Fashion Symbols with Aynura Maye

Bringing together the opposites

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Instabeautiful vs humarespectful – Couture a la Ronald van der Kemp

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The Paris Haute Couture Fall Winter’18 kicks off with RVDK, the label of the couturier of the modern times – Ronald van der Kemp, who I guess, I can comfortably call the King of Leftover Fabrics. As usual, his looks bear details from the period that is his “inextinguishable fountain of inspiration” – the 60s-90s. But to me, in this collection the looks are more romantic, the lines are softer, loose, flare and whimsical. The creations again sport bold colors and combinations are playful. As usual, the focus is on empowering models with garments and fabrics, not on the set.

RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18
RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18, Photo: Internet

All in all, I must confess that not all pieces are to my taste in this “wardrobe” as I am a retro-type person. I love to have fun with peaked shoulders, accented waist etc. that were the staples of the previous wardrobes. However, in general, these pieces of RVDK are quite strong and sure to boost confidence.

Yet I choose to write about this label for another reason – its “humarespectful” couture of RVDK versus “instabeautiful” craze of our days. Because its founder is somehow capable of avoiding all the distractions and cacophony in the fashion world and doing things his way consistently.

RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18
RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18, Photo: Internet

It doesn’t mean that his pieces are not worthy of instahype, in fact, totally opposite. He is very instaworthy. Yet, I guess, the below reasons will make one feel more awesome in his pieces because of the values he sticks to:

The approach to couture:

RVDK couture is usually not “inspiration” or “theme” based. His way of creating couture is relaxed, experimental, spontaneous thus playful and more relatable.

RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18
RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18, Photo: Internet

The approach to fashion:

He calls his collections “wardrobe”. Because, one may pull up a piece of some good years from her wardrobe to wear. It is not about being seasonal. It is about mindful consumption. It is about building a wardrobe that has both – old and new.

RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18
RVDK, Paris Haute Couture, Fall-Winter 18, Photo: Internet

The guts:

In our times it is hard to resist the mainstream and not get pushed into the “acceptable frame” of the time. Somehow he is capable of doing it. While the leviathans and behemoths of the fashion world roar on Instagram and elsewhere, he is whispering his values through his work and commitments. He takes stance, just like any other successful label. But not by creating a public stir, by going out and giving his contribution without noise.

Respect for resources:

In the first paragraph I called him the King of leftover fabrics and it was for a reason. He is notoriously known for his use of leftover and vintage fabrics. Besides being a very responsible and “couture” way of doing it, to me, the results are eccentric with sometimes remarkable and colorful patches.

Empathy:

For the wardrobe of the last year he employed refugee labor. Attention, we are talking about it in a time when Europe probably lives the darkest days of refugee crisis so far.

Preference for nature-given looks

The label vehemently bashes the Instagram filters. And I agree. We use filters to a point, when I lift my head out of my excessively filtered virtual world, I find the colors in the real world quite boring. And this is no good. It makes me depressed.

Well, in a short while, I guess I’ve complied quite a list of reasons for those who choose to create deeper bond with their garments, rather than use them to create another personality.

Again, do not worry, the label is as much instabeautiful as it is humarespectful.

Sexuality and Spirituality – the most twisted duo of our mind?

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When you look at the profile picture, what comes to your mind? Look again, with sense of humor and some fantasy…some more fantasy. I know what you think. Shame on you! This is Shiva and Shakti – we are talking about Gods. Kidding, you were right, it is both.

This picture is among the primeval depictions of God Shiva and Goddess Shakti – the sacred union. In this version the God Shiva is called Lingam. Just like the God Shiva, it is personification of the primordial cosmic energy. Visually, it is a phallus plunged into disc-like structure called Yoni – the Goddess Shakti. He symbolizes the spirit, reasoning and the penetrating nature of the consciousness. Yoni (Shakti) on the other hand, is pretty much female genitals. She represents the personification of feminine aspects of the God Shiva.

Read about Yayoi Kusama’s overly sexual art and how her uncontrollable energies took her on this journey.

