Architecture After Couture

The Varnelis reading spoke of the art of architecture and how it is related to fashion. The author gives examples of how architecture and fashion were used as ways of showing a class status starting at around the time of the Enlightenment.

However, we were told moreso to focus on the aspects of power, protest, and pleasure. When looking through the article for these things, it has plenty to offer. Many of the examples in the article have all three of these intertwined. For example when speaking of Louis XIV, power and pleasure go hand in hand.

Even from the first paragraph when the author reminisces of a metting with an older grad student, it is pointed it that by the clothes the grad student was wearing he was apparently more knowledgeable. This is an example of how fashion can portray power. Because you look better, people assume you may be knowledgeable. A more easily accessible example may be looking at a construction worker and an office worker. People may assume that because the office worker is more likely in some sort of a suit and tie, he may be smarter. By now we should know this is not always the case.

However the grad student is wrong on their topic and the author ends up presenting the same article to his students. Some of the students end up taking pleasure in reading the article while some wonder why they are being told to read it.

As the article moves along, we see how the taste in fashion is very closely related to pleasure. Some of this is assumption, while some is a given. King Louis the XIV took pleasure in creating Versailles, making it known to the world that he had power. Upper class woman would take pleasure in their good clothes, even making "pilgrimages" to Paris to see the newest fashions.

However, architecture seems to protest against these ever changing shifts in "what's hot". And we see how fashion changes and even those who find themselves taking pleasure in fashion changes. One of the biggest examples of protest in this article is when he speaks of the London fashion botique which provided clothes for youth who wanted to mark off their difference and make it not a class thing, but a generation thing. "These were rebels who would not defer sensual satisfaction for the sake of savings. These were youth who were if antyhing different."

The paragraph after this shows a huge protest of one fashion designer against another, of course we also have to realize he may have been in a position ( having power) to protest.

After reading the entire article, one thing that stuck with me was the fact that Banana Republic and Target are put on the same level and "middle-blow stores". Never once have I considered Banana Republic to be anywhere near the level Target is.

Unfortunately the pictures on the website did not load when I looked at them, making it hard for me to understand exactly was MOA was. But I did see how people could take pleasure in having their home decorated like a life style they take pleasure from to begin with.

I never realized how those three topics would come up in even just one short article that much. I didn't realize it could be so relevant. I do think it is interesting that these concepts can come up anywhere and about almost anything.