Deconstruction in contemporary fashion design: Analysis and critique

Abstract

One of the most important phenomena in fashion, which practically forced the researchers to rethink their former language, is deconstruction. Appearing almost in parallel with deconstruction in architecture it uncovered previously unseen fissure in the discourse used in constructing the object of research. Deconstruction is usually described as one of the many fast-changing trends in fashion, but fashion scholars rarely pay attention to the sources or consequences of this trend. This study constitutes an attempt to develop such a historical and theoretical take on deconstruction in fashion, to analyse its descriptions and conceptualizations. For this purpose, the author reconstructs the sources of this phenomenon in fashion, with particular attention being paid to two fashion houses: Maison Martin Margiela and Comme des Garçons. To situate deconstruction in a broader context, the article refers to this term in the philosophy as well as the architecture and the graphic design. The last part of the article is devoted to alternative theoretical perspectives – the conceptions of Michel de Certeau and John Fiske – which are used to look again at deconstruction in the context of youth subcultures and its importance in the contemporary fashion system.

Full text

Agata Zborowska
University of Warsaw
Deconstruction in contemporary fashion design: Analysis and critique
ABSTRACT
One of the most important phenomena in fashion, which practically forced the researchers to
rethink their former language, is deconstruction. Appearing almost in parallel with
deconstruction in architecture it uncovered previously unseen fissure in the discourse used in
constructing the object of research. Deconstruction is usually described as one of the many
fast-changing trends in fashion, but fashion scholars rarely pay attention to the sources or
consequences of this trend. This study constitutes an attempt to develop such a historical and
theoretical take on deconstruction in fashion, to analyse its descriptions and
conceptualizations. For this purpose, the author reconstructs the sources of this phenomenon
in fashion, with particular attention being paid to two fashion houses: Maison Martin
Margiela and Comme des Garcons. To situate deconstruction in a broader context, the article
refers to this term in the philosophy as well as the architecture and the graphic design. The
last part of the article is devoted to alternative theoretical perspectives – the conceptions of
Michel de Certeau and John Fiske – which are used to look again at deconstruction in the
context of youth subcultures and its importance in the contemporary fashion system.
Judging from the positive reaction to Martin Margiela, it might pay to save all your
plastic produce or dry cleaning bags. They could be next year’s big trend. Weirder
things have happened. And probably will happen again.
– Elizabeth Snead (1989)
For several dozen years, the concept of ‘deconstruction’ has been used with unswerving
consistency in describing clothing that seems unfinished, wornout or subjected to recycling.
Even though the first designs associated with this trend can be traced back to the late 1980s,
the importance of the practice of deconstruction and its influence on modern fashion still
holds. The dominant tactics found in the examples that I am interested in, which are also the
most representative ones, do not constitute a simple negation of the former models, but rather
question them and attempt to undermine the principles of clothing design and construction
that have developed over the decades.
Clothing designs that often lack a typical functional context, that are frequently
created as ostentatious ‘objects’ which are not meant to fulfil the basic functions ascribed to

clothing, still usually belong to those most appreciated for their artistic values. Their role is
also perceived as critical towards the dominant fashion system, which was rarely the case in
fashion design before. In relation to fashion, this post-structuralist stance of scepticism
towards tradition and existing categories has yet to achieve comprehensive critique (a process
already described by scholars working on architecture). Deconstruction is usually described as
one of the many fast-changing trends in fashion, but fashion scholars rarely pay attention to
the sources or consequences of this trend. This article constitutes an attempt to develop such a
historical and theoretical take on deconstruction in fashion, to analyse its descriptions and
conceptualizations. For this purpose, I will reconstruct the sources of this phenomenon in
fashion, with particular attention being paid to two fashion houses: Maison Martin Margiela
and Comme des Garcons. Even though the deconstructionist trend in fashion is not limited
only to these two houses, they will be used in this article as an example of a more general
process in contemporary fashion.
Deconstruction will also be presented against a broader context of design, mostly
architecture, and against the consequences of directly translating theory into practice. The last
part of the article will be devoted to alternative theoretical perspectives – the conceptions of
Michel de Certeau and John Fiske – which will be used to look again at deconstruction in the
context of youth subcultures and its importance in the contemporary fashion system. None of
the above-mentioned authors refers directly to the concept of deconstruction, even though
their approaches in many respects are connected with design issues. Rarely invoked in the
context of the contemporary fashion designers, they can shed a new light on the practices
which thus far have most frequently been described as deconstructionist. Invoking Michel de
Certeau’s conception, I am interested mostly in the relation between strategy and tactics, i.e.
the relation between institutionalized power and grassroots expression. Everyday practices
and popular culture are also analysed by John Fiske, who uses jeans as one of his main
examples. Invoking those two conceptions, I pose a hypothesis that the deconstructionist trend
in fashion, most frequently analysed as subversive tactics, should rather be situated in the
realm of strategy, i.e. institutionalized forms of action, which instead of subverting, legitimize
the established system of fashion. The claim that deconstruction became absorbed into the
official language of fashion will be discussed based on specific examples further in the article.
Origins
In September 1989, the magazine Details
1
featured a description of the 1989–90 Fall/Winter
collection
2
by the Maison Martin Margiela fashion house, in which Bill Cunningham, known
1
Details magazine was established in 1982 by Annie Flanders. It documented avant-guard fashion
connected with New York nightlife in the 1980s. Bill Cunningham’s photographs appeared in every
issue.

