I have just been watching Jacques Rivette's 1994 two part film, 'Joan the Maid, The Battles and The Prisons'.
One scene struck me as being relevant to some of today's situations.
The French noble and military commander, Raoul de Gaucourt, interacts with Joan upon her arrival at Burgundy Gate to help lift the siege of Orleans,
Oh, if only certain world leaders of today would see it this way and act upon it. (Mind you, Joan didn't, she was a woman on a mission!)
Here is the medieval knight and statesman, Raoul de Gaucourt, played by Didier Sauvegrain, going about his war work in Rivette's film,
His coat of arms has a background of ermine, a white fur patterned with black tail markings. In traditional heraldry, ermine represents nobility, purity, high rank and judicial or spiritual authority. The figures are two stylized fish, back-to-back in the colour red, which symbolizes military strength, courage, valor and sacrifice in battle.
Sacrifice in battle...war...and who sacrifices the most...civilian women and children.
Rei Kawakubo has presented a number of collections based on war, mainly through the Comme des Garcons Homme Plus label.
The SS 2015 'Rebel Punk/Anti-War', was seen at the time as an explicit anti-war statement, "but in a garment way, with no words" said Kawakubo.
Classic pinstripe suits were matched with military tailoring, and camouflage netting that is used by the miltary to conceal heavy weapons, created interesting overlayering garments.
I like that cuff feature on the jackets of the first three images.
It is reflective of these WW1 German military uniforms.
Military uniform has infiltrated fashion for decades, like in these Vogue patterns of my mother's, for example. Each one has an element of a military uniform in its design.
The CdG Homme Plus Autumn Winter 2025 collection expressed a strong feeling, 'To Hell With War'. In this one, Rei Kawakubo draped army helmets with thick satins, and spliced military tailoring in drab olive with pinstripes, coloured felt, denim, flower-power prints and pastel colours, fabrics not associated with warfare.
The footwear pushed a new concept as well.
The latest CdG Homme Plus collection, Spring Summer 2027, 'If The War Were To End', was described as brimming "with hope, colour and positive vibes."
The latest CdG Homme Plus collection, Spring Summer 2027, 'If The War Were To End', was described as brimming "with hope, colour and positive vibes."
This time RK had cool gentle coloured stripes, big camouflage prints recoloured in psychedelic hues, and calico sunhats instead of army helmets.
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The hats were created in collaboration with very cool hatmaker, Nobuki Hizume. |
Slovenian artist, Nejc Prah collaborated with RK to create these aspects of the collection and the installation. Several previous works of the artist, his graphics, colour palette, bold imagery, were utilised in the collection garments.
In earlier years Japanese designer, Takahiro Miyashita under his label Number (N)ine, presented a 'Give Peace A Chance', collection during the Fall/Winter 2004 season. His inspiration came from John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1969 non violent bed-in protest against acts of war, during which they released their single, Give Peace a Chance.
Miyashita's choice of this title for his collection was a direct response to the happenings of 9/11 and the subsequent Bush/Blair Iraq War.
One of the strong design features of the collection, was Miyashita taking the ASAT (All Seasons All Terrain) outdoors company's camouflage pattern and subverting it with heart shapes.
The original ASAT pattern was created in 1986 by two American hunting enthusiasts.
The US Army tested the ASAT camouflage patterns during the mid-1980s, but did not select them for their military camo use.
Miyashita's adjustment of his camo pattern was an effective plea for love and peace. I believe it was called 'crying tribal heart camo'.
This pattern was used throughout the collection, and the consumer season that followed it.
He also had some good things going with t-shirts in his collection
When I began this blog, I contemplated starting with a definition of the word polemic. A "war of words", a piece of combative communication designed to prove one side is right and aggressively undermining the opposing view. The word comes from the Greek word 'Polemos'. which means war, battle, or conflict.
Here is an example...
In response to such a memory, I created this piece,
It reminds me of the 'Anti-War Piece' I created in 2023, as a part of my Redress the Past concept. Working with "non war like fabrics" is a main issue of this garmented work. 
In 2003, a massive Stop The War protest happened in London.
Last year, 2025, London Museum sent out a facebook post...
and some others, take this link to a page regarding 'Bushcraft'.
Military clothing is about uniformity and subordination of the self to the group, and its influence on fashion is so widespread that we are often no longer aware of it.
This is a garment from Sacai's Spring 2024 collection. It was not necessarily based on a war theme, but this ensemble does reflect military clothing. The cargo pocket on the top item and the colour palette of army green. I also like the combination of different fabrics stitched together.
Isabella Diorio, is a designer involved with a platform known as EDGE, Emerging Designers Get Exposed, which was founded by Rhonda P. Hill.
The basis of EDGE is that the designers involved are seeking an intellectual discourse, while prioritising environmental sustainability, addressing social change, the climate crisis and the importance of preserving traditional methodologies. Sounds good to me! There is also a strong aspect of fashion being a storyteller, which I really like.
Isabella's 2020 work, 'Female Engagement Team', was inspired by the often unknown women in the military, and her concern for them when they return home after duty, sometimes neglected by their homeland society. "My hope for the collection was to bring awareness to the roles played and the struggles faced by female service members."
https://edgexpo.com/2023/10/07/a-fashion-story-honors-women-in-combat-edge-talks-to-isabella-diorio/
War in art documents military conflict, battlefields and the human cost of war.
