by 21048332
Cover Image Source: Exhibiting Fashion Website.
A critical analysis of Exhibiting Fashion in relation to the expansion of digitalised fashion exhibitions, in a post pandemic landscape.
Based in the Centre for Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion, Exhibiting Fashion is an online curation catalogue. The website documents and gathers information about global fashion experiences, fusing the adaptation of new technologies with fashion to showcase past and present exhibitions globally. Press releases, host venues, and information about the curator(s) and designer(s) of hundreds of international exhibitions are all provided by Exhibiting Fashion. All arranged by date, time and key meaning.
Exhibiting Fashion is just one of many online similar platforms which utilises new technology to bring a fresh perspective on fashion. Allowing a vast audience to indulge in a rich history of fashion, making what has previously been an exclusive opportunity, with a lack of access, into a more accessible one.
The platform promotes individual research, workshops and publications, featuring a ‘Responses’ section in which reviews can be uploaded to the website. This user-creativity promotes vibrant viewpoints and innovation in the form of ‘prosumerism’ as spoken about by Toffler in 1980. Open participation within Exhibiting Fashion enables viewers to interact with significant cultural and social works within the Fashion Industry, . Challenging previous experiences of art and culture and encouraging the growth of additional creative spaces for social and cultural learning. This is massively important in educating audiences’ minds to the potential of digitalisation as a catalyst for making cultural sectors reachable, sustainable and inclusive.
Following the pandemic, the Fashion industry leaned into the digitalisation of creative spaces. This need reflected the demand for digital art environments due to the in-place restrictions that stopped cultural experiences from taking place. These online adaptations allowed artists to gain exposure from a variety of audiences, making these experiences universal and ubiquitous. Additionally, facilitating the expansion and presence of the industry. This growth is acknowledged by Exhibiting Fashion stated that,
”Exhibiting Fashion is a work in progress which will be regularly updated and expanded. It is a work in co-creation that welcomes, and depends on, your contributions of other fashion exhibitions from across the world’’
Which raises the questions:
- Are arts and culture exhibitions online the way forward?
- Has digitalisation democratised culture and the arts?
Due to the current co-existence between digital and physical spaces, it can be heavily argued that online exhibitions do not damage or eradicate the presence of the physical ones. And as stated by Rosalind Jana in British Vogue Magazine, the digitalisation of fashion and creativity post pandemic has ‘yielded a number of innovations and imaginative solutions – as well as an overwhelming sense of curiosity’. In this case, it is shown that the survival of online spaces like Exhibiting Fashion not only preserves the industry itself, but it is generates imaginative ways of displaying artistic user-creativity.
In terms of sustainability, Kenneth Ize in a discussion with Marc Jacobs for Vogues Global Conversations series last year stated that ‘’Creativity never stops. No way. We need to find a way to do it.’’ (see below). They further discuss the adaptations regarding branding, fashion and the focus on the environment in response to the development of online spaces. Concluding that there has been a sharp increase in imaginative solutions, enabling audiences’ authentic artistic experiences, like Exhibiting Fashion.
Arguably, this digital remix culture, as explained by Lessig in 2008, has democratised culture and the arts by the unspecified ownership of user-generated content. The shift from consumer attitudes towards a co-creating value has blurred the boundaries between high and low art. Which, in many ways, is positive towards the preservation of art and cultural pieces that reflect social attitudes of the time and survive dark times in history like the pandemic itself.
In this way, digitalised platforms like Exhibiting Fashion, have created pathways for culture and art industries to survive changes in history. Therefore, as well as being incredibly successful, it is necessary to reflect a difference in thinking. Serving more than one purpose, originally to aid the existence of fashion, but now utilised to create a borderless attitude towards culture and art no matter what your identity.
Tom Ford writes ‘the industry will change; but change also presents an opportunity to reset, restart and create a strong foundation for the future of American Fashion’. Ultimately, accepting this digitalisation is necessary in every way to preserve the creativity and imagination of gifted individuals, whose blooming talents should be shared with the world.
CREATIVE CONVERSATION 