mostly as one of the first street fashion photographers, used the term ‘deconstruction’.
Francesca Granata noted in her article, ‘Deconstruction fashion: Carnival and the grotesque’
(2012), that this was probably the first recorded use of the term in the context of clothing,
suggesting not so much a single action, but rather some fashion trend recognizable in the late
1980s.
Martin Margiela, formerly a Gaultier assistant, in this, his second collection on his
own, provided quite a different vision of fashion of the 1990s: a beatnik, Existentialist
revival […] The construction of the clothes suggests a deconstructivist movement,
where the structure of the design appears to be under attack, displacing seams,
tormenting the surface with incisions. All suggest a fashion of elegant decay.
(Cunningham, cited in Granata 2012)
In his commentary on Margiela’s designs, Cunningham refers to deconstruction in a way
characteristic of most later descriptions. The basis for all designs here is mostly the
construction of clothing, understood literally as a way of combining elements of clothing so
that they create a certain whole. The most important construction elements are thus isolated
fragments of fabric patterns joined by stitches (including darts), frequently supplemented with
various stiffening elements in the form of pads, whalebones or gluing, protected with lining
from the inside. By moving as well as unstitching seams, and consequently making visible
what previously was, in a supposedly natural manner, hidden – as e.g. lining or shoulder pads
– the garments received an unprecedented look.
Apart from Maison Martin Margiela, the most representative examples of this trend
are works of the Comme des Garcons and Yohji Yamamoto fashion houses. However, the list
of designers associated with the deconstruction trend is still growing. In the beginnings of
their activity, that is in the 1980s, the aforementioned designers were commonly called avant-
garde. This was an important period for western fashion, due on the one hand to the first Rei
Kawakubo (the founder of Comme des Garcons) and Yohji Yamamoto shows outside of
Japan, and on the other, to the later debut of the Belgian designers (the informal Antwerp Six
group), especially Martin Margiela. Mainstream fashion in the 1980s is most frequently
associated with intense colours, glossy fabrics and cuts emphasizing feminine shapes. Desired
shapes were modelled with shoulder pads, plunging necklines and close-fitting leggings. In
Kawakubo’s and Yamamoto’s collections, however, dark colours were dominant, and loose,
long styles, which, by striking contrast with the leading trends at that time, were supposed to
provoke surprise. In the view of western commentators, the designers broke all existing
fashion conventions.
2
The collection was presented in March 1989 at Paris Fashion Week.

The importance of Japanese designers in Europe during that period was so high that
Yuniya Kawamura named it the Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion (2004). The very title
of her book builds a tension between the East and the West. The author presents profiles of
Japanese designers who became noticed and recognized as ‘Japanese’, due to their use of a
characteristic set of aesthetic features. Even though they made no direct references to the
elements of Japanese culture recognized in the West, they were regarded as oriental. The
different, the foreign and the unknown were standardized and almost automatically
incorporated into the cultural stereotype, which, as Edward Said remarked, ‘intensified the
hold of the nineteenth-century academic and imaginative demonology of “the mysterious
Orient”’ (Said 1977: 41). On top of this, the media contributed to such a reception, presenting
a ready-made interpretation of the discussed fashion show through general and simple
associations.
It would not, however, be true to assume that in the case of the Japanese revolution
we only deal with a mental image: on the one hand, because it constitutes an integral part of
European culture; and on the other, because it seems to be a conscious strategy on the part of
the Japanese designers. It was not only discovered that the designs represent Japanese
aesthetics, but also that the aesthetics were in a sense created – the designers became re-
orientalized. This was a kind of a performative gesture from the European fashion system
towards designers from the outside. The domination of Europe was, nonetheless, utilized by
Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto and, a couple of years earlier, by Issey Miyake, who
employed the ‘Japanese’ element for their own purposes. As Yuniya Kawamura observed, the
revolutionizing of Japanese designers amounted not so much, or rather not only, to the
completely new aesthetics that they proposed, but mostly to their status as a group coming
from outside of western culture (Kawamura 2004: 94–95).
Importantly, the notion of ‘deconstruction’ was emerging simultaneously with large-
scale activities aimed at a revival of the rich traditions of the Belgian textile industry. ‘The
Textile Plan’, announced on 1 January 1981, comprised a number of actions aimed at not only
restoring the importance of Belgium among the fashion capitals, but also creating from
scratch Belgian fashion as a brand. The plan (implemented by the Institute for Textile and
Clothing of Belgium) envisaged both financial support and promotional activities under the
slogan ‘Dit is Belgisch/C’est belge’. As argued by Javier Gimeno Martinez (2008) in the
article ‘Fashion, country and city: The fashion industry and the construction of collective
identities (1981–2001)’, Belgian fashion before 1980 practically did not exist, the industry
was in decline, and the currently well-known design department at the Royal Academy of
Fine Arts in Antwerp was not even sufficiently equipped (Martinez 2008: 51–65). A
breakthrough event for Belgian fashion was a 1988 London show of six fashion designers,
graduates of the Academy. The debut of the group – which the British press named the

