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Ⅰ. Introduction

 Fashion and art use each other as motifs to create works that follow or transform the human body. Since ancient Greek times the human body has been recognized as a smaller universe and endeavored to discover the secret of beauty through its proportions (Choi, 2001). However, the idea of human body changes through history and provides opportunities for diverse results through the interaction between biological and social elements (Shilling, 2003). The disciplines of design and art existed in their own extensive fields, but were altered at different times in the late twentieth century. They are now often discussed under the same heading of creativity. Artists including painters, sculptors, installation artists and performance artists have all received inspiration from the garment itself or from the meaning or intrinsic characteristics of the material of the fabric, and the movement of the garment. Likewise, high fashion designers strive to inculcate aesthetic value and philosophical ideas into their works by expanding into the area of performance and installation art. Moreover, the design process has already been guaranteed to have aesthetic value and notional value (Koda, 2001). Since earlier eras fashion and art have tried to find an absolute aesthetic that proved their worth at that time. Nevertheless, fashion together with visual art and architectural spheres traditionally wasn’t classified as a separate field of research (Svendsen, 2006). However, debates concerning fashion have recently been placed in the centre of all disciplines and provide new streams in academic publications (Svendsen, 2006). For what reason is the relationship between fashion and art constantly debated and why is fashion the centre of attention in the field of creation? This is because the two disciplines are positioned in the centre of the project of transforming the human body. In other words, the direct relationship with the human body and the social body, and fashion particularly, is the medium that can most easily represent this connection.

 Fashion and art are similar in their intrinsic aspects of restructuring the human body individually or socially to produce new material. These two disciplines form the most intimate relationship with the human body within the generally classified areas of design. Particularly, architecture bases its work on the basic ratios of the human body and this has been already debated and proved by many scholars. These theories are basically about the proportion of the human body, and architects from the ancient Greek days to the present time find an aesthetic standard in the ratio of the human body. Moreover, since architecture was created to benefit human beings, the human body reflects it. From this basis, researcher has prescribed that architecture, similar to fashion, also comprehends the human body. The human body is the most significant subject in architecture, fashion and all other fields in art. The reason researcher includes architecture and fashion, and moreover architectural fashion in the discipline of art is because these are also creations made with the human body as their foundation. However, these processes of creation result in different forms of creations depending on the aesthetics at the point in time and the approach of the creator. Therefore, although the creation started with the body as the subject, the resulting product can be differentiated by the creator by the way the body is interpreted. Bone, skin and musculature that biologically construct the human body and the movement are expressed from this structure. The social circumstances are layered on this to establish the basic motifs for fashion and art. The artist who creates artificial bodies is indeed tampering with powerful forces. Because the ‘body’is always heavily loaded with symbolic meaning, its creation and re-creation should never be approached capriciously (Polhemus, 1988). “Fashion is about body: it is produced, promoted and worn by bodies (Entwistle, 2000, p.2).” This research will unravel the relationship between these disciplines of the human body, which is the foundation of ideas in fashion and art.

 This research aim is to analyze the attributes of fashion as an object of art, and to examine its potential and status as an art of body space. The paper explains the relationship between these two disciplines by focusing on the body as the foundation of fashion and art’s concepts, and discusses the intrinsic properties and the approach to the creation of fashion which is expressed through the body. From this claim the following questions arise:

 (1) Why did fashion become an object of art and how did this affect the idea of body space?

(2) What is interpreting the body and how did it affect the body transformed?

(3) What are the naked, nude, clothed and fashioned, and what are its characteristics, and what is the role of their relationship?  

 The research begins by analyzing the sociologists' thoughts on the body and extracts the characteristics of fashion as a practice of a new art field from the perspective of body creating space. It explains that fashion can most easily transform the body and that this, along with the body itself, possesses the element of creating body space. Fashion is a new avenue for understanding the body that not only includes the human figure but also its movement and spirit approached as a creative activity. The paper will show that fashion chosen as an art activity expresses the changeable and ambiguous body and embraces an unlimited potential of creative activity. This expands the creative field by managing both the inner and outer space of the body. The thinking of cultural theorists is analyzed to derive the characteristics of fashion as a creation of space around the body. The research bases its study on historical examination, literature review, overview of developments and analysis of selected practices of contemporary fashion artists.

