We’ve given fashion the chic-lit treatment, and I’m not ok with it.
Can it be escapist? Frothy? Indulgent?
Yes, of course.
Allow me a metaphor: Cooking isn’t just about flavor – what a disservice it would be to the world’s culinary traditions to whittle the essence of food down to “taste.” It’s about memories, connection, nourishment, culture, tradition, play, innovation, creativity, science, family, friends, community, social order, natural resources, economics, war, colonialism (yes, I went there), resistance, fun, passion, love, necessity, a full-bore sensory experience.
So is fashion – and, I’d add, fashion is deeply political.
This is my argument for why we are missing the point when it comes to fashion. How and why we consume it, our implicit biases against those who love it, the gendered lenses we use in determining its value – these are all things I find problematic.
The consequences? I’d argue that they’re greater than they appear, way beyond the already egregious glossing over of significant works of art and their inherent value to society. We lean into the idea that it’s disposable. With disposable fashion, we find immense pressure for a steady production pipeline: underpaid labor in unregulated conditions, environmental trauma, and designer burnout.
If fashion has so much to give, then why do we see it as frivolous?
Let’s circle back to giving fashion the chick-lit treatment. It has long been held that subjects pertaining to women’s interests, experiences, and struggles are downgraded, both in the eyes of the media and of the public. We see female authors being pigeon-holed into the “chick-lit” category (regardless of the quality of their work and of the subject matter), mothers at home described as “just” stay-at-home moms, and – perhaps most indicative of the issue at hand – women’s pain being downgraded in medical settings.
When I talk to my mother and aunts about style, they point out a generational shift in motivations for dressing. As baby boomers, they were taught that the purpose of “having style,” and indeed, the measure of how “good” your style was, was purely to attract men. Once attracted, you must maintain his interest lest his perky young secretary’s more adroitly lined lips lure him away.
What a drag.
Thankfully, they’re also of the women’s rights generation, which introduced the concept of dressing for your own damn self. You’re not an ornament, your value does not come from men or marriage or how well your hair holds a curl, it’s independent of all of those things. If you want to learn how do do your hair, it’s your own business.
Ornament versus Art
You see, from what I can tell, fashion has been historically perceived in two parallels:
1. A tool of ornamentation, almost a puffed-up courtship ritual, a way to perk our buns up and keep men’s interest … stimulated. As if men wanted nothing more in a relationship than a pin-up, or that fashion was purely an instrument of heteronormative culture – you see how this perspective does a disservice to everyone involved?
2. An art form where beauty is one of many possible products of creation, and beauty itself has many different facets. This is where the culinary analogy comes in, because this point of view allows for all of the gorgeous complexities of art to come into play. Seeing fashion as art – an interactive one, at that – acknowledges all the societal, historical, and cultural forces at play.
Sometimes the line between the two is fuzzy – and that’s ok. Being a little vain is ok. Wanting to feel beautiful is ok. The problems arise, though, when we make outward appearance the pinnacle of fashion – not only does it stifle the individual, but it discredits the entire art form and we as consumers miss out on SO MUCH GOOD STUFF.
Design
I say that fashion is an interactive art because there are really two stages of creation – the design stage and the wearing stage.
A good designer, as Pierpaolo Piccioli stated in his most recent couture presentation, creates as a reaction to the environment around them. Fashion is a low-fidelity signal-repeater for the current conditions of the world, relaying a newly synthesized impression with each repeat, each time infusing it with something new.
The history of shoulder pads in womenswear is a great, albeit simple, example of this: a reaction to women’s place in the world, a reaction that has itself turned into an object of creativity in various iterations throughout the past century.
More nuanced, and perhaps more interesting, examples of this are found in any runway show worth its salt. Some are more “artsy” than others – Maison Margiela, for instance is identifiably topical in its design approach, each collection an often chaotic statement on Self, or decadence, or media, or environment. In contrast, a house like Elie Saab perennially “reacts” to modern life by producing escapist beauty, little truffles of esthetic bliss. Both are art, but you see how broad the scope of fashion really is?
The Art of Wearing
Then we come to art of wearing (let’s capitalize that) Art of Wearing: who’s wearing what and when. Now, I am not talking about making a “fashion statement” for Joan Rivers’ ghost to grill on Fashion Police. There is something so normative and restrictive about boiling fashion – and its inherent value – down to trends. Nothing against trends – it’s just that they’re not at all what this is about.