‘Antwerp Six’, composed of Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs,
Dirk Van Seane, Marina Yee and Walter Van Beirendonck – one year later at the Martin
Margiela show sealed the success of the national brand.
Practices
In The Berg Companion to Fashion (2010) under the entry ‘Japanese fashion’, Yuniya
Kawamura wrote: ‘The Japanese designers were the key players in the redefinition of clothing
and fashion, and some even destroyed the Western definition of the clothing system’
(Kawamura 2010: 438). Several dozen pages forward, Kaat Debo and Linda Loppa (2010) in
Belgian designer Martin Margiela’s profile point out the fact that the concept of
deconstruction became very popular in fashion in the beginning of the 2000s, and the term has
been used blindly and haphazardly. Margiela was one of the few designers to whose work it is
justifiably applied. The authors point out the particular importance of his work, which ‘was
deconstructivist because he took not only the garment itself into consideration, but also the
system that produced it’ (Debo and Loppa 2010: 498).
The quotes presented above, even though pertaining to various designers representing
separate aesthetics, aspire to describe different aesthetics through the use of the same
categories. Even though both Maison Martin Margiela’s and Comme des Garcons’s designs
questioned the common habits and tacit principles of the fashion world, the method of
realizing this strategy was in many ways different. The brands definitely share the aesthetics
of destructed and non-finished clothes, as well as an interest in the history of clothing. Martin
Margiela often revisited the conception of clothing immersed in a system rigidly specifying
the roles of designers and of his own works. An attempt at confronting this system found
expression in haute couture collections created, against accepted principles, from recycled
materials and ready-made elements, such as clothing accessories or other ‘found objects’. A
sweater made of socks, a vest made of leather gloves or a coat made of paper chains are just
some examples of the decontextualization constituting a reverse of traditional haute couture.
By directly replicating existing clothes, the designer polemicized with the role of a designer,
or more specifically, with the modernist vision of an artist. A constant dialogue with accepted
principles of design and of correctly constructing clothing is visible in, inter alia, the designs
of entirely flat clothes (Spring/Summer 1998). The two-dimensional clothes resulted from
omitting the shape of the human body from the designing process. The relative character of
‘universal’ principles of the fashion system was also underlined in designs using classic forms
of clothing, like jeans, white shirt or woollen sweater, enlarged a couple of times as compared
to the model’s size. As a result, the clothes cocoon the models; the large magnification
alienates the body, which gets lost under layers of fabrics. It should be emphasized that
besides the designs themselves, the method of their presentation also frequently diverged

from the norm; for example, when he replaced models and real clothes with ‘fashion
technicians’, carrying designs in the form of photos printed on flat surfaces.
Instead of delivering a commentary on clothing itself, the projects of Comme des
Garcons much more frequently place the body in the foreground. In this context,
deconstruction refers rather to the canons of western beauty – the methods of its creation and
execution through cultural codes. The issue of struggling with western canons was often
brought up in relation to Rei Kawakubo’s origins, which according to some commentators,
was supposed to influence a ‘new style and new definition of aesthetics’ (Kawamura 2010:
136–38). This pertains mostly to collections, which referenced the history of deformations of
the female body through clothing. Using such components as pads, stiffening elements, forms
alluding to crinoline, pannier or bustle, and then changing their original uses, Kawakubo drew
attention to their conventional and traditionally oppressive character. Comme des Garcons’s
collections ‘Dress Becomes Body Body Becomes Dress’ (Autumn/Winter 1997), which
consists, among others, in dresses equipped with asymmetrically placed pads, is a good
example of such practices. One of the dresses, which the press dubbed the ‘Quasimodo dress’,
gave an impulse for redefining the category of the ‘ideal body’, exemplified most frequently
by a model’s body. Rei Kawakubo does not sexualize the body. Instead, by transforming the
body grounded in western culture and operating within the ‘western system of fashion’ and
using western means, she puts into question the validity of the ideas of beauty and perfection
accepted in the fashion system. Her designs raise the issue of both male and female dressing
conventions. By deconstructing the history of western fashion and the female body shape, she
reminded the audience that the two are only (or as much as) a cultural convention.
Both Japanese and Belgian designs represented a new aesthetic, which fit the frame of
deconstruction on many levels: its roots, means of artistic expression and means of
communication. The history of both tendencies resembles, in many respects, the process that
Agnes Rocamora described in Fashioning the City: Paris, Fashion and the Media (2009) as
‘fashion media discourse’. By referring to, amongst others, works by Pierre Bourdieu and
Michel Foucault, Rocamora shows Paris as a dense network of texts, including books,
articles, films and photographs, which influenced its mythical status and assured its
permanent place in the collective memory as a fashion city (Rocamora 2009: 12). This
‘discursive creation’ equally pertains to two nations: Japan and Belgium. Japanese designers
were derivatively ascribed with features which the West commonly associated with Japan.
Belgian fashion – which, almost from the very beginning as a result of efforts of many actors
and arising from the popularity of the deconstruction trend, in an atmosphere of general
acceptance – detached itself from the original meaning and began to describe more and more
areas of design. This does not mean, however, that none of the described phenomena had
material, as opposed to imagined, bases for their development. Just the opposite. The

