(i never realised Luca Guarini was wearing Comme des Garcons in this pic..it kind of explains why i love it though)
On Saturday night, i had a great conversation with my friend Lauren at a party, where we both expressed exceptional uncertainty for the future of our world, a world where the hipster reigns supreme, a haphazard mish-mash of nostalgic references to already dissolved rebellious subcultures of decades past. The problem is, the hipster really rebels against nothing. There is no push forward.
Warhol says nostalgia only really came about in the 80s because things started moving forward fast enough for people to start getting frightened and need something more concrete to grasp to, so they started looking back to things that were not stagnant, so they could hold onto them and feel secure in their stasis. Even so, the 80s and the 90s still had their own design innovations and aesthetics that dominated.
So what happened to the 2000s?
Movements in design are often born out of some sort of larger scale change, for example the emergence of Rei Kawakubo and Yohi Yamamoto on a global stage happened in retaliation to a large global recession at the time, and these designers were saying who wants to look like they stepped off the set of Dallas, bedazzled in sequins, when the world is in a state of universal suffering?
We've just had a massive recession and we are still really recovering from it....but where is the subsequent design change.
Was the aesthetic of this era (our era) really "Green", a series of modification to existent things, in support of scientific theories that have never been 100% proven or dis-proven? (i would hope not as most of the projects, architecturally at least, that were exceptionally forward in using innovative methods of sustainability were (a) hideous and (b) experimental to the extent many of the features did not work as was planned, reducing them to bizarre ornamental features)
I guess what's important is that designers of the upcoming generation (and the people i know) are talking about this issue, even if it is under fairy lights in a friend's back yard over drinks.
Dissatisfaction is a catalyst of change.
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