The bridge between knowledge and judgement
A rather behemoth of a topic to muse on but stay with me.
A few years ago I made a Fashion History Guide. Well, ‘guide’. The intention behind was to craft a one-page landing page for anyone who is interested in getting started with learning fashion through its history. I dissected the process into a few sections and one of the sections was a book list, things that I’ve read and found fascinating or useful in helping myself progress further into the fashion history rabbit hole.
After the construction of that guide, I’ve posted a few more ‘book recommendations’ over the last two years when people would ask me for suggestions on how to start learning about fashion, whether it be students, hobbyists, or industry professionals. But I’ve started to see the limitations in these suggestions. Part of my evolution in the fashion space is that I was gaining consciousness of how the growth of my aesthetic judgement works, and it’s not just from reading, but the active observing of how my mind amalgamates fashion and art knowledge into a manageable bolus that will be plucked out when I’m faced with relevant notions of art. It’s that bridge between knowledge and judgment expression.
While this sounds rather scientific, criticism is, however, emotionally charged. Knowledge is not enough to sway our taste. That’s it, taste! The mediator! One of the many purposes of knowledge is to affect our taste, not necessarily, but possibly. Broadening our horizons can potentially alter our views on what we innately feel the ‘tingles’ towards. Once again, a very emotionally driven aspect, but knowledge plays a part in forming our taste. Taste, conversely, becomes a sort of carrier through our aesthetic judgement’s blood-brain barrier; it wraps knowledge and emotion of various proportions in one and transports them from one end to the other. Here I am painting a rather linear picture, a point-to-point depiction, but you must understand my intention here. Not to dictate how you should utilize your knowledge in your fashion aesthetic judgements, but as a reference of how it works in my mind in the simplest form, and this is pointed at you who read not just for entertainment, but to further the depth of your fashion communications.
So, with the backdrop of ‘reading for applications’, when we learn from texts like Georg Simmel’s still-relevant but rather outdated commentary on fashion, it will remain stagnant in our minds if we don’t exercise it. So, to build this bridge, as I coined it, we need to be aware of our effort to transform acquired knowledge into workable nodes of reference when faced with different fashions. Depending on your capability, you may approach it differently than I do, but I saw massive benefits in reading how other critics and writers describe and critique art. Through their work, I can start to see their methodology in transforming their knowledge, experience, emotions, and their intangible penchant into a smoothly flowing critique on art. It can be very vague at times, as no one really writes from point A to point B; However, if you zoom out, you will see the bigger picture.
For you to be truly acquainted with the judgment of fashion, which I assumed to be your end goal, seeing that you are taking the time to read this, you need to train the muscles in your mind, eyes, and heart that help transform the absorbed and digested knowledge into workable tools, as well as the muscle that utilizes them. That’s why a book list, in hindsight isn’t the best advice I have for you. This is, so far.