Word: gernreich
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Added Mystery. One designer who refuses to be pushed to damned lengths is Rudi Gernreich: "I'm very much against the midi because it's illogical. It's like going to Mme. Tussaud's." Says Bill Blass, "I'm bored with fashion dictatorship. Women are not going to wear something just because it's publicized...
...show is designed to demonstrate graphically Gernreich's notion that "fashion as we know it is coming to an end," that designers should no longer be artists but anonymous editors. "The stronger the signature of the designer," he says, "the less acceptable his clothes will be." During the 1970s, adds Rudi, "basic clothing will become much more understated. Our aesthetics will change and focus more on the body than on its adornment. Nudity will be much more prevalent." People will pay less attention to their looks, he says, because they simply will not have the time or inclination...
Whatever utilitarian clothes are worn, Gernreich predicts, will be mostly mailorder items "from catalogues or off the television set"; even underwear will become a casualty: "I think that if there is any kind of underwear at all, it will be disposable. We will wear it once and just throw it away...
Sexual Honesty. Gernreich is also convinced that unisex is the wave of the future. In his 1970 line, he has already carried that concept through to its logical (as far as he is concerned) conclusion. He has eliminated all sexual variations in the clothes by designing miniskirts, leotards and pants suits for men and women alike. Men in miniskirts? "Sure," says Rudi diffidently. "Is a boy in a skirt any the less a boy?" By wearing the same clothes, he insists, male and female only "enhance" their bodily differences; by promoting uniformity of dress, he argues, he is also promoting...
...that Gernreich wants to eradicate all differences in clothing: old folks, he thinks, ought to show their age. "There should be a limit to a person's trying to look younger than he is," says Rudi. "People simply have to get over their youth hang-up and accept their advancing years as a natural process of life." For senior citizens, Rudi has designed boldly patterned, caftan-like robes with stylish simplicity and stunning colors that may well win him more admirers -young and old alike-than his masculine miniskirts and barbered bodies...