Ⅱ. Fashion and Art: Project of the Body Transformed

1. Interpreting the body

 Interpreting the body, that is ‘reading’the body, is the first step in the creative process that involves body as ‘motif’. A person can only create by knowledge of his or her body or through awareness of its change (Dolmatoff, 1997). Furthermore, this awareness is never easily described. It varies according to an individual’s perception. It relies on what we have previously experienced of the body (Svendsen, 2006). The human body exhibits both its physical and social characteristics; we can assume that the creative artist/designer selects only the physical characteristics of the body to precede with his/her work and that the act of interpreting the body relates body to his/her experiences. This section will first look at the discussions of body in order to carry on a deeper and more thorough research of the body as the motif in creation.

 Collins English Dictionary (1995) defines “your ‘body’ is all your physical parts, including your head, arms, and legs. You can also refer to the main part of your body, except for your arms, head, and legs, as your body. You can refer to a person’s dead body as a body.” In addition, Wikipedia English dictionary (2008) defines that “with regard to living things, a body is the integral physical material of an individual. “Bodyoften is used in connection with appearance, health issues and death. The study of the working of the body is physiology.” This dictionary also defines that “the human body mostly consists of a head, neck, torso, two arms and two legs (‘body’, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body).” The body is defined in the dictionaries as the major element of human biology. However, in order for humans to survive in society, the ‘social body’carries as important a role as the ‘biological body’. Hence, as many creations base their motif on the body, it is assumed that this includes both biological and social attributes. The body is subordinated and fitted into the social codes that verify identity and enable communication within or between the groups (Michaud, 1999). From this perspective, sociologist Erving Goffman in his book Behavior in Public Places (1963) claimed that the body is an essential element in human behavior, and the approach of garments, decorations and cosmetics involved in presenting posture, attitude and our identify is called interactive awareness. As can be seen, the human body as an entity only survives when mental and social functionality is added to the biological functionality.

 Arguments regarding the body have arisen as a significant area of research in sociology from the mid-twentieth century as can be seen from Erving Goffman’s (1963) ‘Body in everyday life’ to Michel Freund’s ‘the civilized body,’ Bryan S. Turner’s (1984) ‘body and social rules,’ Foucault’s (1985) ‘disappearing body,’ J. O’Neil’s (1985) ‘five bodies,’ A. Frank’s (1990) ‘body and human behavior’ and Chris Shilling’s (1993) ‘the body and social.’ Since the 1980s the sociology of the body has been recognized as an independent area of research within sociology, and has been actively debated. In contrast, Turner’s (1984) ‘the body and society’ and Shilling’s (1993) ‘the body and social theory’ focus on what we discussed about the body as a creative motive.

 Turner began his book The Body and Society (1984) by illustrating that there is an “obvious and prominent fact about human beings: they have bodies and they are bodies.” The body, he said, constitutes flesh and spirit which cannot be separated and the body is a tool for expressing the human self as well as the biological self. Turner explained that:

 “Any sociology of the body involves a discussion of social control and any discussion of social control must consider the control of women’s bodies by men under a system of patriarchy. … Our bodies are a natural environment, while also being socially constructed: the disappearance of this environment is also my disappearance. Bodily secretions can not be easily ignored and, for that matter, they can not be easily controlled: this is one source of those persistent metaphors relating to the body politic and the human body (Turner, 1984, pp. 1-2).”

“While the body is an object with specific physiological characteristics and thus subject to natural processes of ageing and decay, it is never just a physical object. As embodied consciousness, the body is drenched with symbolic significance. Phenomenology is a critique of behaviorism which, in treating the body as an object separate from consciousness, has to embrace, however covertly, Cartesian dualism. …. In philosophical terms, an individual person in the full sense of the term is a being with a body, consciousness, continuity, commitment, and responsibility (Turner, 1984, p.54). … At the individual level, my body is an environment that is experienced as a limit, but my consciousness also involves embodiment (Turner, 1984, p.58).” 

 Turner clarified how sociology is connected to the relationship between the spirit and the body (Shilling, 1993). In addition, he proved that the human spirit is expressed through body, and defined this as the rule of the social body restructured from experience. The biological body is unable to change but the social body has unlimited potential to transform.

