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New designs
for the future
By Maureen Megerian
E VERYONE wears clothes, and
some people even make them. But
very few people create clothes,
generate the very designs and set the
trends which the public then makes
their own. Why be a fashion designer,
and what is a good way of becoming ac-
tive in the fashion industry?
The fashion industry is a diverse
field. Fashion design has its creative
and artisitic aspects, in that it involves
an idea or concept which is eventually
realized in fabric, color, and shape. But
the fashion industry is also just that -
an industry - and even the most
creative designers must ultimately
consider the marketability of their
design.
Serious students of fashion design
usually attend design school, such as
the Parsons School of Design, or the
Fashion Institute of Technology in New
York, in order to learn all of the aspects
of the fashion industry. The University
of Michigan School of Art does not offer
a program in fashion design, but
students interested in pursuing a career
in the field do not allow that fact to be
an obstacle.
All students interviewed conceded that
design school is a necessary step for
a person seriously interested in fashion
design, but they believe that there are
ways to develop skills and prepare for a
career in fashion design which lie out-
side of and supplement design school.
One way to develop skills relevant to
fashion design is to study the fine arts.
"I think the most important thing is to
have fun, to enjoy your work,"says
Adolfo Lim, a sophomore in the art
school who entered after one and one-
half years of pre-Med studies. Lim 's in-
terests in art lie primarily in figure
drawing and painting. He has, however,
recently developed an interest in
fashion illustration.
Oil painting had been Lim's "first
love," but his interest in the fashion in-
dustry has taken precedence. "I like
clothes," he said, "and I like being a
part of a network of people who make
the fashions." Lim's drawing skills are
particularly useful for fashion
illustration. He believes that his fine ar-
ts training greatly aids him in honing
his senstitivites to color, shape, and
line, which are crucial to fashion
design.
"A lot of my friends who are in the
fine arts think that I am selling out,"
Lim said. "But I tell them 'I like to eat.
I will need money.' This distinction
between the fine and applied arts does
not bother me at all. I enjoy them
both."
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very much as one trained in the fine ar-
ts. "I feel that I must master figure
drawing as an important step toward
learning design," he explains.
"Knowing the figure is like knowing
what is behind the clothes, what is sup-
porting the clothes you are going to
make. I see this as a necessary step,
similar to an Old Master figure study in
which every muscle is carefully drawn,
only to show up on the painted canvas
as covered with a cloak."
When Lim conceptualizes the clothes
that he would like to drape on these,
figures, he usually thinks in terms of}
color and shape. "Color can make or
break a design," he asserts. "Color is
the first thing that someone notices.
The color of a garment strikes the eye
well before the texture, which must be
scrutinized or touched. Also, clothes
must be comfortable. Ideally, I would
tailor-make clothes, to dissuade people
from wearing clothes which are wrong
forhtheir proportions, too bulky or too
tight."
Lim is considering enrolling in
fashion design school, but for now he is
determinedly studying all that is per-
tinent in art school. "Arts training," he
said, "teaches you not only to admire a
certain 'look' or effect, but how to go
about achieving that effect.
"Learning fashion design is very
much like learning watercolor: Fabric,
textures, proportions, shapes, are all
media which one must learn how to
manipulate in order to create a design.
I see my greatest challenge as to be
able to exercise the looseness, the ex-
pressive possibilities of the fine arts
within the restrictions of the fashion
design industry."
In many respects, as Lim made
clear, fashion design involves artistic
skill and creativity. But, as the art
world has its critics, dealers, and
collectors, so does the fashion scene
have its business aspects.
Etsuko Hosado is an LSA Junior who
hopes to successfully implement her in-
terest in fashion design in a practical
manner, by combining it with a degree
in international business.
MR
ted in
fashion design," Hosado explains, "but
about a year ago I began to think that I
could put my interests to actual use. I
have been studying political science
and economics, specifically Japanese-
U.S. trade, and I realized that I could
try to work in the business end of the
fashion industry."
Hosado is well-prepared. In addition
to her studies, she is interested in
Japanese culture and arts, has
travelled extensively in Japan, and
knows the language fluently. A number
of her relatives in both JApan and
France are in the textile manufacturing
business. Hosado appreciates the
current rage for things Japanese when
it is tastefully carried out, but she
loathes the poorly-copied "crap," such
as sweatshirts with emblazoned
Japanese characters.
"I like the Japanese fashion influence
because I like simple cuts. The cuts of
many of these clothes are simple; it is
the fabrics which are interesting and
give the clothes their characteristic
Japanese look."
Hosado would like to go into fashion
designing herself. She has studied at
Parsons and plans to continue her
studies after completing her un-
dergraduate degree. She does a lot of
sketching and has a lot of fun designing
for herself and for particular charac-
ters.
"You have a notion of what you think
looks good, what you think is comfor-
table," she says. "It is exciting to be
able to see those notions realized."
As with many career choices, there
is not certain success in fashion design.
