Thoughts around an uplifting point

Y's by Yohji Yamamoto

Oversized short-sleeved button up shirt in white cotton. High-low hemline. Oxford collar. 
Single box pleat at back yoke.

photo from TotoKaelo

"I think clothes should be made from the back, and not the front.
The back supports the clothes,
and so if it is not properly made,
the front cannot exist."

Yohji Yamamoto
Yohji Yamamoto: Talking to Myself
2002

Ballet professor Wayne Byars, when talking to dancers about how to hold one's body, describes two imaginary lines:
- a horizontal line going from shoulder to shoulder
- a vertical line going from head to lower back, following the spine
The intersection of these 2 lines is an imaginary point.
Wayne directs students towards the mental representation and lifting of this point upward, to carry the body in the best manner - freeing it for dance, and by extension, for life.

Photo from a Philippe Genty puppeteering workshop

cropped from an original by Elena Mesa Alonso of the company Micro-Troupe

Puppeteer Philippe Genty and his company use, for teaching the basics of puppetry, a half-scale puppet which is held with two hands:
- one handle located in the higher back, roughly at the intersection of shoulder line and spine
- the other handle located at the back of the head, at mid-height.
The resulting movement of these puppets is extremely realistic and graceful, mimicking humans in a disturbingly accurate way.

 

Stay pattern, full, back view

based on an engraving from The Art of the Tailor

by François-Alexandre-Pierre de Garsault, Paris, 1769

 

Stay-makers of 18th century France did not measure the human body the way we do now. Instead of taking into account basic orthogonal lines such as bust-waist-hips-torso & back length, they used a set of diagonal dimensions, obtained by wrapping strips of paper around the upper body. A striking feature of this technique is the resulting pattern on the back, showing a clear intersection of several lines roughly in the same imaginary spot mentionned above.

"It should not bend,
but accomodate the body it holds within,
without altering its shape,
while at the same time supporting it
and preventing it from acquiring bad postures"

François-Alexandre-Pierre de Garsault
Art du Tailleur
1769

EYE

cow's eye

cropped from a photo by ILRI

"Any homogeneous membrane which has holes in it will tend to rupture at the holes, unless the edges of the holes are reinforced by thickening.

The most familiar example of this principle at work is in the human face itself. Both eyes and mouth are surrounded by extra bone and flesh. It is this thickening, around the eyes and mouth, which gives them their character and helps to make them such important parts of human physionomy.

human eye

cropped from a photo by Dietmar Temps

A building also has its eyes and mouth: the windows and the doors. And following the principle which we observe in nature, almost every building has its windows and doors elaborated, made more special, by just the kind of thickening we see in eyes and mouths.

 

bull's-eye

photo by mirsasha

The fact that openings in naturally occurring membranes are invariably thickened can be easily explained by considering how the lines of force in the membrane must flow around the hole. The increasing density of lines of force around the perimeter of the hole requires that additional material be generated there to prevent tearing. (...) It is important to recognize that this stiffening is not only supporting the opening itself against collapse, but it is taking care of the stresses in the membrane which would normally be distributed in that part of the membrane which is removed.

 sketch from the book A Pattern Language

 

More general examples of frames as thickened edges exist all over the world.
They include
the thickening of the mud around the windows of a mud hut,
the use of stone edges to the opening in a brick wall because the stone is stronger,
the use of double studs around an opening in stud construction,
the extra stone around the windows in a Gothic church,
the extra weaving round the hole in any basket hut.

eyelet

(...) Do not consider door and window frames as separate rigid structures which are inserted into holes in walls. Think of them instead as thickenings of the very fabric of the wall itself, made to protect the wall against the concentrations of stress which develop around openings."

Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa & Murray Silverstein
A Pattern Language
1977 

MAKING A BODY

I am currently making French 18th century stays, as an investigation into the history of clothing, materiality and the body.

The french expression for stays is 'corps baleiné' ['whaleboned body'].
Similarly, the name of a particular kind of stays worn at the king's court is 'grand corps de cour' ['tall body for court'].
The artisan specialized in making them in the 18th century was called the 'tailleur de corps' ['tailor of bodies'].

Isn't is striking that the word for this item of clothing, which molds and transforms the shape of the body, is the word CORPS ['BODY']? Not 'corsage' ['bodice', as is sometimes translated in english], but 'body'.

As if there was no difference between your natural body and this second one.