Fashion Culture and Media Notes :
★ There would be no fashion industry without social media
★ What is fashion?
○ It is plural
○ A system of arbitrary signs of mass communication
○ An industry
○ An everyday practice of dressing up
○ A social and cultural practice that reflects culture
○ An art form
○ Fashion and media meet in a fashion show → captured by media
★ Fashion shows not only sell the clothes but shows are also an intermedia spectacle
★ Runway shows are used to foster certain political/ethical atmospheres
★ In Covid brands used Fashion Films used to represent their brand
The Performance of authenticity Anneke Smelik
★ Fashion designers play with the past and reimagine it they don’t only depict the past
★ Reason why we consume is because we want to create a real me
★ The bodily practice of dressing is a performance of identity
Giles Liporetsky The Empire of Fashion 1980s
★ Fashion can be used to shape your personality
★ Offers optimistic view
○ Nothing is forbidden
○ Fashion is a field of self expression
○ It is inclusive
○ There’s democratic aspect of fashion
○ We discover and create ourselves
★ Fashion is about conformity and standardisation
George Simmel (1905) Philosopher da Mode
★ Fashion helps us understand social status
★ Fashion is about distinction and uniformisation
★ Fashion comes from our imitation of others
★ Lower classes imitate higher classes leading to higher classes searching for a new
style
★ Represents modernity
Judith Butler
★ Individual identity is already a performance
★ Identity is a becoming practice → not fixed but always changing
★ Our clothes perform as who we want to be
Baudrillard and Simulations
★ “The real is no longer what it used to be”
, ★ Fashion as self referential (refers to itself)
★ Irrational → no link to reality
★ Because we have a nostalgia for the authentic
★ We live in a mass media world everything turns into a totalised spectacle
★ Total authenticity is a response to a spectacle
★ This dynamic in fashion is very central
★ Culture of amnesia → longing for authenticity
Henk documentary
★ Henk is a counter example to what Smellik argues
★ Fashion brings back personal memories
Geczy & Karaminas: Lady Gaga + Gender
★ The fashioning of itself (for Gaga) is through the pushing of boundaries
★ Her fashion disrupts binary modes of thinking
★ Often compared to Madonna but Gaga pushed boundaries by crossing sexuality
through her fashion
★ Gaga is considered a trans media icon
★ The Monstrous (vampires,demons) has a productive social and political function
★ Fashion also functions as a figure of rebirth just like a vampire
★ Gender is a construction and clothes and fashion support this construction
★ Temporality of fashion
○ Vampire shows temporality of fashion
○ A style has to die and be rebirth
★ Vampire:
○ The vampire is a subversive borderline figure that exists outside of time and
history. E.g In American Horror Story the vampire occupy a queer relationship
to time known as temporal drag, where the past is physically pulled into the
present
○ The vampire is highly congenial to queer discourse because its mode of
reproduction is transformational and magical (induced by a bite) rather than
biological. This echoes the queer experience of self-recreation and "coming
out" as a departure from a "natural" state
★ Grotesque:
○ Emphasizes Gaga’s exaggeration
○ Gaga is a perfect example of becoming and the fashioning of itself
○ The grotesque subverts common sense of the body
○ The grotesque is defined by exaggeration, hyperbole, and boundlessness
○ Unlike the "classical body" of official culture—which is finished, complete, and
limited by its boundaries—the grotesque body is open-ended and boundless
○ Gaga’s Grotesque Monstrosity destabilises certainties of what's natural and
threatens ideas of gender,beauty,sexuality and how we think about them
★ Fashion is a second skin that remains fluid removable
★ There would be no fashion industry without social media
★ What is fashion?
○ It is plural
○ A system of arbitrary signs of mass communication
○ An industry
○ An everyday practice of dressing up
○ A social and cultural practice that reflects culture
○ An art form
○ Fashion and media meet in a fashion show → captured by media
★ Fashion shows not only sell the clothes but shows are also an intermedia spectacle
★ Runway shows are used to foster certain political/ethical atmospheres
★ In Covid brands used Fashion Films used to represent their brand
The Performance of authenticity Anneke Smelik
★ Fashion designers play with the past and reimagine it they don’t only depict the past
★ Reason why we consume is because we want to create a real me
★ The bodily practice of dressing is a performance of identity
Giles Liporetsky The Empire of Fashion 1980s
★ Fashion can be used to shape your personality
★ Offers optimistic view
○ Nothing is forbidden
○ Fashion is a field of self expression
○ It is inclusive
○ There’s democratic aspect of fashion
○ We discover and create ourselves
★ Fashion is about conformity and standardisation
George Simmel (1905) Philosopher da Mode
★ Fashion helps us understand social status
★ Fashion is about distinction and uniformisation
★ Fashion comes from our imitation of others
★ Lower classes imitate higher classes leading to higher classes searching for a new
style
★ Represents modernity
Judith Butler
★ Individual identity is already a performance
★ Identity is a becoming practice → not fixed but always changing
★ Our clothes perform as who we want to be
Baudrillard and Simulations
★ “The real is no longer what it used to be”
, ★ Fashion as self referential (refers to itself)
★ Irrational → no link to reality
★ Because we have a nostalgia for the authentic
★ We live in a mass media world everything turns into a totalised spectacle
★ Total authenticity is a response to a spectacle
★ This dynamic in fashion is very central
★ Culture of amnesia → longing for authenticity
Henk documentary
★ Henk is a counter example to what Smellik argues
★ Fashion brings back personal memories
Geczy & Karaminas: Lady Gaga + Gender
★ The fashioning of itself (for Gaga) is through the pushing of boundaries
★ Her fashion disrupts binary modes of thinking
★ Often compared to Madonna but Gaga pushed boundaries by crossing sexuality
through her fashion
★ Gaga is considered a trans media icon
★ The Monstrous (vampires,demons) has a productive social and political function
★ Fashion also functions as a figure of rebirth just like a vampire
★ Gender is a construction and clothes and fashion support this construction
★ Temporality of fashion
○ Vampire shows temporality of fashion
○ A style has to die and be rebirth
★ Vampire:
○ The vampire is a subversive borderline figure that exists outside of time and
history. E.g In American Horror Story the vampire occupy a queer relationship
to time known as temporal drag, where the past is physically pulled into the
present
○ The vampire is highly congenial to queer discourse because its mode of
reproduction is transformational and magical (induced by a bite) rather than
biological. This echoes the queer experience of self-recreation and "coming
out" as a departure from a "natural" state
★ Grotesque:
○ Emphasizes Gaga’s exaggeration
○ Gaga is a perfect example of becoming and the fashioning of itself
○ The grotesque subverts common sense of the body
○ The grotesque is defined by exaggeration, hyperbole, and boundlessness
○ Unlike the "classical body" of official culture—which is finished, complete, and
limited by its boundaries—the grotesque body is open-ended and boundless
○ Gaga’s Grotesque Monstrosity destabilises certainties of what's natural and
threatens ideas of gender,beauty,sexuality and how we think about them
★ Fashion is a second skin that remains fluid removable
