The concept of “second skin” was first proposed by the American fashion psychologist Marilyn J.Horn in 1981 in her book The Second Skin：An Interdisciplinary Study of Clothing (which translated into Chinese in 1991). Literally, the concept of “the second skin” contains two meanings at least: Firstly, it emphasizes subject-involved of human beings and the attached attribute of clothing; Secondly, it emphasizes the importance and necessity of clothing. In short, human beings and clothing are symbiotic and interdependent at least in the field of public social occasions in today’s society.
Although the concept of “second skin” is originated in English, now it has obviously become the synonymous with “clothing”, however, we have not yet to further scrutiny over the relationship between them, nor did we ask what contains its point to the content, and whether “clothing” nowadays can still be seen as “second skin” in this sense since it has gone beyond what the original meaning of “second skin”. Clarifying these questions probably a help for us to take a look into the vast, vibrant, and diverse field of fashion design.
Skin (Chinese: 皮), the book Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Chinese：说文解字; literally: ‘Explaining Graphs and Analyzing Characters’, an early-2nd-century Chinese dictionary from the Han Dynasty) defines that the animals cover peeled off is called skin. In Xu Kai’s book Shuo Wen Xi Zhuan (Chinese: 说文系传; literally: ‘Comments to Explaining Graphs and Analysing Characters’, a 10th-century Chinese dictionary from the Southern Tang Dynasty) defines that the raw material is called skin, the texture is called leather(Chinese: 革) and softened leather is called hide (Chinese: 韦). Zhou Li (Chinese: 周礼; literally: ‘The Rites of Zhou’) explained in its Tian Guan Chapter (Chinese: 天官; literally: ‘officials of heaven’) that the raw material with hairs is skin, and the polled part is leather or hide. That is to say, skin is the unprocessed raw material outer tissue with hairs of animals and once processed without hair it become hide and softened leather. Shang Shu (Chinese: 尚书; literally: ‘Esteemed Documents’, one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature) reads in its Biography of Kong, Yu Gong Chapter (Yu’s Tribute) that (Yu) offered skins of four animals for making of golden carpet. Ji (Chinese: 罽; literally: ‘carpet’) is a kind of carpet made of animal skins and furs. This is an evidence that animal skins had been used for weaving as early as during the Waring States Period from 5th to 3rd Centuries BC. Shi Ming (Chinese: 释名; literally: ‘Origins of Names’) also defines that Pi (Chinese: 被; literally: ‘quilt or cover’) cover bodies. It can be seen that skin covers and wraps up bodies and its function is to wrap up and prevent from nudity.

The Chinese word skin (Chinese: 肤) has its traditional form 膚, with its upper component 虍 refers to tiger skin with furs for its mean protection and its lower part 胃 refers to digestive organs and meats. Those two parts are put together to refer to “the protection layer of wrapping up the stuff in the stomach (meat)”. The modern form 肤 has its left part 月 which meaning fresh as referring to bodies, and the right part 夫 which meaning outer or surface. The combination of two is “the appearance of bodies”.
This simple review of the original meaning of skin reveals several connotations. Firstly, the skin unprocessed is the primitive natural texture with furs. Secondly, it wraps up the entire body. In addition, it has protective function. So there must be a certain thickness and sturdiness. Finally, it refers to the manifestation of appearance. Just as Yun Hui (Chinese: 韵会, literally:’Collection of Character Pronunciations’) put it: skin, the surface of flesh. That’s what it means.
Therefore, when we propose the concept of “second skin” again today, whether our clothing can meet the aforementioned standards of skin remains to be questioned. What comes first is that clothing is absolutely not primitive natural texture with hairs or furs, instead, after procession and weaving, it’s a derivative of Ji (“ 罽”). Today, due to the environmental and ecological requirements, animals leather and fur products is almost out of the clothing fields which replaced by some plant fibers and more artificial fibers. Secondly, the clothing today more and more focuses on nudity rather than coverage. It not only rarely wraps up the whole body, but also seeks to emphasize the figure through designed cutting. Protection function, however, is not emphasized more than keeping warm and being the insulator between public and private spaces in our daily life. Except in specific professions, sturdiness and endurance of clothing is not attached importance anymore, since the old days people have only a few of clothes for all their lives have gone and many people will be flooded with hundreds of clothes when they open their closet. And the clothes are still in the update month by month.
There’s no doubt that clothing today emphasizes appearance the most. Along with the change of times, such “appearance” is more than its literal meanings and extends a kind of your body language that reveal your identity, your lifestyle, your social badge, your culture background, and the call of the era. Therefore, clothing likened to “second skin” has gone beyond the original meaning of “skin”. The word “second” is not an attachment or imitation of the “first”, but an extension of the connotation of “another”. But should we just simply take clothing away from the concept “second skin”? Or is it not appropriate to judge clothe strictly with the standard of “second skin”? As nowadays clothing design more into fiber art and far more distance from traditional position to ask its relationship between clothing and the environment and focus on valuing cultural and social connotations, is it possible for us to look back at the symbolized “second skin” and explore some possibilities from the primitive concept of “skin” to reflect today’s fashion design? Fortunately, Ma Ke, the clothing designer has brought us something out of the mainstream which probably what clothing design really needs. In her opinions, “fashion” and “clothing” are two totally different concepts. Today the popular “fashion” has shaken the foundations and changed the concern of socalled “clothing”. The real clothing must shoulder its responsibilities to inherit culture, to advocate morality, and to protect the ecosystem, which correspond to respectively the responsibility for the past, the present and the future.

