Fashioning Identity Status Ambivalence in Contemporary Fashion 9781474249102, 9781474249133, 9781474249126

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: Status Ambivalence And Fashion Flows
Politics of appearance
Dressing the part
Sartorial dialectic of identity
Fashion flows
Vertical flow
Horizontal flow
Upward flow
Scattered flow
Fashioning identity
Chapter outlines
2 Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Fashion And Time
The ambiguous now
Between dowdy and hideous
Style revivals
Old fashion
Forever after
3 Perfectly Wrong
Taxonomy of age
Corporeal patina
Logic of wrong
Senior moment
Staged ageing
Age ambiguity
Conspicuous poverty
Radical permanence
4 Copy Chic And The Ambivalent Original
Modes of copying
Fashion IPR
‘Tis the season
The Chinatown tote
Copy chic?
5 Sartorial Shrugs And Other Fashion Understatements
Sartorial shrugs
Inconspicuous consumption
Fashionable displays of the ordinary
Deliberate lagging
Staged casualness
The fashion nun
Biological capital
Fashioned bodies
Raw beauty
Lazy chic
Identity assemblage
6 Not So Fast Fashion: The New Perseverance
The new speed of fashion?
Gradual change
Spot on
Forever new
Beyond saturation?
Fashionable implications
7 The Devil’s Playground: Fashion And Subcultural Identity
Metal visual culture
The T-​shirt
Fashion and subculture
Subcultural persistence
The band T-​shirt
Copenhellsters vs. Copenhipsters
Mass-​niche
Multigenerational subcultures
Humor and inverted snobbery
Next step for fashioning subcultural identity
8 Trans-​Global Narratives
“B” is for ball
Soccer history
Cultural exchange
World dress
The soccer jersey as fashion
Fashioning goals
“Welcome to our club”
Transnational fandom
Individualization
Cultural ambivalence
9 Fashioning Zeitgeist
Fashion as a mirror
Low-​calorie realism
Warp and weft
The great outdoors
Blue collar chic
Gender and sexuality
Is there a “right” zeitgeist?
Afterword
References
Index

Citation preview

FASHIONING IDENTITY

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DRESS AND FASHION RESEARCH

Series Editor: Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota, USA Advisory Board: Vandana Bhandari, National Institute of Fashion Technology, India Steeve Buckridge, Grand Valley State University, USA Hazel Clark, Parsons The New School of Design New York, USA Peter McNeil, University of Technology Sydney, Australia Toby Slade, University of Tokyo, Japan Bobbie Sumberg, International Museum of Folk Art Santa Fe, USA Emma Tarlo, Goldsmiths University of London, UK Lou Taylor, University of Brighton, UK Karen Tranberg Hansen, Northwestern University, USA Feng Zhao, The Silk Museum Hangzhou, China

The bold Dress and Fashion Research series is an outlet for high-​quality, in-​depth scholarly research on previously overlooked topics and new approaches. Showcasing challenging and courageous work on fashion and dress, each book in this interdisciplinary series focuses on a specific theme or area of the world that has been hitherto under-​researched, instigating new debates and bringing new information and analysis to the fore. Dedicated to publishing the best research from leading scholars and innovative rising stars, the works will be grounded in fashion studies, history, anthropology, sociology, and gender studies. ISSN: 2053–​3926 Previously published in the Series Paul Jobling, Advertising Menswear Angela M. Jansen, Moroccan Fashion Heike Jenss, Fashioning Memory M. Angela Janson and Jennifer Craik (eds.), Modern Fashion Traditions

FASHIONING IDENTITY Status Ambivalence in Contemporary Fashion

MARIA MACKINNEY-​VALENTIN

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

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Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Maria Mackinney-​Valentin, 2017 Maria Mackinney-​Valentin has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-​1-​4742-​4910-​2 ePDF: 978-​1-​4742-​4912-​6 ePub: 978-​1-​4742-​4911-​9 Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Dress and Fashion Research, ISSN: 20533926 Cover design: Adriana Brioso Cover image: Shila Louise Gaonkar and Max Steen Henriksen. Photo courtesy Frank Cerri. Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations  viii Preface  x Acknowledgments  xiii

1 Introduction: Status Ambivalence and Fashion

Flows  1 Politics of appearance  2 Dressing the part  3 Sartorial dialectic of identity  5 Fashion flows  7 Vertical flow  8 Horizontal flow  9 Upward flow  12 Scattered flow  12 Fashioning identity  14 Chapter outlines  15

2 Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Fashion and Time  19 The ambiguous now  21 Between dowdy and hideous  23 Style revivals  24 Old fashion  27 Forever after  29

3 Perfectly Wrong  31 Taxonomy of age  33 Corporeal patina  34

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Contents

Logic of wrong  35 Senior moment  37 Staged ageing  40 Age ambiguity  40 Conspicuous poverty  41 Radical permanence  43

4 Copy Chic and the Ambivalent Original  45 Modes of copying  47 Fashion IPR  50 ‘Tis the season  52 The Chinatown tote  54 Copy chic?  57

5 Sartorial Shrugs and Other Fashion

Understatements  59 Sartorial shrugs  60 Inconspicuous consumption  62 Fashionable displays of the ordinary  64 Deliberate lagging  66 Staged casualness  68 The fashion nun  69 Biological capital  70 Fashioned bodies  72 Raw beauty  73 Lazy chic  77 Identity assemblage  78

6 Not So Fast Fashion: The New Perseverance  80 The new speed of fashion?  81 Gradual change  84 Spot on  85 Forever new  88 Beyond saturation?  90 Fashionable implications  93

Contents

7 The Devil’s Playground: Fashion and

Subcultural Identity  95 Metal visual culture  97 The T-shirt  99 Fashion and subculture  100 Subcultural persistence  103 The band T-shirt  105 Copenhellsters vs. Copenhipsters  107 Mass-niche  111 Multigenerational subcultures  112 Humor and inverted snobbery  115 Next step for fashioning subcultural identity  116

8 Trans-​global Narratives  118 “B” is for ball  120 Soccer history  123 Cultural exchange  124 World dress  125 The soccer jersey as fashion  127 Fashioning goals  130 “Welcome to our club”  132 Transnational fandom  135 Individualization  136 Cultural ambivalence  138

9 Fashioning Zeitgeist  140 Fashion as a mirror  141 Low-calorie realism  142 Warp and weft  144 The great outdoors  147 Blue collar chic  150 Gender and sexuality  152 Is there a “right” zeitgeist?  153 Afterword  155 References  159 Index  177

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ILLUSTRATIONS

P.1 Eloise, the author’s grandmother, North Carolina, 1954  xi 1.1 New president John F. Kennedy and wife Jacqueline Kennedy and others walking to his Inauguration, Washington DC, January 20, 1961  3 1.2 Shoppers camping outside in Copenhagen days before the launch of the Balmain x H&M capsule collection, 2015  10 2.1 Julia Roberts wins the award for Best Actress at the 73rd Academy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday March 25, 2001  20 2.2 Display at Décor, one of the first vintage stores in Copenhagen, 2016  26 3.1 Fashion icon Iris Apfel attends the “Iris” photo call during the 52nd New York Film Festival at Walter Reade Theater on October 9, 2014 in New York City  32 3.2 High-​fashion granny chic in the fashion spread “Senior Moment” from US Vogue, August 2004, shot by photographer Tim Walker  38 3.3 Tattoos as a fashionable display of radical permanence further emphasized by representing fashionable garments that are bound to transience, 2016  42 4.1 The original Chinatown tote bought for $2 in New York City, 2015  46 4.2 Model on the catwalk presents a creation by American fashion designer Marc Jacobs during Louis Vuitton Spring-​Summer 2007 ready-​to-​wear fashion show  49 4.3 The inexpensive bag is used around the world as a practical carrying device  56 5.1 Using gender fluidity explicitly in marketing as seen in this Diesel campaign, Copenhagen, 2016  60 5.2 The full beard is considered a display of distinction through biological potential, 2016  65

Illustrations

5.3 The tailored sweatpants as a form of extreme casualness represent an elusive status claim, 2016  75 5.4 The raw beauty of the clean, makeup-​free face is seen as a status marker of absence rather than addition, 2016  76 6.1 Leopard print capturing new territories including stroller, 2015, Amsterdam  83 6.2 American pin-​up glamour model Bettie Page  86 6.3 Gucci window display in Copenhagen, 2014  89 6.4 Nike Mercurial Vapor IX endorsed by Cristiano Ronaldo, 2014  92 7.1 Ormar, a native of the Faroe Islands, wears a Machine Head T-​shirt, Copenhell festival 2015  96 7.2 Lars wears one of his fifteen Slayer T-​shirts, Copenhell festival 2015  105 7.3 Collaboration between H&M and Slayer, 2015  106 7.4 Christina in a Copenhell 2015 festival sweatshirt and Mikkel in Bloodbath band T-​shirt, Copenhell festival 2015  108 7.5 Asger, aged ten, wears a Metallica T-​shirt, Copenhell festival 2015  114 8.1 Frederick in his favorite Manchester United jersey, 2015  119 8.2 A mural on a local pre-​school in Watamu, 2015  121 8.3 Stadi Market—​short for Stadium Market—​famous locally for new and secondhand sportswear, Nairobi 2015  130 8.4 “I feel so happy when I wear my Manchester United jersey,” Willy, tuk-​tuk driver in Watamu, 2015  137 9.1 Duncan MacGregor wearing the MacGregor tartan  145 9.2 Paul Bunyan Statue (Kenton Commercial Historic District), February 3, 2014  149 9.3 Gender bending in a black-​and-​white version of the lumberjack shirt, 2016  151

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PREFACE

As a child, my favorite time of year was when we boarded the Boeing 747 from Copenhagen to Charlotte, North Carolina, to spend Christmas with my maternal grandmother, Eloise. She had insisted on not being called Grandma. It cramped her style. So I called her “mormor,” pronounced “more-​more,” Danish for mother’s mother. It was a linguistic coincidence, but the name sat well with her attitude to life, setting her firmly apart from what she saw as the frumpiness of grandmotherhood. From her silver lame dress, worn whenever, to squirting bourbon from between her front teeth at people she found boring at cocktail parties, she was all about more fun, more parties, more fashion. An elegant rebel from 1911 to 1991. She had nothing but great ideas. She gave me a white rabbit–​fur coat when I was 6. For a while, she drove a yellow Toyota with an “Eloise’s Taxi” sign on the roof just in case she felt like driving someone home. She had an English Setter, named Liz after her idol Elizabeth Taylor, who experienced an unplanned union with a frisky Boxer from the neighborhood. Always making the best of a situation, in this case a litter of six puppies, she named the special breed a “Sexer.” She had me parading down her stairs in party gowns far too big for me while she sang “Heeeeere she come, Miss Ameeeeerica . . . .” She was a Tiffany’s meets K-​mart, “just-​for-​the-​hell-​ of-​it” kind of a lady. An adult version of Kay Thompson’s children’s book namesake Eloise who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York doing her own thing. The sartorial enchantment I associated with Eloise was found in concentrated doses in the attic of her house on Hermitage Road where she kept old clothes from her youth, and from the youth of her parents and grandparents: towers of hatboxes, Edwardian wedding dresses, Chanel suits, and long mink coats. It also hid curious items I had to ask about, such as galoshes and corsets. I spent hours in that attic imagining the people and parties these clothes had seen. What did they talk about? What had happened to them? Were there traces of happy or sad memories in this top hat or that glamorous dress? But there was something eerie about the attic too. The clothes were bodiless, like specters. The fascination with the forgotten history and sensuous luxury of all that silk, lace, and fur coupled with the ghostly sense that life had abandoned these clothes stuck with me long after my grandmother had passed and most of the clothes were discarded. Being Eloise, she had only randomly thrown a couple of mothballs in

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Figure P.1  Eloise, the author’s grandmother, North Carolina, 1954. Source: Author’s collection.

the attic, which had of course not been enough to salvage the wonder of this ancestral archive of style stories. I could never drape a silk scarf over my shoulder the way Eloise could, nor am I part of an era where you wore a hairnet and Pucci nightgown to bed as she did. But I put on diamonds when I am in a bad mood, as she taught me. And I still slip into her old silver lame dress for special occasions to give her a party once in a while, with my body as a proxy for hers. I aspire to be as daring as she was even at seventy-​nine, and perhaps the closest I have come is writing this book, which in retrospect may have begun in that attic and with her sartorial pizzazz—​to use one of her trademark expressions. This private anecdote about Eloise is part of my personal motivation for writing this book, but it also highlights the importance of fashion narratives, both as personal statements and social performances.

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Perhaps subconsciously, the fashion narrative about Eloise and her attic is reflected thematically at several levels in the book—​from the vintage fashion that celebrates the value of heritage and memory to the rise of granny chic and geriatric starlets. The case of leopard print works as an example of a new perseverance in fashion trends, visualized by Eloise herself in a head-​to-​toe leopard outfit. While time, style revivals, and visual self-​curation are central to this book, fashioning identity is also explored through a range of other topics that engage quite different fashion narratives, such as underplaying rather than overstating subcultural displays of identity and social aspirations communicated through fashion in a non-​Western context. A key challenge in the making of this book has been to handle the fact that writing about identity mechanisms in contemporary fashion is like trying to stop time. Fashion is often characterized by style change, which likens it to a visual time bomb designed to self-​destruct every six months or so. Sociologist Fred Davis (1994: 162) referred to this as fashion holding the means of its own undoing. So it has seemed that every time my fingers hit the keyboard, I was tapping into the demise of my own work. As one friend said to me: “So really, you are writing fashion history?” To accommodate this issue, I have worked toward developing concepts as analytical tools to be used in further fashion and design studies. This effort echoes the work of Fred Davis, particularly Fashion, Culture, and Identity, the twenty-​fifth anniversary of which provides the occasion for reconsidering his seminal work with the present book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

All books are collective efforts and this one is no exception. I would therefore like to acknowledge the contribution of a number of people without whom this book would not have been. I would like to thank all the informants who contributed to the book, particularly the young men I had the pleasure of talking to in Kenya about their soccer jerseys. A  special thanks to Sofie Garde Thomle and Frazier Fundi Kebati for facilitating access and translation. A loud thanks to the informants at Copenhell who invited me into their spectacular world. I am indebted to the promoter of the festival Jeppe Nissen at Live Nation for his kind assistance and invaluable insight. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by a group of wonderful Danish fashion scholars and experts who have acted as my readers: Trine Brun Petersen, Marie Riegels Melchior, Ane Lynge-​Jorlen, Stina Teilmann-​Lock, and Nikolina Olsen-​Rule—​their intelligent input and patience made all the difference. My talented students—​Mette, Jacques, Line, Emil—​who grace the pages of the book have been of immense help. A huge thanks to my cover people, the glorious Shila and Max. An extra special thanks to the incredibly patient Frank Cerri who has taken many of the images for the book, creating a visual thread that ties the work together. I wish to thank my institution, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Design, for allowing me time to complete this project. I am grateful to my editor at Bloomsbury Academic, Hannah Crump, for giving me the opportunity for frank interaction and supporting me along the way. Finally, I  could not have done without the love and encouragement of my husband, Claus, and children, Carl and Solveig. A special tribute goes to Carl, who offered invaluable insight into the complex visual displays of soccer jerseys in Kenya, being able to distinguish between seasons, qualities, and teams with a blink of his eleven-​year-​old eyes. Parts of the material in this book have been expanded and developed from previously published material. This includes parts of Chapter 2 taken from Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion:  Global Perspectives (2010) and

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Multi: The Journal of Plurality and Diversity in Design (2010); parts of Chapter 3 taken from Clothing Cultures (2012); parts of Chapter  6 from Design Issues; and parts of Chapter  9 from Catwalk:  The Journal of Fashion, Beauty and Style (2012). Chapter 4 was cowritten by Dr. Stina Teilmann-​Lock and originally appeared in Luxury: Fashion, Lifestyle and Excess (2014).