accumulated means of expression, developed experiences and tradition, allowed not only for
their development and diffusion, but also broad acceptance.
Theory
Since the emergence of the term ‘deconstruction’, clothing was supposed todeconstruct, inter
alia, the human body and the ways it is shown, as well as the structure of clothing and rules
for presenting collections. Deconstruction is not the only term used in describing the works of
the aforementioned designers. An example can be the French ‘Le Destroy’ used by Shanon
O’Shea, an expression that draws attention to the anti-fashion character of their collections
and the nihilistic approach of the designers (O’Shea, cited in Gill 2007: 489). The approach
allegedly manifested itself as a loss of trust in the fashion system and a negation of existing
norms. The notions of a collection’s author were discarded, as were the requirement of
constant change and terror of innovation, and clear boundaries between low and high fashion.
Deconstruction in fashion does not lend itself to a simple characterization. It is not a
single movement and cannot be understood only in terms of the methods of design.
Frequently used in explaining the meaning of their actions are the writings of French
philosopher Jacques Derrida, considered to be the author of this critical approach. According
to Derrida’s terminology it is difficult to talk about the ‘use’ of deconstruction in fashion, or
of any technical use of the method at all. This is incompatible with the basic tenet that
deconstruction should not be treated as a method, which places particular emphasis on
procedurality or technicality (Derrida 1988). In principle, that would degrade it to some kind
of act or operation that can be performed according to certain rules. According to Derrida,
such rules cannot exist – which leads the philosopher to using the word ‘event’, supposed to
indicate the active character of the operation, depriving it of passivity, and simultaneously
indicate the existence of many manifestations of deconstruction. In order to deal with this
ambiguity and the terminological blurring, Alison Gill (2007) refers to Derrida’s Letter to a
Japanese Friend (1988):
It is not enough to say that deconstruction could not be reduced to some
methodological instrumentality or to a set of rules and transposable procedures. Nor
will it to do claim that each deconstructive ‘event’ remains singular or, in any case, as
close as possible to something like an idiom or a signature. It must also be made clear
that deconstruction is not even an act or an operation. Not only because there would
be something ‘patient’ or passive about it […]. Not only because it does not return to
an individual or collective subject who would take the initiative and apply it to an
object, a text, a theme, etc. Deconstruction takes place, it is an event that does not

await the deliberation, consciousness, or organization of a subject, or even of
modernity.
(Derrida 1988: 3 [original emphasis])
The open letter to Toshihiko Izutsu is the fullest statement on deconstruction coming directly
from Derrida. The letter he wrote in 1983 is an attempt not so much to define, but rather
explain what deconstruction may be and what is the meaning the author of the term attaches
to it:
the undoing, decomposing, and desedimenting of structures, in a certain sense more
historical than the structuralist movement it called into question, was not a negative
operation. Rather than destroying, it was also necessary to understand how an
‘ensemble’ was constituted and to reconstruct it to this end. However, the negative
appearance was and remains much more difficult to efface than is suggested by the
grammar of the word (de-), even though it can designate a geological restoration
[remonter] rather than a demolition.
(Derrida 1988: 3).
Describing very different clothing designs, in the aforementioned text Alison Gill (2007)
intersperses text with selected fragments from Letter to a Japanese Friend. The patchwork,
resulting not so much from an analysis of the phenomenon, but rather from an attempt at
providing its theoretical grounding through the (re)construction of the source, makes visible
the fissures between theory and practice. Even though Gill to some extent supports the
unsuitability of applying deconstruction and treating it as a method, she simultaneously
underlines the memorable influence of this conception on other areas of thought and practice.
The author, abstracting from literal translation of the philosopher’s words into the language of
fashion, does not avoid looking for possible connections, a process she calls ‘a dialogue of
mutual effect’. In this perspective, clothing is not supposed to be only a simple illustration of
a philosophical idea, but a theoretical object, one which brings into focus the questions posed
by Derrida. The analysis of specific actions by Martin Margiela leads Gill to the statement
that fashion designers also sometimes pay attention to the object of their work and ask about
the conditions of its existence: ‘Like Derrida’s “critique” of philosophy that brings an
imperative to rethink what philosophy performs rather than bringing its closure; Margiela
returns our attention from the question of fashion’s future to the garment and what it does’
(Gill 2007: 503). Ascribing to the designer ‘deconstructive thinking in the process of making
clothing’, she indicates the most common understanding of deconstruction as simply a form
of critiquing the existing order.

Philosophy has never been a popular reference point for fashion design. Fashion
designers themselves never admitted to such fascinations, explicitly denying their connections
to any theoretical trend. Nonetheless, it is difficult to disregard the influence of deconstruction
in the area of broadly defined design, as well as the more or less literal inspirations it provided
to fashion designers. As Annette Lynch and Mitchell D. Strauss note in their book Changing
Fashion: A Critical Introduction to Trend Analysis and Meaning, deconstruction in fashion
was a kind of trend: ‘the radical experiments of a workshop of creative designers create a
stylistic shift that becomes widely adopted and accepted as a mass fashion’ (Lynch and
Strauss 2007: 100). The presence of this trend is visible not only in fashion design, but also in
academic literature, and frequently also in popular fashion or, more broadly, lifestyle
magazines. It is enough to take as an example a couple of headlines informing about trends in
fashion: ‘Trend Alert – Sartorial deconstruction’ (WGSN – Ketteniss 2015), ‘Trend Report: 30
key trends for Autumn/Winter 14: Deconstruction’ (Buro – Ballout 2014), ‘Spring 2011
Trend Report: The strongest spring trends from deconstruction to minimalism were revealed
during New York Fashion Week’ (Elle 2011).
Projects dubbed deconstructivist became some of the most important phenomena in
fashion, a process which literally forced researchers to rethink the language they had been
using. Maison Martin Margiela or Comme des Garcons fashion shows revealed previously
unseen discursive fractures. This change pertained not only to a discussion about
deconstruction, but also fashion in general. It concerned operations performed by designers
who, as previously assumed, should fit into the existing order and subject themselves to the
disciplines imposed by the fashion system – understood as the established order
encompassing the fashion industry and its whole infrastructure. Already at the beginning of
the twentieth century, fashion ceased to be chaotic due to inscribing it into stable temporal
and spatial frameworks. This happened thanks to regular shows of new clothing collections,
which took place twice a year on fixed dates. Novelties regarding colours, shapes or forms of
clothing started to appear regularly, ‘manufactured’ by specialized institutions – fashion
houses and companies trying to foresee trends (Lipovetsky 1987).
Deconstruction in architecture and grap hic design
It is not the first time that a philosophical conception finds its expression in a functional
spatial form. In her article ‘Understanding architecture: Fashion, gender, and modernity’
(1994), Mary McLeod suggests that the expression ‘deconstruction of fashion’ was first used
after the ‘Deconstructivist Architecture’ exhibition organized in 1988 by the Museum of
Modern Art in New York (McLeod 1994). In the mid-1980s, deconstruction also made its
appearance in texts on graphic design, through reference to the philosophy of Derrida, but
also other authors, usually associated with post-structuralism, including Roland Barthes and

