Unscrambling Notions

Fashion and art have shared unflappable chemistry throughout history and are seen thoroughly at this year's 59th edition of the Venice Biennale. As the question of whether fashion should be considered as art continues to loom, could fashion's involvement with the Biennale highlight ways in which the lines have finally blurred?

- Manfred Lu

In an interview with the Gagosian Quarterly on her proximity to art as she grew up, English fashion designer Stella McCartney struggled to define the logic that fashion is art. I would never be that presumptuous to say I'm an artist, she explains. I mean, the word art is so weighty to me. What is and what isn't art? That's the beauty of art. It's not for me to say.

For over a century, the debate on whether fashion should be defined as art has divided many. There is some paradoxical irony in the facts presented by the agreeing and the disagreeing, but it all boils down to two simple reasonings. For the former, the genre of fashion is seen as cultural and therefore it must be art. It is the convergence witnessed by the works of Elsa Schiaparelli's Dali creations and Yves Saint Laurent's Mondrian dresses that helped shaped this belief in the 20th century but others will disagree that the mainstream incarnation of commerce and accessibility within the fashion industry is punitive and prevents it from being defined under the umbrella of art-styles. Fashion mogul Donna Karan once found herself more inspired by the walls of the Picasso Museum. Disinterested in the works displayed, she exclaimed that the interior shade of green would be perfect for next season's lingerie.

The convergence of art and fashion has always been symbiotic, says Georges Berges of Georges Berges Gallery in New York. In his essay, In Defence of Fashion as a True Art Form, he laments that everything that exists and surrounds us is a product of the society we live in. Who we are, what we see, and what we experience are interconnected and interrelated.