1 INTRODUCTION: STATUS AMBIVALENCE AND FASHION FLOWS What caused a stir was not so much the nude selfie that reality starlet Kim Kardashian posted on Instagram but more the way she justified it: “It’s so important that we let women express their sexuality and share their bodies however they choose” (Bueno 2016). Fashion writer for The Guardian Jess Cartner-​Morley (2016c) picked up on this as an example of what she termed “contemporary ambivalence.” Because exposing your body may be an act of empowerment. Or it could simply reinforce the mechanisms that the action initially set out to dismantle. Cartner-​Morley argued that in fashion the leotard, also referred to as the bodysuit, speaks to this ambivalence by joining the positive message of sports, determination, and physical health with an unresolved stance on female sex appeal. As an example, she uses singer Beyoncé Knowles’s performance in a leotard at the 2016 Super Bowl for more than 100 million viewers. The leotard is a form of power dressing that seemed to materialize the singer’s sentiment: “They [men] define what’s sexy. Men define what’s feminine. It’s ridiculous” (Mirza 2013). But taking control of sexy in this way may also invite the voyeuristic gaze which feminists have tried to dismantle for decades. As commented by writer Hadley Freeman (2013), “Beyoncé:  Being photographed in your underwear doesn’t help feminism,” with reference to a GQ magazine cover shot featuring the singer scantily clad. This contemporary ambivalence between body-​positive attitudes and sexual objectification echoes the wider ambivalence in the book not only of gender, politics, and beauty norms but also of status, class, globalization, and subculture. Common for all these themes is that the social construction of identity that takes place through fashion is marked by clashing needs and aspirations. As phrased by cultural historian Elizabeth Wilson (2003:  246):  “Fashion—​as performance

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art—​acts as vehicle for this ambivalence; the daring of fashion speaks dread as well as desire.” The point is that when considering Kardashian’s nude selfie and Beyoncé’s leotard as fashionable acts of performing social identity, they communicate both dread and desire because ambivalence is at the core of fashioning identity.

Politics of appearance When John F. Kennedy was getting dressed for his Presidential Inauguration in 1961, he probably had quite a bit on his mind. He may have reflected on the personal struggle to reach this point in his career, the monumental tasks that lay ahead of him while in office, and how all this would affect his family. But, he was also thinking about whether or not to wear a top hat (Steinberg 2005). At the time, most men within a Western context wore hats. For everyday use the fedora was popular, and for special occasions the top hat was customary. Since the late eighteenth century, the top hat had represented power and high class and was worn by politicians, bank executives, and other high-​ranking men. Even Uncle Sam as a symbol of the United States wears a top hat. Contrary to popular lore, Kennedy did in fact end up wearing a top hat to the Inauguration. But he was nevertheless held somewhat accountable in public debate for making “hats un-​happen” (Krulwich 2012). Although it is unlikely that he alone brought down the milliner industry because he preferred to go bareheaded, there was a radical decrease in the popularity of men’s hats after his Inauguration. While Kennedy wore a top hat to the Inauguration, he kept taking it on and off during the event as if he really had not made up his mind after all. This apparent ambivalence toward the hat could be seen as Kennedy managing his social identity through the sartorial vehicle of the hat, what is referred to in this book as fashioning identity. More than half a century later, a similar sartorial drama took place at the White House, and this time it was the tie, not the hat, that was the victim. The prime suspect was Barack Obama, according to Business Insider who ran a piece with the title: “Is President Obama Killing the Neck Tie Business?” (Giang 2013). During his time in office, Obama’s choice to often go tieless was seen as “an overt expression of the way this White House has been trying to make politics more human” (Friedman 2016). The example of Obama’s tie suggests a balancing act between tradition and innovation, authority and identification with the public, echoing JFK’s ambivalence toward hats. This chapter introduces the key themes and concepts for the book, setting the scene for the diverse case studies and examples in the following chapters that all in different ways relate to what sociologist Fred Davis (1994: 19) referred to as “identity ambivalence.”

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Figure  1.1  New president John F.  Kennedy and wife Jacqueline Kennedy and others walking to his Inauguration, Washington, DC, January 20, 1961. Source: Photo by Paul Schutzer/​The LIFE Picture Collection/​Getty Images.

Dressing the part Fashion is a complex cultural phenomenon made up of the creative design process of garments, cultural affiliation, commercial industry, and consumer needs. The processes of consumer adoption and the cycles of change in the fashion industry have traditionally mirrored each other. Fashion cycles refer here to the organization of the fashion industry in seasons that is perpetuated by not only designers, producers, and retailers in Western contexts, but also more widely by institutions and organizations that partake in the mediation of new fashion through fashion weeks; fashion media including magazines, newspapers, and blogs; marketing activities including fashion film, modeling, PR; and stylist agencies as well as street culture, popular culture, and subcultures. Together, this forms a fashion system in the sense of an institutionalized set of processes that take an item of clothing or a style from creator to consumer (McCracken 1990; Davis 1994). In the present book, this definition of the fashion system is broadened to include a more dialectical process between creator and consumer, allowing for the exchange between, for instance, street style and fashion industry. It also opens the system for conceptions of fashion that are not necessarily newly produced, such as vintage or fabric-​based, similar to the corporeal fashion of beards.

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While these factors will appear throughout the examples and case studies, the main focus is on the social agenda at play when we as individuals engage with fashion. Fashioning identity is understood here as a science of appearance through not only dress and adornment, but also body management, including hair and makeup. It is about how we choose to look at a given time as part of staging who we are or who we would like others to think we are. In this book, status display as a mix of reality and dream is treated as mainly a social and highly malleable quality that serves the paradoxical function of making us both fashionably unique and part of a crowd. This game of identity is organized in conceptions of novelty and symbolic meaning that, both in immaterial and material manifestations, are considered transitory. The focus on the cases become a vehicle for the main focus of the book, namely, the mechanisms involved in fashioning identity. This approach is in line with social philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky who considers fashion to be a “specific form of social change, independent of any particular object” (1994: 16). The expression of our fashionable selves is played out in a series of brief, fictional moments in which past and future overlap. Fashion’s favorite love interest is this ambiguity of the now. Within the context of fashioning identity, novelty is a tool for social distinction, a promise of transformation, or a shopping high while the business of fashion pushes the new to stimulate growth in the marketplace. As designer Christian Dior (2007: 7) wrote in his 1957 autobiography, the fashion industry is “a trade where novelty is all-​important.” So, what is considered new and desirable in fashion is promoted by the fashion industry and negotiated socially by consumers—​including in this chapter a president. This story of “hatless Jack” (Steinberg 2005)  suggests a tension between the opposing principles of tradition and innovation that are never fully resolved. This causes a productive act of ambivalence, what sociologist Fred Davis called “ambivalence management” (1994: 25). Ambivalence is a key concept in more than a century of social theory of fashion and status, from sociologist Georg Simmel (1957) writing in the early twentieth century to Ana Marta González (2012) and Laura Bovone in the twenty-​first century. This ambivalence has been paradoxically constant through shifting visual cultures as well as social, political, cultural, and temporal contexts. Social identity in fashion is in a permanent state of unrest stemming in part from the tension between not only novelty and continuity but also, for instance, the young and aged, masculinity and femininity, high and low status, revelation and concealment, conformity and rebellion (Davis 1994: 18). So, in the mundane act of handling a hat, the world witnessed Kennedy publicly negotiating a personal balance between individual preference and collective norm as part of a larger system of fashioning identity. In this sense, fashion provides visual metaphors for the construction of social identity that trades on ambivalence through a range of opposing principles. The tensions this creates constitute a motor in the process of fashioning identity,

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and the intention is therefore not to eliminate these oppositions but to create conditions that will maintain them as a necessary part of the dynamic. The social exercise involved in fashioning identity relies on the nature of fashion literacy understood as the ability to decipher sartorial assemblages within the framework of shifting taste preferences. What is being read is the social currency. This is to be understood in the double meaning of what is considered current or modern within a specific context but also which currency or value will provide status. This is not necessarily afforded through conspicuous pecuniary means as has been the case historically, but increasingly operates through values or ideals signaling status locally negotiated and often ambivalent in expression. Clothes are no longer the badges of rank, profession, or trade as they were in preindustrial times (Wilson 2003: 242), but there are still politics of appearance. While means and access are relevant when studying this “status competition” (Davis 1994:  58), there has been a gradual move away from an emphasis on class. In response to the work on Simmel, Herbert Blumer (1969: 282) argued that fashion mechanisms were not a response to a need for class differentiation and emulation but were rooted in a wish to be in fashion, a process he termed “collective selection.”

Sartorial dialectic of identity Fashioning identity is partly about scrambling for attention not in a verbatim translation of visual expressions, but rather as a sartorial trick or “status ploy” (Davis 1994: 76) to be read by the fashion literate while deliberately misguiding those less versed in cracking dress codes. Fashioning identity is mainly a display of the public self the purpose of which is to communicate social belonging and individual distinction simultaneously. Fashion as a set of symbolic codes, as argued from Simmel (1957) to Susan Kaiser (2002), is suitable for this paradoxical endeavor that relies in part on shifting ideas of beauty, status, social standing, culture, sexuality, and gender. The sartorial dialectic is charged between the private core self and the fluctuating public self. But this mechanism has its limits. While fashion is a potent tool for the spectacle of identity, we are also so much more than how we manage our appearance. Fashioning identity is primarily a social game where the sartorial self is public and only in part an extension of the private self. In an attempt to explore the complex process of fashioning identity in the early twenty-​first century, a range of examples and cases will be studied with ambivalence as a theme running through the book. The book as a whole may be seen as a form of reconsideration of Fred Davis’s work in Fashion, Culture, and Identity, originally published in 1992. His observations are still relevant twenty-​ five years later, but the developments in society and the fashion industry call for

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an update to match the current context. Davis’s key concepts will be reexamined through a series of examples and cases, each chapter representing a different take on the theme of status tactics. Davis approached social identity as unstable and contradictory, individually negotiated and communally shared. This turbulent process is in part fueled by fashion. A central quote for the book concerns the continuous tension from which fashioning identity gains its strength: The sartorial dialectic of status assumes many voices, each somewhat differently toned from the other but all seeking, however unwittingly, to register a fitting representation of self, be it by overplaying status signals, underplaying them, or mixing them in such a fashion as to intrigue or confound one’s company. (Davis 1994: 63) For Davis, social identity is more than symbols of social class or status but include any aspect of self that individuals use to communicate symbolically with others. In relation to fashion, this includes primarily nondiscursive visual and tactile means of representation within a social, cultural, and economic context. This definition is elastic, which is intended to accommodate the narrow focus but broad case base of this book. The focus will mainly be on what Davis (1994: 26–​27) refers to as “master statuses” from the point of view that ambivalence is a way of enacting gender roles, social class identification, age, and sexuality through fashion that is hardwired to challenge the fixed and settled, creating shifts in perceptions of beauty, ideals, and status in the process. Fashion’s appetite for change has been criticized for promoting an image of women as objects, for maintaining class structures, and for obstructing sustainability. The apparent pointlessness of fashion change has also invited satire, for instance, by Oscar Wilde in 1887: “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months” (2004: 39). Though phrased for the express purpose of humor, this unreliability of fashion in terms of, for instance, shifting conceptions of beauty points to fashioning identity as schizophrenic. Social identity displays are highly personal. We have selected them, they cover our bodies, and in the capacity of a second skin, we transfer our warmth and scent to these fashionable surfaces. But they also function as social messages of self-​and group belonging. The friction between individuality and community as conferred in a continuous visual and symbolic development is rooted in Simmel’s seminal observations originally published in 1904. He argued that the transformative structure in fashion comes through the social tension between distinction and imitation—​what he termed the social regulation through “aesthetic judgment” (Simmel 1957: 545)—​in which the symbolic demonstration of status is copied in a linear adoption process. This progression moves toward an inevitable point of saturation that reboots the system. In this sense, fashioning identity is a tragic game, a time bomb hardwired to self-​detonate as the inevitable

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part of diffusion and social saturation. Though he refined the concept, Simmel’s observations were not entirely new. In 1818, art critic William Hazlitt described fashion as “an odd jumble of contradictions, of sympathies and antipathies. It exists only by its being participated among a certain number of persons, and its essence is destroyed by being communicated to a greater number” (Robinson 1961: 379). While these contradictions form the basis in the present treatment of fashioning identity, the notion of death by popularity will also be challenged when looking at the perseverance of some trends such as leopard print, just as the dogma of distinction will be explored through its inversion, namely, looking fashionably bland. The social schizophrenia of fashion runs on taste, access, and the “artful manipulation” (Davis 1994: 17) of the fashion industry. In early twenty-​first century, the inner workings of fashioning identity are still informed by the pulse of the fashion industry that to a certain extent controls supply and thereby the tools for engaging in the social game of fashion. However, the premise of this aesthetic judgment has shifted over time in line with changes in the industry, society, and social norms. The historical perspective is included here to provide background to the mechanisms of status competition in contemporary fashion.

