Future Utility AW 16/17

FUTURE UTILITY -

Linking my previous blogposts together, this trend associates "the fashion capitals this season, with military and utility themes at the forefront in Paris and New York, and a gently retro mood from London and Milan. Fictonial uniforms of the future inspire outfits with practical intent, casually strapped and velcroed to the wearer to create a survivalist, dystopian mood. Desifners mix subtle references to create a look that feels retro yet untied to any one decade. A lo-tech sportswear vibe and geo patterning pull the look together. A North American take on the 1990s emerges, taking in hip-hop, skate and mall-rat culture for an oversized casual streetwear look. The European settlers of North America inspire a story of hardworking clothes which take in traditional Navajo-influenced patterns and rich vegetable dyes.

COLOURS -

While the colour range of this trend stays true to its military roots and signals a ready-for-action functionality, there is a sense of sophistication in the shading of each hue. Khaki, olive and grey blend in subtle tonal combinations and are accompanied by a softer Air Force blue. Black, white and cobalt provide crisp contrast.

KEY LOOKS -

 A more relaxed take on military uniform styling retains its functional aspects with a modern minimalism. While design details are pared back and integrated into the silhouette, subtle tonal contrasts of colour and texture in garment design or styling evoke a sci-fi utility feel. 

PRINT & PATTERN -

Pattern is all about camouflage in this trend, whether soft and textural or high-contrast dazzle. New designs at Nautica and adidas Originals x White Mountaineering are based on dissolving grid pattern, perfect for disappearing into the winter metropolis.

MATERIALS -

 Inside-out pieces appear in conjunction with utility looks, bringing sheen lining fabrics and quilted looks to the outside of garments. Borg and dense wool fabrics provide texture while closures such as button tabs and laid-on zips become key features.

ACCESSORIES & FOOTWEAR -

Pieces that attach to the body are key in all cities. Neat, smaller bag shapes echo the belted coat trend, slung across the chest. Larger shapes are inspired by military standard-issue, while eyewear design takes a modernist approach to the aviator shape. Camouflage appears on accessories as an accent, or as part of a total look at Moncler.

(Utility Part Of The Trend)

After exploring Futurism, I decided to look at the utility part of my trend. I found on smithsonianmag.com an article named "The Classy Rise Of The Trench Coat". "Utility trenches were first given their name during the war, and now is an iconic garment that remains startlingly current despite being more than 100 years old. The trench coat is, in some ways, emblematic of the unique moment in history that World War I occupies, when everything - from rigidly held social structures to military organization to fashion - was in upheaval; it is both a product of this time as well as a symbol of it." 

Burberry reinvented the trench coat. Thomas Burberry, a 21-year-old draper from Basingstoke, Hampshire, founded his eponymous menswear business in 1856; in 1879, inspired by the lanolin-coated waterproof smocks worn by Hampshire shepherds, he invented “gabardine”, a breathable yet weatherproofed twill made by coating individual strands of cotton or wool fiber rather than the whole fabric. Burberry’s gabardine outerwear, like Aquascutum’s, proved popular with upper class, sporty types, and with aviators, explorers and adventurers. 

Nowadays, it;s endlessly updatable.“Because it’s so iconic, it means that avant garde designers can play with elements of it,” says Steele. Even Burberry, which consciously recentered its brand around its trench coat history in the middle of the last decade, understands this – the company now offers dozens of variations on the trench, in bright colors and prints, with python skin sleeves, in lace, suede, and satin.But as the trench coat has become a fashion staple, on every fashion blogger’s must-have list, its World War I origins are almost forgotten. Case in point: Doyle said that in the 1990s, he passed the Burberry flagship windows on London’s major fashion thoroughfare, Regent Street. There, in huge lettering, were the words “Trench Fever”. In the modern context, “trench fever” was about selling luxury trench coats. But in the original context, the context out of which the coats were born, “trench fever” was a disease transmitted by lice in the close, fetid quarters of the trenches. “I thought it astounding,” said Doyle. “The millions of people who walked down the street, would they have made that connection with the trenches? I doubt that.”

Summative Brief - Future Utility (CONTEXT)

For our last brief of the year we were allocated a trend from the WGSN to explore. The trend I was given was "Future Utility". For this trend I wanted to analyse "future" and "utility" seperate so I could eventually combine them together and gain an understanding of the two parts of the trend. Firstly I looked on "Who What Wear" which portrayed the futuristic trend as this: "It was inevitable that designers were thinking about the future, and for many, this came out in edgy metallic swaths and space-like silhouettes. It's always an insightful experience to see different interpretations of what the future looks like, and it seems that for spring we have plenty of iretations to choose from" - Spring 2016.

I then researched the timeline of Futurism. Futurism began in Italy as a cutting-edge theory among early 20th century painters and sculptors, and evolved into a cultural movement that swept through other art forms, including fashion and design. The futuristics called for a break with the past, and a celebration of everything new, urban and industrial. For fashion, Futurism meant fabrics, designers, colours and cuts that reflected audacity, movement and speed. Futurism faded with the onset of World War II, but the movement's emphasis on revolt, risk and modernity continues to inspire fashion theory.

Futurism challenged artists to develop new styles that expressed the ideas and sensations of the modern world. In 1914, painter Giacomo Balla, one of the movement's founders, developed guidelines for fashion. Balla mocked the neutral colours, symmetrical designs and infirmity that dominated the styles of the day. He insisted that clothing should be aggressive, with "musuclar" or deep shades of colour and bold geometrical patterns. Rather than balance, Balla favoured asymmetry, such as jacket sleeves cut in different lengths and shapes. He empasised designs with layers that could be added or stripped away to spontaneously create a new look.

