004/05 next week
promise a smorgasbord of mammary chic.)
"It's total voyeurism,'' says Brad Hick, one among the predominantly male,
heterosexual contingent of fashion photographers who take up their positions at
the end of every Australasian catwalk. The irony of recording the creative
efforts of an industry dominated by women and gay men, and which sells to women,
is not lost on him.
"We're guys - we could sit there all day and photograph that stuff, but we're
not buying it. It's not us they've got to impress."
One example of the "stuff'' he means is Melbourne designer Kit Willow's
exotic lingerie, launched at a heart-flutterer of a show during Mercedes
Australian Fashion Week (MAFW) in Sydney in May.
"Basically, the photographers went completely crazy," Brad says. "It was very
sexy, a lot of nudity, and the girls - they really played up to the
photographers."
Willow's coquettish girl/women pouted and posed - pictures of girly innocence
- and let their tops slip or drop below the nipple line. Of course, their
pictures were all over the media for months. Willow is undeniably a gifted
designer, but it's unlikely she'd be celebrating the same extraordinary
marketing success if her specialty were corporate suiting or sensible
slacks.
Liano agrees that her own jolting, sexy frock shows are for getting a
high-fashion message across, fast. Between the catwalk and shop-racks however,
are several centimeters of reality, usually realized in slightly longer ra-ra
skirts and necklines NOT stretched back towards a real girl's armpits.
"When I dress a model for the catwalk in a sheer dress though - I'm sorry - I
just can't bring myself to put anything under it," Liano says.
"I know it's not going to be worn like that, but, like anything else in
marketing, it's just a tactic."
Whether or not the tactic is getting out of hand, however, has occurred to
Liano.
"I shudder to think there could come a day when we all hang our breasts out
as fashion accessories." |