Fashion flows As with many other sides of Kennedy’s life, his choice of what to wear on his head has been subject to speculation in terms of social, economic, technological, and personal developments. Hat sales had been on the down since the 1950s, and Kennedy may have brought the development to its culmination. But there were also other perspectives. Was the rise of the hatless man a reflection of the flourishing youth culture? Was it caused by the increase in cars that left less room for a hat than in a tram or bus? Or can Kennedy’s giving up hats be explained simply by him wanting to show off a gorgeous head of hair? From a fashion perspective, Kennedy was a trendsetter because of his social standing, his powerful position, and for what has been described as his “Cool Factor” (Betts 2007). He was navigating an era of transition and, in a very minor way, his ambivalence toward hats might be seen to reflect this. As a trendsetter, he was instrumental in the diffusion of the trend for going hatless while also emulating the current mood. In this sense, Kennedy’s sartorial choices can be read as fashion flows. Fashion flows are understood here as the consumer adoption of new styles in fashion. This social dynamic is informed by the fashion industry, culture, and societal contexts. Fashion flows—​sometimes also referred to as trickle-​ movements—​rest on the paradoxical need among especially the socially mobile for both individual distinction and group identification. The adoption process is

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often triggered by trendsetters and driven forward through sartorial copying for the purpose of connection with fluctuating definitions of status. The element of delay or time lag between the fashion forward and the fashion tardy is central in achieving the effect of distinction. Being fashionably on time has become much easier with industrialized production and globalized consumption of fashion, and as a consequence achieving and maintaining distinction have become equally difficult. This has caused the fashionably inclined to reconsider methods of distinction that are more demonstratively ambiguous than Kennedy’s deliberations over a top hat as a way of maintaining distinction longer. But rather than representing fashion mutiny through dismantling the hierarchy of fashion, these new strategies may be seen as a rediscovery of what fashion is and can be within a social context. The following text outlines the development of key terms with regard to fashion flows within a historical framework to provide a theoretical context of how the social mechanisms of distinction have been adjusted over time. The brief description of these fashion flows constitute the conditions for fashioning identity as something consumers chose to either engage with or keep away from.

Vertical flow The development of ambiguous social currency relies on a partial dismissal of James Laver’s (1899–​1975) early description of fashion, namely, as “the dress of idleness and pleasure” (Laver 1946: 114). This approach saw fashion as an indulgence for the privileged few. In the fashion industry, the production of luxury was given more structure with the rise of haute couture that is often credited to Charles Frederick Worth (1825–​1895) who founded House of Worth in 1858 in Paris. With Worth and haute couture, fashion was loosely organized in biannual seasons forming a fashion cycle that accommodated the process of distinction and imitation later described by Simmel. This created a vertical flow according to which the higher classes were copied by the lower motivated by status aspirations. The hierarchy of price and prestige characterized the period in fashion history from 1850 to 1950 where the main focus was on handmade couture and industrially produced copies of couture that created a vertical dynamic between the social layers of society. Much of the early work on fashion as a social practice emphasized class and wealth as the primary agents of status claims. Fashion worked as a vehicle of conveying status aspirations and social affiliations through symbolic meaning but also material value. Already from the beginning of twentieth century, there were signs of a gradual democratization understood as a development from wealthy women being the fashion leaders toward a premise where material luxury was not necessarily the only imaginable form of social currency. This process was promoted by the

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development in garment production that made the copies cheaper, quicker to make, and available to a wider group of consumers. In the twenty-​first century, men are not obliged to wear powdered wigs and women have been freed from the cages of the crinolines and corsets. Individuality and freedom are admired values that can be communicated through the way we chose to look. However, fashion still runs on the social power structures, and conspicuous consumption is still in operation. The vertical flow in Kennedy’s checking his hat, so to speak, that was seen to spread to the masses is at a structural level similar to the frenzy of getting your feet in a pair of musician Kanye West YEEZY Adidas sneakers (2015) that will make some people camp outside a store for days. Exclusivity either through price or access is still at play, with celebrities in the lead, including actors and singers but also stylists, fashion editors, and bloggers. In this hyper-​visual age, celebrities have come closer to their fans through social media and in limited edition capsule collections with fast fashion increasing their power and maintaining the vertical flow of fashion.

Horizontal flow In 1961, the mood was young and liberated in the Western world. Fashion flirted with freedom of mind and body rejecting what was perceived as the restrictions and stuffiness of older generations. Youth became the prime social currency in fashion that as a consequence was considered to follow a horizontal flow. In a critique of the vertical flow theory, Charles W. King argued that fashion as “social contagion” (1963) moves across socioeconomic groups simultaneously in a market where consumers have the freedom to choose from all styles. Rather than the economic elite playing the key role in directing fashion adoption, it was the influentials who inspired change not vertically across strata but horizontally within specific social affiliations:  “Personal transmission of fashion information moves primarily horizontally rather than vertically in the class hierarchy” (King 1963: 112). King was foresighted in suggesting his idea of “simultaneous adoption” well before the digital mediation of fashion information, the rise of everyman as fashion leader—​from blogger to celebrity designer—​and the revolution in style, price, and availability of fast fashion. The postwar licensing practice of designers contributed to paving the way for this development by pushing fashion in a democratic direction in the form of ready-​to-​wear, which was already on the rise in the United States. The development toward a more mutual dialogue between the dresser and dressed was gradual. Christian Dior (1905–​1957) was one of the first designers who understood how to take advantage of the rise of consumer culture that came in the wake of World War II. He made lucrative licensing deals for parts of his collections and lines of side products such as makeup, stockings, and bijouterie for

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Figure 1.2  Shoppers camping outside in Copenhagen days before the launch of the Balmain x H&M capsule collection, 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

especially the American market that was booming at the time. Licensing was good for business and an effective way to spread the brand Dior. Exclusivity as both a product and experience was opened to the masses because more people had access to the haute couture brand Dior if not the actual haute couture. Although licensing was an accepted and institutionalized practice, copying was difficult to control, and despite the fact that, for instance, Christian Dior released mass-​produced retail collections, copies of his creations were often in

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department stores before the couture customers got their hands on the original. This was a step in the direction of reorganizing and perhaps ultimately dismantling the hierarchy of fashion where traditionally only members of the social elite were in a position to both influence and pursue status play through fashion. Ready-​ to-​ wear became an important factor in the changed relationship between production and practice, away from the designer as auteur and toward the designer as interpreter of street and youth culture. As opposed to the couture designers who produced ready-​to-​wear as a subline, a new generation of designers such as Mary Quant and André Courrèges beginning in the late 1950s made only ready-​to-​wear. Mary Quant and André Courrèges were ambassadors of the horizontal flow in fashion where the trendsetters were not necessarily the social elite. These designers contributed to making standard sizes in fashionable clothing more widespread and also worked toward dissolving the boundaries between casual and evening wear according to the philosophy that modern women did not have time to change out of their work clothes before going out at night. Their fashion ambitions were more democratic in their attempt to make fashionable clothes available to women regardless of economic status. This vision was reflected in the price as well as design and functionality of the clothes. As Quant puts it in her autobiography: “There was a time when clothes were a sure sign of a woman’s social position and income group. But now, snobbery has gone out of fashion, and in our shops you will find duchesses jostling with typists to buy the same dress” (Quant 1966: 75). This approach to fashion testifies to the step that took place in the 1960s from hemline to attitude that Elizabeth Wilson has described as the “snobbery of uniqueness” (2003: 193). The same year as Kennedy’s Inauguration, the aptly named shift-​dress materialized the attitude of the time. The sleeveless dress with straight lines and minimal detailing allowed for freedom of movement suitable for the growing youth culture. As a visual expression, the shift was a paraphrase of the 1920s flapper dress as well as of the 1957 Balenciaga Sack-​dress. The loose shift dress, also known as “The Little Nothing”-​dress, was heralded for its uncluttered look for those who were wealthy enough to demonstrate that they did not have to put in too much effort: “who hate to seem as though they’ve tried too hard” (“The Little Nothing Dress” 1961: 3). In 1961, the conspicuously blasé look flowed from the youth culture of the streets to the silver screen, with Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the elegant black Givenchy dress and to Jackie Kennedy as she moved with her husband into the White House. The vertical flow was seen in how these celebrities popularized the pared-​down look, but they were diffusing a horizontal flow that originated with the young and the restless. The suggestion is that various flows coexist and even feed off each other, which already in 1961 indicates the complexity of fashioning identity. The example also indicates a development where the wealthy are not automatically the trendsetters, and that high status

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is often displayed discretely as a form of inconspicuous ostentation. The shift dress, then, communicated the horizontal flow of youth culture while also displaying a vertical flow, because the high-​end designer dress was still a luxury item that only the elite had access to.

Upward flow Before the upward fashion flow was associated with subcultures, it was linked to the styles that were soaked up from the lower classes. Referring to the 1960s, George Field (1970) argued that “white collar” imitated “blue collar” lifestyle and clothing preferences, with examples such as camping, pickup trucks, and bowling. In fashion, he discussed the “upward flow” of denim jeans. From a background as work wear, its rise to fashion icon took off in the 1950s, when jeans became a symbol of resistance to conformity worn by young dissidents personified by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955; directed by Nicholas Ray; Warner Bros). As jeans flowed upward in the 1950s, they revealed their accommodating potential appealing to the young trendsetters as well as a wide range of social groups, including hippies and bikers and, later, heavy metal, punk, hip-​hop, and grunge. Since the 1970s, jeans have transcended gender, age, social status, and cultural boundaries, becoming part of a global fashion uniform. With the introduction of designer jeans in the 1970s and the first denim haute couture gown by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel AW 2006 collection, denim can be seen to represent a more general leveling of the fashion hierarchy where distinction within this limited example appears through subtler means such as adjustments in wash, cut, brand, and assemblage of the jeans rather than radically different styles introduced seasonally.

Scattered flow The ambivalence of fashioning identity exemplified with the Kennedy inauguration has only increased with the democratization of style brought on by mass-​fashion and digital media. The 1990s saw the rise of fast fashion characterized by more rapid and cheaper production than ready-​to-​wear. By outsourcing the production to low-​cost areas such as the Far East, mass-​fashion retail chains have been able to produce fashion inspired by both runway fashion and street-​style at a pace and a price point that have altered the conditions for the fashion cycle toward a greater degree of leveling between high and mass fashion. A cycle has traditionally begun with a new season and lasted until the next season so the process could start over. With fast fashion and digital media, this cadence has

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become more of a continuous influx when companies such as H&M and Zara can go from idea to store shelf in under two weeks and offer thousands of new products a year. The biannual fashion cycle still provides the industry and media with a certain rhythm and sense of anticipation most markedly with fashion weeks, but the consumers are not necessarily stepping to the beat. To accommodate this, the fashion brands have added mid-​season lines to their assortment, pushing the fashion industry at all levels toward what Anna Wintour, editor-​in-​ chief of American Vogue, has termed “a seasonless cycle” (Thomas 2007: 316). If not exactly dismantling the fashion cycle, the development has posed a challenge to the traditional fashion hierarchy of price, accessibility, and quality. An example of this radical shift in the culture of fashion is the luxury fast fashion of high-​low capsule collections set off by H&M with Karl Lagerfeld in 2004, followed by, among others, Stella McCartney, Viktor & Rolf, Comme des Garçons, Lanvin, and Maison Margiela. Rather than losing its novelty value, these collaborations have only increased in popularity in their more than a decade of existence. The “Balmain x H&M” in 2015 created intense interest in many of the selected cities where the collection was released. Customers slept outside the stores for days in order to get their hands on the coveted items, demonstrating new systems of anticipation beyond the traditional luxury system. Many of the styles were bought for the explicit purpose of resale, some of them selling for three times the original price on eBay the same day they were sold in stores. This demonstrates the complication of the fashion hierarchy and direction of fashion flows when a high street version of luxury approaches the price of a “real” Balmain. In a qualitative study of how H&M uses co-​branding as a strategy, Anne Peirson-​Smith (2014:  58)  argues that the cohabitation of high and low brands, as seen in these capsule collections, are intended to “establish brand visibility and credibility amongst aspirational consumers.” Crossovers are not just seen between luxury and mass fashion but also between brands such as Liberty of London x Acne Studios (2014), between creative fields such as artist Damien Hirst for Levi’s (2008), filmmaker David Lynch for footwear designer Christian Louboutin (2007), and celebrity collaborations such as Kate Moss for Topshop (since 2007). And not all brand partnerships are one-​offs, some being ongoing, such as Yohji Yamamoto’s line Y-​3 for Adidas. A related development in designer collaborations is the high-​high projects between luxury brands or designers. An example is Karl Lagerfeld x Louis Vuitton (2014) that was part of the limited edition series of accessories that celebrated the iconic LV-​monogram in honor of the house’s 160th anniversary. Though this is not the first time Louis Vuitton has invited other designers to reinterpret their monogram, the example is still interesting in relation to how this type of

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collaboration seems to challenge the argument that high-​ low collaborations are a success because they attract new consumer segments to both brands (Fury 2014). Because both Louis Vuitton and Karl Lagerfeld as creative director of Chanel represent luxury fashion, they therefore have similar target groups. However, the collaboration still communicates a positive message of mutual creative honoring which reflects the positive outcome of the high-​low capsule collections. The projected leveling of the fashion hierarchy and the reduction of time lag between inception and demise have created conditions for a scattered flow in the adoption process that moves in several directions at once. This tendency has been enhanced by the general democratic development in which anyone can potentially be a designer, fashion editor, and style icon (Thomas 2007; Agins 1999; Lipovetsky 1994). The effects of this have been understood as an acceleration of fashion (Loschek 2009), stylistic pluralism (Laver 2012), and creative democracy (Polhemus 1994). Fashioning identity requires ambivalence management within shifting social, aesthetic, and symbolic regulations. While it still holds true more than a century later that “change itself does not change” (Simmel 1957: 545), the fashion flows have become more complex. The more difficult conditions for distinction have promoted unscrupulous visual hijacking and mannered protests in fashion for the sole purpose of scrambling the signals of social belonging. Obscuring the sartorial symbols enhances the element of resistance in fashion, stimulating the dynamic where some are early to accept novelties in fashion while others need a longer gestation period.

Fashioning identity Fashioning identity is personal, intimately linked as it is to our bodies, social bonds, and cultural ties. We tell stories with the way we choose to look, mixing fact and fiction for the desired social effect. Fashion narratives are key vehicles in transmitting these shifting messages of identity. To emphasize this point, most of the chapters in this book open with some form of narrative taken from history, popular culture, and the empirical studies. The Preface and final chapter open with a fashion narrative from personal memory to frame fashioning identity as rooted in individual experience and circumstances. Because fashion is both personal and societal, the visual vehicles of negotiating status are necessarily in flux, complicating the writing of a book on the topic. In an attempt to accommodate this, the focus is on the mechanisms at play in contemporary status ploys, and the research contribution is suggested to be the development of new concepts for understanding these mechanisms that will hopefully survive the twists and turns of fashion’s ever-​shifting faces. The newly coined concepts may apply

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to certain aspects of fashioning identity that though not considered restricted to specific gender, age, class or cultural norms are still concentrated among younger, urban individuals, as the books’ visual material also tends to reflect. However, while the concentration of the slippery status tactics described in the book may be highest among this demographic, a lighter dose is found across these divides. Finally, the approach to fashion in this book is that of a fashion fan that perceives fashion as holding personal, social, and creative potential as a cultural expression while acknowledging the major ethical issues facing the fashion industry. Fashioning identity is considered here as a general mechanism that operates globally but is negotiated locally. Because part of the mechanism has been linked to the organization of the Western fashion system, the primary focus in this book is on the sartorial dialectic of identity in Western countries but drawing in global examples when relevant. The book combines a narrow focus on the process of fashioning identity with a broad case base intended to allow for a 360-​degree treatment of the topic. Conventional conceptions of segmentation are challenged in contemporary fashion. Engaging in identity politics through fashion has become more democratized across gender, class status, ethnic, and age gaps, bound closer through digital media and fast fashion. If we consider fashion to be a powerful potion, the concentration is individually chosen depending on life situation and personal preference. Fashioning identity, regardless of the degree of engagement, operates with a symbolic content that is the same regardless of the concentration. This is linked to the social standards of looking the part in contemporary fashion that allow for schizophrenic shifts between fashionable personas—​punks one day, ballerina the next—​without it being either more or less than playful self-​curation. At the same time, the central theme in the book of subverting status symbols for distinctive effect relies to a certain extent on the conventional structures. So, while relativity of, for instance, class and age may be operating on a visual level, a certain system of difference is necessary for the status tactics to be socially successful. In addition, contrasts are seen between the chapters, such as looking at gender fluidity while also treating gender normative cases such as the full beard for men.

