Wednesday news
Today is the 13th of April, 2022. Few words on the nature of fashion simulacrum, and yesterday’s visuals.
It’s not new to wonder what’s going on with the fashion industry, why the fashion weeks are full of ordinary stuff or completely insane collections that no one is interested in buying, but nevertheless all those brands survive. If the demand defines the offer, then why do we want to have something we don’t even find attractive?
The question goes beyond fashion and design, by the way, because contemporary art or music or cinema have more or less the same problems with the level of creativity and overwhelming amount of production. Information noise around them is more consuming than the desire to use it. People want to own for the sake of owning or to buy for the sake of buying.
In the 1960-70s when consumerism was just on its rise, novelties were accepted as progress. New senses, new dimensions of use, new definitions of society, women’s and men’s roles in it, different music, rebellious lifestyle, sexual revolution, movements for different rights, outer space discovery, futurism - design became a language of communication not just status definition or art.
So multiple dress codes became even more important for everyday life. People were obsessed with new ideas or with old things looking new. Fashion was about freedom and novelties - from materials to the cuts - not about the functionality anymore. Those things should have been easier to understand (the purpose), more ergonomic, faster to produce, available to many. Equality was the most important part of the culture where the factual difference between rich and poor was masked by superficial attributes like fashion and style. The population of the West became more educated, television made everything look so reachable and for everyone; products, books, ideas, films - it was easy to believe everything is for everyone, just get the money and it will happen.
Of course an office-manager or sales girl couldn’t compete in their lifestyle and opportunities with the elite, with rich boys and girls, but they could look the same. From the distance you couldn’t tell the difference.
In the 1990s people had an actual chance to completely change their social status. Globalisation made it possible not just to look rich but be wealthy and successful. They finally could buy expensive clothes, not just perfumes and accessories. And then accessories became even more important than clothes, because clothes were too available and style was too easy, so to keep the difference in the status visible, it was enough to show the car, the bag or the shoes wearing trashy jeans and t-shirts. It was enough to be rich, then to look rich.
Money was more and more associated with freedom to do things, to travel, to spend. But along with overwhelming overproduction and overconsumption came the problem of responsible behaviour, social and environmental conscience. Public really started to ask questions about the future. Life changed faster and the speed with which we can reach a particular level of satisfaction was almost immediate, then there was boredom, depression.
Dorian Grey needed decades for satiation and soul corruption, these days a year will be enough to taste everything and be everywhere. Superficially and virtually, of course, and maybe that’s what saves the soul from actual degradation. Even here we get not the meaning but its projection or reflection of projection. When everything is given, there’s no need to work on creation, it’s easier to recombine what was made before to call a copy of a copy of a copy a “new” thing, style, application, story, movie, art object. That’s how we lost the roots, the original meanings of terms, actions and concepts.
If before we tried to fake our status by owning things, inventing our own style and way to the top, now we can own whatever, buy things that were already “preset” for our use by marketing teams. Status became more connected to the crowd you are in, to the places you visit, to exclusivity of everything - from a restaurant choice to the way we consume things. You can buy Prada as a regular client, or Prada will go to you and will dress you from tip to toe. You pay the same price for each garment, though privately you most certainly spend more on more things, because it feels like a conversation, a human connection, not a simple process of trying and paying. So that’s what matters now - not things themselves, but the human touch.
Do we need all those things? No. Emotionally? Yes. Because that serving circle - either you serve your hunger for “quality of life”, substitute private life with online interactions or you just consume without thinking - is addictive. Lockdown showed how heavy we felt the withdrawal of it and how quickly we got used to virtual reality for the same mental stimulation. So the physical world became even less important. Even fashion now is in the meta Universe, which makes it more accessible and completely not about wearing and being beautiful, but about pleasure of looking good as an idea of us addressed to a particular, imagined, audience. In the virtual world you can be anyone so let’s be. At least there we can exist for invented sense, purpose.
From hardcore real experience we trend to inhabit our virtual world - personilised and for that reason even more lonely, more frustrating if we can’t reach it, so more addictive for those people who can’t fully express themselves in their everyday life.
If before fashion was a ritual related to a particular time of the day, place, personal situation, purpose, place in the system, now that sense is lost. Why should we choose a black tie code for the Oscars if there’s no difference between that event or any other celebrity gathering? Why should we try so hard to be better, to invent new and compete to be noticed if social media does the work for us and it’s enough to copy-paste working combinations of garments or cuts?
Suddenly we discover that a lot of things don't matter. There’s no occasions to wear all the clothes we own, or too many occasions, so no special approach is needed. Like Viktor and Rolf “Russian Doll” looks, we are covered with multiple layers of nonsense and don’t remember how our soul looks. The sense of us, the desire we want to express. What exactly do we want to show by wearing or buying new things? What is the sense of dressing? What is new? Can vintage be new? Can old garments become new in this sense?
On the other hand there’s a world that is far from fashion. There are people who still dress to feel warm and comfortable, or beautiful for a particular moment or purpose. There every garment is appreciated because there’s no other substitute for it, and “meta fashion” has no sense, though it is physically made by those very people, working at plants and factories, producing chips, phones and wires. Those people are on display now for different reasons.
The depth of the crack between their life and ours now is pretty visible. We even started to exploit their looks to somehow evaluate the luxury, to add another fake sense to the dress. A social responsibility and mindfulness - those beautiful words used for PR and marketing tricks make it legit. But is it socially responsible to profit from those who own nothing but their intimate very concrete sense of life as survival? Why not leave the wealth and being penniless unite with the working class and live their life instead? What is the perverse desire to dress in their “looks” that actually feels more like wearing their “skin”?
We buy those styles, and applaud the creatives. And at the same time we share concerns about refugees and pity them. That’s an absurd world we live in.
A digest from my feed for April 11-12th, 2022
7.30am April 11 zakharova_kaetano Good morning 🌞 How are you today? #haveagoodday I’m a bit stuck between the realities. My mind is split and I try to reconnect to the half that’s traveling right now somewhere meanwhile I’m in the subway on the way to my son’s school. #dancingthrough @eggs.tyrone Audio: “Where Is My Mind?” by Pixies Video: @storyboardp #morninginspiration#morningmood #goodmorningpost
4.00 pm April 11 zakharova_kaetano #finding @austy_lee “The Pinky Toucan Bangle” 18K Yellow Gold with Botswana Rubellite, Rubies, Onyx and White diamonds.#artofjewellery #beautyofjewellery#jewelleryasinspiration #contemporaryjewellery #colour
7.45 am April 12 zakharova_kaetano Good morning 🌞 How are you today? #haveagoodday I couldn’t agree more with @pejac_art that “Everything and all is relative”. Here’s his works as #morninginspiration #morningmood #goodmorningart#goodmorningpost #artasinspiration #contemporaryart
6.30pm April 12 zakharova_kaetano #finding @gislain_jewelryhistory#PierreSterlé brooch from 1972, when he worked for Maison Chaumet #ChristiesJewels #artofjewellery #beautyofjewellery#vintagejewelry #jewelleryasinspiration #natureinspiredjewelry#flowerobsession
11 pm April 12 zakharova_kaetano
#nightmood #fashioneditorial #fashionstory#fairytaletime @yanghanphoto “Non-Human” Creative Director and Photographer: @yanghanphoto Art Director: @yimu_muvision Stylist: @xiaoshanjiao_stylist Makeup: @Catherine_zhaozhao Hair: @zhaochen1997
#artofphotography #beautyoffashion #fashionportrait #colour#fineartphotography
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