The Art of Wearing is what happens when a person’s individual essence meets clothing, which in turn reacts to the environment – be it the physical air around them, their relationship with themselves, the friends in the room, or the socio-political environment of the time. Hillary Clinton and her pantsuits are great examples, as is the more recent headlines of Serena Williams asserting herself on the tennis court through her wardrobe.
I would also argue that the Art of Wearing is at its most elemental right now, as many of us are staying at home in the pandemic (read more about that here). No matter what you put on your body, you’re creating something. A mood, yes, but more powerful – the story you are telling yourself about who you are, what you’re up to, and what piece of yourself you’re honoring right now.
Downplaying value
So: can dressing up to look “pretty” be art? Of course. Is it wrong to “dress up” for someone else? Of course not. Those are just two of many, many reasons to care about fashion and not nearly the most important ones at that.
Because fashion has been so feminized in Western culture, and femininity has been downplayed, pigeonholed, and used as fuel for the male gaze, we often see fashion as frivolous. We see it as a series of trends to fit in or stand out, to look “exclusive,” to make our bodies look a certain way, to fit a certain mold. We’re told it’s a women’s subject, meant to encourage the dithering and twittering of girls at sleepovers, never mind the fact that such dithering may actually be meaningful, formative relationship building and part of a complex and rewarding social structure.
That’s just it – we’re used to skimming the most superficial pieces off the top, the cutesy rules, the color of the year, the best nail shape for your fingers. There isn’t anything wrong with any of those things – I mean, have a little fun! – but if that’s the only thing we think of when we think of fashion, we’ve got a problem.
If you like this article, you may also be interested in “The Problem(s) with Anna Wintour“
How to consume fashion differently
When I started the blog, I knew there had to be more to fashion than we see on the surface. Nothing in this world that lights people up as much as fashion does exists on a purely superficial plane, but I had never seen fashion be treated as anything but.
One evening, Vanessa Friedman (Fashion Editor at The New York Times) came on NPR. To be honest, I don’t remember what exactly it was that she spoke about, I mostly remember the feeling. That feeling you get after spending years wondering if there’s anyone on Earth who shares your perspective and, out of nowhere, that person appears. She spoke about fashion as this three dimensional, living tapestry that we’re all in together, she spoke about women and society and power and politics.
I was floored.
So I read her reviews over at the Times. It was a masterclass in runway interpretation. Fabric and silhouette took on real meaning, the structure of women’s lives was being debated, supported, dissected, criticized on the catwalk, our whole state of being, in all of its continual change and messiness and fear and joy, it was all there. Clothing had a voice and had been shouting this whole time and I hadn’t had ears to hear it.
The runway as the threshing floor
I started writing in 2018, in a time when Trumpism was revving up, the Handmaid’s Tale was all the rage (and rage-inspiring), and racial, economic, and gender disparity was becoming harder to ignore. And there it all was, all on the runway, designers reacting, digesting, interpreting, protesting through their collections. It had nothing to do with trends or how to look like you’ve dropped ten pounds overnight. What I saw was pithy, sometimes ugly, but nonetheless fearless discussion of our world.
And I didn’t have to wear a garment to experience it, to learn from it, or reflect on what it meant. Fashion could enrich my life without me spending anything.
What slowly started to happen was that I found more joy in what I wore. I’ve said it many times, but it’s worth repeating: whether its an old t shirt or a designer gown, it has value if it holds a place in your life and honors what you’re up to.
So, yes – fashion can be frivolous, because fashion can be anything. But if frivolity is all we see, then we’re missing the point. We’re missing an opportunity to understand ourselves, our place in the world, our capacities as human beings, all the ugly and lovely things about life. Humans are, after all, the only animals that need clothing in some capacity, and if that doesn’t speak to the significance of fashion, I don’t know what does.
There is so, so much more to say on this subject – issues of gender, race, and class, the line between art and commodity, just so much.
But if there’s anything you take away from this blog, I hope it’s that fashion is (political, emotional, ugly, gorgeous, progressive, cerebral, instinctual, human) art.
love,
Stig.