Chapter outlines The structure of the book gives it the quality of a reader. While the core theme of status claims through various negotiations of ambivalence tie the book together, each chapter offers insight into the central parameters in fashioning identity of novelty, age, gender, class, status, copy, culture, and context. This means that the book may work as a reader while at the same time appearing quite eclectic

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moving from the history of soccer in Africa to accounts of highland rebel Rob Roy Macgregor, from high-​fashion to subcultural style, from fabric to body, from strollers to leopard fur. Hopefully, the result is enlightening and possibly even entertaining. After this Introduction that frames the central terms and conditions of fashioning identity seen in both a historical and theoretical perspective, the relationship between fashion and time will be considered in Chapter 2. This chapter takes as its point of departure the rise of vintage clothing from niche to mainstream, focusing on the ambiguous social appeal of old clothes on a mass scale. This is intended to demonstrate the effect of vertical flow from celebrity culture and horizontal flow of urban youth culture engaging in the paradoxes of what is termed discontinued chic. Included in the chapter is also a more fundamental discussion of the conceptions of now in fashion that balances between a nostalgic past and imagined future. This includes a reconsideration of fashion cycles as recurring styles and the possible laws that govern them. The fashion industry and popular culture as such are having a “senior moment” with a celebration of older women. Chapter 3 develops the theme of old clothes to include aged bodies exemplified in the increased popularity of the senior model and older women as style icons. Self-​proclaimed “geriatric starlet” Iris Apfel frames the chapter that centers on granny chic as a distinction strategy within the concept of the logic of wrong. This sense of something feeling wrong until it is socially negotiated as fashionably right is fundamental to fashion but can also be intentionally enhanced as part of ambivalence management, as in the case of inverting the status symbol of youth. After a short discussion of the taxonomy of aging in relation to fashion, the chapter explores the theme of strategic ambivalence through the staged ageing including the perfectly wrong in dying your hair grey or looking intentionally dated. To expand the concept of the logic of wrong, Chapter 3 gives shorter examples with the display of conspicuous poverty of homeless chic and the rogue chic of the fashionable tattoo that both invert not age as a status marker but social class. Studying the role of fashionable ambivalence continues in Chapter 4, where the focus is on the display of the deliberately inauthentic with themes of originality, copying, and authenticity running through a case study of the Chinatown tote that has been brought into high-​fashion as both accessories and fashion print. The discussion of copying as part of slippery status symbols in copy chic is held up against current debates over Immaterial Property Rights, including the notion of the “piracy paradox,” according to which copying benefits the fashion industry by pushing style obsolescence. The visual testament of the Chinatown tote to inconspicuous consumption is taken a step further in Chapter 5. Here, the central theme is the social currency of rehearsed carelessness where the time, effort, and money put into a look are played down as opposed to the traditional norm of foregrounding these qualities.

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This theme will be explored in a number of examples including extreme casualness of wearing sweatpants as formalwear to underplay status signals and the affected modesty of underplaying cultural definitions of femininity. The source of distinction is developed to include the idea of biological capital as displayed through the raw beauty required when women decline to wear makeup or the similar genetic potential men need to grow a strong beard. The demonstrative lack of effort represents a status symbol that is impossible to acquire regardless of buying power. The celebration of the ordinary and bland, exemplified as normcore, also discussed as part of fashion understatements is continued in Chapter  6 that explores the prospect of signification exhaustion in fashioning identity. This is based on a case study of leopard print that is argued to have shown unusual perseverance in the period 2006–​2016. This fashion longevity could be seen as a reaction to the increasing speed of fashion and growing concerns over climate issues. However, within the context of fashioning identity, this slowness is also viewed as a display of conspicuous permanence understood as an ambiguous inversion of newness and velocity in fashion. Chapter  7 moves from mainstream fashion to fashioning subcultural identity. While subcultures have traditionally tended to be protective of their style emblems, they are also influenced by the fashion industry which in turn has an unrequited visual crush on subcultures as a source for fashionable edge. The chapter looks at the theme of subcultural ambivalence through an empirical case study of the heavy metal band T-​shirt as a display of fandom and fashion in one. Included is a discussion of fan authenticity; mainstream, inverted snobbery and continuing the theme of age and time looks at the multigenerational formation of contemporary metal subculture. Chapter 8 turns continues the focus on the fan T-​shirt, but shifts the focus from music to sports, from a Western to a non-​Western setting. In low-​income environments in Kenya, a jersey from a famous soccer team represents both a cross-​ cultural emblem of fandom and an aspirational status symbol. The jersey merges the local and the global, the present and the past in a cultural ambivalence bringing in themes of prestige hierarchies, world dress, and fashioning goals under difficult circumstances. The history of soccer and the cultural exchange of dress between Europe and Africa are used to frame this empirical study of trans-​global narratives that provide a sense of belonging while also materializing a dream of a different life. Chapter 9 concludes the book by looking at the role of societal context or Zeitgeist for fashioning identity. Zeitgeist merges the fantasy of fashion with the reality of current events as a means of creating social cohesion but risking prettification of politics on the way. To explore Zeitgeist as a form of low-​calorie realism, this chapter charts the social significance of the lumberjack shirt within a historical context. This extensive fashion narrative draws a line from Scottish

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heritage of the tartan pattern over North American logger culture to the class and gender bending appropriations of the shirt since the late twentieth century. The result is an ambiguous style story coming out of the tension of narrative vacuum on a personal level and an accumulated social and cultural narrative on a historical level.

2 YESTERDAY’S TOMORROW: FASHION AND TIME “I am so happy, thank you so much,” a tearful Julia Roberts sniffled when receiving her Academy Award for Best Actress in 2001. In the press coverage of the show, the actress was acclaimed for her professional achievement but also for her choice of outfit. Because what she was wearing was not the latest or newest designer garment but a dress from the Valentino archive. Had a celebrity worn a dress that was clearly not new to an award show decades earlier, it may have been considered dated. But in 2001, it was vintage. Fashion has often been associated with its craving for the new, what Lipovetsky (1994:  4)  has described as the “frenzied modern passion for novelty.” The rise of vintage highlights the nature of novelty in fashion as erratic. What is old may therefore paradoxically be considered new because it is the collective, situated perception that determines the status of the garment. While wearing old or pre-​owned clothes was nothing new in 2001, the event was still described as a watershed moment in fashion because the old had overruled the new (Goodyear 2007). While Julia Roberts has been quoted for saying: “I just thought it was a pretty dress” (Cosgrave 2006: 253), she was still credited for endorsing vintage fashion and pushing old clothes from the style cemetery to the fashion forefront even in the mainstream. Although secondhand fashion has been a recurring phenomenon in fashion throughout the twentieth century, it was not on the highly commercialized mass-​scale of the early twenty-​first century. This flirt with the past was strong already in the early 1990s. In an article aptly titled “The Shock of the Old,” fashion writer Suzy Menkes (1993) stated: “What’s new in fashion? You should be asking, ‘What’s old?’ For the hottest trend on and off the international runways is thrift-​shop chic.” The turn of the millennium seemed to hold the promise of ending this focus on retrospection, giving room for what anthropologist Ted Polhemus (1996: 126) predicted would be something “new and fresh.” However, as Julia Roberts’ famous vintage dress illustrates, this was far from the case. As argued by Heike Jenß: “Memory is in fashion” (2015).

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Figure 2.1  Julia Roberts wins the award for Best Actress at the 73rd Academy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Sunday March 25, 2001. Source: Photo by Al Seib/​Los Angeles Times via Getty Images.

This chapter explores issues of memory, ambiguous present, and imagined futures in fashion production and consumption, and how shifts in perceptions of novelty are used as social currency in identity management. This approach rests on the argument proposed by Fred Davis (1994:  65)  that “appropriating and inverting status symbols” lie at the core of fashioning identity. This is demonstrated in the celebration of the explicitly used and outdated as fashionably new in the example of style revivals and vintage. While there are a number of factors also relevant when studying what makes fashion happen, such as the creative process of the designers and the commercial agenda of the fashion industry, the main

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focus here is on how social strategies of distinction have become increasingly ambiguous on a mass scale. This ambiguity takes on a variety of visual expressions, as this book also shows. Common for all the cases is that the inversion of status symbols, in the present example of novelty, is engaged in the symbolic identity construction through the deliberate act of confusing the sartorial message through what Fred Davis (1994: 66) refers to a “resorting to some other form of vestmental imperfection for the purpose of enhancing status.” Wearing a conspicuously dated dress may be seen as an example of this deliberate fashion flaw.

The ambiguous now Early reports dated the black-​and-​white Valentino couture gown to the 1980s. As it turned out, the Valentino dress was from the AW1992 collections and therefore only nine years old when Julia Roberts wore it as vintage to the Oscars, which seems to complicate the conception of novelty in fashion. The fashionable present has been viewed as an imagined moment especially since the fashion system became more formalized in the mid-​1800s. As argued by Georg Simmel (1957: 547) more than a century ago: “Fashion always occupies the dividing-​line between the past and the future.” The designers were and still are among the key projectors of this ambiguous present operating as they do in a creative time warp. Designers, in collaboration with design teams, conglomerates, media, and an eye to consumer tastes, are instrumental in shaping the fashion future when they visualize what will be considered chic six to twelve months before the actual clothes will be retailed as “current.” So notions of novelty have long been ambiguous in fashion. The passing of fashion time has traditionally been measured out by seasonal installments presented at fashion weeks and fairs marking a regular rhythm, at least within the framework of the fashion industry. Each new season is framed as “on time” materializing as it does the latest conception of the new. By implication, what came before is considered out-​of-​date, transforming the new to old in an instant. The social adoption process has traditionally mirrored this strategy of planned obsolescence institutionalized with the fashion seasons. The first movers pioneer novelty that is then gradually copied by fashion followers until a point of saturation is reached and the process starts over in step with the fashion industry trajectory. Within the traditional hierarchy of price as the key parameter of prestige, the flow has moved vertically from high to low. However, the disruption of time in fashion as represented by revivals is an example of how these flows may also move horizontally within social groups where the social currency is understood to be equal not to price but to more ambiguous significance such as recasting the old as new. At the same time, the thrift aesthetic described by Suzy Menkes suggests a trickle-​up from the sartorial practices on street level. In this sense,

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the ambiguous now displayed through fashion revivals points to the scattered flows of contemporary fashion, and fashioning identity involves navigating this multi-​temporality. This process has been complicated with the increased pace of production cycles. The prospect of seasonless cycles and only a few weeks to produce premium collections have been suggested as part of the reason that high-​profile designers such as Raf Simmons (2015) and Alber Elbaz (2015) have left their positions at major fashion brands, Dior and Lanvin. The fashion industry has been diagnosed with possible burnout and it could be argued that time is literally running out, pushed not just by the demand for new products in stores every week but also by the rise of instant fashion. In the early twenty-​first century, live-​streaming, online forecasting, and front row blogging have stimulated a conception of real-​time that tampers with the basic temporal structure of fashion. Intensifying this development is the “See-​Now-​Buy-​Now Revolution” (Bowles 2016) where clothes from brands such as Burberry are available for purchase in stores and online the same day as they are presented on the runway. Perhaps as a counterstrike against this increased velocity, time seems to be inverted to still greater degrees in fashion in step with the intensified interest in secondhand and retro styles. Fashion has a long-​term love affair with past styles, and the history of secondhand clothing is as old as fashion itself. In the twentieth century, the retro fascination appeared to be a realization of a postmodern vision that the end of innovation was near. Jean Baudrillard (1992) described postmodern culture as a dance of the fossils in which chronological history has collapsed into a perpetual present. In a similar vein, Fredric Jameson (1983:  115–​116) declared that “all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum . . . the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past.” Both perspectives are fitting here to describe vintage as a resurrection of historic debris; however, the social effect seems to be an ambiguous redefinition of novelty rather than an elimination. Julia Roberts’ Oscars-​dress attests to the postmodern complication of time that is “neither past nor forgetting” (Baudrillard 1992:  73)  but celebrates it as a relative and therefore ambiguous present. The possible consequence of this temporal trap is that fashion no longer automatically holds the seed to its own destruction because the parameters of novelty and time lag are reorganized. This points to shifts not only in the rhythm of the fashion industry but also in fashioning identity which has traditionally relied on the tension between new and old. While the postmodern vision of creative poverty was intended as a cultural critique, the focus within the framework of this book is how retrospection is part of an ambiguous strategy of distinction through variations on what may be termed discontinued chic. This approach reframes what could previously have been considered dated, and therefore undesirable, by placing these qualities beyond the nihilistic vision implied in the dance of the

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fossils. The focus is on reconsidering the properties of novelty through shifting definitions of social currency. An example is the discovery of a discarded item of clothing, for instance, at a thrift store, which to the new owner is desirable not just as a material object but also as a visual style story reappearing from the past. Novelty in this sense is not necessarily newly produced but rather informed by social and cultural values of a given time and place. Novelty, then, is not necessarily an inherent quality but a socially negotiated one. As argued by Everett Rogers (2003: 11): “If the idea seems new to the individual, it is an innovation.” This marks a move from the chronological time of fashion seasons toward a more creative staging of time as both a visual expression and symbolic quality.

