I have been thinking lately about what gives someone or something an “edge”? What does it mean to live on the “edge”? Why does one designer seem to rise to the top, especially during a very visually saturated spectacle like fashion week? What makes a garment “edgy”? How do you know it when you see it? Somehow I feel I need a kind of lens or protocol through which to evaluate the many images that flash across my screen as we move across the sea to London, Milan and Paris. Since I always seem to find myself living on the edge of something, I thought that might be a good conceptual framework for me to use as I evaluate the clothes and find those that stand out the most for me.
I always find it helpful to go directly to the source, the dictionary and see the literal meaning of a word rather than all the cultural or professional jargon attached to it. So for “edge” we have several:
“A place or part furthest away from the center of something”
“An area next to a sharp drop”
“An intense or striking quality”
“The sharpened side of the blade of a cutting instrument or weapon”
There is an element of danger and risk that seem implied by the definitions. The qualitative affective experience is one of intensity. It stands out internally and externally and you remember it. It is far from the norm or what we say in research language, “the mean”. What I like about using this lens is that it can offer up some surprising and unexpected findings, like in a season full of glitter and metallics, a well crafted neutral colored garment can have a visual edge because it stands apart from the rest. If the fashion world is really noisy about a common topic and you as a designer or creative are being quiet, you may have an edge. The risk and danger the “edge” presents is that you may feel alone and of course you may fail. As the definition indicates there may be a very steep drop and that is perhaps why many designers do not venture too close.
I have had experiences lately where I have been very dressed up, made-up and fussed over. Although the results are beautiful and lovely, and I shared some of the photos with you, in those representations I feel closer to the center. There are other times when I have gone completely off the grid and done a project that is so different I was seriously afraid (yet exhilarated) because I could not control the outcome or the vision and I worried about my bones surviving a possible fall. Most times I feel more on the edge when there is an ease in or an afterthought quality to my dressing. When I dress in a way that conveys how I want to move around my city, or that conveys my mood, like if I want to hide a little. As much as someone can hide when wearing Issey Miyake and brocade and fur mules. I want to be seen, but I don’t want to as well. I think that’s an edge.
So I think this conceptual framework is good way for me to assess and think about the clothes I see during fashion month and help me decide which I might like to wear when I want to travel to the edge whatever that may be in this fast moving, ever changing world we live in.
What lens do you use when thinking about the clothes that are shown during fashion month?
I think having an edge really has to come from what YOU do with the clothes Lyn. When the designer or stylist dresses you ,you look beautiful but,for me, you have the edge when you have "dressed yourself" and Calvin has taken the photo.
I think being on the edge whether it is with fashion or other arts is being on the outside with an invisible string that attaches you to the center. The edge although furthest away from the comfort of the center still needs to start there….it also needs to be invisibly attached so that we can relate to something and let people know we are out there looking down on to the drop.
Hello Accidental Icon,
As always I enjoy the intellect with which you approach fashion; here is my two pence.
I think your lense works because it implies being part of the group (the fashionable canon) but a removedness as well (individuality). And this balancing act does provide "the edge".
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I’ll be looking at this season with fresh eyes.
To be honest I don’t follow the fashion shows during fashion month. Egad! As a style blogger I may be breaking a few rules.
Instead I alway choose pieces because they speak to me on a personal level.
Since I shop mostly via thrift or vintage finding my edge is more about pushing my style just enough so that it challenges me but not so much so that I feel like I’m wearing a costume or I no longer feel like myself. This is what I consider to be my sweet spot of personal expression thru clothing choices.
bisous
Suzanne
To be honest I don’t follow the fashion shows during fashion month. Egad! As a style blogger I may be breaking a few rules.
Instead I alway choose pieces because they speak to me on a personal level.
Since I shop mostly via thrift or vintage finding my edge is more about pushing my style just enough so that it challenges me but not so much so that I feel like I’m wearing a costume or I no longer feel like myself. This is what I consider to be my sweet spot of personal expression thru clothing choices.
bisous
Suzanne
intellect is a necessity to be an individual & to dress with an edge, when audio is on mute, it speaks volumes, Lyn embrace the fear & your edge, we love you for it vee in the uk
intellect is a necessity to be an individual & to dress with an edge, when audio is on mute, it speaks volumes, Lyn embrace the fear & your edge, we love you for it vee in the uk
During fashion week, I always want to see something new, something novel, something my eye is not bored of already. Usually, there is an element of surprise, sparkle, or slight bad taste. Those three things always thrill me and are edgy to me.
During fashion week, I always want to see something new, something novel, something my eye is not bored of already. Usually, there is an element of surprise, sparkle, or slight bad taste. Those three things always thrill me and are edgy to me.
I think that the reality is that currently you personify the edge in a very literal way. The edgiest you can be, in a fashion sense, is to be entirely true to yourself because you own that edge in a way that someone saturated in the ideology of the fashion industry, unexamined except at a visual/conceptual level, but ideologically moribund, cannot. Because you have spent six decades learning to be you, rather than trying to figure out how to float to the top of the goldfish bowl.