Alessio Bolzoni for “Many of Them” FW22

The historical dimension of fashion, changing politics, new subjectivities

Is expressing individuality a task that fashion is ontologically fit to fulfill? The answer is straightforward: no. As most readers will know, during the 19th century and well into the 20th, fashion was not consumed to convey individuality and difference but, on the contrary, clothes needed to communicate the social ambitions of a woman, her place in the social hierarchy, and her respectability. All this had to be done while treading a path paved by strict social and fashion norms. Uniqueness and creativity would have led women astray from the accepted trajectory of fashion. [4, 5] It is essential to specify the asymmetry between genders in regard to fashion consumption during the 19th century: while men’s style became increasingly simplified, women were encouraged to indulge in the consumption of fashionable clothes. [6]

Consuming clothes to signal one’s social ambitions and position has been the basis of the fashion business for many decades, and it is well represented in pop culture. For instance, in Bret Easton Ellis' masterpiece American Psycho, [7] where the author consistently uses the description of clothes to convey the status of their wearers, but never their intimacy. Another example is the compelling 1980s TV series Dynasty. The 1970s and 1980s were also the age of the “total look,” an idea allegedly brought into mass-produced clothes by the Italian stilista Walter Albini. With the total look, the aim of designers such as Albini, Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, and Gianfranco Ferré, to name a few, was to propose a consistent and unified style for all the items of an outfit. Indeed, the total looks says more about the brand than it does about the wearer.

Our contemporary obsession with identity is partly the effect of the erosion of the hierarchical social order, which is a relatively recent (and Western) feature. Postmodernism, however, is a cluster of contradictions: on the one hand it takes the modern concept of individuality to the extreme, turning it into individualism; on the other, it splinters the Self and undermines the possibility of communicating it to the external world. As suggested above, the erosion of Master Narratives described by Lyotard has determined the birth of countless “Micro Narratives,” [8] virtually one for every individual. In political terms, the fall of Marxism and conservatism, as previously conceived, has determined the Self as the re-direction of the political discourse towards atomized discourses. If the Right became identitarian and often racist, the Left followed a similar path, focusing on identity politics and fragmenting the working class into races, sexual minorities, and gender politics. Both attitudes, however, are opposite reactions to the same stimuli. This, in time, has had important bearings in fashion as well: the era of total looks is today virtually nonexistent as designers rely heavily on styling, proposing very different and even clashing elements within the same look.

At this point, we should try to address the elephant in the room. What is the Self? Moreover, what is its relationship with fashion?

“Contemporary fashion consumers regard non-conformity as a way of expressing uniqueness; this, at closer inspection, appears to be another platitude.”

The Self

The Self can be described as the sum of an individual's beliefs about their personality attributes. However, when we approach it, it appears to be more complex. Everyone possesses at least two dimensions of the Self: a private, intimate Self, and a public Self, which is shaped by our position within a particular social group and in opposition to other groups. But there is also an external projection of one's ideal self, which does not necessarily coincide with who that person really is.

Sociologist Erving Goffman takes this idea of the multiplicity of selves to an extreme by questioning the very existence of a "true self": the individual, in his view, seems to be a cluster of front-stage and back-stage selves, all of which are equally fictional and situation-specific. [9]

The relationship between the presentation of the Self and clothes (not only fashion) was discussed by psychologist John Flügel in his pivotal work The Psychology of Clothes, [10] in which he discusses the contradictory nature of garments. Flügel points out that even the word that signifies the most intimate of human characteristics, “personality,” actually comes from persona, which in Latin means “mask,” namely another item to wear. For him, clothes serve three primary purposes: decoration, modesty, and protection. The original and most compelling reasons to get dressed, however, are the first two. Hence, according to Flügel, the dress serves two discordant masters at once: decoration, whose aim is to reveal, and modesty, whose aim is to conceal. The latter can be considered the opposite of getting dressed to express one's Self. The practice of modesty is typical of religious communities, workplaces, or conservative social groups; hence it represents an attempt to diminish the outer appearance of individuality. Modesty aims to bring individuals closer to their peers. As Flügel writes, “clothes resemble a perpetual blush upon the surface of humanity.” [11] The self, in the case of modesty, is not denied, but becomes a private, secret luxury that does not need to be flaunted.