Between dowdy and hideous A century ago, Julia Roberts’ dress would probably have been considered unfashionable. The patterns of when we accept new style trends in general and style revivals in particular have moved towards a decrease in time lag. An early scholar of style revivals, Agnes Brooks Young (1937: 174) argued in the 1930s that “it is certainly true that dress which has recently gone out of fashion has lost its charm.” The same year, James Laver described the temporal organization of time lags in fashion with a chart based on a study of fashion change through dated portraits, fashion plates, and contemporary caricature starting in the 1840s. According to this chart, a dress is “smart” at its time, “beautiful” 150 years after its time, and “hideous” 10 years after its time (Laver 1946: 202). Between the two are stages of attractiveness from “ridiculous” and “amusing” to “charming” and “romantic.” According to Laver’s chart, the Valentino dress would reside somewhere between dowdy and hideous. The fact that this particular dress was considered the tipping point for vintage in mainstream culture in the early twenty-​first century suggests a radical shift in perceptions of time in the sartorial dialectic of identity. Time lag assumes a temporal gap—​between new and old, in and out, inception and demise, innovators and laggards—​as essential to the dynamic of distinction and imitation. The social process of adoption relies on time lag in order for the fashion leaders to maintain the lead for a period of time before emulation saturates the fashionable object or style. This has been discussed as fashion flows that operate in several directions—​vertical, horizontal, and upward flows—​but are all sensitive to time as a chronological process as well as a visual frame of reference. The fashion industry remains at least on a structural level organized according to the chronological cadence of seasons, and therefore to a certain extent its system still organizes the adoption patterns for consumers. For designers, looking back can be part of visualizing the future because, similar to all cultural production, fashion as a creative expression involves standing on the shoulders

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of those who came before. Useful insight into the relation between creative expression and the past is provided by T. S. Eliot in his 1922 essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” in which he reflects on the relationship between the poet and the past. He argues that “the past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past” (Eliot 1997: 41). This idea that the past and the present are mutually constitutive in a continuous process also applies to fashion design in implying that each historical revival is manifested differently with the shifting temporal contexts while at the same time altering the collective perception of the past. A more recent treatment of the past and the present as mutually constitutive is Ulrich Lehmann’s (2000: 384) thorough treatment of fashion and modernity in which “fashion is modern not despite the old but precisely because it carries the past within itself, or is remodeled by it.”

Style revivals Fashion historians argue that fashion revivals have been a phenomenon throughout fashion history. Historian Barbara Burman Baines (1981) surveyed 500 years of fashion revivals from mid-​sixteenth century England to the 1980s to determine possible underlying patterns, functions, and meanings of revivals. She found that revivals run in cycles using the example of recurring classical styles including the tunic and toga details in the second half of the seventeenth century England, the return of the 1860s crinolines in the 1930s which were already a revival of the polonaise of the 1770s and 1780s style, to the Regency shapes in the 1960s. The revival of ancient Greek dress by the Romans may be considered not only an early example of fashion folding back on itself but perhaps the most persistent. Fashion curator Harold Koda (2003: 18) brings attention to the multiple recurrences of Ancient Greek and Roman dress: “components of classical attire have appeared throughout Western fashion’s six-​hundred-​year history.” The classical components include constructions such as draping and cinching, columnar silhouettes, pleats, white, and decorative elements such as key and wave meander patterns (2003: 12–​15). Perhaps the most comprehensive Græco-​Roman revival was seen in the period from the 1790s to the 1810s—​what Laver refers to as “anticomanie” (1946: 17)—​as linked to the French Revolution (1787–​1799). From the crowning of Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor in 1804 to the architecture of L’Église de la Madeleine in Paris, inspiration was sought in Antiquity. The political atmosphere at the time also seemed to be reflected in women’s fashion with inspiration drawing on togas and tunics as well as the omnipresence of white (Laver 1946: 21). The silhouette was flowing, with the waist gathered just beneath the bosom—​the

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empire waist—​lending an overall impression of an ancient pillar. Classical styles continued to resurface, from Madeleine Vionnet’s unique draping technique in the early twentieth century to the Greek goddess look of 2015 (Pieri 2015), showing how even revivals of the same period are subject to change being channeled through a contemporary context. Revivals are prone to selective memory sourcing material from history, which is then “overlaid with fresh style and rearranged by affectionate nostalgia” (Baines 1981: 13). Revivals, then, are not considered to be the end of innovation and death of ideas but as a prolonged crush that fashion has on the past as part of fashioning the present. Referring specifically to fashion, Harold Koda and Richard Martin (1989:  7) argue that every decade flirts with history in a dialectical process of reexamining the past, recalling Walter Benjamin’s (1968: 261) famous description of fashion’s warped bond with history: “Fashion has a flair for the topical, no matter where it stirs in the thickets of long ago; it is a tiger’s leap into the past.” Designers and consumers alike act as time travelers not through literal revivals but rather as reanimations suitable for their specific temporal context. Interested in the complex relationship fashion has to recollection and history, Caroline Evans relates Benjamin’s understanding of the labyrinth as a metaphor of history to the convolution of time in fashion: “as the labyrinth doubles back on itself what is most modern is revealed as also having a relation to what is oldest. Thus distant points in time can become proximate at specific moments as their paths run close to each other” (Evans 2007: 9). The passage through this fashion labyrinth is disorienting, as the paths of the past converge and diverge in negotiation with the present. This is exemplified in the example of the continuing revival of antique styles that with each return form a new constellation of past and present where the most distant and most present meet in not just one ambiguous now but a seemingly endless series over a period of centuries. There are also examples of more recent paths of fashion history intersecting. A favorite fashion narrative in the fashion industry is the revival of specific decades primarily of the twentieth century. Decades are already an artificial construction as a definable period, and this is highlighted when each revival tells a different fashion narrative from the ones before. An example is the 1970s, which experienced yet another revival in the mid-​2010s. This version focused on the bohemian look with ethnic or handmade touches similar to the decade’s revival in the 1990s. Previous revivals of the 1970s include the tailored empowerment of the women’s suit as exemplified by Bianca Jagger’s taste for sharp white suits and the camp androgyny of David Bowie’s persona Ziggy Stardust. Symptomatic of the selective revivals is that not everything of a particular period is revived at once, and the same look or item can return several times in slightly altered guises. Examples are the maxi dress, jumpsuits, hot pants, peasant looks, and cardigans for men. This recalls the idea proposed by sociologist Stanley Lieberson of “existing stock” (2000: 114). While he is referring to first names, the

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Figure  2.2  Display at Décor, one of the first vintage stores in Copenhagen, 2016. Source: Author’s collection.

notion applies to fashion history as well in the sense that fashion history acts as an archive awaiting revivals. Because this stock is so expansive, most of it lies dormant before parts of it are rediscovered only to return to the collective visual archive when temporarily defunct again. These periods of style hibernation may perhaps be seen as a time when visual expressions regain their strength preparing for fashion comeback with renewed energy in an altered form. Style revivals are not a recreation of the past but a historical sampling intended to create an assemblage complex enough to stall copycats. Often references to several decades at once blend with contemporary looks to create a layering of time that gives the impression of dressers as walking fashion archives.

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Old fashion Vintage challenges the perception of novelty and prestige so fundamental to fashioning identity. Wearing secondhand clothes as a fashion statement rather than necessity rose with the youth culture of the 1960s as part of the counter-​ cultural movement. Since the turn of the millennium, vintage fashion has gained mass momentum from celebrities such as Roberts in Valentino couture to thrifty students. Vintage as a term assumes durable qualities similar to those of vintage cars and wine, while trends in fashion are defined by the exact opposite quality, namely, constant change. Vintage resets the clock, so to speak, in arguing that fashion can be outdated and novelty can lie in the conspicuously used. This ambivalence is enhanced by the fact that many vintage items were originally mass produced. When rediscovered as vintage, the argument is reversed because these same items are cherished for being one-​of-​a-​kind and therefore unique. Vintage represents a redefinition of exclusivity as simply economically out of reach to include something that requires skills or time to acquire. Vintage rose in popularity in line with the development of fast fashion, which especially since the 1990s has provided affordable modern clothing for the masses. This has complicated the process of distinction because of the radical reduction in time lag. Vintage is an interesting counterstrike to this development in its insistence on duration over change, old over new. Vintage appears to defuse the time bomb of fashion because vintage items, at least in theory, do not self-​destruct but continue to be current. In this sense, vintage is the materialization of time doubling back on itself creating disoriented, labyrinthine time not just as a theoretical concept but also as a sartorial practice. Vintage highlights fashion as an odd jumble of contradictions by being both pre-​owned and new, modern and outdated. Taken literally, the linear adoption process implied in the traditional flows of fashion is disturbed when the fashion forward engage in this game of discontinued chic. The lines between inception and demise of a style are blurred, creating what has already been described as a scattered flow. This may reveal consumers’ resistance to the newly produced and a symptom of the deflated power of the industry. However, vintage and the fashion system are joined at the hip. Vintage may suggest dismantling the element of sell-​by date in fashion because the cycle is potentially never rebooted. However, the threat is structural rather than social. While style revivals still tend to follow the rhythm of the fashion collections, the parallel fashion system of secondhand brushes up against the postmodern idea of style fragmentation. The convoluted space of a vintage store epitomizes what Ted Polhemus (1996: 93) refers to as the “Supermarket of Style” and appears to echo the postmodern vision that history is resurrected in bulk only to be mixed

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indiscriminately (Baudrillard 2000: 44). But in fact, vintage stores are living fashion cemeteries in which the style stock is curated to fit the shifting fashion currents. So, rather than demonstrate an abandonment of fashion cycles in general and creative stagnation in particular, the vintage store foregrounds a playful inversion of time and history as an intentionally slippery status symbol. The history of secondhand clothes—​ understood as an item of clothing that changes owners—​is presumably as long as the history of fashion itself. Historically, the practice of wearing secondhand has been driven by need, by offering the opportunity to acquire something that would otherwise be out of reach due to limited means. Today, this is seen in the luxury resale market where, for instance, pre-​owned high-​end fashion accessories such as handbags are sold at a reduced price. It is also seen in developing countries where Western style clothes become accessible through secondhand markets, as seen in the popularity of soccer jerseys in Kenya, as discussed in Chapter 8 on trans-​global narratives. Tradition also plays a role in secondhand clothing in many Western cultures in the practice of reusing clothes as a tool for continuity and connection to the past—​from cherishing heirlooms to customs such as including “something old, something new” for brides. Secondhand clothes have also been used in counter-​ cultural strategies by hippies, punks, and grunge. With vintage, it is the quality of being pre-​owned that represents the main potential as social currency. In exploring the commodification of time and the shifting link between memory and consumption, Arjun Appadurai (1996: 76) uses the term patina in the meaning of “the gloss of age” where signs of wear and duration are key to the perceived high status of an object. This gloss represents different qualities than material value when seen in relation to fashion’s status bag of tricks such as the skills required to distinguish the vintage gem from the rejected fashion waste and the time invested in this endeavor, which on an individual level may be considered among our more limited resources in the twenty-​ first century. Vintage includes a range of items at all levels of the fashion hierarchy. Vintage can refer to museum-​quality antiques or luxury fashion, but the term does not necessarily require a glamorous past or high price tag. Thrift store finds often refer to low-​cost items that are found to hold a sense of aura or authenticity because of an imagined past that may be activated in a personal fashion narrative. These vintage items are often generic brands and in various states of disrepair foregrounding style over price as an identity marker. Looking individual rather than rich constitutes a social value within specific social groups. While both thrifting and luxury vintage has gone mainstream, the luxury fashion market boomed in 2015 especially within e-​commerce, indicating that more traditional conspicuous consumption is still an effective means of fashioning identity in a wide range of social contexts.

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Vintage fashion was boosted by the coming of social media and e-​commerce, which opened private closets, collections, and warehouses from everywhere for everyone. An example is Etsy, the online marketplace for micro-​stores selling handmade and vintage items, mainly clothing and accessories. The site was founded in 2005 and by 2015 had 1.5 million sellers, 22.6 million active buyers globally, 36 million items for sale, and made $1.93 billion in gross merchandising sales in 2014 (Etsy.com). This is a clear indicator of the mass-​presence of vintage in mainly Western countries but also globally. Essentially representing frozen moments, vintage holds the symbolic power to stop time. This has linked vintage to the slow fashion movement that works towards reducing consumption in an effort to address issues of climate change. The idea is that if styles last longer, the need for replacement can be postponed providing a more sustainable basis for fashion. Vintage being material as well as stylistic revivals is even more pliable as slow fashion because production of the new is left completely out of the equation. So vintage is per definition green. The ethical edge to vintage fashion was strengthened with the economic recession of 2008–​2012 that appeared to claim more discrete displays of status without cramping individual fashion style. This has been practiced in the display of frugal ostentation, for instance, when wearing vintage fur joins demonstrative status displays in material with modest dress practice in price. The celebration of thriftiness is not reserved for fashion alone but is reflected in the rising popularity of crafting and local produce as well. In this light, vintage marks resistance to mass-​market in general and by extension a celebration of local production, handcrafting, and foraging. The focus is on both community and self-​reliance achieved physically but also digitally. This pull for conscientiousness over convenience as part of a back-​to-​basics lifestyle is taken up in the final chapter, which looks at the role of fashion narratives as contextualizing the sartorial politics of identity.

Forever after Time sets the pace for production of new fashions, it separates the fashion forward from the laggards, and it organizes historical style periods. Whether viewing historical portraits or flipping through family albums, dress represents a marker of time captured for future documentation and inspiration. Without linear time and chronological period markers, it is difficult to imagine the established fashion industry and consumption patterns. So it ought to be against fashion “regulations” to wear old and defunct fashion as highly fashionable and therefore new. And this is part of the success of vintage in the early twenty-​first century. Looking back constitutes a paradoxical strategy of looking fashion forward. Inverting perceptions of novelty and prestige through style revivals and vintage enhances

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this fashionable ambivalence creating new status tactics that may be termed intentional anachronisms. Julia Roberts did not invent vintage, but she may have contributed to making it an accepted option in fashion. Her role attests to the strong vertical flow that celebrity endorsements play in fashion. But because fashioning identity operates according to a scattered flow that moves in several directions at once, vintage also points to horizontal and upward flows among groups, such as Indie youths and subcultures, interested in displaying the deliberately economical chic where time and fashion skills are dominant as social currency. While vintage and style revivals turn back time bringing old clothes to the fashion front, the next chapter looks not at aged garments but at aged bodies as a corporeal example of what Fred Davis (1994: 191) termed “strategic ambivalences.” Biological age is seen to double back on itself when the young dye their hair grey and older people become the face of fashion and beauty campaigns.

