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stellte der grimmig dreinschauende, schwarz gekleidete Designer fest, als das erste Model im Kampfanzug den Laufsteg betrat.
in: "Gernreich Designs for Women´s Lib", Ottawa Citizen, 5. 12. 1970
Der folgende Text setzt sich aus Pressemeldungen und Interviews zusammen, die Rudi Gernreich selbst zu Wort kommen lassen. Quellen dafür waren große Zeitungen und Zeitschriften wie das Time Magazine, aber auch lokal erscheinende Tageszeitungen und Magazine mit geringer Auflage. Weitere Textstellen fanden sich in Aussendungen und Einladungskarten, die Gernreich verschickt hatte. In diese Sammlung mitaufgenommen wurden auch Zitate aus persönlichen Gesprächen mit Yuki Kanegaye, der ehemaligen Geschäftsführerin von JAX, jener Boutique in Beverly Hills, die bereits in den 50er Jahren Modelle von Rudi Gernreich geführt hatte, sowie aus Gesprächen mit Lyn Kienholz, der Vorsitzenden der California International Art Foundation, mit Henry Hopkins, Kurator im Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in den 60er Jahren und mit dem Künstler Don Bachardy, der sich in seiner Arbeit mit der Darstellung von homosexuellen Identitäten befaßt. Alle vier waren Teil der `Szene´, mit Rudi Gernreich befreundet und haben dessen Konzepte und Ideen mit Aufmerksamkeit verfolgt. Ed Ruscha, an dessen Projekten (vgl. Beitrag Victoria Steele) Rudi Gernreich mehrfach mitgewirkt hatte, zog eine schriftliche Stellungnahme einem Gespräch vor (siehe S. ??).
Die Rudi Gernreich-Zitate aus Zeitungen und Magazinen wurden im Original - sofern sie nicht beriets übersetzt waren - belassen, um die Authentizität der Aussprüche Gernreichs, wie sie für seine Gesamtinszenierung wesentlich waren, zu erhalten. Übersetzt wurden die Auszüge aus den Gesprächen mit den genannten Personen.
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I´m not out to kill fashion. It´s already finished.
I´m not out to kill fashion. It´s already finished. The word has no meaning. It stands for all the wrong values. Snobbism, wealth, the select few. It´s antisocial. It isolates itself from the masses. Today you can´t be antisocial, so fashion is gone. Even the word has become a little embarrassing. Clothes. Gear. These are the words of today.
Rudi Gernreich in: "Rudi Sticks to His Guns", Los Angeles Times, 25. 11. 1970
You should forget what you are wearing and enjoy yourself. Most women are too serious about their clothes.
Rudi Gernreich in: "Rudi Gernreich - A Mind of His Own", Chicago Today, 7. 9. 1971
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I´ve just returned from Paris, and there are shops which are carrying modern Chinese clothes, and these are worker´s uniforms and Mao caps. Those are the things which the young are flocking to wear. And they do make sense, and they do relate to today´s life. They have an authenticity which is really staggering, and they´re beautiful just because they´re logical, utilitarian objects that through their logic become beautiful.
Rudi Gernreich in: "Clothes like this are dead`, says Rudi Gernreich", Los Angeles Times, 30.1. 1972
Haute Couture doesn´t have the same meaning any more, because money, status and power no longer have the same meaning. Now fashion starts in the streets. What I do is watch what the kids are putting together for themselves. I formalize it, give it something of my own, perhaps, and that is fashion. St. Laurent and other designers must pick it up at the same time I do. No one person invents anything today and then sends it out to the rest of the world. It´s got to be in the air. That´s why I watch the kids. Fashion filters up not merely from youth to age, but from lower economic class to upper. Fashion today is anonymity of design, the individual, not the designer, must do his thing.