The idea that one can express oneself through clothes rests upon a naïve view of the self, namely that we know who we are. It is, however, at least since Freud discovered the existence of the unconscious that this idea has become outdated. [12] Psychoanalysis proposed that the truth about our desires is found in our unconscious: a virtually inaccessible area of our minds. In their daily practice, psychoanalysts do pay more attention to their patients’ dreams, slips, free associations, and other gaps that function as cryptic gates to unconscious truth, than they do to what the patients ultimately say. Said very plainly, psychoanalysis has subverted Descartes’ famous principle “I think therefore I am,” and reversed the relationship between “think” and “am.” As French psychoanalyst Jaques Lacan put it, "I think where I am not; therefore, I am where I do not think." For psychoanalysis practitioners, truth is not to be found in conscious and controlled expressions but in whatever escapes the lies and traps set by the conscious and deceitful will.

An objection to this may be that psychoanalysis rests upon theory and has limited empirical evidence. However, social psychologists have also raised similar doubts, which have been underpinned by empirical research. A recent study has demonstrated the discrepancy between Instagram users' online personas and their real individual characteristics. [13] This study revealed a twofold problem: on the one hand, Instagram users had an idea of themselves that was different from the one conveyed on their Instagram accounts. On the other, their followers could not consistently predict personality traits and self-attributes based on social media accounts. One problem was the “codifier” of the message, and the other was its “decoding.”

Similarly, a classic study by Timothy Wilson and colleagues [14] demonstrated that predicting one's mood is extremely difficult for people. The researchers asked a group of subjects to predict their mood against several variables, such as the weather and the amount of sleep received; these self-predictions turned out to be, for the most part, inaccurate. The researchers concluded that people have difficulties with this type of forecast because preconceived ideas often blind them. This research demonstrates that the perceptions of our Selves do not necessarily coincide with who we are. They also cement the idea that the intimate Self differs from the aspects of our identity that we project to the outside world. We can conclude that even what we convey through fashion is not necessarily who we are but how we would like to be perceived.

One of the problems with the Self in our society seems to be that it has become a disembodied, discursive, and therefore solipsistic entity. The first element to fall during postmodernity has been the physical nature of the body, the latest and most dangerous social negotiation at the base of our identities. This radicalization of individualism reduces the Self to a whim: I am not the product of social, psychological, and biological processes, but I convince myself that I am what I decide to be every day. I am what I wear. We dream of a shell that coincides with its content. Despite how many attempts individuals can make to deny the involuntary nature of the Self and the difficulties of knowing one's true self, nothing can erase its complex ontology.

Furthermore, contemporary fashion consumers regard non-conformity as a way of expressing uniqueness; this, at closer inspection, appears to be another platitude. Psychologists have studied the underpinning processes of conformity for over a century, and some aspects are still being unveiled. Particularly interesting are the processes of anti-conformity. In fashion terms, they exemplify what most contemporary die-hard fashionistas chase: being different from the norm and not obeying pre-imposed rules. Therein resides the contradiction: the urge to eschew conformity is itself a reaction to the rule, hence determined by it. Several studies have documented this, and, as psychologist Paul Nail [15] suggested, there is no real difference between conformity and nonconformity. The two may be seen as two complementary aspects of the same phenomenon. Conformity, Nail claims, is so pervasive in human behavior as to encompass its opposite. Following this view, non-conformists may simply be marching to the beat of a more distant drum.

A critical problem regarding fashion as a vehicle of self-expression is that we have to assume that the Self has a certain degree of stability and carries a kernel of truth about the subject. Some psychological theories confirm this view. Personality, for instance, is definable as a stable set of traits that can, to some degree, predict how an individual may react to certain situations. However, this definition of the Self jars with the very pattern of fashion consumption because fashion is a system deeply grounded on change, namely instability. If fashion does not change, it dies. On the other hand, if one's Self were to change as fast as fashion trends, it would splinter into a constellation of unstable and contradictory personality traits; it would approach psychosis.

Can fashion still communicate?

Once the Self has been discussed, it is time to problematize the extent to which fashion can communicate. The contemporary, liberal idea of fashion as the ultimate vehicle of self-expression contains an embarrassing irony. It presents the personal need to express oneself as a luxury, a preserve of the few who climb very high in the hierarchy of needs, and a privilege of the rich who can buy their freedom of expression in fashion stores. In the 21st century, capitalism has achieved an unprecedented and highly consequential goal, designing itself as the enhancer of freedom and liberation. However, what young liberal consumers fail to notice is that if consumption is the ultimate sign of one's intimate self-expression, then we need to view those who are excluded from fashion consumption as the new oppressed class. In the liberal view, consumption is not only a way to convey one's success and taste (or a way to shy away from them) but it acquires a mystical and transcendental property that goes beyond its modern scope.