3 PERFECTLY WRONG “I’m a geriatric starlet, my dear, don’t you know? All of a sudden, I’m hot; I’m cool” (La Ferla 2011). At 83, Iris Apfel was a late bloomer on the international fashion scene. The concept of a geriatric starlet within the context of a culture obsessed with youth is paradoxical. This chapter explores how the celebration of older women in fashion has the potential positive side effect of working to eliminate negative age stereotypes, while the main fashion agenda is subverting age norms as a status ploy. Being fashionably flawed is considered here to hold possibilities for status claims in line with the ideas of Fred Davis (1994: 66) on the power of “disingenuously ‘doing something wrong.’ ” In this book, the intentional fashion glitching follows a logic of wrong and will be explored mainly through the inversion of age, and more briefly through class status, in the examples of homeless chic and fashionable tattoos. Ten years into her retirement from running the textile company Old World Weavers, Iris Apfel rose to fashion fame as a style icon and model. Born in 1921 and still going strong in the 2010s, she became a popular culture icon as the rare bird of fashion when a selection of her clothes and accessories were put on display in an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York entitled “Rara Avis:  Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection” (2005), which was followed by a book (Boman 2007). The full impact of Iris Apfel as geriatric starlet came at the age of 94 with the release of the documentary about her entitled simply Iris (2015). Iris Apfel collaborated with MAC on a cosmetic collection and appeared as the face of the campaign (2011) tapping into a larger trend at the time for featuring especially older women in fashion. Some have been prominent figures in popular culture such as author Joan Didion for Céline at age 80 (2015) and folk singer Joni Mitchell for Saint Laurent at age 71 (2015); others have been senior fashion models appearing for major fashion brands such as Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Dolce & Gabbana, and H&M. Considering Western cultures’ youth fixation, Iris Apfel and her generation of older models may be seen as a fashionable movement against ageism in fashion, or it may be just another inversion of status symbols useful in marketing strategies. The following looks at the nature of age in fashioning identity and how geriatric chic, to paraphrase Iris Apfel, or granny chic may be viewed as an

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Figure 3.1  Fashion icon Iris Apfel attends the “Iris” photo call during the 52nd New  York Film Festival at Walter Reade Theater on October 9, 2014 in New York City. Source: Photo by Cindy Ord/​Getty Images.

example of “calculated duplicities” (Davis 1994: 22). In this sense, foregrounding older women, understood here as 60+ models or looking intentionally aged by dying one’s hair grey, is considered instrumental to identity dialectics. Inverting the status symbol of youth in this way is an example of the logic of wrong. The term is used to explain the social paradox of celebrating the old, imperfect, or outdated in an age stuck on youth, perfection, and the new. The element of resistance to new styles is integral to the adoption process fundamental to the sartorial dialectic of status. This resistance has been amplified in line with the leveling of the fashion industry. The argument is that when the time lag is reduced and fashionable dress is so widely available, it takes more to stand out making the display of calculated errors a useful status trick.

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Taxonomy of age Fashion operates in a time warp on several levels, ranging from the way designers shape the future to the display of the outdated as a conspicuous inversion of novelty as seen with vintage. The focus in this chapter is on body age as a different type of convoluted time with a more ambiguous edge by appearing to propose a move toward an “age-​irrelevant society” (Cole 1992: 241). Where the focus in the previous chapter was on clothes or styles that were old or old-​fashioned, the following looks at the aged body as the symbolic site of ambiguous fashion statements. In order to frame the concept of logic of wrong as the exaggerated violation of fashion codes, an outline will be made of three general perceptions of age: Chronological, performative, and symbolic, focusing mainly on women. Much of the scholarship on age and ageing is concerned with the social, political, physical, or psychological challenges older people may be facing: that is, the effects of chronological age (Cole 1992; Featherstone and Wernick 1995; Laz 1998 and 2003; Twigg 2004; and Katz 2005). The study of age and ageing is becoming a more pertinent area of study as the world population of those 60 years and older is booming. In a UN report from the Population Division at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, entitled “Population Challenges and Development Goals” (2005), it is noted that the proportion of older persons is projected to triple in the period 2010–​2050, reaching some two billion older persons or the equivalent of 22  percent. It is predicted that the growth rate of those aged 60  years or more will reach 3.1  percent annually in the period. The report argues that such rapid growth will require far-​reaching economic and social adjustments in most countries. Age scholars such as historian Thomas Cole and sociologist Cheryl Laz are concerned with social adjustments in the sense of aiming to challenge the stereotypes of age and ageing. Cole (1992:  228)  refers to this as “freeing older people from outmoded cultural constraints,” which is linked mainly to the biological chronological progression of time. Stereotyping of and discrimination against older people are analogous to racism and sexism in the sense of being a result of a social and cultural construction. While Laz focuses especially on age and gender and the tension between biological and cultural processes, Cole (1992: 227) argues more generally for a reform of the “cultural sensibilities towards aging.” Laz (1998: 86) maintains that the way to challenge age stereotypes is to move from the perception of age as a chronological progression to seeing age as dialectically performed: “Age is an act, a performance.” According to this approach, age is “accomplished” because it is a collective and social construction. The process becomes dialectical when we “give meaning to other ages and to age in general in our actions and interactions, our beliefs and words

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and feelings, our social policies” (Laz 1998:  86). This performative approach to ageing is also seen in fashion studies. One example concerning the relation between body age, fashion, and identity is Samantha Holland’s Alternative Femininities: Body, Age and Identity (2004) that features women defying the cultural expectations of ageing. Cultural critic Margaret Morganroth Gullette (1999: 49) sees midlife as “almost synonymous with being unfashionable.” In her work toward eliminating negative stereotypes of ageing, Gullette aligns the end of the fashion cycle, understood as the product’s life cycle (Rogers 2003), with “age identity.” She argues that because fashion privileges the beginning of the product cycle, implying a social and cultural celebration of youth, body age is associated with the decline of a product’s desirability. In this perspective, an outdated item of clothing corresponds to the perception of older women as undesirable because they are at the end of their life cycle. Gullette (1999:  49)  predicted that everything old would become still more devalued in the twenty-​first century: “Into the foreseeable future, then, people will go on learning to downgrade old knowledge, dispraise past objects of affection, discard them, and identify the renewed self with the newly accepted values that despise the old.” Almost two decades after this statement was made, the opposite seems to be the case. Considering both vintage and older fashion models, the last part of the fashion cycle appears to be celebrated over the beginning. Broadening the scope, the infatuation with heritage and crafts in fashion also seems to point in the direction of a celebration of the old. On a general level, the alignment of the life cycle of the human body and fashion objects may hold true when considering that the fashion system still operates with planned obsolescence and the tendency to disregard older people as target groups. While Iris Apfel and other senior models may have contributed to adding an air of fashionability to later life, this is considered here as mainly a positive side effect. Within the context of fashioning identity, granny chic operates with symbolic age making it more ambiguous because the images—​older models and grey hair—​are used as visual contrast not for the empowerment of the elderly alone but for looking old in a young way.

Corporeal patina Youth in fashion is associated with the fresh, flawless, and fearless. By implication, older age is associated with the dated, worn out, and conservative. But conceptions of time in fashion are often warped. This was seen with the labyrinthine time of fashion revivals that doubled back on themselves bringing the oldest and newest close together for brief, ambiguous moments. The example

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of vintage was both old and new, modern and outdated, and served to destabilize the perception of chronological time as part of a deliberate status maneuver through “strategic ambivalences” (Davis 1994: 191). This disoriented temporal phenomenon is continued in the convolution of youth and older age that brings the material gloss of age, seen in vintage, to the level of corporeal patina. The implication here is that while the geriatric starlet is positive in challenging age stereotypes, these women, just as old clothes, are at risk of becoming symbolic props in the status ploy of fashion even if only by proxy. Recalling James Laver’s temporal organization of time lags in fashion with a chart based on a study of fashion change, Iris Apfel and women similar to her in age and fashion status would find themselves as somewhere between “quaint” and “charming.” Senior models as living representations of vintage women is problematic, suggesting a form of cultural appropriation where fashion borrows from an imagined senior culture—​older women—​that it is simultaneously oppressing through a dogma of youth. While fashion brands may be seen to encourage age diversity, statements from iconic 1960s model Veruschka, who walked the SS 2011 Giles runway show at the age of 71, describes how she felt she was being used as a “gimmick” (Jones 2010). In this light, the use of older models may be seen more as a strategy for creating brand attention in line with the perception of fashion as “a space where industry articulates issues of identity and signification for the purposes of competitive advantage” (Briggs 2005: 81). Within this context, the promotion of age diversity is foregrounded to achieve commercial gain rather than furthering social or cultural tolerance as the main objective. The symbolic potential of old age operates on the premise of sartorial dialectics, the main vehicle here being not dress but images. While this symbolic display of ageing flows horizontally within specific, mainly young, groups, the style trend is disseminated broadly through fashion campaigns and popular culture in general, as with the example of the documentary Iris and more broadly with the rise of the senior model. In the case of vintage, that which was previously considered outdated is recontextualized as fashion through dress practice. Granny chic relies on the image or representation of older age as something fashion houses use for branding and consumers use for discursively staging identity.

Logic of wrong As argued in the previous chapter, resistance is integral to fashioning identity. As phrased rather unforgivingly by Simmel (1957: 544): “judging from the ugly and repugnant things that are sometimes in vogue, it would seem as though fashion were desirous of exhibiting its power by getting us to adopt the most

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atrocious things for its sake alone.” Fashion, including the models who promote it, is to a certain extent driven by what could be considered ugly as a means to break with current social standards to gain the distinctive advantage. Hesitance or even repulsion in adoption is fundamental to the sartorial status competition. If everyone embraced everything fashion came up with right away, there would be no line of adoption, and fashioning identity would have no time lag between inception and demise, bringing the whole process, at least in theory, to a halt. Ugly then becomes an ambiguous quality to be activated as social currency. In 2016, collective brand Vetements caused a consumer frenzy with their DHL T-​ shirt selling for $240. Commenting on how a mundane logo from a logistics company could cause such hype, head designer Demna Gvasalia explained:  “It’s ugly, that’s why we like it” (Cochrane 2016). In the exhibition “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” (2012) at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, one of the themes was “Ugly Chic.” Each in their own way, the two featured designers challenged categories of good and bad taste. Elsa Schiaparelli (2007: 61) achieved ugly chic by elevating objects such as insects, tree bark, cellophane, and lobsters to high-​fashion; and Miuccia Prada challenged standards of beauty through unusual combinations of color, print, and materials. While designers have the ability to transform anything into objects of desire, the logic of wrong operates on fashion’s premise that always challenges definitions of ugly and beautiful to fuel the process of fashioning identity. Implicit in this process is the importance of “calculated errors” (Davis 1994: 66) that are more than shock tactics for generating press coverage. Rather, the attention here is on how the social symbolism of the fashionably off or perfectly wrong provides visual tools for distinction. While beauty might be in the eye of the beholder on a personal level, the definition of beauty in fashion is generally more normative in the sense of “fashion’s tenets of perfection” (Arnold 2001:  22). This is true of beauty in sartorial aesthetics but also in corporeal beauty in fashion mediation in which fashion models are seen to embody “perfect forms” (Diamond and Diamond 1996: 300). Studies of fashion advertising since the late twentieth century confirm a certain variety in beauty ideals without, however, representing any radical departures on a mass scale such as plus-​sized or older fashion models (Hill 2004). At the same time, physical beauty just as sartorial style is subject to constant change as part of fashion as a medium for negotiating social status representation. In that sense, the perception of beauty also regarding fashion models can be deceptive. As Shakespeare (2003: 1.1.11–​12) acknowledged more than four centuries ago: “Fair is foul, and Foul is fair.” Iris Apfel and her fellow senior models are examples of faces that appear to be “foul” in the sense that they digress radically from the cult of youth in Western cultures as such and fashion in particular.

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Senior moment Much scholarship on modelling has been concerned with the conditions of models in regard to body and gender ideals and the effect this has on the self-​ perception among both fashion models and female viewers (Gross 1994, Bordo 2003, Mears and Finlay 2005, and Entwistle and Wissinger 2012). On a general level, the rise of the older model may reflect a greater tolerance of diversity concerning appearance. In the 2010s, older models, just as outdated clothes, are no longer considered obsolete. Taking a closer look at one specific fashion spread, “Senior Moment” from US Vogue (Yaeger 2004)  brings explicit attention to the theme of older women as fashionable. Shot by photographer Tim Walker, models Gemma Ward and Lily Cole joined forces with senior model Mimi Weddell, who was 88 at the time. Both the images and the text accompanying the spread offer insight into the way granny chic is represented and the social function this may serve. One caption reads: “She would find all the attention rather silly, but Granny is lending gravitas to fall’s whimsical brooches, fox stoles, and herringbone skirts” (Yaeger 2004: 245). Here granny is evidently not imagined to be an individual attempting to challenge age stereotypes. Rather than argue age relativity, the quote seems to rely on the stereotypes of older women—​seen in the suggestion of finding the attention rather “silly”—​in order to gain the effect of doing something wrong. The discourse appears to be deliberately antiquated, echoing the intentional anachronism of vintage, with phrases such as “only proper,” “good grooming,” and “modernity is the best policy.” In addition, the stereotypical look of older women being described as “prim” and “dowdy” is hailed as “the new old-​fashioned.” In effect, the paradoxical celebration of senior women as the conspicuously aged and outdated does not seem to have much to do with the realities of older women as such. On the contrary, granny chic seems to be a symbolic tool for specifically young women. As described in the Vogue-​piece: “[I]‌t is, of course, the women farthest away in years from being actual grannies who are most adept at keeping the chic granny flame alive” (Yaeger 2004:  245). Age does not seem here to be about performing age and the relativity of age perception. Rather, the stereotypes of age and the accompanying age markers—​what is described as evoking the spirit of the “granny mystique” (Yaeger 2004: 245)—​are key to the sartorial status claims. The readers seem to be encouraged to play with the contradictions of old and young, pretend and real, buttoned up and down as symbolic, visual actions. Studying the representation of granny chic as street style among older women in selected Anglo-​American fashion blogs offers various perspectives on this paradoxical social strategy involving older age. One example is seen in the independent blog Venturess written by womenswear designer Jennifer Broom.

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Figure 3.2  High-​fashion granny chic in the fashion spread “Senior Moment” from US Vogue, August 2004, shot by photographer Tim Walker. Source: Courtesy Tim Walker.