A key in a lock may be a sexual symbol—but not invariably.... The door ... intended to symbolize hope, the lock to symbolize charity, and the key to symbolize the desire for God. Source: Man and his symbols, C.G.Jung Photo: Internet
A key in a lock may be a sexual symbol—but not invariably…. The door intended to symbolize hope, the lock to symbolize charity, and the key to symbolize the desire for God. Source: Man and his symbols, C.G.Jung Photo: Internet

Isn’t it weird? Maybe yes, maybe no. It turns out that sexual intercourse and sacred union are two sides of the same coin in the depth of our mind. Anything sexual has some theological meaning to it. For example, sexuality in dreams and moral doctrines doesn’t mean psychical sexuality, rather signifies reaching high spirituality.

The main challenge yet the ultimate bliss for us in the first half of life is sexuality and lustful love. In this period, sex translates as the holistic experience of our creative power. In other words, making babies – no matter how much we try to avoid it. The source of the most blissful pleasure is just the trap of the nature to keep our specie going. That’s why phallus symbolizes energy of universe, change and creation through destruction.

Sex as symbol of sacred union

On the contrary, when we’ve hit the zenith of our lives and proceed towards the death, the lure ahead is not phallus any more. It is the death. With all its daunting nature, the death is the promise of the eternal bliss. That’s why in the second half of life the meaning of these symbols reverse. They don’t mean penetration and creation any more. This is the period many people become religious. It expresses desire for union with divinity. In other words, need for spiritual growth and elevation of the spirit towards the sacred union of the polar opposites. More precisely, integration of our internal feminine and masculine aspects.  Alchemy calls this process the Sacred Marriage. So, The God Shiva and the Goddess Shakti are representations of celestial experience of sacred union of opposites.

Read about the Great Hermaphrodite a la Gucci, the feminine and masculine aspects are really confusing but quite eye-opening.

Learning to channel the life energy through this cycle is challenge for each of us. If one fails, this energy takes a regressive and destructive form. That is when many people suffer mid-life crisis, find life meaningless and entertain the idea of suicide.

Read about Yayoi Kusama’s overly sexual art and how she was affected by regressive nature of the life energy.

Other related articles:
Symbols of sexuality – 1. The cup and the spoon
Symbols of sexuality – 2. The Deer Hunt
Symbols of sexuality – 3. The ax and the door

Symbols of sexuality – 3. The ax and the door

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I got carried away for a couple of days. In the midst of travels, the intolerable summer heat and some new project ideas, I even do not know what I am doing these days. But now I am back at it, our symbols of sexuality. I’ve promised to post four articles, each featuring a variation of the symbols of sexuality.

Here comes the third symbol – The ax and the door – more specifically, the act of breaking a door with an ax. By now, I guess there is no need to say which one is which, right? The ax obviously is phallic.

The reason I’ve picked this symbols among zillion other symbols is its nature. It is violent, is not like the “traditional” cup-spoon or that romantic deer hunt. It talks about a sexual act or sexual urges that are quite violent. All I am saying is if this symbol happens in your dreams, better to stop and reflect – why so much aggressiveness? From where it comes and why? What I’ve locked in the dark maze of memory? Most importantly, what should come to light from the depth of dark wells so that they do not roar so loudly. I guess, I’ll stop here before it gets complicated.

Heads up – the fourth article will be little different. Until now, we’ve looked at only one side of the coin – the sexuality aspect of these symbols. In the last post we’ll see the other side of the coin – the theological twist (you probably wonder from where to where, huh?) – stay tuned!

Other symbols of sexuality – click to decipher them:
The cup and the spoon
The deer hunt

Symbols of sexuality – 2. Deer hunt

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Here comes the second most classic symbol of sexuality – the Deer Hunt.

Heads up to everybody! From now on when you see a hunting scene, especially in the artworks from middle ages (especially, miniature paintings), do not be fooled. Many times it is not really about a hunting scene. Well, not in a sense that we generally understand it. It actually talks about the intercourse! Well, you can call it a different kind of hunting.

The subtle difference of this symbol is in its reference to qualities rather than an action – a hunter obviously stands for the male principle, which conquers the female principle in the form of a deer. The deer here symbolizes the feminine grace and shyness.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The cup and the spoon
The ax and the door

To put it in another way, this variation has more romantic air than the first one. While the cup-spoon makes direct reference to the act, this one talks more about feelings and emotions.