The ability of clothes to communicate the Self has been questioned by scholars such as sociologist Joanne Finkelstein [16] and fashion theorist Llewellyn Negrin. In her book The Fashioned Self, [16] Finkelstein compared the contemporary emphasis on outer appearance to the physiognomic studies of the 19th century. Physiognomists like Dr. Lombroso and his followers proposed that one's character and criminal inclinations were predictable through physical characteristics and proportions. The idea that fashion can convey one's character (and values) reveals another profound contradiction in our society. On one hand, we discourage people from judging others by their appearance; on the other, we demand to be judged and understood according to how we present ourselves.

Fashion collections, and with them our wardrobes, have progressively become more casual over the last decade. The success of brands such as Off-White and Vetements is a testament to this idea. These brands have brought street garments onto contemporary catwalks, blurring the lines between ready-to-wear and streetwear. However, if you think these very innovative and profitable collections look like freedom of expression at its purest, think again. We may have been freed from the constraints of formal and business attire, but, as Negrin [17] suggests, today, people can wear whatever they want because nothing they wear carries a meaning anymore. If anything goes, nothing matters, and this is because any form of freedom can only operate within some constraints. To put it in semiological terms, if the signified today is detached from its signifier, how can any signifier be the carrier of a meaning? One and only one meaning seems to be the true prerogative of fashion, and that is fashion itself. Fashion signifies being up to date, being “cool,” and being part of an inner group constituted—like any social group—in opposition to another: the unfashionable. Thus, in today's world, if we care so much about sending messages, it is just because messages are the latest fashion trend and, just like in the past, the pendulum can shift away from this quest for “depth at all costs” when the wind of trends blows in another direction.

Effective communication requires three elements: a subject who speaks, one who listens, and a mutually intelligible code. Communication becomes impossible in a world where a common language does not connect enough individuals. If everyone wears anything with absolute freedom, without embracing any code with a value that is recognizable to others, then they are not communicating with anyone. Style is reduced to an individual language, a radical idiolect that only the wearer can understand. Expressing any idea—let alone yourself—in this situation becomes harder and harder. This inability of fashion to effectively communicate ideas has led Fred Davis to define fashion not as a code but as a 'quasi-code.' [18] In today's society, where tweets and Instagram posts are considered activism, we like to think that clothes can be an efficient vehicle for positive messages. This reveals more about our society than it does about fashion’s arguable power.

To conclude, I must argue that it is crucial to avoid a moralistic approach to the use of fashion. This article aims only at investigating the contradictions of contemporary fashion communication, and at undermining the pretenses of depth regarding a system that draws its value precisely from its glittery frivolity. What to do then? It would probably be worth reconsidering the apology of indifference implied by Gilles Lipovetsky in his acute The Empire of Fashion. [19] For Lipovetsky, fashion opens a new possibility for the democratization of society, not by virtue of its depth and political engagement but by its superficiality. In his view, the shallowness in human relations is not only good but also desirable. He claims that the more progress the ephemeral makes, the more stable democracies become, and this is because the less people care about one another, the better they will get along. Through fashion, we should be pushed to desire and prefer the realm of fantasy rather than the universe of confrontation. The frivolousness of fashion and its potential to hide and protect one's idea of the intimate Self is probably not wholly attuned with our postmodern life, which demands strong images, social media authenticity, and political involvement. Nevertheless, they still are essential underpinnings to its nature.

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Notes: Politics of Self-Expression

[1] Douglas Murray,  The madness of crowds: Gender, race and identity. (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019)

[2] Jean-Francois Lyotard,. The postmodern condition. (Manchester: Manchester, 1994)

[3] Žižek Slavoj The fragile absolute, or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for? (London: Verso, 2001)

[4] Kate Nelson Best, The history of fashion journalism.(London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 51
 

[5] Judith Flanders, The Victorian house: Domestic life from childbirth to deathbed (Public Library Interlink, 2007), 256

[6] Giuppy d'Aura, "The Silence of Garments: Modernity and the conquest of elegance." Aisthema, International Journal 8, no. 1 (2021): 77-99. http://www.aisthema.eu/ojs/index.php/aisthema/article/view/80/86

[7] Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho: A Novel. (United Kingdom: Vintage Books, 1991)

[8] Jean-Francois Lyotard, The postmodern condition. (Manchester: Manchester, 1994)

[9] Erving Goffman, The presentation of Self in everyday life. (New York: Anchor Books, 1959)

[10] John Carl Flügel, The psychology of clothes (Madison: International Universities Press, 1950)

[11] John Carl Flügel, The psychology of clothes (Madison: International Universities Press, 1950), 21

[12] Sigmend Freud, and James Strachey. The interpretation of dreams. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1900)

[13] Elisabeth Harris, and Aurore C. Bardey. "Do Instagram profiles accurately portray personality? An investigation into idealised online self-presentation." Frontiers in Psychology 10 (2019): 871.

