Fashion and music both can be interpreted in different ways depending on the artist or listener/wearers intent, which just brings more expression of the art itself. However, the American sculptor Louise Nevelson insists: “Fashion must be an expression of the wearer and must relate to her environment. Fashion could be an art, but it isn’t. On earth, at any time there are few people who understand themselves well enough to bring themselves to high art.” Nevelson believes that an individual must be in a complete, perfect understanding of oneself to be able to express themselves with their fashion in a high enough standard for it to be qualified as art. But if an artist must understand themselves to bring themselves to a level of high art, then what art would the world have?
Art is full of misunderstandings and emotions and artists surely do not assure that they understand themselves before they begin painting. Sometimes an artist finds themselves in the process of creating, just as someone finds themselves in the clothes that they are wearing. “We lose ourselves in the things we love, we find ourselves there, too.” Eloquently described by Kristin Martz, the quote refutes Nevelson’s claims that an individual would need to understand themselves in order to find themselves. While someone is experimenting with fashion and the choices they may wear, they are finding what they like about what they are wearing and themselves. Creative processes are about the process itself. People can find themselves in the process. If everyone waited until they had a deep understanding of who they were and exactly everything they wanted in life, there would be a lot less creating going on in the world. People find solace in creating, and that does not exempt fashion from being a way to create.
Fashion can depict emotions and feelings just as art can. However, it was surprising to find that only thirty percent of college-aged women found their own personal fashion expression as art*. The remaining seventy percent felt as if what they wore was not art; however, ninety percent of those same women felt that fashion was a way for them to express themselves. This shows that women do not feel like their fashion choices are brought to a level that they personally would as deem art. Is this a matter of people having a differing idea of what is art?
It was interesting to learn that one hundred percent of the women also agreed that fashion created by famous designers who make clothes for a living was art. The difference may be in that the women found that the professional designers were creating their works with their own ideas and using their own hands to create the clothes. The girls as wearers, however, feel that the process of them merely putting pieces together that were created by another person is not art because they were not a part of the creative process. Most of the women felt that although what they personally were doing by putting clothes together was not art, they found it as a way to express them.
* This survey was conducted by myself asking a variety of people these questions concerning their views and opinions on the topic.
