2 September 2007

On 1 September 2007, The New York Times published Guy Trebay's article, "Admit It. You Love It. It Matters." Of course, the "It" Trebay refers to is fashion. I distinctly remember Trebay from my previous blog entry of 25 March 2007, in which I commented on his article, "La Campbell Proves That Beauty Makes Its Own Rules". I specifically chose it because Trebay acclaims Campbell for "[t]urning a community service sentence into a fashion statement" and extols her for her "moxie", explaining that she "…represents something more potent…some quality that never seems to go out of vogue. She has moxie, of a sort that only people whose molecules are arranged as perfectly as hers are able to claim. Beauty operates according to its own rules. Everybody knows that" (bold added for emphasis).

Although Trebay is not as bold and careless in "Admit It. You Love It. It Matters", he is rather incomplete, nonetheless.

Trebay mentions Silicon Valley where "the quest for newer and better stuff results in technology patents, a clear measure of economic robustness", and he even makes a provocative point about how luxury is perhaps the "true mother of invention" rather than necessity. I find it very interesting that he should write so briefly on luxury (just a couple lines) precisely because it is excess, class(ification), distinction, and pride of materialism and in the material that defines the paragon of luxurious fashion: haute couture.

As an art form - and some gowns are true masterpieces - haute couture really can become wearable art, 'touchable' fine art, and art at close-range. Oftentimes, they do appear in museums for historical (nostalgic) snapshots of memorable eras and presidencies. In contradistinction to fine art in a museum that forbids touching and demands respectable distance, haute couture fashion (translated literally as high culture fashion) is objectifying objectification that transforms the person into body and the self into other.

Similarly, it seems a waste that Trebay only write a single line about technology because it is our current portable and handheld electronic technologies that act as an objectifying objectification, accessorizing the deconstructed body - and transcending gender, no less!

Indeed, fashion only reaches a milli-fraction of the men that electronic technology cultivates. Perhaps electronic technology as the 'it' accessory today has become the fashion equivalent to men as the women's shoe/handbag. Whereas women might agree that there is no such thing as too many shoes, men might also agree that there is no such thing as too many gadgets.

Although most men would not wear Manolo's, most women do have their blackberries, iPods, and/or laptops as a daily necessity. Fashion might cater to both genders with a clear demarcation of client statistics by gender, but technology is not just unisex, it truly is universal and thus much more far-reaching and affecting - perhaps even to an exponential degree.

Although this point may be obvious, why does Trebay stop short?

Moreover, with exercise apparel constructed for technology and the body (particularly Nike and Adidas) the meeting of fashion and technology could not be more apropros to define a fashionably electronic functional utility. So why does Trebay not mention that fashion and technology as art and expression are also consequentially affecting and transcending and thus, critically relevant to academic/serious discussion?

Trebay writes that "clothes are ideas" and cites Colette's analogy of clothes as "civilizing masks". Indeed, oufits - clothing - are a personal statement and form of self-expression. Fashion, especially haute couture, is as much a statement as it is a socio-political expressive mask of one's class and breeding. It is a provocative, if not deceptive projection of the wearer's intended public image - false or otherwise. On this last point, Trebay writes: "we are saying something about ourselves every time we get dressed - not infrequently things that fail to convey the whole truth" but he does not complete this idea. I venture to suggest:

Clothes as fashion. Fashion as deceptive mask. Deceptive mask as image:

1) image contra innermost character,

2) image conveys expressed and intended character,

3) image exposes motivation and the motivational history causing, creating, and needing that conveyed image, and

4) image represents a manipulated functional simulacrum.

Ergo, Fashion as Simulacrum.

Trebay never completes his suggestive references (luxury, Silicon Valley, masks) and by not so doing, lacks a multitude of key critical arguments and the whole point to the originating article. I will explain by way of (relevant) indulgence:

On 22 April 2007, I wrote a blog entry on The New York Times article by Lesley Jane Seymour, "Tweens ‘R’ Shoppers". I chose to write about Seymour's article because she seemed to wax poetic about her daughter's shopping excursion by featuring it as a semi-microcosm to comment upon society in general and the now-accepted turn towards materialism. She compares the state of society thirty years ago in contrast to today where television shows, celebrity tabloids, marketing, advertising, and branding combine to propel a materialistic-centered culture focused on the influential purchasing power of the tween market.

Perhaps for a bit of legitimacy, she mentions sociology professors who have published books on tween consumers. Seymour mentions one in particular, Sharon Zukin, a sociology professor and author of Point of Purchase, who "does not deride tweens for wanting to shop because she claims it is the modern form of hunting and gathering" and therefore a form of survivalism and "rite of passage" especially significant to the development of their individuality at this in-between stage of development – between childhood and adulthood.

So here we have three (3) articles:

1) Trebay's article on Campbell's 'moxie' and a separate 'rulebook' exclusive to Beauty,

2) Seymour's article on tweens as a substantially influential consumer capitalist spending demographic - with no remorse or apology - and

3) this current article by Trebay on how fashion is an historically salient form of expression and shaper of a relevant political and a viable economic society.

He laid the groundwork, so why did he stop short in this article?

It seems almost a tease - unintentional or otherwise - that Trebay only brushes with technology because fashion and technology have a far deeper connection today than ever before. Positive and Negative. Specifically relating to the latter, I refer to the trend with tween consumerism/materialism and with electronic gaming technology.

Just as there is a tween market for consumer spending that increasingly leads our future (mostly female) generations into an oblivion of an almost narcissistic and materialistic preoccupation at the expense of individualism and creative potentiality, so too is there a tween+ market for consumer spending on electronic games that preoccupies our future (mostly male) generations into a sedantary lifestyle on the brink of virtually lethal obesity.

In the former case, Seymour justifies the phenomena as a 'rite of passage' into adulthood- justified almost as an aesthetic beauty operating by its own rules. It really is as if she, as the responsible adult and PARENT, is 'aiding and abetting' a spiraling cycle towards a level of materialistic greed and pride shockingly unparalleled and creatively stunting.

In the latter case, gaming as an adrenaline-pumping addictive preoccupation has become the occupation of lax aspirations and stunted achievements. The typical growth in the affected apparently exists only in obesity rather than excellence. Where are the parents? Why has parental/consumer/adult responsibility been pummeled over by (electronic) instant gratification?

These should have been the greater problematic issues 'touching' Trebay's article and discussed openly and honestly in classrooms and more importantly, in households. Why is it so blatantly missing?