In fact, I ca’t get rid of my prejudice about this expression. In my native language there is a “teenagerish” expression that is a perfect sample (Jeyran ovuna cixmag). I shivered out of disgust every time I heard it. I literally hated that expression and found it very low. During my studies I was astonished to find out that this “lowness” was in fact a universal and classic symbol. I can’t say I like it now. Yet this was one of the very first things that made me wonder more about the dark alleys of our psyche and look for more similarities in the unconscious images and expressions.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The cup and the spoon
The ax and the door

Symbols of sexuality – 1. Cup and spoon

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The topic of this week is the Symbols of sexuality. During the week I’ll publish four very short, kind of fun posts, each dedicated to one symbol. The first symbol will be the Cup and spoon. I am most definitely not the one to pick this example as it comes from Russian and I don’t speak it well. But I assure you I understand this example quite well.

The Cup and Spoon is one of the classic symbols of sexual act. This is a common expression in spoken Russian and refers to a “romance with probable sexuality involved”. When one thinks hard about its meaning, it may not even come to mind. But this “folk” metaphor definitely pops up in casual talks (definitely in Russian). If it occurs in dreams, it has the same meaning. Because metaphoric expressions in our spoken language and dreams originate in the same “land”.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The deer hunt
The ax and the door

Now, back to the Chashka-Lojka (cup-spoon) – now wondering why this kind of cheesy expression has a sexual connotation? Funny enough, here is a very short answer – any object that is sharp and can penetrate obtains phallic nature in our psyche.  Any object that is affected by penetration or is recipient symbolizes female genital organs.

Here we’ve solved the mystery of Chashka-Lojka (cup and spoon) – the symbol of sexual act with the Chashka taking up a feminine and the lojka a masculine nature.

Click to decipher another symbols of sexuality
The deer hunt
The ax and the door

The “A La Gucci” Great Hermaphrodite and Why We Hit Mid-Life Crisis

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What is in there for me: What is behind the mid-life crisis? Why suicides and divorces surge in the second half of life? What keeps us from being happy? Ultimately, are we all hermaphrodites? Too many questions for a short post, but believe me, you’ll at least get a hint.

The full post starts here.

A year ago Alessandro Michele dressed The “A la Gucci Great Hermaphrodite” with a red Gucci T-shirt for GucciCuise18. As usual, the reactions were everything from revulsion to admiration. I am not about that. What I want to talk about is how Gucci, unknowingly or maybe knowingly tapped on a symbol that holds so much for our mental well-being – The Great Hermaphrodite.

The Great Hermaphrodite. We are psychologically wired to recognize and integrate the “opposite gender” within. Only then we tend to find meaning in our lives. This process is symbolized as the Great Hermaphrodite in alchemy. Photo: The Internet
The Great Hermaphrodite. We are psychologically wired to recognize and integrate the “opposite gender” within. Only then we tend to find meaning in our lives. This process is symbolized as the Great Hermaphrodite in alchemy. Photo: The Internet

Read about Why sexuality and spirituality in fact are two sides of the coin in the depth of our mind
Read about Yayoi Kusama’s overly sexual art and how her uncontrollable energies took her on this journey

Ops, We all are hermaphrodites…but without Gucci

It is a rather complex symbol. I’ll start from where we all know. Everybody knows that due to our biological structure, men carry small amount of female hormones, and women small amount of male hormones.

Now, let’s look at the psychological side of it. As usual, the resonance goes very far in the depth of our mind – it means in every man there is a small, hidden woman and in each woman some hidden man. That small woman inside man is called Anima (man’s soul). It is one of the unconscious forces of very strong power because it is deeply hidden.  Animus is on the contrary the man inside woman.

“The other side” within

Attention, now we are not talking strictly about genders now. Below the threshold of the consciousness, there is no duality. Now we are talking about the qualities that are ascribed to the feminine nature (receptivity, passivity, sentimentality etc) and the masculine nature (reasoning, action, penetration etc). The Anima is responsible for all of the female tendencies in man’s psyche and is an aspect of personality that normally is concealed from everybody, even the owner himself.