Ten years after Turner’s theory was propounded, another sociologist, Chris Shilling, re-defined the body in his book The Body and Social Theory (1993) . Shilling argued that: 

 “Recognizing that the body has become a project for many modern persons entails accepting that its appearance, size, shape and even its contents, are potentially open to reconstruction in line with the design of its owner. Treating the body as a project does not necessarily entail a full-time preoccupation with its wholesale transformation, although it has the potential to do so. However, it does involve individuals being conscious of messages about a person’s self-identity. In the context, bodies become malleable entities which can be shaped and honed by the vigilance and hard work of their owner (Shilling, 1993, p.4).”

 By analyzing the naturally constructed approach and the socially constructed approach, Shilling asserted that while the human body transforms to fit into society, it exists as a physical and biological substance during the transformation process. Moreover, he described the body that exists in the transformation process as ‘the body as a project.’ He indicated there are two limitations caused by the body as a project:

 “Bodies are limited not only in the sense that they unlimitedly die, but their frequent refusal to be moulded in accordance with our intentions. Another limitation in the rise of the body as a project is the way in which individual images of the desirable body can become harnessed to the perpetuation of pre-existing social inequalities (Shilling, 1993, p.7).”

 The body as a project is guaranteed the flexibility to change despite problems, as it has been given the indulgence to express an individual unique spirit.The reason behind the body having the value of a motif in art is that the social body is able to constantly be transformed, and the body project consequently guaranteed its flexibility, as mentioned by Turner (1984) and Shilling (1993). With the body artificially created from the spirit, the unconscious imitation of the biological body, seen from the creation process, makes the third object restructured from self-experience, the called ‘social residual.’ Therefore, the body created by different methods exists with both biological form and sociological spirit identical to the intrinsic composition of the body.

2. The body: Naked, nude, clothed and fashioned

 Art, along with the nude, is led by the body to persist in expressing a garment’s extreme sense. Ongoing debates regarding the body as the motif in art are focused on the ‘pure body with nothing worn,’ and another on the ‘body as object’ that is worn by that pure body. If pure body, the so-called ‘biological body’, has been used as an object for art, then this can be classified as the socialized body or another form of the body that has been used by art. Researcher defines a ‘socialized body’ that is formed or adapted by the creator’s mind as the body that is an object of art, rather than the ‘biological body’. A biological body can only become an object of art when a creator reproduces it as a social body.

 In this research, Researcher categorizes the social body as ‘naked’, ‘nude’, ‘clothed’ and ‘fashioned’ based on its characteristics and function. These social bodies were given the titles ‘body itself’, ‘body as an object of art’, ‘body to protect body’, ‘the second body’ and ‘body surroundings’ to be the subject for debates. In order to provide detail and clarity to these terminologies, Researcher defines the first dimension of the social body as the ‘naked body,’ the second as ‘nude,’ the third as the ‘concise social representative of the body’, and ‘fashion embodying the body’ as the fourth. As this research recognizes the social body reinterpreted by the designer/artist as the motif for art, the first dimension of the naked body that exists with no stimulus is excluded from the category of body (See Fig. 1).

<Fig. 1> Positions of the social bodies

 There are several arguments related to the bodies. Naked body holds more meaning than natural body. Hollander illustrated that naked body is generally not experienced and acknowledged, and this is defined as clothes itself (Entwistle, 2000). In addition, John Berger (1972) prescribed that in reproduction of art and media, body is worn from the social custom and system despite the absence of clothes and this is the trait of naked and nude. Furthermore, Lars Svendsen (2006) argued that “rather than present clothes, it (the naked body) has been a matter of presenting an image in which the model’s body has been the bearer of symbolic values (Svendsen, 2006). “The naked body is anything but value-natural. Hence, nothing can be called ‘naked body’. Since naked body always exists within the boundary of society, this always has to be worn (Hollander, 1993, pp. 83-156)”. Therefore, if naked body is to be given a meaning, it can be something with ‘visible absence’ (Hollander, 1993; Svendsen, 2006).

 Sociologists generally classified the ‘naked body’ and ‘nude’ as a socialized body based on the fact that it lies within society. However, the naked body is differentiated from the nude and is defined as the first dimension of the social body from the perspective that nude is the subject in an artwork. Furthermore, the nude, as the artistically ‘transformed naked body’ can be defined as the second dimension. The ‘nude’ is conceptually not the same as a naked body, but is a form of dress worn from a modern cultural point of view (Entwistle, 2000). In other words, the nude can be described as the naked body that wears fashion developed by an artist’s spirit. Therefore, nudes seen in sculptures, paintings and photos wear the artist’s intentions and hence are social bodies reconstructed by the artist. Nude being the dimension  second body, holds an artistic value as something inherent to the artist’s mind, which is a characteristic of social body-conception. While fashion generally moves continuously by going forward and then backwards, the central idea of the nude body is proven to be unchangeable and a common standard (Koda, 2001). In sculptures or in paintings, this is regarded as the body clothed and conveys an artist’s meaning (Koda, 2001). In addition, photography benefits from the restricted reproduction of modern ideas that are worn on a naked body (Koda, 2001). This is due to the fact that fashion involves the subjective mind, unlike clothes which are an object with the pure function of protecting the body.

