Fashion and poetry quotes…
“Fashion is a curtain that unveils the frenzy of poetry.”
— Giannina Braschi
Poetry and Fashion Quotes
Fashion and poetry are both arts of the present moment—capturing collective moods, shifting trends, and the fluid nature of identity. Celebrated poet and novelist Giannina Braschi explores the intersections between haute couture, street style, classical myth, and literary innovation.
Below is a curated collection of Braschi’s striking reflections on fashion and poetry, including gems from her recent Nylon China interview and one-liners from her Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing!, plus critical commentary by scholar Frederick Luis Aldama. [AI]
Fashion, Myth, and the Street: The Nylon China Dialogue
In a feature for Nylon China‘s “Journey to the Future” edition, Braschi discusses how fashion and design emerge in ancient Greek myths…
“Fashion became an event when the god Hephaestus fashioned the Shield of Achilles in Homer’s Iliad and when the god Vulcan fashioned the Shield of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid. The poets Homer and Virgil fashioned those shields with an extraordinary language of beauty and might. I’m not only interested in the use of classical symbols. I’m very interested in symbols that are not yet recognized as symbols. In other words, I’m interested in the creation of new symbols, new languages, and new meanings for our times.”
Translating this mythic power into the contemporary urban landscape, the poet extends the power of style beyond the personal into a collective public expression:
“Style should always be fluid. It often expresses the fluidity of the individual, but not always the collective. I want the collective to be expressed in my work—in the fashion world—in all worlds. I would like to stage a fashion show in the city streets where the night and day are condensed as one. We would see at once what people wear at night, and what they wear in the day. What they wear in the sun and in the rain. There will come a time when we have the four seasons in one day. I would have the designer dress all types of people in motion: the construction workers, the waiters, the taxi drivers, the fireman, the porters, the businessmen, the students, the singers, the actors, the delinquents, the pregnant women, the children. The runway would be intersecting with the dangers of the motorcycles, ambulances, buses, and cars. The fashion runway would have demonstrations, revolts, and show the discontent of the people in the streets. Fashion as an artform should not be satisfied with the goal of selling products, but with how to manifest society in all its ups and downs, and in its tumult, and transformations. Only if this happens is fashion a revolution.”
Braschian Aphorisms: 5 Fashion Quips
- “Fashion is a curtain that unveils the frenzy of poetry.”
- “Fashion offers us clues of the collective mood. Its frivolity is important because it makes light of what is heavy. Everything good in life has light or wants to become light.”
- “Poetry and fashion hinge on those transitions between impermanence and permanence.”
- “I want poetry to be a fashion show—to have a taste of frivolity—savoir faire—a taste of time at its peak—Kenzo, Gigli, and Gaultier. I’m more excited by Bergdorf’s windows than the contemporary poetry I’ve read.” (From the Spanglish novel Yo-Yo Boing!)
- “Fashion and poetry require humor and taste. We are the makers of manners, and manners require a clear expression of style. We capture the mood of our time and the fluidity.”
Critical Commentary: The Aesthetic World of Giannina Braschi
In Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi (University of Pittsburgh Press), distinguished scholar Frederick Luis Aldama reflects on how the author’s avant-garde aesthetic reshapes the American imaginary: “Giannina Braschi smuggles into a US imagination a sensibility created in and across a hemispheric Américan history, aesthetic, and culture. And she does so to create hard-hitting, no-holds-barred, mind-expanding story-worlds… I look forward to seeing, too, how new generations…will be inspired to shape radically experimental fictions.”