[14] Timothy D. Wilson,  Patricia S. Laser, and Julie I. Stone. "Judging the predictors of one's own mood: Accuracy and the use of shared theories." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 18, no. 6 (1982): 537-556

[15] Paul R. Nail, "Toward an integration of some models and theories of social response." Psychological Bulletin 100, no. 2 (1986): 190

[16] Joanne Finkelstein, The fashioned self. (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2013)

[17] Llewellyn Negrin,. In appearance and identity. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

[18] Fred Davis,. Fashion, culture, and identity. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)

[19] Gilles Lipovetsky,  Empire de L'éphémère.(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

Motto printed on underwear during the LRS New York presentation on Februar 10, 2017 in New York. Photo © Jason Kempin/2017 Getty Images

The language of fashion, as defined by Barthes, [1] can multiply the value of the artifacts it produces, the associated narratives, and their staging which incorporates different elements: aesthetic, semantic, expressive, communicative, emotional and political content. [2]

Following Harold H. Saunders, who assumes that “politics is about relationships, [3] let us start from the assumption that fashion, as an instrument of interpersonal communication, is political. We can thereby consider fashion, and its staging through fashion shows, as having a political relevance as it affects the relationships between people. In this context, clothing, fashion, and staging all imply an intersubjective social world in which one presents oneself and is seen by others. [4] Fashion and fashion staging increasingly represent a complex design field that transcends the production of merely wearable products. It consolidates itself as a design field capable of generating hybrid goods that, by their very nature, have an interpersonal, social and increasingly political communicative function. [5] [6]

Fashion is understood here as a complex system of objects and meanings, increasing its value depending on who makes, uses, and wears the clothes — an essential concept that sometimes defines and sometimes adapts to the changes of taste and style, and is both social and political. Not only art and politics, but also fashion can be understood, following Rancière’s thought, as a form of knowledge capable of constructing “fiction,” that is, material rearrangements of signs and images between what is seen and what is said, between what is done and what could be done.” [7]

Fashion is, by its nature, an interpreter and mirror of social changes that, as Eleonora Fiorani states, unites and stitches together what would apparently seem irreconcilable: tradition and modernity, past and future, localism and globalization, social inadequacy and consumerism. [8] Fashion, in this sense, can indicate “how people in different eras have perceived their position in social structures and negotiated status boundaries.” [9] As Andrew Bolton states: “fashion functions as a mirror to our times, so it is inherently political. It’s been used to express patriotic, nationalistic and propagandistic tendencies, and complex issues related to class, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.” [10] 

Nepalese-born fashion designer Prabal Gurung, reflecting on the glowing debat over immigration into the United States during the final runway show of his spring/summer 2020 collection, presented models of different origins with a sash similar to those used to crown Miss America with the motto "Who should be an American?"
Photo © Mike Coppola/Getty Images for NYFW: The Shows/2019 Getty Images

Fashion, as a communicative interface concerning primarily the human body, as a production system, and as an economic and political agent, increasingly contributes to defining new forms of staging that not only speak of clothes and bodies, but also of our present thus creating the narrative behind a collection, i.e., the fashion show, interpretable as a form of manifesto and political statement.

The pervasiveness of digital media since the early 2000s has redefined the fashion show, its rituals, and its dynamics, opening up more and more to the general public and transforming it from a presentation for the few to an event, from a show limited in space and time to a true palimpsest that not only shows products but also expands into artistic, performative, musical, and cinematic forms.

In this context, fashion shows represent one of the fundamental tópoi of the fashion system: the first showcase, the most important way to present and stage the collections, the ideas, and the style of a brand, effectively and immediately communicating the product and its entire design path.

