Deconstruction in the Age of Disorder

Given the times of extreme cultural and political fragmentation and under the constraints of quarantine, it is no surprise that the popularity of clothing characterized by deconstruction is on the rise. Within both the realms of high fashion and DIY communities, a movement denoted by an attitude of methodical undoing and reassembly has gained new significance. On platforms like TikTok or Instagram, creators share patterns and inspiration for tops made of scrap clothing, like Jasmine’s designs of reworked Nike at JJVintage (@jjvintage_) or variations on the Margiela sock sweater.

We derive the language to describe this movement from Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher of the 20th century who pioneered "deconstructionism" as a critique of the stiff, conventional bent towards objective literary analysis in his field. The term has found applications in a variety of disciplines, most notably architecture, prior to Bill Cunningham's use of the word pertaining to fashion in Detail Magazine in 1989.

According to Professor of Art History and Theory Bonnie English, this school of design is speculated to have originated from the design studios of Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto in 1980s Japan, at a time when a cheeky, retrospective gaze and neo-nostalgic aesthetics were at the forefront.

In the late 1980s, fashion was equated with glamor and excess. Amy Spindler sets the scene in her article "Coming Apart": "The power suits. The gold buttons. The designer logos plastered on everything. The whole haute couture opera,... clacking beads and drapery velvet. And the international press, running around with thesauruses to find one more word synonymous with gilt."

The reaction to this glitz was the anti-fashion sentiment of "aestheticized non-functionality". Belgian designers like Martin Margiela, Dries van Noten, and Ann Demeulemeester then used deconstruction as a means to “produce clothes that critique clothes,” with elements like exposed seams, hyperbolic sleeves, legs, and cuffs, raw hems, recycled garments, visible lining, amorphous draping of fabric, and general asymmetry. The spectacle, insularity, and mystique that gives fashion its charm, along with the modalities of execution, like materiality, construction, and completion, are laid bare. All of these elements reinforced a postmodernist perspective on clothing production that highlights both the state of the garment as a created/ manipulated object and the design processes that factor into the garment’s production. 

Alison Gill's essay "Deconstruction Fashion: The Making of Unfinished, Decomposing and Re-assembled Clothes," provides a helpful framework for thinking through the implications of the movement in fashion.  She argues that what is markedly distinct about garments produced with this thinking is that clothing takes on a "bidirectional labor," for both maker and wearer, as the garment is deconstructed and constructed and the wearer forming and deforming on the body. This collapse in functionality is freshly resonant in the world we live in today, where everything, including fashion, converges upon itself with meaning.

Over the past 40 years, other designers have given enhanced meaning to deconstruction by factoring in their own influences to shape the meaning of the garment. 

ASAI

Inspired by memories of his seamstress mother working, A Sai Ta’s colorful tie-dye washed, paneled creations honor the process of textile production and assemblage. Exposed seams have become core signifiers of ASAI’s body of work. 

Eckhaus Latta

The partnership of Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, Eckhaus Latta draws from its founders’ shared background in sculpture at Rhode Island School of Design with a particular bent on garment’s conceptual and spatial relationship. Staggered design and bold cut-outs add deconstructive flare to the range of patterns and hues that populate their collections. 

Rua Carlota

London-based Rua Carlota is the project of Charlotte Rose Kirkham, a portraitist with a background in mathematics. Kirkham sources pre-owned clothing to create original pieces both inspired by her geometry-driven fascination with construction and the conditions presented by the pandemic. For example, Kirkham’s popular ‘MOOD SWINGS’ series is an ode to the spectrum of emotion produced by quarantine, and ‘SUN BEAMS’ is a two-piece celebrating the angular brilliance of sun streaming through her window. Her pieces are often finished with vibrant, serged lettuce hems, to whom she credits Stephen Burrows for inspiration.