The Cycle of Life – sexuality and “the other”

Accept or not, during the first half of life sexuality is central to our being. Strictly talking about men, at this period, they keep polishing their “manly characters”, ego, thirst for power etc. But as we step into the second half of our lives and slowly leave sexuality behind, our nature changes. A spontaneous desire is born inside for spiritual growth and maturity. The female aspects within are what guide the man to learn to control his animalistic instincts and lead him to maturity. The same tendencies happen with women too, but everything reversed.

Divorce, suicide and more – even Gucci can’t help

At this period, when internal tendencies change towards spirituality and maturity, we still like to cling on to our previous life style and desires. That’s when a separation in our psyche starts to take place. Dressed in Gucci, or no Gucci, we constantly feel something is missing. That’s when, instead of opening up to the hidden tendencies, we start to blame our partners. The wider this psychological divergence, the more serious are the consequences (anything from depression to divorce to suicide).

In short, we are psychologically wired to recognize and integrate the “opposite gender” within. Only then we tend to find meaning in our lives. This process of integration of the psychic polar opposites is what symbolized as the Great Hermaphrodite in alchemy. In many other cultures it is also known as the Sacred Union or Sacred Marriage.

Read about Why sexuality and spirituality in fact are two sides of the coin in the depth of our mind
Read about Yayoi Kusama’s overly sexual art and how her uncontrollable energies took her on this journey

Instagram – Friend or Enemy of Fashion?

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The Barren Land and the Phenomenon of Alessandro Michele –
My thoughts upon seeing GucciCruise19.

Sometimes things touch us so deeply. They stir certain inexplicable emotions to the point we feel our hair stood on end yet we can’t explain why, like Promenade Des Alyscamps as venue of the GucciCruise19. Because the choice of venue talks about something that is known, yet unknown. Something that we knew once, but have forgotten long ago – the wisdom that once upon a time death wasn’t the end of life, it was the way of receding of the old for the new life to bloom. Life cycle was considered circular not linear, the concept behind the Ouroboros – recurring symbol in Gucci design. That is why the birth of a new collection in the land of death was so fascinating to many. But it takes quite some effort to make this connection to realize why such a choice unconsciously hits the “soft spot” and triggers such deep emotions.

GucciCruise19 - death as inspiration for new collection. Photo. Internet
GucciCruise19 – death as an inspiration for new collection. Photo: Internet

I intend neither to describe nor to analyze another much-debated, much-intriguing and much-putwhateveryouwant show of Gucci for Cruise19. First, people talked enough about it in just one day. Secondly, a thorough analysis of all the concepts and all the symbols would take days and days (which actually I am doing slowly). On the contrary, I’d like to share my opinion on what kind of paradox the Instaeuphoria created for the world of fashion and how his genius Alessandro Michele “reversed the flow” tapping this paradox online and on the runway.

Promenade Des Alyscamps - Cemetery turned into a Promonade. Venue for GucciCruise19. Photo: Gucci.com
Promenade Des Alyscamps – Cemetery turned into a Promenade. Venue for GucciCruise19. Photo: Gucci.com

Two faces of Instagram

The day Instagram went viral it paved a way to a paradox for the world of fashion that has been ripening silently. Precisely, the obsession of our eyes for ephemeral beauty and the cry of our souls for eternal grace.

Captivating the world with the spell of picture-perfect ephemeral beauty was the main card for the world of fashion in those good old paper days. But when ‘gram made picture-perfect beauty so mundane, the internet got inundated with beautiful images without depth. Instahype broke the “beauty” spell of the fashion world. Fashion started to feel like sex without love. It felt good right at that moment, but nothing to remember couple of minutes afterwards. Minds bloated with another “barren” beautiful image started to look for something more meaningful than just good looks. Something that could stir deep emotions within and leave some traces in the memory. This was the paradox. While the whole fashion herd rushed to Instagram to harness fame and awareness, they exhausted the bullets of the strongest weapon they had – captivating power of ephemeral beauty.

Disarmed beauty, bloated minds, inundated Instagram

No matter how much one loves ephemeral beauty there is a limit to which point one can stomach. After hitting the saturation point, we start to search for something that talks of depth. Something that doesn’t talk about egoistic and snobby individualism (that was and still is central to modern beauty), but something that goes farther. Something that talks about continuity of life, participation in society, courage to experiment, embracing identity – all of which give sublime messages of hope. Here enters the stage Alessandro Michele.