Futurism redefined the purpose of fashion. The movement gained action and aggression, and Balla called for a simple and comfortable clothing designed to allow the skin to breathe, and the body to move with ease. In 1920, Futurist designer Ernesto Michahelles, known as Thayaht, introduced a roomy, utilitarian, unisex jumpsuit called the tuna, short for the Italian word tutta, which means all. The tuta caught the attention of the public, and was the one Futurist design to achieve commerical success. Still, Futurism's new empasis on clothing designed to accomodate on active lifestyle was a genuine innovation and the start of what would eventually become modern sportswear. 

As the idea of the future evolved, so did Futurism's role in fashion. In the early 1990's during a fashion era that Vogue editor Diane Vreeland defined as "Youthquake", miniskirts, vinyl dresses and neon colours signaled the same result aganist the past styles that stressed originality and equality. At the same time, Pierre Cardin and Andre Courteges introduced space-age collections that reflected the era's interest and enthuiasm for space exploration. The new look was built on sleek, minimalist clothing corrected with geometric shapes: Designers introduced synthetic fabrics, plastics and metals into clothing that relied on colours, such as metallics, day-glo and white for a futuristic effect.

Technology is shaping today's vision of the future, and the latest generation of futurist fashion designers has embraced engineering. Some designers are using high-tech and high-peformance fabric blends with new textures and metallic surfaces to construct more versatile shapes. Patterns that reflect machine components and circuitry have emerged as a trend. Other designers are incorporating machinery into designers that converse resources and energy are also a new focus of futurist fashion. Sustainable fashion uses fabrics and materials such as low-maintenance synthetics, recylced cottons and skins and furs from mangled populations of animals that are all produced through environmentally sound practices. 

Juergen Teller

"Juergen Teller (born January 28, 1964) is a German artist and fine-art and fashion photographer. Teller’s work, in books, magazines or exhibitions, is marked by his refusal to separate the commercial fashion pictures and his mostly autobiographical un-commissioned images. He employs a raw, overexposed style and he uses a Contax G2 camera with an onboard flash.^[3] He prefers to work in color,^[4] and regularly includes himself in his photographs. His fashion photographs have been featured in The Face, Vogue, W Magazine etc.." - Wikipedia

My seminar group got given Teller's editorial called "New Nomad" which captures the essence of the model Saskia De Braw exploring a wild landscape in bright printed pieces as she explores the Greek island of Hydra. 

Louis Vuitton Film

We watched "Spirit of Travel" a film made by Louis Vuitton in our seminar. It see's actresses Michelle Williams and Alicia Vikander travelling seperately and as a pair to a joint destination. The film incorporates it's herritage as a luggage maker to draw inspiration for its cruise collection communications. What is most prominent in this film is infact the consumer journey. The video conjures up idea's of this in a more real-world setting outside of shopping to demonstrate that there are smaller steps in between two destination points. 

Patrick Demarchilier who filmed the "Spirit of Travel" manages to seduce the audience by empasising the luxuruous life of these women who travel with the affluential Louis Vuitton bag.

The True Cost

After doing research of 'The Big Idea', we watched the film 'The True Cost' in our seminar. This was massively influential as it hi lighted the severity of how unfairly people are treated in third world countries, e.g - Bangladesh who make clothes in large, over-populated factories. "This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing? Filmed in countries all over the world, from the brightest runways to the darkest slums, and featuring interviews with the world’s leading influencers including Stella McCartney, Livia Firth and Vandana Shiva, The True Cost is an unprecedented project that invites us on an eye opening journey around the world and into the lives of the many people and places behind our clothes".


"The True Cost, is a fashion documentary that goes there and then some – it unravels the grim, gritty, global supply chain of fast fashion: a system that has injected the type of speed, disposability and price deflation that has directly led to the worst casualties in the industrial age" - Lucy Siege.

The Big Idea

Moving from the trend brief, we've started a new brief called "The Big Idea" which is a timely idea that disrupts and creates impact to achieve the stated aim. In this case, I'm looking at raising awareness of the environmental and ethical problems caused by the global fashion industry targeting NTU students, in which I will be making a campaign. 

From this, I've done some research in which I've collected some intriguing data which I would not have known before this brief and went onto http://www.ethicalfashionforum.com. Ethical fashion represents an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing which maximises benefits to people and communities while minimising impact on the environment. For the EFF, the meaning of ethical goes beyond doing no harm, representing an approach which strives to take an active role in poverty reduction, sustainable livelihood creation, minimising and counteracting environmental concerns.

The Ethical Fashion Forum has drawn up a set of 10 criteria for ethical fashion, to inform the fashion industry's official ethical fashion awards, the RE; Fashion awards:
1.) Countering fast, cheap fashion and damaging patterns of fashion consumption.
2.) Defending fair wages, working conditions and workers' rights.
3.) Supporting sustainable livelihoods.
4.) Addressing toxic pesticide and chemical use.
5.) Using and/or developing eco-friendly fabrics and components.
6.) Minimising water use.
7.) Recylcing and adressing energy efficiency and waste.
8.) Developing or promoting sustainability standards for fashion.
9.) Resources, training and / or awareness raising initiatives.
10.) Animal rights.