Michel Foucault. Discussions in design areas other than fashion – in architecture and graphics
– draw attention to the paradoxes of deconstruction’s functioning in practice. An analysis of
this paradox will allow for situating fashion in the context of other design branches and
bringing into light the problems and questions that rarely appear or are not sufficiently clearly
articulated within our area of interest.
The causal relation, indicated by Mary McLeod, between the appearance of
deconstruction in fashion and its presence in architecture should prompt us to take a closer
look at the latter. The fact that it was during an exhibition, curated by Philip Johnson and
Mark Wigley,
3
that an attempt to characterize deconstruction in architecture and consider its
use in an area very different from writing, suggests an institutional influence behind the
popularity of the term. In order to legitimize the use of the term ‘deconstruction’ outside
philosophical or literary science discourse, an institutional gesture was necessary. The
exhibition presented works by seven selected architects: Peter Eisenman, Coop Himmelblau,
Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha M. Hadid, Rem Koolhas and Bernard Tschumi. In a
short description, the curators wrote about projects that are supposed to deliberately disturb
and distort characteristic features of modernist architecture. Cubist shapes and right angles
were replaced by diagonal lines, curved planes and arches. The classical principles organizing
not only the architectonic forms but the way of conceptualizing the reality become inverted.
Harmony, unity and clarity are displaced by disharmony, fracturing and mystery (MoMA
1988).
Defined in such manner, deconstruction is a form of critique of the established order,
a nonconformist gesture, which exposes not only the structures themselves, but also in a
metaphorical sense, the structures of our thinking and perception. I will return to this further
in the text, referring directly to fashion design. However, such a broad understanding of
deconstruction makes it in many cases a universal rule which provides the opportunity for
interpretation and creates space for numerous phenomena that can be interpreted as
deconstructivist. This easiness brings with it the risk of misuse, which Niall Lucy points out
in her book A Derrida Dictionary:
If I paint a milk bottle red, I won’t have ‘deconstructed’ it. If I wear a nail polish, I
won’t have ‘deconstructed’ my sexuality. If I vote conservative in protest at the
failures of the parliamentary left, I won’t have ‘deconstructed’ politics.
(Lucy 2004: 11)
3
Mark Wigley is also the author of a book on connections between architecture and deconstruction:
The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt (Oxford: MIT Press, 1993).

If a manifestation of deconstruction was to be a red bottle of milk then, according to Derrida’s
words, deconstruction would be everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe this is why
Derrida refrained from talking about deconstruction as such or specifying what deconstruction
is (if it is ‘anything’ in particular). ‘All sentences of the type “deconstruction is X” or
“deconstruction is not,” a priori, miss the point’ (Derrida 1988: 4).
It should also be noted that Jacques Derrida did not write a single word about fashion,
so searching for a connection between his theoretical conception and fashion, even though it
is often attempted by researchers, may be a difficult or even impossible effort. This was not
the case with architecture, about which Derrida wrote, for example in a conversation with
architect Peter Eisenman. They collaborated on the ‘Parc de la Villette’ project, implemented
by Bernard Tschumi. However, while Derrida believed in the strong connection of his
conception with architecture, Eisenman was more doubtful:
I never talk about deconstruction. Other people use that word because they are not
architects. It is very difficult to talk about architecture in terms of deconstruction,
because we are not talking about ruins or fragments. The term is too metaphorical and
too literal for architecture. Deconstruction is dealing with architecture as a metaphor,
and we are dealing with architecture as a reality.
(Eisenman, quoted by Derrida and Hanel 1990: 12)
Eisenman thus points to the fact that architecture uses a language different from that of
philosophy and, as he himself admits, the notions used by Derrida are sometimes not
translatable into architecture, as some aspects of deconstruction cannot pertain to architecture.
Certain problems posed by deconstruction cannot be answered by architecture. Eisenman
looks at things from the point of view of a practising engineer, who uses philosophy and
linguistics as a source of motivation for architecture.
The exchange of letters between the philosopher and the architect brings out the
problematic status of combining deconstruction with architecture, thus drawing attention to
the questionable and ambiguous character of the proces of translating deconstruction into
clothing design. To paraphrase Eisenman’s words: deconstruction in fashion can only work as
a metaphor – even though its status as such is unclear. Both Martin Margiela and Rei
Kawakubo explicitly opposed applying philosophical terms to their work. In an interview, Rei
Kawakubo said:
I am not conscious of any intellectual approach as such. My approach is simple. It is
nothing other than what I am thinking at the time I make each piece of clothing,

