Fashion: is it art?

Rojales Artists'Caves - Martin Robinson's exhibition Own photo

I am back from Spain where I modelled for Martin Robinson's weekly workshop and did, additionally, a session at the Rojales Artists' Caves, where Martin had an exhibition of his work and where he did a life drawing demonstration.
I miss the lovely weather already! I even had fun prancing around in a belly dancing costume which Martin had lying around - some of his models have posed for him wearing it.

Photo: Martin Robinson. Model: me

At the weekend I had a conversation with a couple of friends and the question came up of whether fashion is art. I feel rather uncomfortable with the notion of a hierarchy of the arts  -  the disciplinary field  of 'visual culture' came about in the 1990s, taking stock of the changes instigated by the work of people such as Warhol, Rauschenberg, Sherman, Kruger, Prince, Wall, Viola, Crewdson, and street artists, all of whom deconstructed 'high art', effecting interesting cross-overs with popular culture.
But the question 'is it art?' continues to be asked in connection with fashion, and for fashion, to be anointed as 'high art', seems to be a crucial aspiration.
For fun, I ventured a poll through my deviantArt account. The poll is still active, I have not closed it. Why deviantArt?  dA is a platform - I quote - "that allows emerging and established artists to exhibit, promote, and share their works within a peer community dedicated to the arts". I realise that it is made up mostly of amateurs (but not exclusively) but it still allows one to hear the voice of people who position themselves as artists. It also has a global remit.
So far I have had 51% replies supporting the statement that fashion is art. 12%said fashion was an applied art, 10% reckoned there was no hierarchy between the arts thus by default fashion is art, 10% chose to say 'depends', 7% said no, 7% admitted it could be were it not for the hype that surrounds it, 2% emphasised that fashion is primarily a global  industry, a consideration that makes any speculation on fashion's status as art devoid of meaning.

Intrigued I began to look around for articles and books that could throw further light on this matter. Virginia Postrel discussed  in The Wall Street Journal in 2010  the incorporation of fashion at the Lincoln Center.  Was this a move to validate fashion's contribution to culture?  According to Valerie Steele, the director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, whom Postrel quotes, "Fashion is really seen as the bastard child of capitalism and female vanity."
In an essay included in the collection Fashion and Art edited by Adam Geczy and Vicky Karaminas, Steele makes the uncontroversial point that "it is impossible to answer the question of whether fashion is art without reassessing the definitions of both art and fashion" and later reminds us that "both fashion and art are aspects of visual culture, involving form , colour, and texture".

It is a question that to some extent will never be answered. Perhaps it is the wrong question altogether. Rather than trying to decide what is and what is not art, rather than discussing where boundaries should be put in place, we might want to consider points of convergence and how the study of fashion can enrich the study of culture.