Against Kunstkonfektion: art and the problem of fashion in 1920s German arts criticism

Reimers, Anne (2018) Against Kunstkonfektion: art and the problem of fashion in 1920s German arts criticism. In: Signs and symbols: dress at the intersection between image and realia. de Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 245-267. ISBN 9783110515909

3421:86172
Signs and symbols: dress at the intersection between image and realia - book cover

Signs and symbols: dress at the intersection between image and realia - book cover

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Creators:
Reimers, Anne
Description/Abstract:

This book chapter draws on a broad variety of leading German art journals of the 1920s to consider the role fashion as an allegory and agent of rupture played in the writings of influential art critics and art historians. It identifies a significant shift in the discourse about the issue of fashion in art from ‘fashion’ as a theoretical concept and as the opposite of a coherent ‘style’ to ‘fashion’ understood as ‘industry’ as a result of the rise of the German ready-to-wear industry (the ‘Konfektion’) in the 1920s. It proposes that the emergence of the term ‘Kunstkonfektion’ (perhaps translatable as ‘art ready-to-wear’) in the debates about art is evidence of a shift in focus from the search for a consistent ‘style’ of the Weimar era to the celebration of artistic individuality under the pressure of the avant-garde imperative for innovation.

Item Type:
Book Section
Date:
August 2018
Projects or Series:
REF2021
Schools:
School of Fashion & Textiles
Related URLs:
Depositing User:
Anne Reimers
Date Deposited:
05 Jul 2017 14:42
Last Modified:
01 Mar 2022 08:42
URI:
https://research.uca.ac.uk/id/eprint/3421

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