whether I think it is strong and beautiful. The result is something that other people
decide.
(Cooke-Newhouse 2008/09)
Deconstruction was also never referred to by Martin Margiela, who criticized combining
fashion design and philosophy (Buckett 1992). The term ‘deconstruction’ came to fashion
from the outside, brought by commentators and critics, who – imposing a specific
interpretative frame on selected designers’ work – simultaneously associated the aesthetics of
the collections with the crisis of 1970s and 1980s punk and grunge. However, while
deconstruction in architecture was finally subjected to an extensive critique, and consequently
turned into a negative nickname of ‘anti-architecture’ – inhuman and detached from the needs
of its users (Salingaros 2008) – the effects and consequences of using this critical procedure
in fashion still have not been discussed.
Another area in which deconstruction appeared as an important inspiration was
graphic design. The role of graphic design can be understood as the process of granting the
writing system a material form through the use of a specific visual structure and graphical
forms. In their article Deconstruction and Graphic Design: History Meets Theory (2010),
Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller emphasize that deconstruction in graphic design functioned
as an attitude inviting to formal experiments. Lupton and Miller describe the influence of
Derrida’s texts on graphic design and apply his category of a ‘parergon’ in their analysis of
design practices (Lupton and Miller 2010: 192–200).
4
In his book La verite en peinture (The
Truth in Painting, 1978), Derrida makes a reference to Immanuel Kant’s works and
polemicizes with the Enlightenment philosopher’s definition of the category of parergon.
5
Drawing on Derrida’s critique (see Derrida 1978), Lupton and Miller indicate the
controversiality of dividing a work of art into its core and its ‘extrinsic additions’. In
typography this is reflected in appreciating borders and edges, punctuation and spaces:
‘Design and typography work at the edges of writing, determining the shape and style of
letters, the spaces between them, and their positions on the page’ (Lupton and Miller 2010:
198). The connection between graphic design and Derrida’s analytical writing on the subject
of western art and philosophy finds its reflection in the tangible area of writing – in the
spaces, columns, margins and punctuation, or the form of the letters and text itself. The
authors try to prove that, in contradiction to fashion or architecture, graphic design does not
offer easily classifiable deconstruction methods. But taking into account the broadness of this
approach and diversity of its interpretations, it is difficult to verify those words.
4
‘Origin: early 17th century: via Latin from Greek parergon, from para- “beside, additional” + ergon
“work”’ (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/parergon. Accessed 22 April 2015).
5
Kant mentions examples of columns in buildings, festoons on statues and picture frames.

Similarly to other areas of design, in many narratives the connection between fashion
and deconstruction functions not as a literal translation of theory into practice, but as a critical
process and an act of constant questioning (see e.g. Loscialpo 2011; Kiziltunali 2012). The
debates taking place within other design disciplines allow for the naming of the problems that
are present in fashion as well – both those connected with attempts at combining philosophy
and functional form, and those pertaining to categorizing and pegging designs and designers.
Many critics would like to see deconstruction in design as an internal critique of the fashion
system; some of them pay attention to its valuable intellectual aspect and others to the
aesthetic considerations (Evans 2003; Debo and Loppa 2010; Gill 2007). The question is
whether deconstruction in fashion (still) fulfils this role and whether it still subverts the
existing order. In other words, should we treat deconstruction in fashion not as a subversive
approach, but a historical period or even a style?
Alternative theoretical perspectives
In the above-mentioned text – which presents the profile of Martin Margiela – Kaat Debo and
Linda Loppa characterize the work of the designer as ‘a set of analyses questioning the
established theories of what already exists in order to search for alternatives that can be
brought to life, both within and outside the system’ (2010: 498). Particularly important here is
the emphasis on the position of the designer and the relationship between his work and the
fashion system in which he functions. Those words can also be applied to comments on Rei
Kawakubo’s work, whose success in the Paris fashion scene was connected with coming from
the outside of that world. A similar tension, in a completely different context, is referred to by
Michel de Certeau in his book Arts de faire (1980, translated into English with the title The
Practice of Everyday Life). The author analyses various practices of the use of the dominant
language in order to find ever new ways of ‘poaching’. In order to describe the relation, de
Certeau divided cultural practices into two types: strategies and tactics. Strategies, connected
with institutions, create and impose specific methods of operation. Tactics can, at best,
capture and manipulate these strategies. In the introduction to the book, de Certeau wrote:
The latter is devious, it is dispersed, but it insinuates itself everywhere, silently and
almost invisibly, because it does not manifest itself through its own products, but
rather through its ways of using the products imposed by a dominant economic order.
(de Certeau 1990 [1980]: xxxvii)
Tactics do not reject or transform the system, but rather in various ways make individualized
use of its rules and customs. Michel de Certeau writes about the user as a bricoleur, who
tinkers with the dominant cultural economy (1990 [1980]: xli).

