Critical Fashion Practice is a relatively new field that has gained attention recently through its challenging perspectives on the existing fashion system. Textum Club believes that to fully understand the strategies and meanings of Critical Fashion Practice, it is necessary to first explore the more established field of Critical Design.

Critical Design?

Firstly, Matt Malpass, author of 『Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practice』, provides a comprehensive overview of critical design. This field challenges the current state of industrial design by integrating social and political discourses beyond merely aesthetic or functionally optimized products.

Historical Context of Critical Design

The history of critical design began with the Anti-Design movement in Italy. This book highlights the traditions of Radical Design, Anti-Design, New Design, and Conceptual Design in Italy, explaining the origins of critical design.

Theory and Strategy of Critical Design

Critical design aims to transcend traditional functional design, focusing on conveying social and political messages through products rather than optimizing human lifestyles. Key features of critical design include:

1. An alternative model to industrial design: Critical design challenges the current state of industrial design.
2. Focuses more on identifying problems within social discourses rather than solving them.
3. Concentrates on generating discourses through strategies like storytelling rather than mass production.
4. Critical design is not art: While related to conceptual art, it should not be absorbed by the art institution.
5. Critical design is not theory: It goes beyond the traditions of cultural theory and humanities, closer to practice and activism.

Practice of Critical Design
Critical design practice can be categorized into three main types: Associative Design, Speculative Design, and Critical Design. Using strategies like ambiguity and satire, these methodologies employ design as a form of critique.

1. Associative Design: Rooted in Italian critical and anti-design, it aims to make designers and users reconsider widely accepted design traditions and values, presenting new perspectives by overturning traditional understanding and context of familiar objects based on familiarity.
2. Speculative Design: Linked with future scenario building and techno-scientific research, its purpose is to enable a different perception of scientific theories and cultural implications of science, exploring future possibilities and critiquing the present.
3. Critical Design: Critically analyzes products within social, cultural, and ethical contexts to form social discourses, emphasizing narrative and often using media like photography, film, and pseudo-documentaries to pose questions.

Applying Critical Design Strategies to Fashion

What methodologies of critical fashion practice can be derived from critical design? By analyzing the strategies and historical contexts of critical design, we can discover fundamental principles applicable to fashion.

First, there is the creation of alternative realities. Like speculative design, which critiques current practices by presenting a hypothetical future, critical fashion can also imagine and critique possible futures for fashion and society.

Next, there is the deconstruction of functionality. Beyond functional and aesthetic considerations, critical fashion can question the very purpose and function of clothing.

Additionally, there is the potential for linking to social and political issues. By internalizing social and political commentary in fashion design, it can challenge prevailing norms and provoke public discourse.

These methodologies have been explored in fashion before. However, just as critical design sought new possibilities beyond the limitations of industrial design, it is important to remember that design in fashion can also play a significant role in pursuing social change, beyond commercial objectives. Ultimately, critical fashion practice can be described as a practical movement that examines and questions established paradigms in the fashion industry, aiming to highlight problems within the commercial fashion system and imagine alternatives.

Yeonwoo Kim