ZEPHY KOLYA
Edge stitches
ed. Metaihmio, 2023, p. 360

From the arrival of the Belle Epoque to the celebrity designers of the 90s, the 20th century was a landmark period in design. fashionable. It is dedicated to this multi-layered and turbulent century Zefi Kolia’s book “Stitches of the Avant-Garde”, from Metaichmyo publications. Keeping in mind that fashion is always a mirror of society, Kolya describes an age that radically changed society, dress code and aesthetics, an age in which stitches were true pioneers.

The history of fashion is not a subject that often occupies Greek literature, and in this sense, Velonies tis protoporia is a useful guide for students and those who want to immerse themselves in the constant mutations of style in a century that began with the corset (whose use was carried over from previous ones) to complete stylistic freedom and overconsumption of fast fashion clothing.

It all started with a corset, and ended with absolute stylistic freedom and excessive consumption of clothes.

Like society, fashion is a synthesis of small and big stories. From artistic, scientific, social and technological innovations, from political struggles, cultures and subcultures, from something that turns from an absolutely local level into something global. “Stitches of the Avant-Garde” begins in Paris and at the city’s world fair, celebrating the arrival of a new century, which is accompanied by a “modern lifestyle”. This new way of life was reflected in the fashion of the time. The corset still prevails. It is used, for example, by Briton Charles Frederick Worth, who is considered the father of high fashion, in Paris.

But back then, artists such as Paul Poiret offered the gift of liberation from the literally tight corset through a flowing silhouette containing elements of Art Nouveau and Orientalism, connecting fashion with art. Kolya writes about Mariano Fortuny, a Spaniard who settled in Venice and was inspired by ancient Greek pleats like the Genioch of Delphi for imposing garments like the Delphic dress. But so is Madeleine Bionnet, the French seamstress who became the most influential designer thanks to techniques like the bias cut, her love of architecture and the sartorial fluidity of ancient Greek elegance.

Chanel vs Schiaparelli

The author explains how World War I brought women to the forefront of industrial production and how femininity took on a more modern form. She writes about the contemporary fashion of Coco Chanel and the surreal image of her great rival Elsa Schiaparelli. He describes the renaissance of the industry in post-war Paris, thanks to the now famous New Look of Christian Dior, as well as the excellent design of Cristobal Balenciaga. And also the wonderful sixties, the swinging sixties of London, the establishment of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris and the futurism of André Coures, Pierre Cardin and Paco Rabanne. The hippies of the 70s, the Japanese of the 80s, the rise of the Italian fashion industry thanks to designers such as Giorgio Armani, Valentino and Gianni Versace, the Paris of Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld, Azzedine Alaia, Thierry Migler and Claude Montana and the American couture dream of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren.

At the same time, the author points out how fashion is related to the social struggles of the 20th century, such as the feminist movement and the struggle of the LGBTI community. He also writes about the connection of literature with style, as in the case of Good Morning, Sadness, where author Françoise Sagan describes youthful, carefree French chic. But also the close connection that links fashion to music, from Elvis Presley and the Beatles to hip-hop artists.

Also of interest are stories focusing on 20th-century subcultures, such as the “activist’s wardrobe,” where Mao’s style, an ideologically marked dress code in giant China, is transformed into a stylish piece of clothing in the West. The book contains information on important but lesser known designers such as Kansai Yamamoto.

Avant-Garde Stitches touches, among other things, on what was happening in fashion in the 90s, but does not go too far into how the purchase of traditional brands by large luxury conglomerates such as LVMH fundamentally changed the fashion industry. Kolya is at the forefront of the development of the so-called fast fashion, but here again it seems that a little more explanation is missing about how fast fashion, on the one hand, brought a revolution – for some kind of democratic consumption – but at the same time created huge “green ” Problems.

In addition, “Velony tis protoporia” refers to Greek creators of international stature—names such as Alexandrinos Jean Desses, Yannis Tseklenis, Billy Bo, and Dimitris Parthenis—but does not include Sophia Kokosalaki’s equally innovative stitches, and later inventive engravings. Maria Katranzu. If there is one thing the book is truly lacking in, it’s pictures, as Avant-Garde Stitches almost verbatim describes only a world that has always been, and still is, eminently visual.