This mode of analysis was used by John Fiske in his text ‘The Jeaning of America’
(published in Understanding Popular Culture [2010 (1989)]) for analysing the meaning of the
popular garment: jeans. The author makes reference to de Certeau and his military metaphor
‘guerrilla tactics’ to show that the ordinary usage of trousers can be interpreted as a quiet
opposition against the capitalist economic order. Analysing the phenomena of popular culture,
the author points to the process of excorporation by which
the subordinate make their own culture out of the resources and commodities
provided by the dominant system, and this is central to popular culture, for in an
industrial society the only resources from which the subordinate can make their own
subcultures are those provided by the system that subordinates them.
(Fiske 2010 [1989]: 15)
Fiske clearly accentuates the role of everyday users in relation to the dominant economic
system, which frequently adapts previously subversive solutions that subsequently make their
way to the mainstream. An example can be torn jeans as an ostentatious opposition against
consumption, which then, with the participation of the biggest brands, obtain a purely
aesthetic character and are accepted as fashionable. In this perspective, the designs by
deconstructionists can be interpreted in at least two ways. The first is based on pointing out
the aesthetic similarities between deconstruction in fashion and youth subcultures which
began developing in the 1970s, mostly punk and grunge. The second, instead of looking for
the beginnings, focuses on the importance of the deconstruction movement in relation to the
contemporary fashion system.
Washed out, tattered, holey garments were supposed to visually reflect nihilistic
fashion, which was a reaction against the economic stagflation and unemployment of the
1970s and 1980s (English 2007: 103). Clothes worn by punks were described as a negation of
the existing order not only in the socio-economic context, but also, as Malcolm Barnard
points out, the cultural context: ‘Punk was an attempt to challenge both bourgeois culture and
the capitalist system that promoted and sold the insipid products of that culture’ (Barnard
2002: 136). Looking for connections between deconstruction and the anti-fashion of
subcultures, based on, amongst others, the idea of ‘do it yourself’, we may return to the power
relations described by Fiske. From this point of view, the designers within the deconstruction
trend occupy a privileged position in the dominant system as producers, selling commodities
which utilize the language of their users. Thus the elements of incompletion, wear and tear –
present in works by Martin Margiela and other designers – cannot be interpreted as true
rebellion. As John Fiske pointed out, in this proces ‘signs of opposition are turned to the

advantage of that which they oppose and fashionably worn-torn garments become another
range of commodities’ (Fiske 2010 [1989]: 18).
Martin Margiela’s and Rei Kawakubo’s designs can also be interpreter from a
different perspective. While in the first of the proposed interpretations we ask what elements
used by subcultures are ‘repeated’ in the works of fashion designers, in the other instead of
asking ‘what?’ we should consider asking ‘how?’ designers pick certain elements and re-use
them. In the case of the designers discussed here, the tension between the system and user is
perhaps distributed differently, mostly due to the fact that insubordination pertains to the very
designer, who starts ‘poaching’ inside the established order. This may be exemplified by one
of the most radical projects of the Maison Martin Margiela fashion house, entitled Replica,
which began in 1994 (realized also in 2003 and 2004). The project involved sewing again
some already existing garments. These were reproductions of found clothing (also in second-
hand stores) from various periods in history and representing disparate fashion styles. Maison
Martin Margiela’s label provided additional information on the style of the garment, its origin
and the date of production of the original. As Kaat Debo notes: ‘The fashion world is so
willing to forget that true innovation is only possible when founded upon a total command of
the craft and a rigorous historical knowledge’ (2008: 12). The designer’s interest in the
history of fashion is not, however, reduced to simple historicism. Time here is not revived,
but constitutes an object of reflection; its most important category is transience. Thus the
seasonal production of new clothing according to changing trends is juxtaposed with
production of a completely different kind. It is not manifested in its products, but in making
use of already existing products. Using a modest technical procedure – repetition – Martin
Margiela reflected on the models organizing the fashion world: the dictate of constant change
and terror of creativity. Simultaneously, he only potentially went beyond the system, as
operating within its limits grants the designer security.
Replica also questions the position of a fashion designer as the author of clothes. The
project openly repeats already existing material products, excluded by the order imposed by
the fashion world. As observed by de Certeau, tactics are not centred on the author as the
agent of actions, but on ways in which the actions are performed. The same aspect is pointed
out by Roland Barthes in La mort de l’auteur (The Death of the Author), where the role of the
author is diminished to the sake of writing itself. Writing is thus supposed to be oriented
towards the point where it is not ‘me’ doing something, but rather the language itself is
performing itself (Barthes 1994 [1968]). Designers use language as a system and repeatedly
fail its expectations – contorting and deforming it. An example of that can be the strategy,
used in many Comme des Garcons collections, of decomposing the identifiable forms of
clothing – e.g. men’s suit or women’s flounced skirts – and putting together their fragments in
a new way (see e.g. Autumn/Winter 2006). The basis for this practice is the western system of