But in the meantime, both Hosado and
Lim are keeping open minds. "I find in-
spiration in so many things," says
Hosado. "I see shape and color
arrangements on the streets and in
windows which I envision in fabric and
design." Lim concurs, "I think that
everything that I see and experience
becomes somehow a creative resource.
My ideas cannot hurt the fashion in-
dustry."
Definite
articl
the The
Soul Mining
CBS Records
By George A dams
It's a chilly English winter and
solitude is never easy to maintain -
except when it rains -
so I hang an empty smile beneath
my empty eyes
and go out for a walk .. .
W ORDS LIKE that are hard to find,
especially in the overblown,
pretentious, poetically-barren world of
popular music.
It is more than a little disturbing to
note that an inventory of every in-
telligent thought on the airwaves today
would make a sparse document indeed:
If words were scissors mOst musical ar-
tists couldn't cut their way out of a
paper bag.
But there is room for songs with a few
sober lines like those above, simple but
evocative and mysteriously perceptive,
which invite usto think instead of bom-
aI
songs, sings, and plays almost every in-
strument available. On the album's
title track, for example, the liner notes
list Andy Duncan as the drummer and
credit Johnson with "synths, in-
struments, percussion, vocals." In ad-
dition to vocals and considerable use of
synthesizers, then, Johnson plays
guitar, bass, piano, harmonica,
xylophone, marimba, and who knows
what else.
Besides making it difficult for the The
to play live, Johnson's near-monopoly in
performing his songs creates a layered
effect which gives each song surprising
continuity. Oh, the wonders of multi-
track recording.
"Uncertain Smile," the melancholy
end to side one and arguably the
ablum's finest cut, is an excellent
example. The song begins with the
staccato sound of a marimba, softens
out with bass, drums, piano and syn-
thesizers, and finally settles into a
smooth but vital rythmn with Johnson's
voice - an amalgam of David Bowie,
Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed.
As with all the songs, "Uncertain
Smile" contains Johnson's incredible
ability to create visually and
emotionally credible images: A
howling wind that blows the litter -
as the rain flows/as street lamps pour
orange-colored shapes thru your
windows. . .Johnson finally reminds
us that uncertain emotions force an
uncertain smile.
The song ends with an inspiring piano
performance by Jools Holland. That
Holland should play on this album is in-
teresting, considering his former af-
filiation with Squeeze, because the two
bands are at once so similar and so dif-
ferent.
Like Squeeze, the The's songs contain
strikingly familiar images, creating
what one critic called "popscapes." But
while Squeeze used such images as
visual clues to the song's theme, John-
son takes the opposite approach: He
begins with a familiar circumstance
- a rainy day, solitude, frustration -
and turns it into a short tale complete
with introduction, climax and con-
clusion, all easily understood and all
matters of our own experience.
Perhaps most importantly, he limits
his themes to those personal moments
most everyone experiences at some
time. Johnson spares us any preten-
tions that he can bring about world
peace; he is content to write about
people and how they think and feel.
"The Sinking Feeling" tells us about
how futile our work seems sometimes
(My head feels like a junkshop/in
desperate need of repair . . . ) and
about being raped by progress. The
repetitive nosedives of the bass are
countered by a rising guitar to suggest
the flux of the moment when we
question the importance of things we do
- like studying.
Johnson's message seems dark: The
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single "Soul Mining" explains that
something always goes wrong when
things are going right. Nevertheless
"This is the Day" assures us that things
will fall into place, and the album ends
on a guarded positive note with "Per-
fect," an inferior remix of which has
gained airplay at some progressive
stations.
The lines beginning this article, ex-
cerpted from "Perfect," describe a
perfect day to think about myself
Admittedly, Johnson's image-hunting
occasionally goes too far. "I've been
waiting for tomorrow (all of my
life"' is a raucous piece of shit that
begins with a hokey rocket blast-off,
features melodramatic James Bond
bass lines, and ends with repetitive
maniacal screams that My mind has
been polluted - ostensibly by
newspapers.
Likewise "The Twilight Hour" is a
slow, repetitive bit of nonsense that
uses what sounds like whales mating to
introduce a guy who is finally going to
tell his abusive sweetheart what the
score is. Johnson describes the fellow's
pain like this: . . . you're cutting
chunks from your heart/and rub-
bing the meat into your eyes. Just a
trifle excessive, I think.
But the fact that Johnson invests such
power into a stock theme is in itself im-
pressive. That he can bring the whole
thing off with such consistent musician-
ship
Th
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with
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barding us with tired metaphors and
overused images.
Add some solid instrumental work
and tight arrangements to words like
that and you have England's latest
musical export, the The (that's not a
typo), a band which seems finally to
have made the music of the mind ac-
cessible. Beat it, Michael Jackson,
because this stuff just might catch on.
Soul Mining,the The's first domestic
album, shows everywhere the band's
uncanny ability to put thoughts into
words and music which somehow fit the
format of all but the most barbaric
radio stations.
Band is a misleading word to use
here: the The is actually a single fellow
named Matt Johnson who writes the
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SOUL /COUNTRYMusic in the Big Band style from
FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1984
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Used LP's & Cassettes in good condition PUBLIC AND STUDENTS'
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