Rudi Gernreich in: "The Youthquake in Popculture", Fortune, Jänner 1969
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I consider designing today more a matter of editing than designing. Again, the minute you really innovate something, say a new cut or a shape or something that in itself is a creative thing to do, that is definitely design. Design today is more editing because you take an existing shape – let´s say a t-shirt, a jacket, a pair of blue jeans, and you put it together in an interesting way in different colors. You are really editing a series of modifications of pre-existing forms, of realistic shapes of clothes, like, let´s say tennis clothes, or swimming clothes. But they must be really utilitarian, something that has a reason to be what it is. Levi´s will become the ultimate classic of any kind of pant. They are just totally utilitarian. They cannot be erased. Levi´s are the most ultimate kind of garment in existence.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´´Clothes like this are dead´, says Rudi Gernreich´, Los Angeles Times, 30. 1. 1972
Fashion is always a result of social change. Today´s fashion is what today´s people are really about. For instance, clothes used to be a status symbol. A ´look what I have´ not ´what I am´. It was all based on money. The wild clothing for today´s young people is a direct denial of former values – values that no longer apply. In London the young people wear Marlon Brando sweat shirts with holes in them. They don´t need to state their background or breeding. They´ve got it. So what´
Rudi Gernreich in: McCall´s, November 1969
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Young arrogants
Wir hatten diese jungen Kundinnen, die vor allem Kleider von Rudi Gernreich kauften, unter uns nannten wir sie die ´young arrogants´. Nicht im Sinn einer aufgesetzten Arroganz. Sie arbeiteten und verdienten ihr eigenes Geld, das sie auch ausgeben wollten. Sie hatten begriffen, daß sie alles erreichen konnten, was immer sie sich vorstellten. Durch ihre Arbeit hatten sie Selbstvertrauen erlangt, und es war dieses Selbstvertrauen, das als Arroganz wahrgenommen wurde. Es handelte sich um eine Gruppe von Frauen, die in der amerikanischen Gesellschaft bisher nicht existiert hatte. Bis dahin hatten Frauen die Highschool besucht und dann geheiratet. Andere Designer haben immer noch für diese Frauen entworfen, also ziemlich konservative Kleider produziert. Unsere Kundinnen aber waren das, was man heute working girls nennt, die meisten von ihnen arbeiteten in einem Büro oder in der Filmindustrie.
Yuki Kanigaye in einem Gespräch am 20. 7. 2000 In Los Angeles
I have no intention of making a woman look pretty. I think fashion must be a reflection of what is going on around us. Fashion should be related to self expression. Let´s face it. The world at this moment isn´t pretty. We need more individual approach.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´Fashion Focus´ von Barbara Dlou, Pittsburgh Press, 30. 9. 1965
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These are clothes on the go. Clothes for today´s woman of action. They move. They travel. I know no season any more. Not even in colors or fabrics.
Rudi Gernreich in: Women´s World, 9. 6. 1965
Ich schaffe Dinge für Menschen mit unabhängiger Haltung, für integrierte Persönlichkeiten, für Frauen, die frei sind von den Konventionen, für Nonkonformisten, die sich in ihrer Persönlichkeit ausdrücken wollen. Also für Frauen, die aktiv und lebendig sind, au courant und international fühlen.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´Rudi macht dich frei´ von Victoria Wolf, Jüdische Illustrierte, September 1967
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Der einzige Begriff, der in dieser neuen und kleinen Welt von Kunst und Mode zählte, war wohl ´sophistication´, und es war eigentlich eine Voraussetzung für jede Person, die Rudis Kleider trug, nicht nur über Mode Bescheid zu wissen, sondern auch über die Kunstszene und alles andere, was damit in Verbindung stand. Ich denke, daß seine Entwürfe sehr intellektuell waren und weniger emotional, sinnlich oder gefühlsbetont wie Mode das üblicherweise ist. Rudis Kleider waren so gar nicht frou-frou.
Henry Hopkins in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Los Angeles
Serious women are not dressing for teas and cocktail parties or quilting bees. They´re tired of being sex objects, either active or retired. Women are on the war path and they´re out to get the girls. They are also out to get the boys, those permanent juveniles that only can communicate with a woman in bed. What is happening now is that women are taking possession of their own sexuality. The guns are there to protect, symbolically, their really good and sound values, to say: don´t mess around with them. They are a warning. There´s something very good about destroying archaic values that are unreal for today. It´s a positive act. It´s healthy. By paring yourself down to a kind of uniform and not adorning yourself in a superficial way, you really emerge much stronger. My clothes are not really militant clothes at all. They are functional. They are real. [...] People will try to say that I want to make women look masculine. To me the only respect you can give to a woman is to make her a human being, a totally emancipated woman who is totally free.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´Rudi Sticks to His Guns´, Los Angeles Times, 25. 11. 1970
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Oben ohne
Der Kunstaspekt findet sich bei seinen Kleidern nicht im Design wieder, also in Farbe oder Schnitt, sondern darin wie Gernreich sich durch die Kleider mit gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen Themen auseinandersetzt, zum Beispiel der Interpretation des weiblichen Körpers: In dieser Hinsicht ist der Oben-ohne-Badeanzug besonders interessant, weil Rudi Gernreich damit praktisch das Gegenteil von dem zeigt, was er zeigen möchte. Er zeigt den nackten Busen, aber nicht den nackten Busen aus dem Playboy Magazine. Gernreich versucht den weiblichen Körper zu befreien, mit etwas, das – zumindest auf den ersten Blick – wie eine Unterdrückung des weiblichen Körpers aussieht: seine Nacktheit zu entblößen.