Fashion shows, for which the dichotomy between packaging and product is disintegrating, thus become the focus of what Orvar Löfgren calls today’s catwalk economy, that is the need to  communicate an increasingly appealing image blending innovation and creativity: a commercial artistic performance, where tickets are free but almost everything on the stage is for sale,[13] designed to succeed in engaging an ever-growing audience (in situ and online) and thus establish a visual, but above all emotional, relationship between designers/brands/models acting on the catwalk and the audience. [11] [12][13]

Alongside the creation of a multifaceted abacus of staging possibilities, over the years, there has been an increasingly rapid expansion of the geographical boundaries within which the current fashion system and design circles have moved, increasingly involving digital technologies and media. The voyeuristic nature of fashion shows, amplified by fruition through social media, has contributed to their consolidation as practical communication tools. Perpetuating modes that have been established for more than a century, the catwalk still represents an eagerly awaited moment, during which the novelty of products is associated with the constant research of forms of representation, spaces, and sharing. It is precisely this solid communicative value, as well as the increasing pervasiveness of messages through digital channels, that have meant that fashion communication is not only limited to sharing new aesthetics and new forms of dress, but also real political messages and decisive stances.

As a catalyst of transformations and changes, in its continuous mutations, fashion has evolved from an elite to a mass commercial phenomenon, from a production system to a communication system, increasingly in the service of spontaneous political actions. [14] Thanks to the explosion of social media, fashion shows now represent an independent and trans-disciplinary design field, in which architecture, set design, dramaturgy, performing arts, communication, and new technologies are intertwined.

The entire fashion system can be said to be enclosed between the extremes of a structure that on the one hand contemplates the artistic/creative dimension reserved to insiders and, on the other, addresses the expressive/communicative one to the public. In the fashion system, the artist’s creative impulse is expressed through the use of the multiple languages of contemporary communication, from photography to advertising, from design to fashion imagery and fashion shows, from theater and opera to cinema, radio, and television. The line between fashion culture and fashion marketing is fragile. [15]

The product presented during a fashion show, the choice of a stage, space, or city, and the definition of a precise communication strategy, all become ways for fashion to share not only a creative and productive process but, increasingly, to explicitly communicate clear political statements.

The runway finale during the Dior Cruise 2021 fashion show on July 22, 2020, in Lecce. The show was the first one after the Covid-19 lockdown.
Photo © Vittorio Zunino Celotto/2020 Getty Images

The product and its staging as a communicative system of political discourse

Although the product is no longer the sole protagonist of the fashion show, it is still the main protagonist of any form of fashion staging. The collection represents the purpose, and the fashion show is like a film premiere — the moment in which the product is presented and, above all, judged from a market perspective.

Curiosity regarding new forms of clothing makes the fashion show, season after season, the moment in which the centrality of the product is reaffirmed, renewing the anticipation that precedes the event which becomes even more significant when a new brand is presented, when innovations are introduced in terms of proportions and silhouettes (as in the historical cases of Pierre Cardin, Paco Rabanne, or Mary Quant), when new markets and new economic relationships are opened (as in the case of Giorgini’s First Italian High Fashion Show), when there are changes in the design and in the formal language of a brand - recently expressed by the increasingly frequent changes in creative direction, for instance the arrival and departure of Phoebe Philo at the creative direction of Celine, the alternations of Tom Ford and Hedi Slimane at the helm of several historical brands, or the arrival of Maria Grazia Chiuri, the first woman at the helm of Dior. Regarding the latter, it is precisely on the occasion of her debut at the helm of the Parisian maison that the Italian designer used the catwalk as a space to express not only her creative approach but also her idea of fashion and her political thinking.

“We Should All Be Feminists,” the speech given in 2012 at TEDxEuston by Nigerian-born writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, became a fashionable slogan in 2017, printed on the T-shirts presented by Chiuri in her first collection for Dior. The decision to use this phrase to mark her debut at the French fashion house was a real programmatic manifesto, meant to reiterate the need to define a specifically feminine vision of fashion design [16] and the necessity of understanding how to interpret the present as a “happy feminist.” [17]

The stage and the location as political choices

Fashion has always needed bodies to dress, and physical (and now also virtual) spaces to display the clothed bodies.

