©Adrien Dirand It was quite rare in the fashion industry to refer to designers as ‘auteurs’. However, as certain individuals who have elevated fashion to 'the realm of art' and their designs receive recognition both on fashion runways and in art museums, questions repeatedly arise about whether the term 'designer' adequately describes them, and how these individuals define themselves. Much like the endlessly repeated question, "Is fashion art?" we have unconsciously admired designers who infuse their vision and philosophy into their designs, and have positioned them in roles beyond that of mere designers. ©Getty Images This attempt to view fashion not as fashion but art has historical background in which couturiers sought to portray themselves as centralised authorities with complete control over their creative practices. High fashion was able to enter the realm of fine arts (or at least begin the discussion of such possibility) by putting these house controllers at the forefront. Notably, figures like Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga, and Coco Chanel are not remembered just as exceptional couturiers. They are etched in our memory as pioneers who elevated fashion to both a big business and high art, beyond being visionaries who could read the zeitgeist and create new silhouettes. ©Salons Galahad Ltd Even as their era came to an end, their houses continued to grow into global luxury corporations; the industry needed successors who could control these houses, like Yves Saint Laurent for Dior and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. Remarkably, the 1980s, when Karl Lagerfeld became Chanel's successor, coincidentally marked a time when fashion programmes became commonplace in art schools and young avant-garde designers emerged1. British art school graduates, in particular, created "a relatively new phenomenon, the fashion designer as auteur, as an artist in his or her own right2”. Notable examples include Central Saint Martins graduates John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, who emerged as 'Creative Directors' overseeing not just design but also advertising campaigns, familiarising the industry with the ‘designer as auteur’. In other words, the industry, including the next generation of fashion design, solidified the recognition that the designer's intent and message were the most crucial elements in high fashion, leading fashion design to be considered as an author’s 'text'. ©Getty Images The establishment of creative authority fundamentally transformed the status and role of fashion designers. In the past, when tailors and dressmakers had no voice, their role was limited to making clothes that met the demands of wealthy clients. However, as designers evolved into “auteurs,” design became a medium for expressing the designer's philosophy beyond customer requirements. This elevated fashion design into practice with artistic purposes beyond mere garment making, becoming the foundation for the fashion industry to participate in broader sociocultural discourse. Worth3, who was English, first started with the haberdasher (in French: “mercier”) Gagelin, and had an individual clientele who asked him for advice on their clothes, an attitude which was totally new, the tailor having traditionally no word to say4. ©Vivienne Westwood From the couturiers of the past to the creative directors of contemporary fashion, the lineage of designers who have been equated with auteurs seems to be a history of figures finally poised to answer the age-old question: "Is fashion art?". This is because they have not just created designs that will go down in history but also have expanded the role of the designer itself. Like Stella McCartney's environmental activism, Vivienne Westwood's climate action, and Demna Gvasalia's anti-war messages, we now naturally accept fashion's “auteurs” raising their voices in sociopolitical discourse. To summarise, Western fashion, since the couture industry's development through the establishment of the current creative director concept, has evolved by positioning designers at its centre and establishing them as auteurs. ©Julien Vidal However, the story of Martin Margiela, who appears to be the closest to an auteurist designer, suggests that this historical progression of auteurism might not be entirely convincing. His radical and experimental deconstructive attempts remain only as design archives that attempted the material deconstruction of clothing. At a time when the authoritative position of designers was already firmly established in the fashion industry, his another deconstructive attempt - the four stitches - which challenged the concept of “designer-as-auteur” controlling the brand, paradoxically became just another brand signifier. Decisively, when John Galliano, another genius auteur, filled the position as the successor of the house, Margiela’s attempts were left as only a partial success. ©Sophie Aurenche / RTL Fashion designers' position as auteurs cannot escape responsibility for deepening the tendency to superficially purchase brand images - a main point of criticism in contemporary fashion consumer culture. However, we cannot simply dismiss the emergence of auteurs in the fashion industry as merely a marketing strategy to sell brand images. This is because the auteur represented both a struggle to secure legitimate rights over creative works and a power struggle to break free from the framework of designers as passive makers to emerge as creative agents. The problem is that when considering how contemporary fashion design is realised not only within studios but through collaborative environments in production, retail, and consumption processes, the industry's prevalent view of designers in auteur roles cannot perfectly explain how the fashion system operates. Just as designers' roles were previously restricted to being dressmakers responding to client demands, overlooking their creativity, the status of auteur results in alienating not only the roles of other contributors but also designers' other roles. ©Comme des Garçons In summary, the auteur paradigm assigns excessive authority to the designer alone, positioning specific individuals as the origin of clothing and limiting the interpretative possibilities of design. Attempts to glorify or worship designers as equals to auteurs paradoxically hinder fashion's expansion into art. Designers do not stop at just making clothes or sketching ideas, nor do they stop at just running brands by intervening in directing, archiving, editing, and shooting. Whether through the past lens of “tailor” or the current frame of “auteur” or “artist,” viewing them through a lens that confines them to specific actions ultimately misses understanding their complex activities beyond the frame. “I'm not an artist, not a fashion designer, I just use fashion, use clothes as a material to make a business out of creation. This is a very important part. Don't put me in a box.” Kawakubo explained5. 1 Jeppe Ugelvig, trans. Nam Eun-wook and 3 others, FASHION WORK: 25 Years of Art in Fashion, DADA, 2022, p. 612 Angela McRobbie, British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry?, Routledge, 1998, p. 83 Charles Frederick Worth (1825-1895). A British designer known as the first couturier. He founded haute couture in Paris and was the first designer to label his clothes with his own name. He laid the foundation for modern fashion by creating seasonal collections and using live models, and played a decisive role in elevating the status of designers from tailors to artists.4 David Zajtmann, ‘Using a Professional Organisation to Enhance its Reputation. The Case of the Parisian Haute Couture. A Longitutidnal Studey (1973 - 2008)’, Mode de Recherche, 2011, pp. 14-20.5 Eleanor Gibson, "Comme des Garçons is "nothing about clothes" says Rei Kawakubo", Dezeen, 2019. 5. 9. Available at here BY MUYO PARKJANUARY , 2025 >READ THE KOREAN VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE> READ OTHER ARTICLES