I have got such a theory; fashion – understood as a common aesthetic-custom phenomenon – has passed. It is no longer existing in its old mass incarnation. Now we deal with its next life – the artistic one. And this reincarnated fashion more and more often hides itself the temples of art.

Stylish headlessness  

When I look at the photos from the XX century, or the portraits from even older times, I recognize the epoch at the first glance – due to the clothing and the haircut of the people depicted. Once the changes in appearance occurred in the intervals of a few decades; in the XX century each decade had its characteristic silhouette and style. In the '90s the new outfit ideas were served upon with such a pace that not many could have kept and still are able to keep it. Information about the present must-have are released not once a season, but each half-season. The so called fashionists (fashion fans) have to be in the permanent state of vigilance, just like on a war. The result? Those more sensible woman waved their hands on launching. They wear things they feel secure, comfortable and attractive in.  

On the everyday basis it looks like that: in the designers' boutiques there are exclusive clothes with the exorbitant prices offered; in the chain shops appear cheap imitations of the above-mentioned; the street wears things with no style, putting the abnegation on the trend called emo. In this headless there are some fixed points: to go out – wear black classic like Chanel, to work – business-uniforms, for gala - Hollywood glamor from five decades ago.  

Someone who after some time will try to single out the visual features of the present decade will face chaos. On the basis of art, films or journals it is impossible to define the fashion of the contemporary epoch. As none, even the most famous fashion designer, can't make street wear in the same manner. Paradoxically, never before have so many designers acted, and they have never been so cherished as they are now.

Hit on a mannequin

Where can we find a place for the great tailors proposals today? Lesser and lesser wealthy people can allow haute couture. How to treat the creations of trendsetters – especially those extravagant, unpractical, presented during the shows on the heavenly beauty models – as a branch of utilitarian art or clean art, free from utilitarian functions? Probably the second – because there are more and more exhibitions devoted to the clothes…

The fashion boom in galleries is the matter of the last decade. Of course, for a long time there have been historical or ethnic outfits presented. There also happened to be retrospectives of the great tailors, who revolutionized the attitude towards outfit: Paul Poiret, Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior. Still, the designers filled with creativity could not even dream about the honor of presenting their works in art temples. The precedence was constituted by Yves Saint Laurent in Met’s Costume Institute. The presentation became the big the event of 1983. It turned out that the audience was just waiting for the similar reaction. From that time, haute couture presentations have became hits of the seasons. For twenty-five years creators have got their retrospectives organized in the most prestigious museums of the world. Mass culture worshiped designers, some of them were called geniuses.  

Where did the popularity of the cloth expositions came from? It is impossible to see all the gorgeous dresses and sophisticated accessories during the shows or on the photos. From each and every angle they can be seen only in galleries. This is where we watch crazy designers' fantasies. On the creative mannequins, in the effective scenery. Artistic arrangement makes us not ask questions: is it possible to wear it? Where to wear it? It is obvious: these are the creations made to look at. Not to be worn. Still, we should not deceive ourselves - those presentations are popular because they are not intellectually tiring. They bring entertainment. Obviously, they are sometimes aesthetically sophisticated, funny, they sometimes demand erudition. But usually these are not just outfits, but post-clothing impressions, far away from the reality and people's needs.

Eye for amaranth

The leading topic of this years' sixth International Visual Art Festival inSPIRACJE – is glamour/the appraisal of beauty. The organisers and the authors of Szczecin's meeting felt the spirit of time. They chose exhibitions, shows and performances in a way they would reflect the contemporary blurring of the borders between the high and mass culture. The colour of the leitmotiv: flashy pink, also match. It is the colour that has has many artistic and fashion connotations and which connects with the customs' tradition of the previous century. Moreover, it is the colour that was accepted by designers and creators quite late, in the 30's of the XX century. But with an extraordinary result!

Over a year ago, World Museum in Liverpool presented the Eye for colour exhibition. The survey conducted evinced that the favorite colour of the majority of the female audience was pink. They liked both the delicate, pastel hues, as well as the intense, flashy ones. What is the reason of pink's success?

First – I will show the commercial reasons. Well, the most intense pink-hues emit the energy with the strength and speed comparable to the energy of the light wave. They win with other colours in the race of attracting our sight. In order to convince ourselves, it is enough to take any life-style magazine or open an Internet portal about fashion or gossips about celebrities: amaranth shines from each and every headline.

Now about psychological reasons. This colour is associated with courage, originality and sex. That is why designers like intense pink so much. In the last seasons the collections of Dior, Oscar de La Renta, Versace, Carolina Herrera, Dolce & Gabanna duo were temping with amaranth. And these were not the accents but a total-look version – from shoes to a hat, including a dress and a fur. Fuchsia is launched on the parties, in table decorations and drinks. Ladies in every age had a courage to make amaranth haircuts. Some ladies use the colour to dye the fur of their dogs and other pets, from a cat to a hamster. There are even… pink coffins.

Intense pink is also glaring in art. As perversity, environment's reference or flirt with conscious kitsch. Pink not dead! as Maurycy Gomulicki assures, and gives an example showing the compositions of vaginas and other eroticism. Basia Bañda also uses pink colour in different hues willingly, merging sensuality with infantility and female and male symbols of the sexual organs with innocence.

Also an American artist Franz West often covers his sculptures with fluorescent pink – to make the association with phallus. On the other hand, Christo and Jean-Claude surrounded small, forested islands in Miami's Biscayne Bay with the amaranth collars (the installation Surrounded Islands, 1980-1983), creating the spectacular marriage of nature and art. There are also creators interested in camp, that is conscious, witty kitsch: Divie, deceased transvestite and drag queen, joined sophistication with sweet ugliness - like in the movie entitled: Pink Flamingos (1972, dir. John Walters) or a German duo EVA & ADELE, wearing identical doll-creations with the dominance of pink.