The space of the runway show now transcends the boundary of staging or the mere selection of a location, becoming an increasingly complex artifact, designed to engage with the IRL audience and to be best conveyed, through various digital channels, to a virtual one. Catwalks are increasingly becoming an all-encompassing experience, not limited to the most superficial decoration.[18]

Runway locations become relevant in defining the narrative of a collection but, at the same time, they are transformed by the way fashion uses them.[19] For fashion shows, public spaces have often been temporarily closed, and private spaces have been opened up; places inaccessible to most have been made accessible, while set design has taken the form of authentic architecture. Indeed, fashion show set design is a free-standing creative form, a new facet of the architectural project: the space of the fashion show can be seen as a microcosm capable of making the most of new products and new trends, but it can also be read as a field of experimentation, capable of offering a perspective (albeit in an ephemeral form) on society, culture, and art. And so the static form of architecture, in apparent contradiction with the mutability of fashion, “deals with dressing the body in the same way fashion does,”[20] and the choice of a place or city becomes not only a narrative choice but also a political one.

When, in 1971, some young fashion designers — among them Walter Albini, Missoni, Krizia, and Ken Scott — left Florence to show at the Circolo del Giardino in Milan, they expressed a political choice:“Against the rigid formula of the catwalks of Florence, to seek in Milan more fluid modes of expression and at the same time a more coordinated presentation of the models. These are years full of changes for Italian fashion, which is preparing to become an international phenomenon. Getting out of the Florentine formula, which was somewhat strict and organized according to a precise number of garments to be paraded in front of the audience, to start a new, more spectacular way that would become typical Milanese, also meant changing the very spirit of the fashion show. Not only do more models appear on the catwalk, but the vision of the designer is proposed.” [21]

1971 marked the beginning of an era that would see Milan as capable of catalyzing the best entrepreneurial and creative realities of Italy and beyond. Milan was chosen because it was “an industrial city, not particularly attached to its past, lacking ties to the rituals of high fashion and, on the contrary, extremely sensitive to the younger boutique. In the 1960s, the Lombard capital had been the city of the boom, of the avant-garde in the artistic field, of design and, at the end of the decade, of protest. Choosing the Lombard capital meant focusing on another Italy, one that did not live by the myth of past glories but sought an active space in modernity.”[22]

Later, fashion shows in the Red Square by Laura Biagiotti in 1995, on the Great Wall of China by Fendi in 2007, and in Havana by Chanel in 2016, have become not only scenographic choices but also choices dictated by strong political intentions.. [23]

More recently, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the act of not stopping the fashion system and opening the scenic space of the catwalk to virtual sharing, have also been political gestures. During the lockdowns, social media changed the structure of fashion shows, pushing them to redefine themselves by taking different forms — sometimes extremely technological and immaterial, sometimes, by contrast, recovering already established physical modes. On September 26, 2020, at the beginning of the first pandemic wave, Giorgio Armani decided to give a sign of resistance and resilience by confirming the fashion show but holding it behind closed doors. Thus, the Milanese designer organized a runway show without an audience in attendance, a show shared not only via social media channels and the web, but also broadcasted live through the Italian television channel La7. This was a sign of resistance and openness in a period of closures. The unique event achieved a 3% share with 685,000 viewers in the Italian territory alone; sharing this event via television broadcast with a wide audience previously excluded from this form of communication was regarded, in a period of restrictions and social distancing, as a political stance.

In pandemic times, some brands felt the need to be physically present in order to give a positive sign of resistance, resilience, and of support to the entire supply chain. The first and most persistent promoters of the need to resist the hardships imposed by the pandemic were Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pietro Beccari (at the head of Dior), who chose not to give up the live fashion show in the presence of an audience as in their view it would have meant surrendering the topical moment of fashion culture. In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Beccari said: “For us, fashion is also emotion, and nothing is more emotional than a fashion show. The second reason we decided to resume the project is that we want to give a signal of hope to the whole world and indicate a reason for rebirth.” [24] Such signal manifested itself with the brand’s 2021 cruise collection fashion show, which was showcased outdoors (in Lecce’s cathedral square) and with guests in attendance. 

Politics in the form of stage and performance action

If a thought needs words, fashion needs bodies. Fashion as a language dresses the body with meanings, becoming an expression of personal and social identity; therefore, to wear is to communicate. [25][26] The body that walks the runway, its physical appearance, and the interaction created with those who witness the event, all become an integral part of fashion’s artistic design discourse. In fashion shows, the garment often transcends its physicality and becomes the subject of performance. Thus, actions designed to establish a direct and multisensory dialogue are defined, going beyond their commercial nature and becoming more of an art form capable of presenting a product, and posing a set of questions on how fashion can relate to people and society in general.[27][28]