Thousand faces of beauty

This is exactly what he does resiliently and persistently. The looks he runs through the runway can hardly be called beautiful by the modern standards instilled in us. Yet, every show hails like a storm in the Internet. He questions the ephemerality of the very concept of beauty by re-creating thousand faces of beauty across ages and cultures. In the same time, the core concept for his creations goes beyond the ephemerality of physical look. The imagery always offers depth and refers to symbols that are impossible to comprehend with rational thinking. They in a sense talk about inexplicable hope. Hope for regenerating capacity of our nature – something new, yet something was once known but forgotten, the Ouroboros.

In times when we feel like lost souls in the ocean of information with no horizon in sight, deep inside we are desperately looking for some clues to navigate our way. When something resonates with us so deeply, we realize that is the clue we’ve been looking for. The clue is the in conventional wisdom that lies in our memory deposit. That is where we feel at home, recharge and make our way back into the future.

Related articles:

Gucci sends fashion back to roots – RTW Fall/Winter 2018

Lamb – Not Your Usual Animal

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What’s in there for me: An eye-opening fact that would make us think twice before making “religiously discriminating” statements. Here it goes – To our consciousness Lamb maybe only a household animal, but not for the unconscious. Just to scratch the surface, Lamb, at least for the descendants of Abrahamic religions, is a symbol of humility, willingness to surrender to higher power or higher order. It symbolizes acceptance of and repentance for shortcomings and malevolent deeds. The sacrifice of Lamb means to symbolically exterminate the aspects of human nature that have tendency to inflate to the point that may hurt others. For example, our anger, ego, jealousy, self-importance, among others. It is a mechanism of our psyche to keep our worldly attachments in control.

This post makes part of the post “The Secret Stories for Symbols“. Click the link to read more about the wonderfully secretive nature of the symbols. 

Full post starts here

Me and the Lamb

These days, when one talks about Lamb as sacrifice, automatically our mind associates it with Islam. Does this symbol really belong to Islam only? From what I found out, absolutely NO.

While in Argentina when I started these studies, one of the things I was surprised to find out was that one of the names of Christ was also The Lamb. He himself represents sacrifice in this case.

Lamb in religious symbolism together with symbols of Evangelists. Group of four elements is typical in religious depictions. Photo: Internet
The Lamb together with symbols of Evangelists. In general, group of four elements is typical in religious depictions. Photo: Internet

Currently I live in Rome and this place is just heaven for those interested in evolution of thought. Just by walking down the street one can learn so much by carefully observing monuments. This city is also home to the oldest catholic churches, which still carry old facade paintings. This is what I love about Rome. History is live here. Cut to the chase, about 4 blocks from my home there is an old church. Over the façade of this church there is an image of the Lamb right at Christ’s foot. After seeing this I started to inspect the facades of other churches. Interestingly, I found a handful of them with similar illustrations. So this has been a recurrent symbol.

The Secret Story of Lamb

True, The Lamb is almost a forgotten image in Christianity these days. However, I guess, everybody knows that it is a very living symbol in Islam. It is a symbol of Muslim holiday Eid-Mubarak. Again, it is a symbol of sacrifice. Also, Torah mandates Jews perform sacrificial ritual of Paschal Lamb on the eve of Pass Over (Pasqua).

To sum up, to our consciousness Lamb maybe only a household animal, but not for unconscious. Just to scratch the surface, Lamb, at least for the descendants of Abrahamic religions, is a symbol of humility, willingness to surrender to higher power or higher order. It symbolizes acceptance of and repentance for shortcomings and malevolent deeds. Sacrifice of Lamb means to symbolically exterminate the aspects of human nature that have tendency to inflate to the point that may hurt others. For example, our anger, ego, jealousy, self-importance, among others. It is a mechanism of our psyche to keep our worldly attachments in control.

Why such a bloody ritual? Pain in body makes soul suffer and suffering is fundamental for spiritual growth. Just like a famous expression goes: Light enters through wound.  That’s why normally religious rituals are violent and harsh.

This post makes part of the post “The Secret Stories for Symbols“. Click the link to read more about the nature of the symbols.