The clothes that you choose to wear often reveal a lot about your personality. As Roland Barthes would have put it, ‘…clothes/fashion is a cultural index that declares the allegiances and affinities of the wearer in a given social context....’ Yinka Shonibare, the famous Afro-British artist, makes use of fashion as envisioned and worn by the colonial dandies in order to generate a cultural critique as well as an aesthetic statement, vis-à-vis his racial identity and his membership as an artist as well as a human being in a multi-cultural society.

Fashion has never been averse to art, or vice versa. Rather, one should say that fashion has always been an integral part of the lives and works of the artists of any time. There is a tremendous but subtle complementariness between fashion and art, though it has been a norm for a long time to downplay the role of fashion in art, unlike the way we know these days.

Before anything becomes a stereotype, it must have been a fashion trendsetter. Seen in this context, it would be interesting to analyse any documentary materials made on the personal lives of the artists. Most often we come to know that any artist in history, in a way, emulates the trends of the fashion world of his/her times, knowingly or unknowingly. Even those artists who tried to move away from the ‘mainstream’ fashions of their respective times, had in a way, created their own fashion statements through their clothes, the objects around them and the accessories that they preferred to use.

Such disinclinations towards ‘fashion’ itself is a fashion, which in turn would create a paraphernalia of designs, no matter whatever philosophy guides the production of such design would become ‘fashion’ in no time. The derivative dress codes, which oscillated between Hollywood flicks and underground culture throughout the ’70s is the best example of things being and becoming fashionable objects and clothes.

Amongst artists, several years before they realised there was a deeper economics involved behind their creative feats, there was a belief that an artist should not indulge in anything that goes hand in hand with the mainstream culture/fashion. Hence, they dressed like anarchists, who apparently never gave any interest in looking good. Clothes hanging down from the shoulders, khadi kurtas, a pair of dirty jeans and jholas were considered to be the anti-fashion style statement of artists till it became a stereotype, only to be lampooned in popular narratives.

If one trains the eyes proper to the contemporary world of fashion, there seems to be a revival of this anarchist dress code, skillfully altered to suit to the style demands of the contemporary times. The jhola of yesteryear, when passed through the designing hands of Versace or Armani, becomes a thing to be coveted, cherished and flaunted. Unwashed and torn jeans now attract the youth from all over the world. The clothes hanging down from the shoulders are manipulated in various ways to make them look more appealing to the eyes.

Artists are equipped with an added sense of design, and whatever they do, it is done with a sense of fashion. It looks different. Perhaps, artists did not have enough money to do whatever they wanted to do in the protected economic structure of our country years ago. But now with the global proliferation of wealth and the liberalisation policies of the government, we too have achieved a sort of economic freedom, though it manifested in the lives of the artists during times of actual market boom.

Personally speaking, I have been always interested in fashion all my life. Although now I don’t have enough hair on my pate, but there was a time when I had long curly hair. I used to sport different types of hats and wanted to project the image of a dandy. If I talk about my works, they are always informed of the changes and occurrences in the world of fashion and design.

Even now, people have a reservation about fashion when it comes to the appreciation of art. They want things to be kept in watertight compartments. They want art to be art and fashion to be fashion. But with the aggressive acts of certain curators, galleries and artists, the norm is slowly changing. When I painted a battery car with my ‘stretched bodies’ style of colors people were shocked initially and slowly they understood how the colours in my paintings become a part of the fashion statement. I have experimented with my colours and strokes by collaborating with designers (shawls, cups and so on) and architects.

In the contemporary art scene, there are many artists who are very keen to create their public image as very fashionable people. They are conscious about the brands they use and wear, and besides, they carry them off with élan. I would cite Jitish and Reena Kallat, Subodh Gupta, Bharti Kher, Sunil Padwal, Riyas Komu and Sudarshan Shetty as the best examples of fashionable people amongst artists. At the same time there are some artists who would like to wear fashionable brands, but thanks to their public image as ‘responsible’ and ‘pro-revolutionary’ artists, they opt out of such desires.

There is a strong give and take happening between contemporary artists and fashion designers. Artists like Thukral & Tagra, Anita Dube, Pushpamala, Shine Shivan, Monali Meher, Tejal Shah and Anup Mathew Thomas have used visual codes of the fashion world in their installations, photography and performances. Bharti Kher is one artist who directly refers to the world of fashion. Anju Dodiya’s works tell the world about her referential affinities with the help of particular dresses on her protagonists. She says that she refers to Japanese fashion books to pick and choose the dress images for her paintings.

In our country, art and fashion are not strange bedfellows any more. Fashion designers like Manish Arora project themselves as artists. Any designer worthy of that name, as we have a strong contemporary art scene here in India, these days try to prove their artistic prowess. It is not just clothes or accessories that they put before the public, but their artistic creations. I have noticed designers like Rohit Bal, Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Gandhi, Rahul Khanna, Ritu Beri, Rajesh Pratap Singh, Narendra Kumar and so on making positive relationships with the world of art not only in their individual practice but also in their mission as the promoters of contemporary fashion and art.

I think, Hussein Chalayan, like Viktor and Rolf, Issey Miyake (and all these contemporary fashion designers), before calling himself a fashion designer, prefers to designate himself as an artist! He uses his designer’s abilities and materials to create works of art, complete with installations and video art. I was fortunate to see his incredible works at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan. Such attempts are becoming a ‘fashion’ in a way and it is a very positive trend. Internationally, Alexander McQueen was one of the designers who indulged in the world of art like an artist, a surrealist – abstractionist!

Fashion moves between the transcendental and the quotidian. One can see and feel the vibes of it in the exclusive showrooms and the wayside markets. Fashion, in this sense is exactly like art. Like art, fashion is also inspired by the life and times of people, their habits, their ideologies, their preferences of race, gender and politics. Gandhiji is one person who, through khadi and his peculiar minimalistic fashion statement moved the world to a dawn of freedom. He proved that fashion can move people, though it is visibly spartan. Andy Warhol is another artist who bridged the gap between art and fashion. In my works, I evoke the spirit of these two artists, Gandhiji as an artist and Andy Warhol as a politician.
That is what we need today – a fashionable politician with Warhol’s aesthetic skills and Gandhiji’s persuasive powers.

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