Fashion and Trash are best friends. As Oscar Wilde famously said, "Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." But as we all know... one man's trash is another man's treasure.
No other creative force embraces the use of things tossed aside, more than fashion. As a designer I usually become very inspired by things that were left by the wayside, and I love scraps and remnants. Sometimes the best ideas come from leftovers.
Here's a few of my favorite trash inspirations.
Gaga and the Coke Cans
First of all. Let's be honest. Gaga is a master of elevating Trash into something glamorous and desirable. I think one of her finest moments was the coke cans as curlers. Not only is it amusing and punk, but when doing a video that dissects American culture......the Diet Coke can is definently a symbol......you could say it's become Gaga's version of Warhol's Cambell Soup.
Second, Warhol.....the ultimate master of Low budget glamor literally gave us the defining film "Trash" (click link to view)......which follows "Joe" a male prostitute & junkie through his daily routine in NYC finding johns and coping for dope.
Co-starring Holly Woodlawn (if you have never seen her performances......see them.), this film does Warhol's usual trick of elevating the types of people and situations seen as dirty and taboo into art and entertainment. Stylistically, because the film is so low budget, you get amazing true to life footage of NYC's East Village and Lower East Side (LES) in all it's 1970's dirty glamor as Joe wanders. I also recommend seeing "Women in Revolt" and "Chelsea Girls" which star the same cast of characters (plus Candy Darling + Jackie Curtis.....the other two parts of Warhol's Drag Triad).
Next, we will touch on one of the most forward thinking designers / pioneers of our time, Mr. Margiela. You can read the wikipedia biography of Margiela here, but basically the Margiela fashion house is synonymous with Deconstruction & Repurposing. His label created handmade items from wigs, bottlecaps, leftover gloves, and eyeglasses.
He took remnants and leftover clothing such as jeans, and reconstructed them into new items... as part of his "artisanal" branch.
His stores themselves employ trash as decor, by whitewashing found objects such as old tires (BTW..this may have been a Basquiat - inspired move ... as the painter is famous for repurposing found items into art, especially tires.), and chairs, he made them innovative, alien, and modern. Although Mr. Margiela has left the Maison, his influence can be seen everywhere today.
The final installment in this series on trash and glamour is a film titled "Gummo" by Harmony Korine. The film is a disjointed mishmash of plots taking place around Xenia, Ohio......which has been devastated by a tornado. The film is visually stunning, and chock full of inspirational moments that elevate the trashy backwater town and it's inhabitants into beautiful, stylish dissections of American life.
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