 Hegel emphasized that body and clothing are two separate areas, but these spheres should always guarantee unrestricted improvement of each other’s disciplines (Hegel in Svendsen, 2006). Although fashion from the beginning was expressed as the relative freedom related to the body figure, the form of body and clothes were always within the same ‘dialogue’ (Svendsen, 2006). The body and clothes are being discussed concerning their linked relationship, and one thing that is clear is that clothes, the third dimension of the social body, are the ‘mirror’ of the naked body and are the specific object that can most easily represent its biological fact. This is one of the reasons I classify clothes and fashion as another type of social body. The individual activity of wearing clothes is the activity of preparing to become a social body as (socially) required, and dress is another significant way of learning how an individual can live alongside their body (Entwistle & Wilson, 1999). Furthermore, clothes form a part of an individual, but not merely as the outer appearance related to the individual identity as we all possess ways of expressing ourselves through visual form (Svendsen, 2006). The third dimension of the social body of clothes can most easily represent the body and we can call this a second skin because it is the object of the concise expression of our spirit. The understanding of dress required in everyday life consists of categories of experience in time and space (Entwistle, 2000). Moreover, time and space demonstrate the way we derive another form of body from the body or dress, through the collision with our feelings, relationships and other factors (Entwistle, 2000). The classification of the difference between the clad, fashionable beauty, and an artist’s naked model or a reappearance of the ‘demimondaine’ was more accentuated not only by the outer appearance, but from the revival of how dress is worn (Koda, 2001). Clothes displayed by a naked body not only represent a person’s imagination, but also conveys his or her life experiences (Hollander, 1975, cited in Svendsen, 2006). How clothes are worn, or how to wear clothes are differently expressed visually and sensually depending on the consciousness of the host (be it individual or group) of this act.

 When an artist chooses clothes, as the third dimension of the body, as the motif of his or her work, this is done as a convenient material to express his or her history and identity to the outside world. Furthermore, artists try to express their prior experience or spirit rather than clothes form itself, and this is the characteristic of fashion, which is the fourth dimensional of the social body. Fashion embraces its surroundings, the spirit and the movement of body more broadly than mere clothes, or the detailed body. Fashion does not imitate the body to protect it, but surrounds the spirit of the body. This may or may not overtly adhere to the form of clothing. Hence fashion, as a motif of artwork, reflects the movement and surrounds of the body, which can revive our spirit. Therefore, when an artist uses the body as the motif, this body departs from the biological body and become a socialized body in any form that possesses the artist’s spirit.

 Social bodies that have been discussed so far can be classified further into ‘socialized body’ and ‘social body as an object of art’. First, ‘socialized body’ includes the first social body, naked body, and the third social body, clothes. Second, ‘social body as an object of art’ includes nude, the second social body, and fashion, the fourth social body. Socialized bodies of naked body and clothes are dependent bodies and are passive bodies that unconsciously reflect the social environment. The way we treat the body is adapted to customs and rituals of mass society. In addition, there is a strongly conservative characteristic that expresses itself by reflecting the social rituals. Socialized bodies tend to pursue a collective sociality and are resistant to change, are content with received reality, tending to be fixed and restrained. On the other hand, social bodies as an object of art that is, nude and fashion, are independent and active bodies that consciously regulate and control the social environment. This type of body abolishes customs and strives to find a compromise between collective social ritual and individual consciousness. Body as an object of art is already a social body as long as it lies within the society. Hence, although it was created from an individual intention, it is impossible to exist in denial of all the social frameworks. Moreover, as art also evaluates its value from the popularity of the group called society, the body which is part of this category strives to find the ideal medium between the individual and the society. Furthermore, it expresses itself by reflecting individual intentions by its strongly progressive characteristics. Social bodies such as the nude and fashion in art pursue individual sociality with the desire for changeability. Therefore, this body seeks freedom of creation (see Table 1).

