Colour in Fashion: Blocking Dynamics
For anyone who knows their trends, colour blocking will be a familiar term which has appeared on the fashion scene time and time again over the past few years. Designers just can’t seem to resist it, and I can understand why. Colour blocking is fun, it’s an excuse to play with your favourite colours and mix the shades that aren’t necessarily supposed to be mixed. It’s versatile; you can make it modern and minimal or loud and fun, it’s trendy and a way to make your favourite colour the next big thing and it’s a way to be fashion fabulous without taking your look too seriously.
So where did this trend originate? Well, most fashion and art historians will take you back to fashion in the sixties when girly glam became graphic for the first time. Possibly something to do with inspiration from the art movement known as De Stijl, or neoplasticism, where artists such as Piet Mondrian used to mathematically and strategically divide their canvasses up into flat blocks of primary colours. Sounds familiar, no? The aim was to counteract the fact that, visually speaking, yellow and red appear to jump “out of” a flat canvas while blue recedes back into it, so the blocks of colour were scientifically measured and placed in such a way as to create a perfectly flat, two-dimensional image. Then in the swinging sixties, fashion revolution occurred when edgy little shift dresses in flat colour appeared as a fashion statement for the first time, in stark contrast to the flowing and flouncy dresses and circle skirts that characterised the decade before it. For the first time, thanks to fashion revolutionaries such as Twiggy and Edie Sedgwick, fashion acquired its own attitude.
Personally, I feel like I can relate this fashion aesthetic back to something dynamic and beautiful happening right in my home country. Anyone else thinking Smarteez? Known as a South African fashion subculture, the Smarteez are starting to make international headway as South Africa’s very own home-brewed hipster variety. The group of fashion fundis in Johannesburg are waging their own war against conformity, and using clothing and kickass style as their means to forge their way forward into the South African cultural history books. They’re an inspiration and show us that fashion is more than just a look, it’s a card to play in the battle you’re fighting, whatever that may be. What you wear makes a statement, it’s been proven in history, and now it’s being proven again on our home ground. The Smarteez are fighting their battle against convention and good old South African pessimism, with fashion as their optimistic weapon of choice.
So next time you page through a fashion mag and spot an article on how to colour block, think about it, just maybe this trend springs from something as close to you as the country you live in, and maybe you should wear it and make it your own statement too.
For anyone who knows their trends, colour blocking will be a familiar term which has appeared on the fashion scene time and time again over the past few years. Designers just can’t seem to resist it, and I can understand why. Colour blocking is fun, it’s an excuse to play with your favourite colours and mix the shades that aren’t necessarily supposed to be mixed. It’s versatile; you can make it modern and minimal or loud and fun, it’s trendy and a way to make your favourite colour the next big thing and it’s a way to be fashion fabulous without taking your look too seriously.
So where did this trend originate? Well, most fashion and art historians will take you back to fashion in the sixties when girly glam became graphic for the first time. Possibly something to do with inspiration from the art movement known as De Stijl, or neoplasticism, where artists such as Piet Mondrian used to mathematically and strategically divide their canvasses up into flat blocks of primary colours. Sounds familiar, no? The aim was to counteract the fact that, visually speaking, yellow and red appear to jump “out of” a flat canvas while blue recedes back into it, so the blocks of colour were scientifically measured and placed in such a way as to create a perfectly flat, two-dimensional image. Then in the swinging sixties, fashion revolution occurred when edgy little shift dresses in flat colour appeared as a fashion statement for the first time, in stark contrast to the flowing and flouncy dresses and circle skirts that characterised the decade before it. For the first time, thanks to fashion revolutionaries such as Twiggy and Edie Sedgwick, fashion acquired its own attitude.
Personally, I feel like I can relate this fashion aesthetic back to something dynamic and beautiful happening right in my home country. Anyone else thinking Smarteez? Known as a South African fashion subculture, the Smarteez are starting to make international headway as South Africa’s very own home-brewed hipster variety. The group of fashion fundis in Johannesburg are waging their own war against conformity, and using clothing and kickass style as their means to forge their way forward into the South African cultural history books. They’re an inspiration and show us that fashion is more than just a look, it’s a card to play in the battle you’re fighting, whatever that may be. What you wear makes a statement, it’s been proven in history, and now it’s being proven again on our home ground. The Smarteez are fighting their battle against convention and good old South African pessimism, with fashion as their optimistic weapon of choice.
So next time you page through a fashion mag and spot an article on how to colour block, think about it, just maybe this trend springs from something as close to you as the country you live in, and maybe you should wear it and make it your own statement too.
Jess
