The Surrealist Movement in Art's Influence on Fashion

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The Surrealist Movement in Art’s Influence on Fashion

Introduction

This essay aims to analyse the key role that the surrealist movement has played on fashion and the fashion industry. Both from a historical point of view, as well as its continued impact on fashion today, as a source of inspiration for contemporary fashion designers.

In this essay I will account for how the Surrealist movement in art has influenced the progress and growth of fashion worldwide and our sense of appearance. Furthermore, this essay will analyse the influence that surrealism has been having on fashion today.

I will also be discussing the influence that Elsa Schiaparelli has been having on the distinct creation of surrealism in fashion, focusing specifically on how she became the leading figure in merging art with fashion by introducing surrealist ideas in her designs. Also her collaborations with artists such as Salvador Dali, Man Ray and Jean Cocteau will be discussed in this essay.

Surrealism and the surrealist movement

Surrealism and the surrealist movement is a ‘cultural’ movement that began around 1920’s, and is best known for its visual art works and writings. According to André Berton, the aim was “to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality” (Breton 1969:14). Surrealists incorporated “elements of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and ‘non sequitur”. Hence, creating unnerving, illogical paintings with photographic precision, which created strange creatures or settings from everyday real objects and developed advanced painting techniques, which allowed the unconscious to be expressed by the self (Martin 1987:26; Pass 2011:30).

Surrealism as a movement deve...

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... Press, Ann Arbour.

Gibson, R., 2003, ‘Spiaparelli, Surrealism and the Desk Suit’, Dress, January, 30(1), 48-58.

Martin, R., 1987, Fashion and Surrealism, Rizzoli, New York.

Pass, V.R., 2011, Strange Glamour: Fashion and Surrealism in the Years Between the World Wars, University of Rochester.

Pass, V.R., 2013, ‘Schiaparelli’s dark circus’, Fashion, Style & Popular Culture, October, 1(1), 29-43.

Rosemont, F. (ed.), 1978, André Breton. What is Surrealism? Selected Writings, Pathfinder, New York, London, Montreal, Sydney.

Stent, S., 2011, ‘Fetishizing the Feminine: the Surreal Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli’, Nottingham French Studies, September, 50, 78-87.

Waldberg, P., 1997, Surrealism, Thames & Hudson, London.

Yang, C.K., 2004, ‘A Study on Surrealistic Expression in Modern Fashion – Focusing on Surrealistic Fashion in 1990s’, Fashion Business, 8(6), 39-56.

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