<Table 1> Characteristics of the social bodies

Ⅲ. Fashion, Addressing the New Body

1. Fashion, creative second skin

 As for clothes, the biological skin is a two-dimensional biological surface covering a three-dimensional biological body. In contrast to skin, motif clothes are generally described as the second skin or something that creates another type of skin to make a new form. Lupton (2002) explained that:

“Skin is a two-dimensional surface that wraps around the volumes of the body. Skin is a multilayered, multipurpose that shifts from thick to thin, tight to loose, lubricated to dry, across the landscape of the body. Skin, a knowledge-gathering device, responds to heat and cold, pleasure and pain. It lacks definitive boundaries, flowing continuously from the exposed surface of the body to its internal cavities. It is both living and dead, a self-repairing, self-replacing material whose exterior is senseless and inert while its inner layers are flush with nerves, glands and capillaries (Lupton, 2002, pp.29, 94, 208). …. Skin is a bag to hold in the organs and tissues of the body, a living luggage system. Contemporary bottle, bags and garments combine natural unnatural forms and materials, yielding objects that appear ripe with potential life (Lupton, 2002, p.208).” 

 The discussion on dress as a second skin embarked from Marilyn J. Horn and Lois M. Gurel’s publication of The Second Skin in 1968 that illustrated ways to view dress from different aspects. They investigated this issue from perspectives of clothing and culture, dealing with social and psychological aspects of dress, aesthetics and dress, and physical and economic aspects of clothing. Also, Ted Polhemus (1988) explored “how the body, and its second skin of adornment and clothing, plays a vital part in our social relationship in his book, Body Style . He also considered “the social nature of the human body and, specifically, the body’s reflected image. … In the course of our lives the most important relationship any of us ever has is between ‘our self’ and ‘our reflection’ (Polhemus, 1988, p.4).” The second skin acts as a proxy that represents human senses regardless of the form of the clothes that are being created. In other words, the second skin reproduces a new body with a naked body as the frame (support). The reproduction of skin layered on top of bone represents the basic biological human appearance and this is the first step in creating a new body, the second skin, conveying the designer’s sense. Fashion as the proxy of the body, and as the vehicle for art builds a new form of body starting from the idea of the second skin.

 Clothes are the ideal method of expressing the human body reflecting current taste and have been continuously utilized in the life and discipline of art as the tool that produces a new socially determinant form of body. Dress has been named as the second skin by social and art scholars and is known as a means that connects humans with society. Clothes create a new form of body by deconstruction, transformation and reproduction of the body based on the ideal aesthetic standards of an era. In addition, this can be seen not only in practical dress in ordinary life but also in body art that uses the body as a motif in art. Fashion is produced from conscious consideration of the body and how it is modified in ordinary life (Entwistle, 2000).

 Fashion can create a contemporary form of body, demanded by a period, and can also create a special form of body that contains the designer’s sense of the discourse of art representing the body. Garments during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries are examples of radical modifications to the body. The corset, farthingale and bustle were tools that completed the ideal body desired by those times and these were considered to be the ideal appearance of the body (Koda, 2001) (See Figs. 2, 3). Moreover, these structural devices that modified the standard of the body also changed the biological form of the body (See Fig. 2). In other words, the second skin, which is most suitable for incorporating the ideal body form of an era, resulted in directly modifying the form of the biological body, if only partially. Fashion designers in the twentieth century also extended or reduced parts of the human body and produced new standards of body to meet the social requirements. The ‘perfect form’ was attempted by reproducing, expanding or restricting the body’s shape (Maeder, 1983). For example, Futurism appeared after the early twentieth century as cubism, no other form could be seen or considered except for the second skin of human or clothing (Celant, 1996). Artists w ho w ere involved in futurism and cubism used clothing as a substitute for the ideas in art as a new form of body that represented the creator’s thoughts. Like this, the body was constantly a motif for art and fashion, as a proxy of body it also held its position as a motif for art by creating the second skin.