To the Barbie image and likeness

Through the centuries amaranth existed only in the environment, on the petals of flowers. It was not until 1859 that magenta appeared. The youngest pigment in the history was found out in… Magenta Battle in Lombardy (thus the name), during the Italian campaign of Napoleon III. The new pigment was isolated from a carbon tar. It turned out to be durable and water-soluble. Since that moment its career has begun. At the beginning it was modest. Ink was produced out of it; in was used in typography. In the fashion it appeared only in the subtle, whitened hues. At the end on the Second World War, a pale pink colour was ascribed o female infants, and blue range was reserved for male

babies. Gradually the period of dressing the girls pink was being endured. Little females started to identify with this colour. however, only peasant women from the tropical countries and… harlots wore intense pink.

In the '50s the treacly range was beloved by the American mass culture. Barbie has become the archetype of woman-kitsch, a cult doll of the last half-century. After her, appeared new, alive Barbies. They pretended to be innocent, still, they emanated with sex appeal. An example here is Marilyn Monroe in a movie entitled: Man prefer blondes. Or Dolly Parton, a country singer and an actress, with a sweet appearance. Also Reese Witherspoon as Legally blonde.

The version of a pink-matron was created by Barbara Cartland (she lived almost 100 years, died in 2000) the author of soppy and silly romances, wearing only pink. For a few years, Hello Kitty! has been on the top of girly motives. What is significant is that not only girls from kindergartens chase after this treacly lady – but also their mothers.  

On the other hand, Elvis Prestley, driving a Pink Cadillac, launched the pink for super-men. In the turn of the '50s and '60s the limousines in this colour were popular on the roads of America, becoming cult vehicles – about what Bruce Springsteen's song Pink Cadillac from the 1984 reminds.

For several years the pink range has been significantly enriched. Depending on the hue, it is called amaranth, crimson, fuchsia, magenta. Still, the most popular term is pink. Sometimes with adjectives attached: shocking, hot, psychedelic. But the pink colour is like a poison – you have to dose it. Served in excess, it transforms into bazaar chic.

Art equals shock

Superstitions towards amaranth were overcome by Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973). It is her 120. birthday anniver-sary this year, the anniversary of an artist who made clothes. That is how she was disrespectfully called by Chanel. This great Italian-American-French designer created fashion for women wishing to underline their individuality. She was fascinated with shock as an aesthetic and psychological phenomenon. It is not surprising – she acted in times when everybody talked about psychoanalysis.

Shocking pink is a brand colour of Schiaparelli. When in 1954 she published her autobiography, she called it Shocking Life and put her own depiction in flashy pink on the cover. Her greatest commercial success are the Shocking perfumes, the most popular among 8 others launched by her. The shocking fragrance was made in 1937, it was a bottle nested in an amaranth box, designed by Leonor Fini. It was really surprising – the bottle imitated the female torso in miniature! The mannequin of Mae West's torso was taken for the prototype a mannequin; the woman was a famous sex-bomb of the in-war period. In 1993 the idea was copied by Jean Paul Gaultier, releasing the toilette water Classique – in the glass imitating Madonna's corset.

Schiaparelli was the first to unite fashion and art. In a literal sense she transplanted surrealism to clothes. She cooperated with the most prominent artists: Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali, Leonor Fini, Alberto Giacometti… The accessories and ornamentation designed by them are fantastic and witty. A mouth enclosed around pockets (Dale's picture), a hand in the place of a belt (according to the Cocteau's illustration), buttons in the shape of clowns. In the category of the weirdest idea, the victor's palm comes to the hats in the shapes of various objects (a shoe, a crown, and ice-cream

corn,a foxy mouth, a pyramid out of curls) – all created thanks to the marriage of Salvador and Gala Dali. The Spanish surrealist was also a coauthor of a bag in a form of a phone with a lobsterish receiver, a sachet with a bulb shining inside, a bag-briefcase pretending to be a folded newspaper, and a bag with a musical box inserted, playing the music during every opening.

Elsa was famous not only for her projects, but also for her unusual fashion shows – precisely due to shows in especially designed scenery, fantastically acted out mini-scenes, lightening effects and selected music. The precursor's fashion happenings! The leading motives of the collections were also not typical: musical instruments, butterflies, circus, astrology, paganism.  

What can be seen through pink glasses

When Edith Piaf sang, that she saw life in pink, it had a metaphorical meaning: she saw the reality in optimistic colours as she was in love. Someone, who sees the world through pink glasses has a hope of the better future.  

Still, pink means not only a joyful feeling. Under the term pink series in a TV programme or editorial there is often porn, often the hard version of it. Pink revolution means the movement against gay and transvestites discrimination, and the visible mark of the sexual belonging are pink shirts. But watch out! Under the pink flag there are also radical feminists acting. As well as the racism opponents (in Amsterdam there was an anti-racist foundation called Magenta Foundation established).

Functioning on the Pink Internet newspaper popularizes mainly nice, stupid and far from political gossips. Pink magazine edited in the USA concentrates on the positive news from the womens' world: on their successes in business, on scientific achievements, beauty. There is also a web site entitled: People, who like pink colour. Everybody can add something – a photo, a description, an anecdote. The portal is popular. It means that it has its place in the pop culture. It is placed between fashion, everyday life and art. Who does not believe it, should take a tour on the Szczecin's track marked with amaranth colour.

Monika Małkowska