In a post “Granny chic” (Broom 2009), older women are celebrated as fashionable: “[W]‌e like a good granny” and “Grannies are like, the ultimate fashionista.” The granny is described as a “well-​dressed and confident person (as I  would deem a fashion person)” and who “wear what they like and literally not give a shit.” Here, it is the fashion independence and confidence that is highlighted as the social currency that may appeal to young people. Grannies are also seen as accidentally fashionable, recalling the notion of strategic mistakes, the lack of intention lending them an air of authenticity: “Now, the magic is, sometimes, they are AMAZING, and they don’t even know it,” and “Dude, I don’t know people my age who would rock that outfit so hard.” What is interesting about this

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understanding of granny chic is that the style of older people seems to be hidden to everyone—​even to the older people themselves—​except for these fashion literate youth: “We managed to snap some while we were wine & sushi guzzling in Fenwick, which is totally the granny hotspot of Newcastle” and “There were other awesome grannies we didn’t manage to snap in our sushi hour, but man, I’m gonna be watching out for them next time I’m in town” (Broom 2009). Here, it is clearly not an interest in the older people themselves or in age as such that is in focus. Rather, it is the ability of the fashion blogger staged as being in the know to identify what is authentic versus what is just old that holds potential for status representation. A similar example is from blogger Petra Guglielmetti (2011), writing a blog on the Glamour magazine website. In her post “Granny Chic: Old Ladyish Beauty Products That’ll Make You Totally Hot,” she offers “adorably old-​ladyish beauty ideas.” Here, the tension between the blogger’s discourse and the celebration of the old-​fashioned objects described—​the old being a prerequisite of an ambiguous “hotness”—​points to a logic of wrong: “Kerasal foot cream, which I buy in the foot-​care section of CVS, where I am definitely the least wrinkled person browsing. It’s totally grandmalike, but it kicks butt,” and “Grannies know that good old-​fashioned Vaseline is, like, the best moisturizer around” (Guglielmetti 2011). In the blog examples, the use of style disjuncts “totally” and “like” coupled with slang such as “rock that outfit so hard,” “dude,” “not give a shit,” and “kicks butt” when describing older women indicates a disconnect to the content, that is, the social and cultural reality of older people. This social strategy for delaying the adoption process is present visually not only in staging a prematurely aged look, but also linguistically in a discrepancy between language and content. These ambiguities are key to the effectiveness of the strategy, because they presuppose a certain level of social courage and fashion literacy to navigate the fine line between being wrong in the right way and simply wrong. There are some fashion blogs devoted entirely to the dress practices of older women. Here the approach to granny chic is closer to the renegotiation of older age as described by Laz and Cole. One of the best known is US-​based Advanced Style created by blogger Ari Seth Cohen, who describes the blog as being dedicated to “capturing the sartorial savvy of the senior set” (http://​advancedstyle. blogspot.com 2016). The argument for this approach to granny chic is that style advances with age and therefore older women may offer inspiration to younger women. In this sense, older women become fashion forward in their own right while also entering into status representation through a logic of wrong. Advanced Style, both as a blog, a book (Cohen 2012), and a documentary released in 2014 is an example of how the representation of granny chic might both aim to challenge stereotypes of age and to enter into a social dynamic of distinction.

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Staged ageing Older women as beauty icons can be seen to represent an inversion of youth as a status marker expressed through image and discourse. A physical illustration of this subversion of age is the style trend for young women to dye their hair grey. This trend is disseminated through fashion campaigns and runways by brands such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Dior, and Chanel as well as by celebrities on the red carpet, online tutorial, and Instagram. Because the trend is popular among young people, it is not about letting go and embracing the natural which is implied in the idea of corporeal patina of senior models and fashion icons such as Iris Apfel. Rather, it is a deliberate act of fashioning identity which is quite a time consuming and expensive procedure that takes up to seven hours with several rounds of bleaching and toning. Referred to as granny hair, silver, and stone wash, dying your hair grey before your follicles lose their pigmentation naturally is a demonstration of affected ageing. While greying hair has previously been something to hide, going artificially grey is an example of logic of wrong because it is about inverting status markers of age rather than challenging age stereotypes. The visual impact relies on the contrast between the young face and the appearance of aged hair. In this way, grey hair is not about chronological age but symbolic age performed through the feat of being able to pull off looking aged. Because these code violations rely on norms as sounding boards for these perfectly wrong status claims. As argued by Fred Davis (1994: 66), they “reinvigorate the hierarchical principle structuring the code’s symbolic legitimacy.” Granny chic is engaged in proposing an age-​irrelevant society to the extent that the social currency of looking old relies on the personal courage to go against cultural norms. But this currency is symbolic in the sense that it subtracts meaning from social and cultural realities to engage in the symbolic dialectic of status. Age in granny chic may be rooted in the political, physical, or psychological changes influencing the lives of older people, but the main agenda is to establish fashionable status. The examples highlight the importance of possessing the necessary fashion literacy to both communicate and identify the perfect mistake.

Age ambiguity Historically speaking, age has played a double role, with “dependence, disease, failure and sin” (Cole 1992: 231) on the negative side, and accumulated knowledge and wisdom on the positive side. A similar sense of ambivalence may be seen in contemporary fashion with the “intoxication of sensation and novelty” (Lipovetsky 1994:  129)  on the one hand, and the value ascribed to conceptions of heritage, authenticity, and classics, on the other (Pine and Gilmore 2007,

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Vannini and Williams 2009). Granny chic is ambiguous because it represents the old in a young way. This ambivalence might at first be perceived as an attempt to challenge age stereotypes by applying a performative approach to age. Laz (1998: 93) talks about the “mismatch between chronological age and age category,” for instance, if someone wishes to look younger than her age. Senior models and greying hair as beauty ideals appear to mark a break with age as an objective chronological process the end of which represents the bottom of the fashion hierarchy. Granny chic could be seen as symptomatic of a rise in the relativity of age from the point of view that the “social meaning of life’s stages are in general flux” (Cole 1992: 241) in society and in relation to fashion. Or it could be an example of how we can dress according to the age that we feel we are: that is, a performative approach to age. Old as a symbolic age implies considering the possible social function of age. Here senior models represent an inversion of the youth norm but only as image and discourse. The senior ideal becomes the imagined story—​similar to the patina of vintage clothing—​that works as an aesthetic tool in identity dialectics. This must be seen in the wider context of the antiageing market projected to be worth US$191.7 billion by the end of 2019 (Ghumare 2015). As critic Peter Dormer (1997) argued: “In a world of easily achieved perfection, flaws may become rather special.” From the harmless filters of Instagram to the more radical plastic surgery, the opportunities available for eradicating any perceived irregularities may indeed have turned the attention to the exceptionality of imperfection. The sense of authenticity in the signs of wear in an old dress or the life stories implied in a wrinkle may be examples of this specialness of flaws. These fashionable errors rely on the disturbance of some of the fundamental parameters of fashioning identity such as age, gender, and status. The purpose of this social tactic is to prolong the time lag and thereby stall the process of emulation in the adoption process by scrambling the visual codes so that they are either difficult to understand or intentionally easy to misunderstand.

Conspicuous poverty Age is just one status symbol inverted for edgy effect. Social class is another status marker that has invited strategic mistakes and calculated duplicities. This fashionable slumming, sometimes referred to as homeless chic, has been seen from models resembling vagrants as seen in Vivienne Westwood’s AW 2010 menswear show featuring scruffy models pushing shopping carts and carrying sleeping bags down a runway covered in cardboard. Another example of homeless chic was seen at Swedish fashion brand Resteröd’s AW 2012 show, where actual homeless people rather than models walked down the runway.

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Figure 3.3  Tattoos as a fashionable display of radical permanence further emphasized by representing fashionable garments that are bound to transience, 2016. Source: Courtesy Frank Cerri.

With reference to designers such as Rei Kawakubo and Maison Martin Margiela working within the framework of deconstruction in the 1990s, Alison Gill (1998: 33) describes how functionality or exclusivity of fashion is part of a “fantasy dialogue with urban zones of the dispossessed and disaffected” to achieve an effect that is deliberately distasteful or aged while often maintaining elements of playfulness, provocation, and parody. Street style has added new perspectives to homeless chic facilitated by the global digital sharing of images. In 2010, a Chinese homeless man became an internet style icon nicknamed Brother Sharp for his piercing eyes and sharp dressing style. He was named “China’s sexiest tramp” (Driver 2010)  and gets more than a million hits on a Google search (2016). A  similar example was a Ukrainian homeless man named Slavik, who was photographed over a period of several years, earning him the questionable title “the most fashionable homeless man in the world” (Duggan 2015). There is a certain discomfort for many in staging homeless people as style icons while disregarding the very vulnerable position of these individuals. But the fashion agenda of homeless chic, whether ethically acceptable or not, is not charity or social activism, just as granny chic does not necessarily relate to the social and cultural stereotypes of ageing. So, although granny chic both visually and thematically differs from homeless chic, the status scheme is similar. Both examples use the symbolic potential in scrambling status markers as social

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currency. In this case, class is purely image and symbol disconnected from any reality outside fashion relating to what Fred Davis termed “conspicuous poverty” (Davis 1994: 72).

Radical permanence Other bodily gestures of strategic ambivalences are seen in the omnipresence in Western cultures of tattoos in the early twenty-​first century. Since the turn of the millennium, tattooing has been described as a mass consumer phenomenon (DeMello 2000, Kjeldgaard and Bengtsson 2005)  bringing the diverse history and cultures of tattooing to a new level of mainstream. Tattooing has a history going back to Neolithic times, with archeological finds of what appears to be tattooed skin in places such as Greenland and Egypt dating as far back as 3000 bc. The complex and vast history of tattoos range from the religious tattoos in Japan in the Yahpi period in 300 bc to marks of tribal affiliation among, for instance, Samoa, Hawaii, and the Maori people. Cultural anthropologist Margo DeMello describes how the tattoo came to the West from Polynesia through British explorers in the eighteenth century. Later, European sailors brought back inscriptions on their skin from faraway places such as China and Hong Kong as a momentum of their trips (DeMello 2000: 2). Since then, tattoos have gradually shed their historic associations with rebellious bikers, convicts, and gang members to become popularized and commercialized by the middle class in especially Europe and North America. Recent studies show that around 40 percent of Americans of ages between 18 and 29 have at least one tattoo (Greenblatt 2014), and an estimated fifth of all British adults and one in three young adults in the UK have at least one tattoo. A decade ago, there were 300 tattoo parlors in Britain and by 2015 there are an estimated 1,500-​plus (Clay 2015). While a tattoo may still for some be less a fashion statement than an “expression of the deepest self” (DeMello 2000: 165), getting a tattoo has generally become aligned with other types of fashionable adornment such as dress (Kjeldgaard and Bengtsson 2005), regardless of the fact that a tattoo cannot in the same way follow the inherent logic in fashion of acquisition, discard, and replacement. Being as a rule permanent, tattooing may represent a visual spoke in the wheel of fashion by canceling change altogether. Tattoos can outlast even the most persistent trends, and it would be tempting to argue that getting something as everlasting as a tattoo is a reaction to the transience of modern life. Within the framework of fashioning identity, tattoos are ambiguous on at least two levels. First, tattoos invert the dogma of change in fashion through a display of radical permanence. Second, tattoos have a history of social stigmatization making them suitable for reversals of high and low social status as a form of rogue chic.

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Tattoos continue the theme of corporeal fashion, but where aged skin was natural the decorated skin marks the individual act of literally writing fashion on the body. Turning skin into a canvas makes the tattoo deeply individual. However, skin is also the membrane between individual self and society, drawing this act of personal distinction into the fashionable game of social belonging. The ambiguity here is, of course, that being a permanent inscription, the tattoo will have to be more than a transient fashion statement because it remains the same even as fashion changes. As adornment, the choice of images for tattoos are themselves subject to trends. The shift from Chinese symbols and tribal tattoos in the 1990s have given way to a broader visual scope. Recent trends in tattoos include feathers, birds, words, retro images such as anchors, or hyper-​realistic portraits. Echoing the idea of shifting erogenous zones, what is considered the fashionable placement on the body for a tattoo has been expanded to include even areas that are difficult to conceal. Previously reserved for gang members and prison inmates, tattoos on hands, neck, and behind the ear have been claimed by models and celebrities even on the job. Prominent fashion model Freja Beha Erichsen has exposed her neck tattoo with the word “float” while walking the runway for Chanel (2011), and Kate Moss showed off a small anchor on her wrist in a Dior Addict-​lipstick campaign (2011). Within the context of fashioning identity, fashion tattoos play off both permanence and social taboo as examples of doing something perfectly wrong to become something fashionably difficult to copy because of the social hesitation. This theme of inverting social norms is expanded in the next chapter that looks at the various modes of copying, including the conspicuously inauthentic in high-​ end designer bags.

4 COPY CHIC AND THE AMBIVALENT ORIGINAL Copying in fashion has a variety of meanings and implications. Copying is socially, creatively, and commercially ingrained into the very nature of fashion. Consumers copy early adopters in an ongoing process of style emulation. Designers are inspired by the world around them including other designers. And the luxury fashion industry runs on the high street offering cheaper versions of high-​fashion garments as a way of stimulating consumption at all levels. The focus of this chapter is the way in which changes in the perception of copying among consumers as part of fashioning identity may be incorporated into the work of certain high-​end fashion designers. A  perspective in this discussion is how this may represent a challenge in regard to intellectual property law the logic of which is to protect the interests of rights holders by placing restrictions on copying. The chapter explores fashion copying from an interdisciplinary position integrating legal and consumer perspectives within the framework of the global luxury fashion industry. It proposes that the regulation of copying in fashion takes place not only through legal means but also through “aesthetic judgment” (Simmel 1957: 545) involved in the social mechanisms at work in fashion consumption. In the discussion, “copying” will be referred to as something distinct from “piracy.” Piracy is defined as a type of counterfeiting where the intention is to deceive consumers into believing that they have acquired “the real thing,” for example, by adding a false brand name, label, pattern, color scheme, or other characteristic of an original product to a fake product. Legal protection against piracy has been in place in a majority of the countries in the world since the Trademark Law Treaty of 1994. However, the types of copying that will be investigated here are those which take place continuously in fashion: “commonplace copying” including forms of copying that do not amount to wholesale copying and copying where there is no intent to deceive. These are the kinds of copying that copyright law has the potential to outlaw. However, the advantage of copyright protection of fashion remains a controversial issue. Indeed, the question of the extent to which copyright law ought to regulate copying in fashion constitutes the focal point

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Figure 4.1  The original Chinatown tote bought for $2 in New York City, 2015. Source: Courtesy Frank Cerri.

of a series of ongoing debates within the international legal academic community. The premise of the argument that will be developed in the context of those debates is that the legal rules of a democratic society are always—​and should always be—​a reflection of the norms that govern that society and vice versa. In other words, there is a dynamic exchange between norms and legal rules. The legal rules create norms for our social interactions and our social interactions form the foundation for the executive and judiciary powers in defining and exercising the law. Therefore, it is only natural that the legal rules must be adapted to changes in norms within society. This chapter explores the norms of the early twenty-​first century concerning luxury designers’ own versions of the deliberately inauthentic through a case study of the inexpensive, plaid bag often used for laundry or storage, referred to here as the “Chinatown tote.” This case is of particular interest in relation to legal issues of copying because the bag has been

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celebrated not despite of, but presumably because of, its association with the sale of counterfeited fashion items on Canal Street (Barnett 2005). Significantly, the luxury versions of the bags were not “pirate copies” of the cheaper versions. This is considered to be symptomatic of a shift in the dynamics of fashion toward more ambiguous status displays. As such, the discussion does not comment on any specific national or international legislation, rather it relates to the general principle of regulating copying in fashion through the means of intellectual property law. The analysis of the case revolves around the theme in the book of developing a new “status ploy” (Davis 1994: 76) understood as sartorial tricks, intended to be read by the fashion literate while deliberately misguiding those less versed in deciphering dress codes. This plays into the fashionable tension between individual distinction and communicating social belonging materialized by the case through the social currency of the ambivalent original. It would have been interesting to study in more detail the role of the Asian consumer, considering both the rise in their importance in the global luxury market and the fact that most copies are produced in Asia. However, to maintain a narrow focus on the case, the attention will be on the type of global consumer that taps into this ambiguous strategy of distinction.

