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Architecture and Dress

5/31/2018

2 Comments

 
The other day while reading Barchester Towers, I came across this characterization of Mrs. Stanhope, the indolent wife of an absentee clergyman:
The structure of her attire was always elaborate and yet never over-laboured.  She was rich in apparel but not bedizened with finery; her ornaments were costly, rare, and such as could not fail to attract notice, but they did not look as though worn with that purpose.  She well knew the great architectural secret of decorating her constructions, and never descended to construct a decoration.  But when we have said that Mrs. Stanhope knew how to dress and used her knowledge daily, we have said all. Other purpose in life she had none.
―  Anthony Trollope.  Barchester Towers, Chapter 9. 
Ouch!  A fit match for a husband who takes his job so seriously that he delegates it to a lesser-ranking clergyman and spends his life abroad, collecting butterflies and a salary for the work he's not doing!  But the part of the quote that intrigued me was the bit about the "great architectural secret", which sounded like a quote. 
So I looked it up and found this architectural forum thread, where people batted the quote around with a bit of implied laughter, presumably at some architect joke.  Here's a longer quote from a famous book about modern architecture:
When Modern architects righteously abandoned ornament on buildings, they unconsciously designed buildings that were ornament. In promoting Space and Articulation over symbolism and ornament, they distorted the whole building into a duck. They substituted for the innocent and inexpensive practice of applied decoration on a conventional shed the rather cynical and expensive distortion of program and structure to promote a duck; minimegastructures are mostly ducks.

It is now time to reevaluate the once-horrifying statement of John Ruskin that architecture is the decoration of construction, but we should append the warning of Pugin: It is all right to decorate construction but never construct decoration.

―  Learning from Las Vegas, page 163, 2nd edition.
The references to modern architecture being "ducks" was part of a laboriously explained dichotomy between buildings that were simply buildings and were decorated with signs or other furniture to make them suit their purpose ("decorated sheds") and buildings that thought the decorated sheds were too prosaic, and so tried to make the whole building tell you what it was for by looking like its use or purpose.  Here are some notable "ducks".  But I disagree with such a limited breakdown of things.  Why only two options?  In fact, most of what I think of as modern architecture falls into a third category: buildings which try their darnedest to fulfill the role of a building without looking like one or looking like a duck.  You know the ones I mean... bigger on top than on bottom, with random excrescences, hopefully graceful cantilevered floors, elevated walkways and abstract art?  

But back to Pugin's original quote:
 “It is alright to decorate construction but never construct decoration.” 
― Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852)
Trollope's Barchester Towers was published in 1857, so he may have read Pugin's work.  (Philosophically, the two had some similarities... Pugin championed the Gothic style of architecture on moral grounds, as being more humane and Christian than modern, utilitarian styles, while Trollope used his work in the fictional hamlet of Barchester to contrast the amiable rightness of the old ways with the pushy officiousness of modern worldviews.)

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION

In both architecture and clothing, form follows function... A building must shield the occupant from wind and weather, so it ends up having walls and a roof, for instance.  Clothing is the same: there may be endless varieties of shirts, but the basic concept of a shirt is always the same--to cover the torso--and so the form generally is something torso-shaped.  Cultures around the world have different shirts, but they are all identifiably shirts. 

THE FUNCTION MAY BE SYMBOLIC

In buildings and in clothes, there are non-utilitarian functions that influence form, such as the objective to intimidate or make users comfortable, to signal modesty or availability, to reveal or conceal things, to preach political ideas, et cetera. 

I knew a man once who would scoff at women's fashion, saying things like "that silk blouse won't keep her warm--it's not functional"!  He was half-right (which is to say ALL WRONG); the clothing might not serve a utilitarian purpose, but that didn't mean it didn't serve any purpose!  The silk blouse wouldn't keep her warm, but it would make her feel beautiful, or satisfy a tactile appetite for luxurious texture, or signal her social standing, or reassure her that she was worthy of respect from others, or communicate something else.  It had many possible functions, not just the utilitarian function of warmth.  But ultimately, for most people, beauty is a need.  Without beauty, humanity fails to thrive in a way that's difficult to quantify but impossible to deny.  Since beauty is a need for us, it's a legitimate function for our things. 