Lyn Kienholz in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Los Angeles
If you stop to think of it, the whole purpose of clothes has always been to cover up and to conceal. Now they uncover and reveal. We have discovered that nakedness isn´t necessarily immoral, that it can have a logical and decent meaning. The body is a legitimate dimension of the human reality and can be used for many things besides sex. Slowly the liberation of the body will cure our society of its sex hang up. That´s what all the fuss about nudity is about.
Rudi Gernreich in: Alhambra Advocate, 30. 12. 1968
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Wir in Amerika sind sehr prüde. Wir haben schon gewußt, daß an der Riviera oder in Südamerika Frauen auch oben ohne an den Strand gingen, aber das war hier nicht üblich. Es war sogar ganz unüblich – wir waren einfach zu prüde. Als dann Rudi den Oben-ohne-Badeanzug als eine gleichermaßen gesellschaftliche wie modische Aussage vorstellte, ging er damit bis an die äußerste Grenze.
Henry Hopkins in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Los Angeles
It was already done at private pools. But I brought it into public consciousness. I made it official. It became so terribly sensational. It had nothing to do with fashion anymore. I didn´t like it. It destroyed all the taste I tried to put into it and those topless dresses in Germany and England were simply monstrous. It´s perfectly beautiful to be semi-naked on the beach but to appear in a restaurant in a topless dress is very wrong. To walk around nude is just not right. It´s a question of surroundings. It´s astounding that people took it so seriously. They thought everybody was going to run around seminaked. It was only meant for very pretty young girls – the same ones who can wear those very brief bikinis in Saint Tropez.
Rudi Gernreich, ´Who Makes You Wear Those Clothes´´, in: New York Post Magazine, 27. 6. 1965
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Ich denke nicht, daß seine Kleider Männer verrückt machen sollten. Sein Wunsch war es vielmehr, daß Menschen ein entspanntes Verhältnis gegenüber Sexualität gewinnen, nicht davon besessen sein sollten. Die beste Art, Menschen von ihren sexuellen Obsessionen zu kurieren, ist wohl – denke ich – wenn es gelingt, Nacktheit als alltägliche Erfahrung zu begreifen, nicht als etwas, das hinter verschlossenen Türen stattfindet.
Don Bachardy in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Santa Monica
The bare top evening dresses in my fall collection were presented to show the free body. They pointed out the way of freedom today. It disturbs me when vulgarity is associated with them. Today the bare bosom has no shock value. (...) The ´ rich peasant look? [ein damals aktueller Modetrend, Anm. J. P./T. W.] is only ivory tower thinking and there are only a very few people who can live that way. These fashions are incongruous. There has to be a relation of clothes to the environment.
Rudi Gernreich in: McCalls, Mai 1970
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Unisex: neither hers nor his. It´s theirs.
Rudi Gernreich in: Alhambra Post , 30. 12. 1968
Wenn wir gerade über die Freiheit in seinen Entwürfen sprechen, dann möchte ich schon darauf hinweisen, daß Freiheit ein echtes Anliegen war für einen homosexuellen Mann, der in den 50er, 60er und 70er Jahren sicherlich sämtliche Formen von Unterdrückung im privaten wie im öffentlichen Leben erfahren hatte. Freiheit sollte bei Gernreich ein Konzept sein, das sich an beide Geschlechter wandte.
Don Bachardy in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Santa Monica
As long as women wear the traditional dress, they are returning to the place where they emerged from. It could be considered a slave uniform. If they continue to wear men´s clothing they are wearing the master´s uniform. So it´s not true equality. While men do not wear women´s clothing, its only been in the last decade that it was accepted that he cared if he was good looking. He continues to wear the tie, the Edwardian jacket, his changes are minute. In 1970 everything started backwards.
Rudi Gernreich in: Wilmington News, 26. 1. 1977
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It´s inevitable that men´s and women´s clothes will become alike. [...] And I believe the similarity will make their anatomical and spiritual differences more evident.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´Inside fashion´ von Eugenia Sheppard, New York Post, 7. 1. 1970
Today´s notion of masculinity and femininity is challenged as never before. Traditionally clothes have been considered as tertiary sex characteristics. But now the cliches are breaking down and people as people are emerging.
Rudi Gernreich in: Los Angeles Times, 2. 7. 1968
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Hair hides a lot, and body hair is too sexual. I don´t want to confuse the idea of freedom with sexual nakedness. Openness and honesty call for no covering of any kind. Is a boy in a miniskirt the less a boy´ By wearing the same clothes, male and female only ´enhance´ their bodily differences. By promoting uniformity of dress I´m also promoting an honest, rational attitude towards sex. Sexual honesty involves only the body itself. Sexuality should not be judged on the basis of clothes. It is a spiritual thing – and a physical thing.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´Finale for Fashion´´, Time Magazine, 26. 1. 1970
Take the unisex kids – everybody dressing alike, boys with long hair, girls with short, everybody in a fuzzy sweater. [...] These kids aren´t sexually confused. They know. They just don´t see any need to make such a big thing of masculinity and femininity – it´s easily demonstrable.
