these legendary art works, the “upcycled” haute couture garments are often remade
in such way that they even leave the seasonal fashion cycle. This move is not only
made possible through the magic touch of the haute couture designer, but also
from the commonly presumed authenticity of the garments. This provides a short-
cut and a feeling of maintained existential choices, the ultimate proof of a person-
ality, as argued by fashion theorist Alexandra Palmer (2005). It is also this chase for
authenticity that trendy vintage boutiques seek as they establish themselves near
traditional second hand markets (Palmer 2005: 202) With the help of a authentic
second hand garment, the reformed objet trouvé leaves its once mundane and
ephemeral status to enter the timeless state of the unique artwork with only a few
signs of the zeitgeist manifested into its resewn fabric.
This method of “deconstruction” is a style that became popular and widely dis-
cussed in the early 90s through the works of haute couture brands such as Maison
Martin Margiela and Comme des Garcons. Later others, such as Jessica Ogden,
Susan Cianciolo, Imitation of Christ, Libertine and Undercover joined and ex-
plored this in various forms, and all employed some form of reuse of old materials
in their new designs. This style of often recycled or dismantled garments came into
the spotlight of fashion media at a time when vintage clothing became hyped to-
gether with the grunge style and the heroin-chic ideal, all styles reaching the haute
couture with a slight decadent and non-glossy approach to dress. Still a highly elit-
ist ideal, yet according to fashion theorist Alison Gill, it had not much to do with
punkish DIY but instead with economic regression and uncertainty after the fall of
the Berlin wall (Gill 1998). The October 1989 show of Martin Margiela in the Par-
is banlieue that featured many of his deconstructed and recycled garments echoed,
according to photographer Bill Cunningham who documented the show, “the col-
lapse of political and social order in Eastern Europe.” (Cunningham 1990)
This process of reuse reformulates one of the basic logics of fashion; that of making
new from the old and in the procedure get a singularity of unique garments out of
general methods or designs. It is a sort of shortcut to the unique object, as the fab-
ric itself is distinctively heterogeneous. This is the fascination of the single piece,
highlighted by fashion theorist Barbara Vinken as something that traditionally was
exclusively reserved to the artwork. It is the initiation of a fashion based on dura-
tion rather than change. (Vinken 2005: 143) In her book Fashion Zeitgeist she rais-
es this approach to fashion design as one aspect of what she calls “postfashion”:Every piece that is made according to this method, regardless of how many versions
there may be, is a unique piece, because the materials that are used in it are unique.
[...] Since the piece has taken time into itself, Margiela can hope that the traces of time
will complete the work: it can age like a painting. (Vinken 2005: 143)The works of Maison Martin Margiela are indeed classical artworks: exclusive. Ac-
cording to Gill, Margiela “deconstructs the hierarchical relation that persists be-
tween the exclusivity of designer fashion and everyday clothes.” (Gill 1998: 31) In-
deed, Margiela’s upcycled garments are highly exclusive, fashionable, and pricy,
and they still represent the top of the fashion hierarchy, unattainable to most of us.
Gill’s assumption that Margiela’s deconstructed garments somehow should bridge
the gap between fashion and the everyday might be true on a material level, but
hardly from a perspective of participation. The upcycling of fashion into art or the
temporal readjustment into postfashion might be interesting, but in this process is
not my main interest. Instead, as I see it, fashions of upcycling put the focus on
postproduction processes, which could be open to people outside the fashion sys-Recycling is usually a form of
downcycling. Material from a once
useful or cherished object gets another
life as it is cycled one more time
through the consumer system on its
way to the dump. Most often the
original incarnation had a higher
status than the recycled one.
Upcycling, is a form of recycling
where the second incarnation is
higher valued than the material’s
original form.