Increasingly, fashion and the performing arts are merging. The catwalk hosts different forms of expression; events are designed to “catch the eye and appeal to the senses,” [29] and the product comes to life in the form of a performance, though it is not always clear whether the idea of the collection or its staging came first. For example, Viktor and Rolf's fashion shows, such as Russian Doll in autumn/winter 1999, Zen Garden in autumn/winter 2013, and Wearable Art in autumn/winter 2015, were true performative acts during which the designers assembled and deconstructed the clothes on the catwalk, creating a continuous flow between creative act, performative act, and product. Over the years, the fashion world has witnessed specifically theatrical stagings, from choreographies to acting — carefully planned campaigns amplified the events, communicating political and social messages through performative intent. Statements like those of Moschino in the 1990s, were not only printed or embroidered on clothes, but they also took shape on the catwalk during the theatrical runways that the Milanese designer used to stage. For example, the fall/winter 1990–1991 show titled Stop the Fashion System, was a theatrical performance with a political meaning, using irony and satire as tools to amplify the message of the collection. It was not just a fashion show but a proper dance performance, during which models and dancers moved together on the catwalk staging the struggle of ordinary people against Fashion (personified by an austere black-clad witch) in order to free the creative spirit and the liberty to dress how one wants. The dance ended with a final display of Italian flags (one of the brand’s iconic symbols) used to enshrine freedom from fashion constraints. With this action, Moschino created a communicative short-circuit, mocking the fashion system and all its social events (including fashion shows), though fitting perfectly within the system itself, albeit with its signature ironic and irreverent vision.

A non-show,[30] a proper performance, in full Moschino style, a hybrid of theatrical costumes with outsized elements, a reference to the iconography of jesters and the circus, and products taken from the street that define Kaos even more. “Moschino also advises reading the characters of dress circulating in our streets and, it remains implied, less textbook fashion images. The interpretations of the garments one encounters around the cities of Italy remain, after all, the most inspiring and familiar signs of our time. [The fashion show and collection are the staging and in the product of Franco Moschino’s request]: ‘Please leave me alone to make clothes! It’s the only thing I want!”[31]

The irreverent spirit of Moschino was then echoed over time by various realities of the fashion system, in particular by alternative groups such as the Milanese collective Serpica Naro (Fig. 04) (an anagram of San Precario, a joke in Italian to refer to the Patron Saint of 'precarious' workers). Serpica Naro was born as a provocation, as a non-existent brand created by a collective of creative activists, to raise awareness on the problem of unstable jobs and the on the issue of underpaid labor. In order to do this, the collective staged a runway show event in February 2005 during Milan Fashion Week, and "presented eight allegorical models aimed at illustrating the humiliations of precarious labor, followed by the presentation of outfits from European and Italian independent brands that did not recognise themselves as a part of the fashion world and its flattery"[32]. The entire fashion show was conceived as a protest and political stance.

More and more fashion, especially in its form of staging through fashion shows (whether in physical or digital form), is capable, as Gaugele asserts, of shaping a new arena of aesthetic politics in which designers and labels seem to compete as activists by demonstrating and claiming through their actions, taking clear stances, whether related to climate change or to labor exploitation, in support of humanitarian causes or for a social affirmation. [33]. As the age of digital communication has now opened the doors of fashion weeks to a broader audience, fashion shows have now become a new form of political manifestation which, beneath the glamorous surface, are capable of defining real manifestos and political declarations [34].

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Notes: Fashion Parade

[1] Roland Barthes, Il senso della moda. Forme e significati dell’abbigliamento, trans. Gianfranco Marrone (Torino: Einaudi, 2006).

[2] Marco Ricchetti, Enrico Cietta, (eds.), Il valore della moda. Industria e servizi in un settore guidato dall’innovazione (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2006).

[3] Harold H. Saunders, Politics Is About Relationship: A Blueprint for the Citizens’ Century (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

[4] Joshua I. Miller, “Fashion and Democratic Relationships”, in Polity, vol. 37, n. 1, 2005, pp. 3–23. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877060. Accessed 25 October 2022.

[5] Giannino Malossi (ed.), Il motore della moda. Spettacolo, identità, design, economia: come l’industria produce ricchezza attraverso la moda (New Yorlk: The Monacelli Press,1998).

[6] Georg Simmel, La Moda (Roma: Mimesis, 2015).

[7] Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, trans. Gabriel Rockhill (London: Continuum, 2004), 39.

[8] Eleonora Fiorani, Moda, corpo, immaginario. Il divenire moda del mondo fra tradizione e innovazione (Milano: POLI.design, 2006), 17.

[9] Diane Crane, Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1.

