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 Fashion Will Go out of Fashion

by Eva Lake/Greenwich Village Gazette

 Fashion mavens are spending these days rehashing the 70s. It seems we've been in one big 70s fashion lovefest since about 1992. What the kids don't seem to realize is how dull and downright ugly so much of it seemed the first time around. We didn't have the wonders of stretch back in those days. But they've got those fresh eyes, unhindered by Watergate or too much Carole King.

And yet some of the best fashion in history cannot be really touched or imitated. That's because it was so outrageous and visionary, it immediately went into the history books and into the closets of those smart and brave enough to covet it. I'm speaking of the work of Rudi Gernreich of course.

One thing the kids of today also don't have is that 60s comedown, the anticlimax. Once you've been in a world like the one Gernreich projected, so much seems old hat. Gernreich, having passed away in 1985, still gave us clothes and ideas that live in the future. This future is on display at the Künstlerhaus Graz in Austria next month, in a special retrospective of his designs.

You might say that Gernreich was a Chanel for the next century. Just as Coco liberated the body and deconstructed clothing, so did Rudi take out the layers of underpinning and padding from the 50s, making clothes livable. Just as Chanel said women are getting serious and busy, they need design which works for them, Gernreich chose to design for the unisex and projected that men and women alike would want to wear their body, first and foremost. With Gernreich, the body always comes first. He created what he called the "Monokini" and the Total Look, to be worn by man or woman, old or young, rich or poor.

Gernreich gave us the first miniskirt and the topless swimsuit. This was not just some obvious appeal on sexiness. This was a walking, living, vibrant life, a frank form of self-adoration (and what's wrong with that?). His fashion was a focus on the individual first and foremost, giving them a freedom and self-awareness not allowed by most of the fashion establishment.

Bits and pieces of Gernreich's work have surfaced at museums such as the Met.. A full scale retrospective is long overdue and it is a pity this show isn't coming to the states, where Rudi lived and worked and was generally celebrated. The name of this exhibition is "Fashion Will Go out of Fashion". No doubt this is some famous quote of his but it is also a big philosophy. In a way he definitely followed up on the German idea of "a total work of art," an art to wear, a lifestyle which celebrates art and ideas.

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