<Fig. 2> (above) ‘The four plaster busts of Sunami & Costantine models’: (below: from left), ‘the middle of 18c Pannier dress’, ‘1880s Bustle dress’, ‘1900s Art Nouveau style’ & ‘1920s Flapper style’. From. Kim. (2004). p. 15

<Fig. 3> ‘Transformed the body by corset in the Victorian age’. From. Kim. (2004). p. 79

 Fashion as a motif in contemporary art is expressed as a new form of second skin by modifying the biological skin itself or by utilizing a third object. In addition, the application of wrinkles or folded material on the surface of biological skin can be an aesthetic standard in the creation of the second skin, and adapting this idea as the motif can create new materials and forms. These efforts led to the development of a new material called latex that is most similar to the biological skin. Industrial materials such as rubber and vinyl were also introduced in order to express the second skin. Artists use latex, the artificial reproduction of skin, in order to produce clothes most sim ilar in surface and texture to the skin, and sometimes confirm their self-identity by reproducing a ‘biological skin’ substitute as a second skin. Tonita Abeyta’s ‘Sensate’ is a line of latex undergarments - some equipped with built in male and female condoms - that aim to transform the tools of sexual hygiene into alluring fashion objects (Lupton, 2002). More extremely, under the equality theory of latencysubstance, French artist Saint Orlan (b.1947) first deformed her own skin in 1978 and continues to re-form herself using insets and the production of new skin created from her own body (See Fig. 4). “Orlan began her highly unconventional career at the age of 17 with a series of works using photographs of her own body, which has become her art ‘medium,’ her primary creative voice. Working beyond the limits of body art, in her manifesto on ‘Carnal Art,’ Orlan wrote that her performances are a self portrait in the classical sense, yet realized through the technology of its time. Lying between disfiguration and figuration, it is an inscription in flesh. In 1999, using the operating room as a studio, she underwent a series of filmed plastic surgery operations to modify her own body-her canvas-including the placing of cheekbone implants under the skin of her forehead (Blistene, 2004). According to Sheltone, “Franko B [Stellarc] and Orlan have used their bodies to question or reject the West’s political and ideological control and censorship over them (Shelton, 1997).” Likewise, Cindy Sherman played with the image of self and media identity (See Fig. 6). Furthermore Alba D’Urbana (b.1955) created a new form of nude by applying his own skin directly to a medium of clothes (See Fig. 5). He explained that “in order to realize the clothing of my own skin, I put photographs of my body into the computer digitally and then processed them, formed them, and cut them so that they fit into the dresspattern of a suit. Thus it was possible to remodel the two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional body form in the tradition of the ancient art of tailors. The body becom es virtual entity, a data landscape, a digital abstraction (in Lupton, 2002, p.107).” Lupton (2002) illustrated that “D’Urbana has created a series of garments that cover the body with photographic images of itself. The result is a fragmented, contradictory visual condition that oscillates between naked and clothed, flatness and dimensionality (Lupton, 2002, p.106).” In addition, Matthieu Manche used latex as a material to express the second skin as a tool to extend the body (See Fig. 8). According to Matthieu Manche, “latex is similar to the skin, but it is extremely artificial. I try to unsettle people’s expectations about skin.” Lupton explains that “when used to manufacture condoms or gloves, latex closely follows the contours of the human body. Matthieu Manche uses latex to suggest, instead, an elaboration and overflowing of the body. Pouches and containers for new growths appear across the surfaces of his clothing and furniture, while tubes of latex link body parts and entire bodies into new configurations (Lupton, 2002, p.72).”

<Fig. 4> ‘Orlan with her Self-hybridation series’, 1999. From www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au Orlan

<Fig. 5> Alba D’Urbana, ‘The immortal Tailor’, 1995-7. From. Lupton. (2002). p. 107

<Fig. 6> Cindy Sherman, ‘Comme des Garçons’, 1994. From. ARE ET MIDE. (1997) p. 24

<Fig. 7> Carla Murry & Peter Allen, ‘Skinthetic: Chanel 2001’ From. Lupton. (2002), p. 92

<Fig. 8> Matthieu Manche, ‘Fresh 1998-2000’, From. Lupton. (2002). pp.72-73

 A garment is considered as an extension of the skin, as an extension of body in the discipline of art and also in the sphere of fashion, and these artists and designers strive to involve the aesthetics of body in their works. For instance, Carla Murry (b.1970) and Peter Allen (b. 1968) introduced ‘Skinthetic Chanel 2001’ for the fashion brand Chanel (See Fig. 7). “Skinthetic is a series of design proposals for ‘im plant and explant’ products that m ight in the future be used to extend consumer branding to the human body. Here a quilted pattern derived from C hanel’s brand identity is applied to the hum an torso. The skin of the garment becomes continuous with the skin of the body (Lupton, 2002, p.93).” As can be seen, the second skin creates a new form through the reproduction of biological skin and it also establishes a new standard for body by injecting a new third object.