constructing clothes, which are then literally de-constructed. While Margiela was moving and
undoing darts, Kawakubo seems to push the limits of interference into ‘correctly’ constructed
clothing. Comme des Garcons’s collection often resembles collages of freely combined
elements, a collage of decontextualized sleeves, lapels, pockets or trouser legs.
6
Such
treatment involves both clarity and recognizability of specific fragments of clothes, and their
surprising placement and accumulation in non-obvious places (Spring/Summer 2013).
The strategy used by Maison Martin Margiela and Comme des Garcons operates
within fashion, and is simultaneously directed against it, posing a question regarding the
status of fashion in general. It is self-critical and operates from within the established system,
which generates its self-referential character. It is a critical dismantling, but the designers
definitely do not aim at denying the very system in which they operate. The analysed projects,
used as an example of a much broader phenomenon, do not attempt to demolish, but rather
show the arbitrariness of the foundations of the fashion world. They use a well-known and
institutionalized language to create designs, and in turn support its vitality. Legitimization of
the fashion system began long before the well-known collaboration between the analysed
fashion houses and H&M (Comme des Garcons in 2008; Maison Martin Margiela in 2012). It
is worth noting that in the case of the latter, the cooperation took place already after Martin
Margiela had left the fashion house in 2009. A good example is the development of the
Maison Martin Margiela brand, which at the beginning of the 1990s consisted only of a small
team of collaborators. Both the number of its employees and the number of its boutiques grew
quickly. The increasing popularity of Margiela’s projects also resulted in him getting
employed as art director by the renowned Hermes brand, as well as in a number of other
commercial projects, which took place after he had already left (e.g. a retrospective exhibition
in Mode Museum in Antwerp and publications of further books about the brand).
The aforementioned cooperation of Martin Margiela and Comme des Garcons with
Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) – one of the largest fashion chains – caused surprise or even strong
critique among some, while others approved of it as a step towards the democratization of
fashion, merely confirming the strong position of brands in the world of fashion. As a result,
fashion houses overtook symbols expressing defiance and incorporated elements of clothing
characteristic to subjugated groups (such as destruction and being worn out, recycling) into
the dominant system. This strategy, as noted by John Fiske, not only deprives those groups of
the language they themselves often developed, but, what is particularly important, in fashion
the aforementioned incorporation also prevents the very existence of dissidence (Fiske 2010
[1989]: 19).
6
More on collage in Comme des Garçons’s work can be found in Michael Stone- Richards’ text ‘I am
a cat’. See Stone-Richards (2008).

Conclusion
As shown in the article, deconstruction in fashion applies to very disparate phenomena. The
necessity of rethinking it is connected with the problematic status of Derridian thought as
applied to clothing. The case is not so much that such a description is incorrect or unfitting for
some reason, but rather that its use too frequently provokes comparisons with the
philosopher’s specific texts and statements, which may give rise to misinterpretations.
Derrida’s philosophical writings operate on a different level, and do not propose clear
solutions or interpretations. Deconstruction cannot be simply used as a functional tool, and
cannot pertain to all phenomena that point to stereotypes, cliches and culturally entrenched
ways of thinking. The aim here is not to get rid of the term ‘deconstruction in fashion’ and
replace it with a different one. The term has great historical value, as it demonstrates the
formation of a new language in fashion. It also reflects an intellectual trend that manifests
itself in many other areas. Deconstruction in fashion gives rise to questions regarding the
fashion system and subjects its own language, materials and principles to analysis. It was
frequently tagged by theoreticians to describe a mistrustful approach or research method, and
not a method of designing. With time, deconstruction became a useful form of categorizing
based on recognizable aesthetic elements and design solutions. Critique and analysis of
fashion also allowed for the sanctioning of the recognizable style, with characteristic forms
and a set of possible approaches to deconstructing fashion.
Even though the propositions of Maison Martin Margiela and Comme des Garcons, as
well as other representatives of deconstruction in fashion, broke some accepted rules,
frequently causing outrage or simply a lack of understanding, it took little time for the fashion
system to entirely absorb its own critique, turning it into an attractive product. De Certeau
himself pointed to the potential risk of tactics changing into strategies when taken over by
official institutions. Far from irrelevant is the fact that in the case of phenomena connected
with fashion, though not only with it, the very categories of a ‘producer’ and ‘consumer’ are
blurred and need to be reconsidered each time. As John Fiske pointed out in the context of
popular culture, the relations between a producer and the consumer are not stable, but each
time subject to negotiations (Fiske 2010 [1989]: 19). Probably the best example of this is
jeans. Torn and worn out, the denim trousers are one of the most recognizable motives
associated with deconstruction in modern fashion. It is difficult, however, to point to one
source of their recurring popularity and ubiquity not only on the catwalks, but mostly in the
streets. It is difficult to find one author of this motive in fashion; it can be sought both in
grass-root practices of consumers, the punk movement in the 1980s, or works by designers
analysed in this article.
This constant tension between domination and subordination was in many respects
eliminated in the context of deconstruction. Using Derridian notions, one can say that

deconstruction was absorbed by the mainstream and gained general legitimization. The effect
of this stabilization of meaning is the creation of a clear structure using specific means,
towards which Derrida directed his critique. We are thus dealing with a paradoxical situation
where a secluded trend in fashion since the 1980s was transformed into a recognizable style,
becoming a part of the fashion system. Instead of constantly undermining structures and
questioning principles, it also follows well-established methods of functioning, developed and
applied to clothing collections throughout seasons. Deconstructing clothing and fashion
became a method that Derrida himself warned against.
Remaining faithful to his thought one can say, however, that exactly thanks to that,
deconstruction in fashion at present can become the subject of a critical operation aimed
against stabilized notions, in which, according to the words of Derrida, the structures should
be ‘undone, decomposed, desedimented’ (Derrida 1988: 2).
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Suggested citation
Zborowska, A. (2015), ‘Deconstruction in contemporary fashion design: Analysis and
critique’, International Journal of Fashion Studies, 2: 2, pp. 185–201, doi:
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