[10] Maya Singer, “Power Dressing: Charting the Influence of Politics on Fashion”, in Vogue.com, 17 September 2020; https://www.vogue.com/article/charting-the-influence-of-politics-on-fashion. Accessed 25 October 2022.

[11] Francesca Ala, et al., Lo spazio architettonico della sfilata di moda (Roma: Gangemi Editore, 2019), 9.

[12] Orvar Löfgren, “Catwalking and Coolhunting: The Production of Newness”, in Magic, Culture and the New Economy, eds. Orvar Löfgren, Robert Willim, (Oxford-New York: Berg, 2005), 64.

[13] Rosie Findlay, “Things to Be Seen: Spectacle and the Performance of Brand in Contemporary Fashion Shows”, in About Performance nn. 14-15, 2017, 105.

[14] Vittorio Linfante, Catwalks. Le sfilate di moda dalle Pandora al digitale (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2021), 1.

[15] Daniela Calanca, Storia sociale della moda (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2002), 82.

[16] Vittorio Linfante, “What Women Designer Want. The Female Point of View in the Fashion Creative Process”, in PAD. Pages on Arts and Design, n. 18, 2019, 59.

[17] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘I decided to call myself a Happy Feminist’”, in The Guardian, Fri 17 Oct 2014, retrived on https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/17/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-extract-we-should-all-be-feminists

[18] Vittorio Linfante, Chiara Pompa, “Space, Time and Catwalks: fashion shows as a multilayered communication channel”, in ZoneModa Journal, vol. 11, n. 1, 2021, 31.

[19] John Potvin, “Introduction: Inserting Fashion into Spaces”, in The Places and Spaces of Fashion, 1800-2007, ed. J. Potvin (New York: Routledge, 2009), 9.

[20] Deborah Fausch et al., Architecture in Fashion (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996), 7.

[21] Simona Segre Reinach, “Putting it together”, in Walter Albini e il suo tempo. L’immaginazione al potere, eds. Maria Luisa Frisa, Stefano Tonchi (Venezia: Marsilio, 2010), 18.

[22] Enrica Morini, Storia della moda XVIII-XXI secolo (Milano: Skira, 2017) 455.

[23] Valeria Iannilli, Vittorio Linfante, “Nuovi percorsi della moda tra globale e locale. Dai grandi centri alla disseminazione culturale del fashion system”, in Zonemoda Journal, vol. 9, n. 2 (2019), 161.

[24] Michele Ciavarella, “Dior: Fashion restarts from Cruise in Lecce”, in Corriere della Sera - Style Magazine, June 22, 2020, https://style.corriere.it/moda/dior-la-moda-riparte-dalla-cruise-lecce/. Accessed 22 October 2022.

[25] M. McLuhan, La moda è linguaggio, in McLuhan nello spirito del suo tempo, ed. Nicola (Roma: Pentecoste Armando Editore, 2015), 197.

[26] Eleonora Fiorani, Moda, corpo, immaginario. Il divenire moda del mondo fra tradizione e innovazione (Milano: POLI.design, 2006), 9.

[27] RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Now: Live Art for the 21st Century (London: Thames & Hudson, 2018), 7.

[28] Jonah Westerman, The Dimensions of Performance, in https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/performance-at-tate/dimensions-of-performance. Accessed 22 October 2022.

[29] Rosie Findlay, “Things to Be Seen: Spectacle and the Performance of Brand in Contemporary Fashion Shows”, in About Performance nn. 14-15, 2017, 102.

[30] Antonella Sabbagh, “Stop the Fashion System! Ovvero Moschino e le ‘non-sfilate’”, in Moda In, n. 56, August-September 1990.

[31] Mariuccia Casadio, “La moda è il messaggio”, in Vogue Italia, n. 478, April 1990, 64.

[32] Domenico Quaranta, “Impatto Digitale”, in Il Nuovo Vocabolario della Moda Italiana eds. Paola Bertola, Vittorio Linfante, (Firenze: Mandragora, 2015), 44–49.

[33] Elke Gaugele, Aesthetic Politics in Fashion (Vienna: Sternberg Press, 2014), 205.

[34] Vittorio Linfante, “Fashion Statements. Fashion Communication as an Expression of Artistic, Political and Social Manifesto between Physical and Digital”, in Fashion Communication. Proceedings of the FACTUM 21 Conference, Pamplona, Spain, 2021, eds. T. Sadaba, et al. (Belin: Springer, Berlin 2021), 77–90.