 Every single image that goes through the reproduction process in the artist’s senses can be embodied in a second skin with symbolic meaning. The second skin is a world of change that has the freedom to transform the human body into a mobile, changing form. In addition, clothes are one of the detailed methods of designs to express the production of a new skin, and are an extension of the human body as well as being a world of symbolism. The comprehensive meaning of fashion as the second skin is such symbolism. Therefore, symbolism in fashion does not indicate the general meaning of conservative, collective and passive external symbols that differentiated the social classes of the pre-twentieth century era, but is inherent in a new symbolism, which is personal and active, representing individuality. While the clothes prior to the twentieth century had the general symbolic means of acknowledging one’s status and social position, fashion in the twentiethfirst century has become a more complex medium of creation. This special feature of fashion as active symbolism provides an opportunity to create a new discipline of art called fashion art under the subject of the reproduction of body seen through a second skin.

2. Fashion into the body space

 The independent body in art was subjectively recognized by artists based on the aesthetic standards of the particular time, and as a result they created a body form required by the standards and zeitgeist of the period. Fashion most easily reproduces the body in a new space and with a new boundary of the body extended or reduced in space. In modern art this is expressed as fashion art that has grown out of the unified commercial form of garments and artists directly working with body. Fashion that moved inside the space of the body has created a new body space and disciplines.

 Fashion as a second skin that possesses independently the sense of its creator is within the realm of art by the fact that it is created with consciousness of the body as its motif. Fashion builds up new standards of the body by modifying and creating new standards for the human body at a given time, and it creates a body space based on the standard of body form and from its movement. The second skin, located in space, exploits the body space, with the biological body as the support. Movement by itself progresses fashion into a new space: the social body placed in the body space, regardless of it being a simple or a complex movement. Fashion exists and creates space around the body space as it lies within the surrounding architectural space.

 Fashion is a very personal object that creates special circumstances for an individual by crossing over complex architecture and body systems. Architecture and the body is a system of complex processes of functionality, partial functionality that can be visually identified or not particularly recognized (Boyer, 2006). This produces a subjective body space through the movement of body responding with the body’s senses. Furthermore, fashion has a binding role that links self-cognition and society, the so-called ‘personal identity.’ Fashion is an object of a mutual action between the image and the concept, and is a compound medium that includes the surroundings and space where fashion is understood.

 Fashion is a medium that links the body and society and at the same time is a changeable object that is inherent in a conflicting relationship with the elements of extension and reduction of the human body to create body space. In other words, fashion is a medium that creates a new space around the body and through this, the body is given change ability to extend or reduce its sphere. From my point of view, fashion that lies between the biological body and architectural space creates the space around the body from the basis of its conflicting nature of extension and reduction. Therefore, in this research, body space is not limited to the body itself and the space created from extending or reducing the body; the external space produced from the movement of body occurring in architectural space is also included in this category.

 Fashion, which lies within the relationship between the body and space, provides mobility into the limits of the body and the categories of space based on conflicting approaches to the reduction and the extension of body itself. Firstly, ‘fashion creates the internal body space’ by reducing the space between the borders of biological body and fashion, and this space is very limited and fixed. Secondly, ‘fashion creates the ‘external’ body space by expanding’ the body beyond the borders of the biological body, and through movement, it brings this outer space into the extension of body that leads to architecture and the universe. The extension of the body is changeable and mobile as it constantly creates new limitless forms through this movement. The extended body is provided with a broader scope in creating space than the reduced body (See Fig. 9).

<Fig. 9> The boundary and scope of body space

 In order to examine the nature of space in detail, attention is given to the German architect Jügen Joedicke who classified the nature of space based on its boundaries. Joedicke divided space into two categories of ‘spatial container’and ‘spatial field’ in order to illustrate differences in the treatment of the space. By spatial container, he means the space as a continuum described by a series of walls. Spatial field implies space that exists around a solid body, and this term is used when defining a different type of spatial form (Joedicke, 1985). Based on the classifications or Joedicke, space regulates distinctive boundaries according to the nature of the object formed. This classification used in architecture can be applied in fashion, so that spatial container accounts for ‘the circumstance of the reduced body.’ Fashion, as a fixed form of sculptural object, exists by fitting a series of materials into the body and inserting the body into a spatial container. By contrast, spatial field in fashion terms indicates ‘the circumstance of the extended body.’ This contains the trace of sequential movements created from the movement of body. While spatial field in architecture is visually recognized as beyond the solidity of walls, spatial field in fashion can be visually recognized, but also can remain as a trace of movement.