One of the most renown artists of war is Spanish artist, Francisco Goya, because of his 1810 print series, 'The Disasters of War', and the phenominal 1814 oil painting, 'The Third of May 1808'. Both of these works are unflinching and harrowing accounts of war.
An interesting consideration is, that prior to 1800 artists tended to glorify war. As the 19th century ticked over, tastes began to change and the art of war became more condemnatory and distressingly honest. Goya's 'The Disasters of War', a series of 82 etchings, and 'The Third of May 1808' are powerful examples of this change in approach. Both works came out of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain during what became known as the Pennisular War.
The Disasters of War, which took Goya from 1810 to 1820 to complete, document the starvation, the mutilations, the rapes, and the executions that made up the Peninsular War he observed. He focused on the horror of the war in an original way.
This is an excellent resource, with a downloadable PDF for the viewing of the etchings.
Goya's masterpiece, 'The Third of May 1808', is an oil painting commissioned for the provisional Spanish government after the French forces were driven out. It depicts the execution of Spanish resistance fighters by Napoleon's soldiers.
Here is an excellent explanation about the painting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlRfDBwOPJE
One of the most famous paintings of an anti-war statement is Pablo Picasso's 1937, 'Guernica'. Picasso painted this monumental (4 x 8 metres) work in 3 weeks, after the April 26, 1937 Nazi and fascist Italian aerial bombing of the Basque town of Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War. It is painted in a monochromatic palette of black, white and grey.
Want to understand it more? https://www.bbc.com/news/av/39722841
Sul Filo dell'arte is an Italian yarn-bombing and fibre arts collective. They created a wonderful recreation of Picasso's masterpiece. A glorious soft tactile sculptural work, which took a year to design and assemble.
Here a short video of the work, such a wonderful project. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVUgvDml1C4
Paul Nash's 1918, 'We Are Making A New World'.
The title makes a mockery of the ambitions of war. The sun rises on a scene of carnage and total destruction, with the landscape unrecognisable and totally barren. Although the sun is offering a glimmer of hope, Nash's painting reveals a bitter truth about war. Maybe there is also a bit of, life goes on.
One of the prominent contemporary anti-war artists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5s59U17Vk0
And what about the moving picture, when it comes to anti-war?
The absolute best films are those that satirise war by using dark humour, irony and absurdity to expose the futility and madness of military conflict.
The Great Dictator, 1940, directed by Charlie Caplin.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964, directed by Stanley Kubrick.
A darkly comedic political satire with a paranoid US Air Force general ordering a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, which triggers a frantic race to recall the bombers and stop the Earth's destruction.
M*A*S*H, 1970, directed by Robert Altman.
A film about 3 non-conformist U.S. Army surgeons, who use comedy to protect their sanity while treating wounded soldiers during the Korean War. Although it is set during this war, the film was released right at the height of the Vietnam War and is filled with a strong sense of anti-authoritarianism and anti-war spirit.
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| "Suicide Is Painless" Last Supper scene. |
This is a very comprehensive list of anti-war films...
https://www.flickchart.com/charts/movies/greatest-movies-of-all-time?perpage=50&genres=anti-war-film
I just had to view this one. 
It is quite delightful. A 1994 film, directed by John Roberts, set in County Cork, Ireland. The story about two rival boys' gangs, examines issues of conflict and war, the actions and consequences of violence and how it can divide and oppose people who can be friends as easily as they can be enemies.
I find it surprising to not see Mike Nichols', 'Catch 22' on the above list.
Does this article help to explain such an ommission? https://cinephiliabeyond.org/catch-22-mike-nichols-underappreciated-classic-adaptation-one-best-antiwar-novels-time/
I know this one isn't a film, but it is a powerful and poignant reflection on the killing field of WWI.
Blackadder, series 4, final scene, 'Good Luck Everyone'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM&t=34s
What about some of the best anti-war literature, that is what strips away the romance and glory of war, presenting us with the trauma, the psychological decay and ultimately, the futility of it all!
The ones I have read...
And, let's not forget the poetry, the beautiful poetry...
Harvey Kurtzman, creator and writer of the first 24 issues of the satiric comic, MAD,
Novelist/newspaper columist Pete Hamil wrote, "(His) combat stories were hard, bleak, free of rah-rah patriotism. They were about men, not costumed superheros."
The 2012 publication, 'Corpse on the Imjin!', contains 25 of Kurtzman's comic war stories.
This is a very good analysis of one of them.
Here is the article that alerted my interest to Kurtzman's anti-war work. https://www.tcj.com/the-anti-war-of-harvey-kurtzman/Nowadays, regard this subject, so much is America.
Here's a political cartoon strip, which was published inside MAD magazine in 1971.
America's symbolic Bald Eagle deteriorates with each major war the US engaged in over its history, up to the Vietnam War.
When you actually look into it, it is astounding how many wars America has been involved in.
What I took out of it is, "What does covert mean..It means the United States deny their involvement.. An imperial mentality.. If you are not with us, you are against us!
And he did say "The US will have to learn to be co-operative."
War, so horribly sad, destructive and depressing.
Aggressor/Defender.
What do you do, to keep peace?
I leave the last word with my Irish friend, Geraldine and her beautiful poem, 'Spindle'.
SLTSLTBsigns off.
