Disrupting the chaos of fashion week

Just over a month into the new year, and Paris has already found itself immobilised after two terror attacks, with the resulting security measures making a mark on the daily lives of French citizens. The recent Menswear and Haute Couture shows went ahead with stricter security than ever, adding a heightened, perhaps more genuine sense of stress to the superfluous buzz of being ‘busy’ that so dramatically plagues the fashion industry. In fact, it was the constant condition of being ultra-occupied that cult fashion paper Vestoj have focused on for their latest issue – dubbed The Vestoj Journal on Slowness. Founder Anja Aronowsky Cronberg explains: “It explores the politics of time in dress ­– from our ongoing infatuation with nostalgia and the current focus on craftsmanship, to all the ‘slow movements’ that are gathering force in culture, as well as the importance of technological advances in capitalist production and the constantly accelerating pace of society today – something which fashion is right at the centre of.”

Adding her own statement to the ‘slow movement’, last Tuesday night Aronowsky Cronberg staged a performance piece entitled Vestoj Salon on Slowness, supported by the Fondation Galeries Lafayette – a recently established institution which aids the production of new work in the creative disciplines. Guests were invited to take a moment off the hectic Haute Couture schedule to experience a piece of art, played out inside the Champs Elysees ex-apartments of celebrated art collector and famed eccentric Charles de Beistegui. Juxtaposing the grandeur of the Le Corbusier-designed space with Vestoj’s lo-fi, avant-garde aesthetic, the performance played out on a raw wooden stage constructed by French architect Estelle Vincent, complemented by the addition of equally neutral wooden furniture props by David Myron, including a boudoir table missing its mirror, and a clothes rack hung with lifeless calico garments.

“We wanted to create a moment of contemplation outside ­– or it is inside? – of the busyness of fashion week, and contemporary life in general.” – Scarlett Rouge

Bringing this aseptic scenography to life was none other than Scarlett Rouge, the multidisciplinary performance artist, painter, chef – and daughter of another fashion multi-tasker and icon, Michele Lamy. Acting as a lady’s maid to Lola Peploe’s mute character, Rouge enacted a ritualistic dressing ceremony whilst humming a looping passage from “Vexations” by Erik Satie, clothing Peploe piece by piece in the trappings of an 18th century French aristocrat – albeit stripped of the fine silks and embroidery. Like a call-and-response with Rouge’s discordant humming, narrator Nick Haughton read passages from popular literature (from Alice in Wonderland to Milan Kundera), weaving a spoken word element through the piece, which tied together any possible confusion as to the philosophical gravity of this rebellious fashion happening. Upon the completion of Peploe’s outfit, bustle and all, Rouge led the silent aristocrat towards the audience spinning her like a doll, before she instantly burst to life, closing the performance with a single, eerie question to the audience: “Have you got the time?” – to which so many, for once, were unable to respond, after being mesmerised in the show.

“As we know, the perception of time is relative,” said Rouge after the performance, “We wanted to create a moment of contemplation outside ­– or it is inside? – of the busyness of fashion week, and contemporary life in general. That being said, in my role as ‘dresser’, I was pretty much constantly in motion. To me, it was this contrast of movement and stillness, and the combination of past and present that made the performance so strong. People approached me afterwards to say that they felt almost guilty about how they manage their time, which I think is an amazing compliment and, hopefully, evidence of the impact and resonance of our performance. For me as an artist there is no greater mark of achievement than the ability to stir emotions and create space for self-questioning.”