 Recent debates on fashion and space around the body focus on the object of clothing itself to classify these conflicting factors of ‘extension and reduction’, ‘concealment and exposure’ and ‘stillness and movement’ based on the inner and outer aspects of body. In other words, the central point of the debate is on the relationship between clothes and the body rather than the external surroundings, and is focused on elaborating these simple conflicting properties. This point of view regulates the boundary between the body and fashion from the perspective that fashion is a sculptural garment or a fixed object, and is classified by the characteristics focused on how the garment is expressed.

 This is limited to the creation of a spatial container, that is, the creation of space around the body through the reduction of construction of the body in a narrow sense. It is not sufficient to describe the overall circumstances of body, namely the spatial container that a body creates in external space. Therefore, from the perspective of fashion being a m edium for creating new space, these conflicting elements are sub-classified under the grounds of extension and reduction. Thus, the space around the body creates the form of space through the extension and reduction of body based on the artist’s ideas. The primarily selected frame of body space determines the detailed method of expressing the object. Fashion as a proxy of the body, namely an object of art, draws attention to the creation of space related to the body rather than a concrete method of expression.

 To sum up, fashion determines the creative method of body space from the artist’s sense and expresses the object through a compound system, the so-called ‘hybrid system.’ This system is structured with conflicting sub-categories of ‘concealment and exposure’, ‘simplicity and complexity’, ‘can be worn or cannot be worn’, and ‘whether or not it is a form of clothes’, and expresses the space around the body based on the artist/designer’s intention through fashion as a proxy for the body (See Fig. 10). This produces creations which are more than just a simple form of clothing but include the body, the proxy of the body and the movement in space. In other words, the sub-categories of this system provide an opportunity for fashion to explore the potential of the body and space by crossing over various disciplines of art. Furthermore, this complex method of expression provides the opportunity for fashion to be part of visual art rather than an industrial art. Fashion lies within the space of the body and creates the space around the body.

<Fig. 10> The ambivalence of body space

Ⅳ. Conclusion

 Fashion, as a motif of artworks approaches the creative process not only from the form but also from the movement and consciousness of the person. From this perspective, fashion becomes the object of artwork as a proxy of the creator whether it is shown in the form of clothes reproducing the body, or as another form of the body object. Fashion implies the life more than we think. Moreover, as debates of modern art, art production and freedom are always linked with one sphere of culture, namely fashion (Davis, 1992). Disciplines of art apply and express fashion as a motif in their works as fashion is the direct product of what we experience in life and because fashion is the tool that can most easily modify the body, as the fourth dimension of the social body. From a personal point of view, fashion as a motif of art accepts the body as intrinsic to notions of change, and is a comprehensive concept that includes dress and clothes as well as their environment, spirit and movement. Fashion in a narrow sense can be described as the creation of a new body through a second skin, and in a broader sense, it can be seen as a concept of creativity that produces the new space and spirit of the body through the movement of the body that wears this second skin. Fashion can reduce or extend the body form through the creator’s senses and it is a form of new creation that has the indulgence of creating space through movement of body. In other words, the proposition applied in art signifies the social body that represents the surroundings and intention towards the body as reinterpreted from the artist’s point of view. Therefore, fashion as a motif of art is the new current state of the body.

 This research analyzed the attributes of fashion as an object of art, and examined its potential and status as an art of body space. Fashion was an object of the body that was created for the body. Artists use fashion as the motif of their work because this is the medium of the body that reproduces their form, and because this can freely create the space around the body. The works of the artists who use fashion as their motif bring the body, its traces and the space around the body as seen from the expansion and reduction of the body through installation, performance art and by wearing the clothes of self identity, and architectural fashion that includes the space where the body lies into the work. This research illustrates how, fashion determines the creation method of body space from the artist’s sense and expresses the object through a compound system, the so-called ‘hybrid system.’ This system is structured with conflicting sub-categories of ‘concealment and exposure’, ‘simplicity and complexity’, ‘can be worn or cannot be worn’ and ‘whether or not it is a form of clothes’, and expresses the space around the body based on the creator’s intention through fashion as a proxy for the body.