However, the most spotlighted today are some delicate things made of invisible and unexpected materials. There is no function of protection or even coverage to let most of body naked. These socalled “fashion” is no longer “another layer of physical appearance” but something with their own power of speak and can stand completely by themselves without being subservient to any flesh. On the contrary, flesh bodies are somewhat a burden to them. If without the flesh bodies, they can be in any form, of any material, and on any media. They can throw off the concept of “clothing design” and enter into the field of “contemporary art” All the signs today indicate that they are embracing the aspiration to break away from the flesh bodies and to move towards “fashion art” which is free from limitation of clothing.
However, put these exciting illusions aside, we cannot help to ask that without flesh bodies, could clothing be called as “clothing”? Isn’t clothing subservient to flesh bodies and maintaining its property as “second skin” to exist? After thousands of years’ development of the human society, does it exist in attracting attention to the luxurious and glamorous variant shapes? The clothing design nowadays is just to meet people’s demands of curiosity for novelty and endless desire? How should we look at clothing to move it forward when nowadays it has gone beyond meeting the demands of wrapping up and protection? Maybe we have two options. One is to continue our pursuit of those so-called fashionable, elegant, sexy, beautiful and exotic fashions. The other is to explore again the clothing that are closely linked to human beings and containing the intensions of life, heritage of history and essence of culture.
From Ma Ke’s works, we can see her endless reverence to earth mother and eternal concern to nature ecology. Just as she put it: everything is made from raw materials in nature in environment-friendly ways and thus they have no negative impact to the environment as well as healthy to human bodies. All the products and their making processes are organic, pollutant free, and biodegradable. In her works, we can also see her respect to traditional culture and her faith in hand craftsmanship. She applied those disappearing techniques into her clothing design. With the preservation of these techniques, not only the techniques itself but also somewhat help guard endangered culture and history. The emergence of these clothing not only preserves, but also renews and extends the intangible cultural heritage. The minor ethnic craftsmen coming into cities from remote primitive mountainous regions who followed Ma Ke also takes this opportunity to deliver their culture and techniques to more people. It can be put this way, the traditional concept of clothing as a media connecting the outside world and the inside bodies has been broadened here. For these makers and designers, clothing has become a language to carry their culture forward. For people dressing or watching them, clothing has become their receptors for different cultures. With these clothing that contains the spirit of earth and blends cultures of different ethnic groups, people get connected and communicated. Such connection is a cure urgently needed by modern people who are becoming more and more alone, isolated and indifferent.

In Ma Ke’s work, “wrapping” exists throughout. From heavily pleated ones in her early stage to gowns as simple as silkworm cocoon in the late stage, the wearers are almost entirely wrapped and left only their faces uncovered. Her such attitude to clothing, even if it is not a deliberate interpretation, also coincides with the primeval meaning of skin.
Ma Ke once said that clothing is to her what oil paint is to painters and stone is to sculptors. As a unique way of art expression as a kind of pure artistic creation language, which drive people to go beyond admiration of its surface appearance and further into their deepest inner world for communication and contemplation. Such kind of creation is motivated by “human being”, which is the noumenon established by the concept of “second skin” and the ultimate object of “good arts” in Ma Ke’s philosophy. The “human being” here includes the emotional and spiritual aspects, i.e, love and more. In this sense, the concept “second skin” goes beyond the original meaning of skin. Literally, it refers to the outside appearance that wrapping up and protecting the flesh bodies. But in fact, in addition to the external, it can also penetrate into the most profound and sensitive part of our spiritual and sensational world. In addition to wrapping and protecting, it can also stow the most treasured sensation and value in our lives. Beside protecting our flesh bodies, it also serves as an alert that helps us to understand who we are. Therefore, Ma Ke’s works have no glamorous pleats, shiny sequins, exotic materials nor sexy nudity. On the contrary, it is a tranquil exception and a sustainable way of living in harmony with nature and the earth. Even though its efforts for preservation of traditional craftsmanship are quite small, its reverence to traditional Chinese folk cultures is broad and deep. These works far from most modern style clothing design, which is completely different from the practice and pursuit of today’s fashion designers. So Ma Ke entered the field of art from the field of clothing design. Thanks to her efforts, clothing has become a media for art expression.
“Hands carry heart feelings and clothing carries philosophy” and “handcrafts improve to approach philosophy”. The process of making clothing is a process more than teaching and learning. The labor of making clothes is not only a skill. The finished product of clothing itself is more than a handicraft or artwork. These three combined together display a state which perhaps in Ma Ke’s opinions a dream of “boundless love that unites the whole world into a family”.

