• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.327-338
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• 2002

The analysis and examination of this study are focussed on the external deconstruction trend expressed in the works of Jean Paul Gaultier. The external deconstruction is a way of expression faithful to the literal meaning of 'deconstruction' and is the applied case of exposure, destruction, poverty, and decomposition as they are. The method and scope of this study are from 1980's to present, and the followings are the results of this examination focussed on the various literature of philosophy, aesthetics and literary criticism, and the domestic and foreign fashion journals. The exposure phenomena through the deconstruction expressed repeatedly in the works of Gaultier deconstructed the fixed idea of 'the inner wear should be worn inside the outer wear' and at the same time denied the dichotomical interpretation of the exposure and suppression, the traditional beauty and decadent beauty, the chastity and unchastity, the asceticism and sexuality, and obscured the notion of the inner wear and outer wear. The destructive deconstruction expressed in the works of Jean Paul Gaultier introduced the elements such as hippy, punk, and kitsch, slashed before making dresses, crumpled unseemly like wastepaper, or made dresses with textures like paper scraps, and through destroying textures, yielded shock effects and tension. Poverty, through borrowing from the outwardly poor-looking elements of design, i.e. the patch work, decolor, dye, fading, fringing, incompletion, and handmadeness, liberated dresses and their ornaments from the outside. The traditional dresses were dresses having certain forms with formative beauty, but Gaultier disassembled dresses and raised questions about the logic of dresses themselves.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.574-591
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• 2001

This study reviews the concept and characteristics of the deconstruction philosophy in order to analyze the major aspects of the fashion world called the deconstruction fashion based on the deconstruction philosophy, and analyzes the works of Jean Paul Gaultier in terms of Derrida's deconstruction theory. The scope of this research is from 1980 to present, and this study fashion on the many kinds of literature on philosophy, aesthetics and literary criticism, and the domestic and international fashion journals and magazines. The deconstructionism is the philosophical theory which denies the traditionally recognized logocentric metaphysical theory and refuses the closed world and pursues the open world, opposing the dichotomic theory which is the deep-rooted tradition of the Western philosophy. The results of analyses centering on the internal deconstruction trend expressed in the works of Jean Paul Gaultier are as follows. 1 The past style combined with the present appears in the form of the entirely new trace, not the past emotion and meaning in Gaultier's works transcending the time and space. 2 Gaultier presents the unconventional intermeaning of meanings, producing various possibilities according to the wearing method of the wearer by layering several clothes. 3. Gaultier breaks from masculinity and femininity in the intertextuality of gender, and decomposes the fixed idea of men's or ladies'wear through the design sharing bisexual text. 4. In the intertextuality of T.P.O., Gaultier presents the problem of how to wear by mixing different items through obscuring the division of the nature of time, space, and purpose. Especially Gaultier can be called the first designer who, worthy of the father of the deconstructionism, has introduced in the fashion making inner wear like outer wear. 5. In the intertextuality of coordination, Gaultier presents a new perspective of coordination through free combination and contrast, raising a question about the man-made harmony criterion and deconstructing the clothes. On the other hand, Gaultier expresses the intertextuality of the material through the heterogeneous combination of the material. 6. The decomposition trend expressed in the many works of Gaultier reflects an open mind presenting a new perspective through the distortion of the form, exaggeration, and break from the existing construction method. 7. The decentering trend in the works of Gaultier is found to deconstruct the Western-dominated elements against the background of subcultural elements, the elements borrowed from the minority race, md the Oriental culture. 8. The discontinuity clothes of Gaultier present the disordered principle of design without the uniform rules, and express the unrestrained freedom without captivation by the preconceived idea through the disruption of the dress and its ornaments just like Gaultier.