Rudi Gernreich in: McCall´s, November 1969
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I´m making statements
I´m making statements like Gertrude Stein.... a dress is a dress is a dress.
Rudi Gernreich in: Woman´s Wear Daily, 8. 10. 1968
Naturally, fashion must be new, if it is to be fashion.
Rudi Gernreich in: Lima Ohio News, 4. 7. 1968
Was seine eigenen Entwürfe betrifft, ging es ihm schon sehr darum, damit Publicity zu erlangen – was ja auch geschah. Ich denke nicht, daß er sich über den Wert dieser Publicity im unklaren war.
Don Bachardy in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Santa Monica
I´ve never had to manufacture an image for myself. The image is based on the clothes. My designs have been conspicuous enough that the press is interested voluntarily.
Rudi Gernreich in: California Business, 6. 10. 1969
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Early in January when I started to work on my fall collections, I thought myself caught in a transitional period which would, as I went along, evolve into some definite changed silhouette. But coming closer and closer to the finish – I realized that fashion is never vague. Although always in transition, it must at one point be caught and channelled into the look of the moment. What is happening today is most curious – and I find myself having included – no waists, high waists, low waists, slimness, fullness, barrels, triangles .... and all of it is right. All of it is the look of the moment. Today´s women can look like a 1912 school girl for lunch, at cocktail time – like a vamp out of a 1930 movie and in the evening like Empress Josephine. And I have come to the conclusion that it is not a silhouette, but an attitude which is the important change. There has been more a radical change in the attitude of a face, leg and foot last year, than in the shape of a dress – the way a mouth is made up and used, the way the hair is cut or combed or the way an eyebrow is raised; the way the stocking is colored, the way the shoe is pointed and the way the leg will stand according to the height of the heel. What happens in between seems to happen by itself. The focus is on head and leg, which makes the dress an accessory. I believe it is my function today to stimulate and strengthen the awareness of this attitude. Therefore, I felt the necessity to complete my picture by adding hats to my clothes as well as shoes.
Showings by appointment, May 28 to June 13, Suite 305 – 306 at the Algonquin Hotel, 59 West 44th Street New York. ´
Einladung zur Präsentation der Herbstkollektion im Mai 1958
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´I´m totally unconcerned with skirt lengths´, said the California-based designer. ´They are not the issue. The issue is flying to the moon, killing men in Vietnam, teenagers pouring kerosine over Bowery drifters and setting them on fire. Wild, that´s what it´s all about now. Life isn´t pretty. Clothes can´t be pretty little things. They must be bold´ strong, we have to take this terrible world and make fun of it with fun clothes, functional clothes.´
Los Angeles Examiner, Women´s World, 29. 9. 1966
Isee the conditions today as something like this: anonymity, universality, unisex, nudity as a fact and not as kick and above all reality. By reality I mean the use of real things: blue jeans, polo shirts, t-shirts, overalls. All of this translates into a new kind of enlightenment; enlightenment in a serious sense, but in a less serious sense as well. A deflation, perhaps. Even a light-heartedness. This young man gave up his ´hippie look´. He had grown tired of being typed, identified, judged by his appearance. Suddenly he no longer needed it. What was really important to him was in his mind. When I met him, he was wearing an anonymous sort of uniform of an indefinite revolutionary cast. Actually he had passed from private anarchy to political awareness.
Rudi Gernreich in: Michigan News, 15. 7. 1971
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Then there are people, who on their own, have developed extraordinary style in their dress. A minority group like the blacks, who are just now emerging to a greater authority in general society, have never really been part of the main system. In that sense, they are a great deal freer to express themselves in the way they behave or in the way they dress. (...) Plus the social role of a black is so different: black male and female is so different from a white male-female relationship. The black male often has a hard time to find work, so he´s out of a job, and the woman is the head of the family and keeps it together. In that sense the man is more of a sexual object. They´re flashier, there´s more obvious sexual expression. This may also have something to do with the existence of a street culture. The suburban (white) man displays his clothes only to very few people: the people in his home and the people in his office. But the black or Puerto Rican is exposed in the streets and interchanges with a thousand people. He´s really on display.
Rudi Gernreich in: ´Thoughts on the Psychology of Clothes´ in: Popular Psychology, Juli 1973
Ich weiß einfach, daß er seine Arbeit sehr ernst nahm; er war nicht im geringsten oberflächlich oder frivol, was seine Arbeit betraf.
Don Bachardy in einem Gespräch am 3. 8. 2000 in Santa Monica
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