Iris van Herpen is a totally different designer from Ma Ke. She employs cool technologies like 3D printing and laser cutting to make stereoscopic, layered, pleated, fluid, and lithe clothing. The materials, colors, and shapes determine the appearance and connotation of these clothes. With shapes exaggerating and materials exotic, the “second skin” subservient to our flesh bodies are of “soft sculpture” nature. If we compare Ma Ke’s clothing to the simplicity and vicissitudes on the face of the elderly father in the painting of Luo Zhongli’s, then the works of Iris van Herpen can be seen as the magnificent and relaxing smiling Madame Henneberg sitting in twinkling textures background in the Portrait of Marie Henneberg by Gustav Klimt. She wears a thin fold of weave linen dress wrapped in rich hair, pridefully and self-confidently.
There is no denying that 3D printing technology is a direction for future clothing, because it produces stereoscopic clothing perfectly matching your figure curve without any cutting. From this perspective, the concept of “second skin” is a perfect description.
The employment of biological material makes van Harpen’s works more biomimetic. Combined with technological approaches, these new products are full of futuristic characteristics. We cannot just depict them as novel or exotic, because they point to the possibilities of an ecological future, a dynamic attempt and exploration that combines clothing with sculpture, drama and dance. These dynamic works as well as some of her other dazzling works that certainly create a new way of communication between bodies and its relationship with the space. In this situation, while connecting and communicating the inner side and the outside space, clothing becomes capricious and elusive. This may be the new possibility of “second skin” in van Harpen’s eyes.
In sharp contrast to Ma Ke’s simplicity and plainness, pleats and repetition are the two features in van Harpen’s works. Pleats forms more space, and its inner space is more capable than the outer space. Gilles Deleuze takes pleats as a metaphor of the relationship between the non-systematic and non-linear soul and the external world. In the eyes of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, everything is being folded, unfolded and re-floded. Human beings live in endless pleats and the world is folded into souls which in turn unfold themselves in certain areas following the rules of time and space. The world is not composed of coagulated blocks, instead, it’s composed of endless pleated surfaces. Perhaps it was these philosophical implications of the pleats that led van Harpen to choose to employ pleats and repetition again and again. Indeed, it’s in these dazzling clothing with endless repletion of magnificent pleats we seem to see new worlds, one after another. These worlds are independent systems and they continue to evolve and develop and can be fold and unfold again and again at any time. Maybe it gives the viewers this charm and constitutes the wearers a new exploration of the special experience of the influence of “second skin” in their communication with others.

Therefore, although there’s a sharp contrast between the parallel oriental Ma Ke’s simple, profound, decorous, tranquil and craftsmanship-based local products and occidental van Harpen’s glamorous, lithe, lighthearted, capricious, technology-based futuristic works, they share at least one thing which is that none of their works can be judged with traditional aesthetics, fashion trend, or elegant style. Go beyond the layers of wrapping, the repetition of pleats, different materials, changing colors and variant shapes, it is a reflection on the future of clothing and why it is not the same. Ma Ke is looking back to tradition and draw nutrients from nature, land, ethnicities and van Harpen is looking forward to future to find inspiration from technology and cross-border exploration. In their works, we see two new ways to interpret the concept of “second skin”. On the one hand, they stick to some of the original meaning of skin and on the other hand they break away from the traditional framework that “skin” referred to. It is the practice of the experimental and exploratory new interpretations that make their works dissociate from the definition of traditional clothing design and bring up a “functional fiber art form”.
In modern society that is flooded with diversification, transboundary, and new concepts, it is often weak and pale to position a work. Clothing, as a must in our daily life, is obviously functional. However, as the “second skin”, on one hand, its close relationship with human beings attracts us to explore what is hidden behind it; On the other hand, it implies a kind of estrangement and a kind of “secondary” non-uniqueness and selectivity. Such estrangement brings broader space for free creation. However, no matter intimate or distant, no matter wandering in design or art, the clothing in front of us are destined to encounter each other disregard of their coming from seemly two different worlds with entirely different shapes and connotations. I believe that as the surface appearance of our flesh bodies and the liaison among persons, human beings and the environment, people and society, their encounter will bring us new inspirations.