The Invisible Manreally thought poor old Jacket B would work. The collection was a success
happily, but when it came to this series, the reaction was always the same;
the garment was too traditional. It was useless pointing to the subtle irony
of using previously sleek black nylon in an ‘authentic’ English way; protesta-
tions of intended irony only served to condemn the garment further.
In this tiny episode from the life of a designer, it is important to note that
the development of the product was the result of the designer’s colloquy with
other agencies, linking it to its various markets: supply base, technological
development, means of diffusion and customer. It indicates that, in a sea of
shifting meanings, fashion is successfully launched when there is a consensus
about the meaning of a garment shared by the designer, the customer, and
the various agencies that mediate between them (which, of course, would
include the press). It would also appear to confirm Craik’s theories about
the relationship between a new fashion and previous ones although her choice
of the word ‘compromise’ indicates that she does not recognise the creative
challenge of achieving this delicate balance. It also indicates a positive answer
to Davis’ question, ‘Can they (designers) somehow divine women’s inchoate
yearnings so as to fashion into cloth new symbolic arrangements that assuage
or possibly even resolve the psychic tension?’.^53 In fact, apart from differences
of nomenclature (‘couture’, ‘high street’ and so on), my anecdote contradicts
none of the theories presented by the likes of Craik or Davis, but it does
render their images of fashion as lacking in detail, perhaps slightly out of
focus, and wooden. A body of work informed more closely by clearly
understood empirical evidence, ‘inside knowledge’ of this type might enable
writers on fashion to prove what Davis knew, but was unable to verify, when
he wrote ‘it seems altogether plausible to assume, albeit difficult to prove,
the existence or non-verbal exchange between couturiers and their publics.
The more difficult task is to specify what such communication consists of’.^54
ConclusionFashion has become a suitable subject for academic treatment, but, it seems,
only when viewed from the safe distance of the sociologically related fields
or when dressed in garments borrowed from more exalted intellectual and
artistic fields. The voices of practitioners, or indeed the practice of fashion
do not figure large in its academy, and consequently a whole world of
- Davis, F., Fashion, Culture and Identity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994,
pp. 131–2. - Ibid.