FORM INFLUENCES FUNCTION

Just as the form of a building (or garment) follows the function we require of it, our function within a building (or garment) is influenced by the form it already has.  We behave differently in a cathedral than in a cottage: in a cathedral, high vaulted ceilings and windows make us feel small while beautiful art directs our attention to the sublime; in a cottage, the human-scale and cozy, soft furnishings make us comfortable.  It's the same with clothing: structured jackets and patent leather shoes make us feel formal; corsets literally impair our movement and breath; high heels change our posture and gait; a crown weighs down the head that wears it.

FORM WITHOUT FUNCTION

So what about form that seemingly has no function, either physical, emotional, or symbolic?  When, for instance, designers send some gaunt model down the runway in "clothing" that fails to cover her, or to protect her, or to look nice on her, or to communicate an intelligible message to onlookers...?  What is that?  A duck?  Anti-clothes?  Many designers, at least in their runway shows, construct something that's not clothing and not decorative, and then decorate that thing...

WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

What's your personal philosophy of dress?  Do you decorate the construction?  Construct the decoration? 
2 Comments
The Sister
6/2/2018 12:38:21 pm

Some interesting thoughts here, sister mine! (No surprise there!) I really enjoyed the quote from the Trollope novel. Being known for such excellent taste in fashion somehow brought to mind a quote I'd heard (Coco Chanel, perhaps?), which was to take a look in the mirror before leaving the house, and remove one accessory from your outfit. It's a special skill to know how and when to wear something, what to pair it with, when to leave the matching earrings off so they don't compete with the necklace, what is tasteful and what is too much. I don't know that I possess that knack, but I'd like to!

You're right that clothing serves more than one purpose. And it dictates how we behave while wearing it! What mother hasn't told her little girl to "act like a lady" when she's wearing a dress? Besides modesty, a woman should comport herself with a certain level of dignity and class when wearing a dress or skirt, which is something to be taught and learned in childhood. Even now, in my 30th year of life, I'm just learning what clothes I like to wear and how they make me feel!

Perhaps, for those designers who send down the runway strangely and scantily clad ladies, their purpose is not to cover, not to adorn, not to protect, but solely to express whatever is happening inside themselves during that season. Maybe they had some upheaval in their personal life and the fabrics they put onto their models reflect their own feelings of betrayal / upset / loss of faith or trust / vulnerability / fear / struggle / etc. Or maybe they're trying to represent something like a season (autumn leaves falling, summer sun shining) or the movement of the ocean. I don't know. I don't really like modern art or avante garde clothing - my style is much more classical - but I understand that people express themselves in very different ways.

How about a person who is unhappy with their "base" (their own body)? This person might choose to construct the decoration to take the focus off their physical attributes, instead of decorating the construction. Or, think of someone we both know what is so focused on creative expression that all else is lost in the visual jumble?

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Karen Roy link
6/3/2018 09:00:04 pm

Re: the person using clothes to disguise an undesired figure, I don't think that equates to constructing a decoration. All clothing is a construction of some sort; whether you make a bias-cut 30's dress or a Rococo thing with stays and paniers, you are constructing something. I think Pugin's original quote is talking about the goal of your construction.

If you decorate a construction then your goal is to make something useful and then make it attractive. With some decoration, a "shed" becomes a house or a courthouse or a prison depending on its appointments. In the same way, you could make a basic shirt, and add lace to "dress it up"... you've decorated your construction. Make it out of chambray and it's a work shirt. Cover it in beads and it's ready for the limelight. As a home-sewer, I enjoy the way that a single pattern that fits me can be made up in different fabrics and look completely different and serve different purposes, though the construction is the same across the board.

Constructing a decoration, on the other hand is deliberately building something just to look decorative. In architecture, a folly or grotto or fake chimney would be constructed decorations. In fashion, a tall wig, hipster eyeglasses with no lenses, or a studded armband that serves no practical purpose.

I don't know if I can readily answer my own question... do I decorate the construction or construct the decoration? I experiment with both. My modern-Elizabethan Inspiration project (coming along slowly) is an exercise in constructing a decoration. When you look at an Elizabethan portrait, you notice the clothes before the person! Ruffs and bum-rolls and farthingales are entirely decorative. Then there's puffing and slashing and embroidery and pearls... On the other hand, I do like pretty, solid-colored staples in my wardrobe, so I can accent them with a single brooch or nice earrings. That would be decorating my construction, letting my accessories determine the purpose of a look. Letting my body carry the clothes and not vise versa. It depends on my mood, and I haven't settled into a signature style, yet.

I think I need to collect some pictures of the two extremes to see what I can learn from them.

Thank you for engaging with my questions!

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    Karen Roy

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