ARCHITECTURE AND FASHION: Sisters in the Art of Design

AUTHOR: Sofia Sabrina Fuentes Ruiz

Apprentice of style, admirer of elegance and faithful believer that sophistication comes from being authentic.

Creators of great fashion houses go hand in hand with architects, such is the case of Coco Chanel, founder of the fashion house Chanel who shares with us:

“Fashion is architecture, it is a matter of proportions”.

Opening the panorama to the similarity of design in both disciplines but on a different scale.

Similarly, architect Virgil Abloh, who became the most notable fashion designer, becoming the creative director of Louis Vuitton before he passed away, said:

“Young architects can change the world by not building buildings.”

Abloh did his bit in the design world by drawing on relevant architectural movements in history for his designs, such as Brutalism and Bauhaus.

Also, Tom Ford, former creative director of luxury fashion house Gucci, studied interior design at Parsons School of Design in New York. Finding his true calling in the fashion world, he went on to save Gucci from the ashes during the 1990s.

Where does the similarity between these two disciplines come from?

Both cover a need, the shelter of the human body, using garments to cover the skin or physical spaces where the human feels refuge from outer space. Both have turned that need into art, both fashion and architecture are functional, we occupy them in our daily lives, but they lend themselves to seek an artistic approach that not only covers, but expresses the essence of the wearer.

The idea of projecting an image is not born in our times, but comes from centuries past. In ancient times the clothes of the ancestral kings were elaborated with greater delicacy, highlighting plumes, jewels and makeup on their skins, worthy of an image of superiority and admiration. While the villagers and slaves wore simple loincloths, with little makeup.

Just as the type of clothing was sectored, the same happened with the spaces they inhabited, or in some cases, where they left their remains. This is why the marvelous pyramids and palaces of antiquity were born, a clear example that the distinction between others comes in what you wear and where you live.

Moving forward in the timeline, the costumes designed for kings, including crowns and scepters, establish a superior hierarchy. The palaces and temples designed to praise earthly and celestial beings were monumental, decorated and praiseworthy spaces, which were very different from the common dwellings and spaces that only sought to satisfy the needs of the villagers.

It is thanks to the decorations that began to appear in palaces and churches, that it was possible to distinguish the different architectural styles and thus find a continuity and relationship within the designs throughout history. Similarly, it should be noted that this also went hand in hand with cultural movements in history, where human beings evolved their emotions and their way of transmitting them, at the same time that their clothing and the places they inhabited evolved.

In the field of fashion, the list of designers seduced by architecture is very long, but we can define it in the famous and accurate phrase of Cristobal Balenciaga:

“A dressmaker must be an architect for patterns, a sculptor for shapes, a painter for color, a musician for harmony and a philosopher in the sense of measure.”

In short, multiple disciplines converge when designing garments, including architecture, where we can find the defined lines, patterns, and above all the concepts, which, with their structure, end up playing a leading role.

"On the one hand, we have fashion, where the person, with his silhouette and natural beauty, is retouched with garments that enhance his attributes. On the other hand, we have Architecture, which is the basis of construction, and the soul of the building, which, when retouched, makes spaces cease to be “simple spaces”".

Beyond inspiration and concepts, the relationship between these two disciplines is also in the stores of luxury brands, which now not only seek to be located in the most influential streets of the cities, but also have the best architects and designers to design their spaces. As a result, we have buildings that reflect the style of the brand, giving the idea of the image that the user will project when wearing the clothes and being part of this fashion house. This projection technique is used as a strategy, they show us the idea and the essence that we aspire to have, making the difference between all brands.