From the avant-garde and the carefree to the dramatic, somehow militant and
oblivious at the same time, the 1990s really were the breeding ground that
shaped the world we live in today. Various exhibitions, books and catalogues
have testified to the extraordinary ‘Big Bang’ of 1997 and to how revolutionary
the 1990s were in terms of the history of fashion in general. One long creative
party, by all accounts, almost as if it were to be the last hurrah!
“Representing both the sanctification of 90s fashion and a pivotal year in the
approach to the new millennium, 1997 saw a fast-paced succession of
collections, fashion shows, new appointments, inaugurations and events that
shaped the fashion scene as we know it today. Such was the impact it had, in
fact, that 1997 could be considered the dawn of 21 st -century fashion”. These are
the proud claims made by the Palais Galliera, where the concept exhibition 1997
Fashion Big Bang is currently being staged.
From as early as the autumn of 1996, in fact, Rei Kawakubo was presenting her
‘lumpy dresses’ as part of her Comme des Garçons collection, Martin Margiela was
conceptualising his creative language a little more with his Stockman collection,
and Raf Simons was redefining masculine beauty with his Black Palms line. At the
height of their hype, hardcore designers Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler,
who had already made a name for themselves in the late 1970s when they first
jumped into the pond of stuffy fashion houses, launched their own form of
Haute Couture, while Christian Lacroix, who was also at the top of his game, was
celebrating the 10 th anniversary of his own flamboyant fashion house.
Left to right: Thierry Mugler, Les insectes collection, photo by Jean-Baptiste Mondino.
Olivier Theyskens, spring-summer 1998 ready-to-wear, photo by Juergen Rogiers.
Martin Margiela, Stockman collection, spring-summer 1997. Palais Galliera collection.
Following the departure of Gianfranco Ferré, Bernard Arnault found the designer
who would finally shake up the long-established house of Christian Dior in the
person of John Galliano, whose explosive arrival really shook things up.
Alexander McQueen, for his part, consciously revived the house of Givenchy by
shamelessly ‘roughing it up’. Creativity levels on the whole seemed to be taking
flight in one great big creative whirlwind. At the same time, a number of
newcomers to the scene were starting to raise their heads and reinvent style for
the next 20/30 years, newcomers like Hedi Slimane, Nicolas Ghesquière, Olivier
Theyskens and Stella McCartney, for example. Trends were also emerging
around the newly opened Colette concept store, a unique shop that would
continue to set trends for the next 20 years. The tragic death of Gianni Versace
in 1997, barely two weeks before his client and friend Princess Diana was
involved in the fatal accident that took her life, also had the fashion world hitting
the headlines around the globe.
Furthermore, 1997 also marked the beginning of a process of globalisation that
would transform elitist brands operating in micro-markets into industrial giants
that would become popular on all continents, making a lot of money for some
visionary entrepreneurs and restructuring the French fashion industry in the
process. Day by day, in the space of just over 12 months, 21 st -century fashion
would be born, representing a creative ‘Big Bang’ that has now been depicted in
a brilliant exhibition you won't be able to get enough of.
Not far from this radiant demonstration, the Palais de Tokyo is staging another
darker but equally moving one focusing on the same period. The conceptual
exhibition Exposés.es casts light on the hidden side of the 1990s, which witnessed
an explosion in the number of AIDS cases. Since the mid-1980s, often young
patients who’d been raised believing that they were immortal had suddenly been
finding themselves without any viable form of treatment. From the start of the
1990s, an entire section of the creative world would be decimated, wiped out in
one fatal blow by the deadliest epidemic of the last century that saw children
dying before their parents. Not a day would go by without another death of
someone, somewhere being announced, casting a shadow over the creative
landscape.
On 1 January 1990, Patrick Kelly, the first American designer to be admitted to
the very French circle of the Chambre Syndicale du Prêt-à-porter (‘Trade
Association of Ready-to-Wear Fashion’) died of AIDS at the age of 35. In
June 1990, Guy Paulin, a designer with an extremely bright future ahead of him,
died at the age of 44. That same year, Jean-Paul Gaultier’s partner and CEO of his
company, Francis Menuge, also lost his life. In a creative environment that was
very heavily affected on more anonymous levels, real panic was gripping the
entire fashion scene. Insurance companies were getting scared. Suddenly, Calvin
Klein and Claude Montana were getting married. Gay marriage was not a thing at
the time, but in the absence of treatment it was all about keeping up
appearances.
Inspired by art critic Elisabeth Leibovici’s book Ce que le sida m'a fait. Art et
activisme à la fin du XX e siècle (‘What AIDS did to me. Art and activism at the end of
the 20 th century’), the Palais de Tokyo’s challenging exhibition certainly raises a
number of questions. Far from a commemoration, the past and the present
come face to face here as the artists reflect upon their history and how these
dark hours before triple combination therapy transformed their contemporary
art practice. “Beauty here emerges as a possible response in the face of the
political and social consequences of intersecting pandemics”, the catalogue
reads. Derek Jarman, Guillaume Dustan, Michel Journiac, Hervé Guibert, Lionel
Soukaz and Nan Goldin are the saints and martyrs, dead or alive, of this
decidedly inspiring era.
Philippe Joanny’s latest book, 95, is even more explicit regarding the epidemic
and these astonishing years, looking at the daily lives of young men and women
in 1995. Offering the perfect insight into the atmosphere that reigned in Paris at
the time, the story takes the reader on a tour of the bars, gay clubs and first
techno raves of the time, following the death of one of these young people. The
drugs were by now already flowing freely, and people were partying hard, as if it
were their last hurrah! This was true of most of these euphoric young urbanites
who then discovered they were HIV-positive and had to consequently come to
terms with their imminent death. Life-saving triple therapies didn’t emerge
until 1996. So why fight it, then? Why abstain or hold back? The feeling of
abandonment, of despair, of having no future was tangible in every moment. The
bewildering tale of a generation lost in the darkness of the night.
These 90s demonstrations could just as easily have been rooted in another
major trauma: World War II. Born in the 1950s from the aftermath of the nuclear
bombings, the Japanese avant-garde movement Gutai (from the words Gu,
meaning ‘instrument’, and Tai meaning ‘body’) was in contradiction with classical
abstraction because the body became a major component of artistic
intervention. As a performative movement based on matter and the founder of
action art (action painting), the Gutai movemenẗ demanded freedom and
creativity following the Hiroshima tragedy. Expression here takes the form of raw
materials crafted by committed artists between 1954 and 1972. Examples of
Gutai art can be found at L’Appart Renoma, amid works pertaining to the more
Informel movements the Nouvelle École de Paris and independent artists. A
Gutai selection compiled by Marc David Fitoussi (Galerie Atari Arts) that interacts
with the photographic and pictorial works and installations of Maurice Renoma.
1997 Fashion Big Bang, Palais Galliera, from 7 March to 16 July 2023.
Exposés.es, Palais de Tokyo, until 14 May.
Gutaï, et les avant-gardes japonaises d’après-guerre (‘Gutai and the post-war
Japanese avant-garde’), L’Appart Renoma, from 15 March to 15 April.
95 by Philippe Joanny, Éditions Grasset.