Modes of copying Since the early twentieth century, a number of fashion designers have expressed an ambivalent acceptance of copying understood as a form of aesthetic regulation of the visual appearance of garments and accessories including cut, shape, print, material, silhouette, and color. Elsa Schiaparelli (2007: 49) argued: “All the laws about protection from copyists are vain and useless. The moment that people stop copying you, it means that you are no longer any good and that you have ceased to be news. The restrictions defeat themselves.” That copying is part and parcel of contemporary fashion is also evident when Prada’s CEO, Patricio Bertelli, states: “We don’t want to be a brand that nobody wants to copy” (Sowray 2012). This acceptance of a certain degree of imitation within the luxury fashion industry is related to “the sartorial dialectic of status” (Davis 1994: 63) among consumers. Copies contribute to the exhaustion of a trend by saturation, which in turn stimulates an appetite for novelty. Consequently, it is important to include the adoption process and logics of change in fashion when considering copying in fashion. While copying is integral to fashion as transitory usage, there are different modes and degrees of copying in fashion. It may amount to anything from exact imitation to inspiration or even parody—​with some kinds of copying being definitely more chic than others. However, intellectual property law defines certain types of copying of fashion designs as unlawful. For example, in the European countries design law protects designs—​ including fashion designs—​ that are

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“new” and have “individual character.” By the same token, fashion designs are objects of protection according to a number of European copyright laws: The scope of protection ranging from high, as in France, to theoretical, as in Denmark (Teilmann-​ Lock 2012). Under copyright law exclusive exploitation rights are vested in fashion designs because they—​like literature, art, and music—​are regarded as original intellectual productions that may reflect the personality of their originators and because it is considered a common good that authors, artists, composers, designers, and other creators continue to be creative and to disseminate their works in society. This goes hand in hand with the rationale for copyright, which is to reward creators and encourage them to innovate. In recent years, there has been growing support within the industry for more extensive protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) in fashion. The debate over the level of IPR protection has political, economic, and ideological dimensions. However, the regulation of copying in fashion also relates to consumer behavior due to the process of style emulation as a key motor in fashion. In 1931, American anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir (1959: 24) offered an early description of this: the “general desire to escape from the trammels of a too regularized existence is powerfully reinforced by a ceaseless desire to add to the attractiveness of the self.” Sapir touched upon the long history of ambivalence regarding aesthetic regulation in fashion as something from which to escape and as the inevitable consequence of engaging in the cyclical process of sartorial status negotiation that will eventually lead to a new form of regulation from which to escape. The function of copies has shifted with the rise of “fast fashion” (Segre Reinach 2005), which in turn may challenge the perception of luxury fashion. The rapid production in fast fashion, where as little as two weeks is needed for fashion companies to go from idea to store shelf, has complicated the process of social differentiation. When copies of new fashion items are in the stores before the high-​end originals, this potentially reduces the distinctive effect of these items. To replace the traditional time lag between original and copy, consumers find new and often subversive strategies for creating differentiation, which may, as the case will show, involve the celebration of the conspicuously inauthentic. It is the coupling of the debate over IPR protection of fashion and the new ambiguity in status regulation that forms the basis for this chapter to add new perspectives to the study of fashioning identity. Recently, the scholarly debate over IPR and fashion has intensified as a result of the presentation, in 2006, by two legal scholars, Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman, of an argument about the so-​called “piracy paradox” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2006; Preet 2008; Faux 2009; Hemphill and Suk 2009; Raustiala and Sprigman 2009; Tu 2010; Xiao 2010; Andrews 2012). In brief, the argument says that within the fashion industry, copying stimulates innovation and general economic growth in that every time a style by an original (luxury fashion) brand is copied by an unoriginal (high street) brand, it induces the creation of a new style

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by the former to cater for the segment who will want to distinguish themselves from high street fashion. This process will continue in a never-​ending cycle resulting in higher turnovers for the fashion industry as a whole. Proponents as well as opponents of Raustiala and Sprigman’s argument appear to follow a traditional perception of social and price hierarchy when considering consumer behavior akin to the patterns described by twentieth-​century sociological and economic theory by Georg Simmel (1957) and Thorstein Veblen (1970). This hierarchy is illustrated as a “fashion pyramid” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2006: 1694). Raustiala and Sprigman argue that the price level follows the amount of “fashion content”

Figure  4.2  Model on the catwalk presents a creation by American fashion designer Marc Jacobs during Louis Vuitton Spring-​Summer 2007 ready-​to-​wear fashion show. Source: Photo by Stephane Cardinale/​Corbis via Getty Images.

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or “design work” that goes into a fashion garment. The top of the hierarchy is luxury fashion at high prices, which is considered equal to “more fashion content” or “design work.” The top of the hierarchy is copied in a trickle-​down effect by the lowest part of the pyramid with “basic and commodity apparel” representing the “least fashion content.” It follows that there is greater incentive for copying in relation to luxury fashion simply based on return on investment. However, the complex social strategies that exist in contemporary consumer culture in Europe and the United States should also be considered. The Chinatown tote is of particular interest here in exploring a possible shift in the perception and consumption of luxury fashion, a shift that so far is most manifest among accessories such as the Chinatown tote as interpreted by designers such as Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton and Kate Spade. The case is particularly poignant considering the bag’s visual association with transporting counterfeited bags in New York City’s Canal Street famous for its trade in knockoff design goods (Preiser 2007). The intention is to offer a clearer understanding of the relationship between fashion copies and social differentiation in luxury fashion. Additional perspectives to the question of IPR and fashion will be provided through a consideration of subversive strategies in fashioning identity.

Fashion IPR The recent debates concerning intellectual property rights in fashion have primarily taken place within the context of copyright law. As it is, fashion has the potential to fall under a number of different branches of intellectual property law including copyright law, trademark law, and design law. Yet, globally speaking, no particular branch of intellectual property law provides definite protection against unauthorized copying. Laws relating to IPR protection of fashion vary considerably from country to country. From the perspective of the fashion industry, protection therefore is somewhat uneven. In principle, fashion designs ranging from high-​end to high street may be protectable by intellectual property law; in practice, luxury fashion brands are usually the plaintiffs of legal suits. The focus on copyright law in recent debates is indicative of the fact that it offers a particularly attractive type of protection: It is without “formalities,” that is, no registration is necessary and no fees must be paid. By contrast, trademarks and design rights have to be registered as well as paid for. Furthermore, copyright lasts for a long time: For the lifetime of the creator plus 70 years post mortem autoris, and it grants a broad-​spectrum protection of original works against direct or indirect copying in any form or media. It is in copyright law that the greatest contrasts between IPR regimes are found. Some countries—​for

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example, France—​have a long history of granting copyright protection to fashion while other countries—​for example, the United States—​specifically exclude fashion from copyright protection. Crucially, copyright law prohibits not just wholesale copying. Generally, the test for copyright infringement is whether there has been “substantial taking” or if there is “substantial similarity” between original and copy. Further, under copyright law it is of no consequence whether a copy is made with the intent to deceive consumers or not. The elasticity of the “substantial taking”-​criterion of infringement in copyright law means that the boundary between originals and copies is under continual negotiation in courts—​and these reflect negotiations taking place within the fashion community. The borders between legal and illegal copying shift with time. Insofar as fashion is by nature a transgressive social mechanism, this makes a particularly interesting case with which to study the effects and means of regulation. On a general level, the question is how to understand copying as a fundamental aspect of the fashion industry while still providing legal protection against the damaging aspects of that same process? One approach, returning to the notion of the “piracy paradox” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2006: 1687), is the argument that the luxury fashion industry benefits from existing in a “negative space” of intellectual property law. The idea is that, paradoxically, innovation thrives when fashion designs are copied. The argument overturns the orthodox viewpoint in legal and economic theory that unauthorized copying of creative works stifles innovation. As such, it runs counter to a movement in the United States that advocates the bringing into place of legislation that secures copyright protection of fashion designs (Jothianandan 2010 and http://​counterfeitchic.com). Raustiala and Sprigman (2006: 1689) made the observation that despite the lack of legal regulation since 1941, the fashion industry in the United States continues to be strong: “copying is rampant, as the standard account would predict. Competition, innovation, and investment, however, remain vibrant.” Furthermore, as Raustiala and Sprigman point out, within the fashion industry, appropriation of designs appears to be widely accepted, altogether, and the fashion industry operates in what the authors label a “low-​IP equilibrium.” Why is it that the fashion industry prospers from lawful “copying” of new designs? The piracy paradox theory explains this by suggesting fashion can be understood as a type of positional good. As Georg Simmel noted over a century ago, fashion exists in a cycle, the logic of which is that social value decreases proportionally with diffusion. Thus, as Raustiala and Sprigman observe (2006: 1720), “for the class of early-​adopters, the mere fact that a design is widely diffused is typically enough to diminish its value.” If a new fashion design is copied freely it adds to its diffusion, thereby accelerating the speed at which it loses its appeal among early adopters. Raustiala and Sprigman dub this process “induced obsolescence.” In this process, copying stimulates a demand for new designs, which again causes designers to supply new designs. Furthermore, insofar as copying is legal, a

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new luxury design will always be followed by a range of derivative often cheaper designs that stimulates awareness of the original design. In sum, they argue that copying generates a faster turnover and larger sales—​all to the benefit of designers as a group, the fashion industry, and the national economy. Even if, at times, copying harms individual designers or companies, in the long run their incentive to keep the low-​IP equilibrium remains, as all fashion houses alternate between being originators and copyists. This is the piracy paradox as presented by Raustiala and Sprigman. It is a paradox because it runs counter to the received wisdom that intellectual property rights are necessary for stimulating investments and supporting innovation in the creative industries. The piracy paradox argument has had considerable political impact; on July 27, 2006 Sprigman gave testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary, US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. Comparing with the European case where fashion designs are protected under design law and to some extent under copyright law, Raustiala and Sprigman find that the fashion industry acts similar to the industry in the United States. Despite the availability of legal protection of fashion, copying is as widespread as in the United States and remarkably little litigation involving fashion is to be found in Europe. Moreover, in a search of the EU fashion designs registration database conducted by Raustiala and Sprigman for fashion apparel registered in the period January 1, 2004 to November 1, 2005, they found that altogether only 1,631 designs had been registered. And the survey even counted marginal categories such as “sports equipment,” “pocket stitches,” “surgery apparel,” and “uniforms for courier services” owned by the German post office. As mentioned above, only few fashion designers and fashion companies choose to register their designs. On this background, Raustiala and Sprigman (2006: 1743) propose that “the fact that firms in both the European Union and the United States engage in design copying suggests that the nominal difference in legal rules has had no substantial effect on the real rules that govern innovation in either jurisdiction.” In other words, within the fashion industry, copying is an acknowledged driving force for fashion innovation whatever the law stipulates.

‘Tis the season Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Western fashion system has to a certain extent been organized in biannual seasons according to a logic of obsolescence. The obvious mid-​twentieth-​century example is the changing hemlines from season to season, where the new length implicitly rendered the old obsolete. Although fashion seasons have since multiplied and now include a range of mid-​seasons as well as the seasonless cycles of fast fashion, fashion collections, fashion weeks, and runway shows still provide a fundamental cadence

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to fashion production and consumption. Planned obsolescence—​also referred to as “induced” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2012)  or “orchestrated” (Lipovetsky 1994: 144) obsolescence—​is concerned with higher sales and a rapid level of symbolic, social, or cultural deterioration of value as the basis of market economy (Packard and McKibben 2011: 46). In this understanding, fashion, not unlike a shark, has to constantly move to avoid sinking. While obsolescence is found in a range of industries from telecom to design, fashion as a form of style obsolescence is generally considered to last for a shorter period than it takes for it to become functionally obsolete. Copying of luxury items by mainstream retailers is integrated in this dynamic. In the first half of the twentieth century, designers such as Coco Chanel and, later, Christian Dior supported the process of legal copying, for instance, through licensing agreements with American department stores as a means of disseminating their brand and stimulating consumption (Palmer 2001). Implicit in the construction of seasons and style obsolescence is the celebration of the new with a sell-​by date expiring as the next season arrives. That is to say that integral to fashion both as an industry and instrumental in fashioning identity is “the intoxication with change” (Lipovetsky 1994: 78). Copying within the fashion industry is a necessary driver in this logic of obsolescence and newness in part because fashion change is closely linked to fashion as a social demand. This social demand is concerned with the negotiations of status representation in and through fashion: “Copying drives the trend cycles that in turn drive consumption of fashion” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2009: 1219). The sociological premise of copying lies in the assumption that the process of style emulation inevitably leads to a point of saturation. This adoption process acts as a catalyst for innovation because it sparks desire for novelty. The authors of the piracy paradox along with other legal commentators in the fashion and copyright debate acknowledge the importance of status representation as a driver in fashion. This is in relation to copying using the terms “differentiation” and “flocking” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2006; Hemphill and Suk 2009) that correspond to the dynamics of distinction and imitation as understood by scholars such as Simmel (1957), Veblen (1970), McCracken (1990), and Bourdieu (1999). In fashion law, differentiation is mainly associated with superior quality or a distinct trademark as a means for identity display among first movers, though it is recognized that “not all copies are cheap, and not all originals are expensive” (Raustiala and Sprigman 2009: 1214). Among the examples of this are vintage and street style that are integrated in luxury fashion. The argument of the piracy paradox hinges on the assumption that fashion design copying follows a hierarchical structure where high-​end items are copied as a means for consumers to acquire luxury for less the cost: conspicuous consumption made affordable, so to speak. However, there are signs that other dynamics, modes of status representation, and norms for copying are entering

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the fashion system. This will be illustrated and exemplified in the following by a case study of the Chinatown totes by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton and Jack Spade for Kate Spade, but also in ready-​to-​wear apparel with the “laundry-​ bag check” print in Céline AW13/​14 as well as related examples such as the M.I.A. x Versus for Versace AW13/​14 collection that were inspired by “knock-​ offs.” The aim is to discuss how promoting inauthenticity potentially challenges what Raustiala and Sprigman referred to as “more fashion content” indicating a potential destabilization of the traditional perception of fashion hierarchy.

The Chinatown tote Designer bags, popularly referred to as “It-​bags,” have been at the forefront of the lucrative luxury fashion handbag at least since the middle of the twentieth century, often linking designers and celebrities most famously, it could be argued, with the Hermès “Kelly”-​bag (1956). Since the late 1990s, handbags have been an integral part of the mediation of fashion from runway to advertising. This might be seen as an effect of the creation of fashion conglomerates at the end of the 1980s, which represented a reorganization of the fashion industry. Companies that specialized in bags and luggage were incorporated into the luxury fashion conglomerates. Examples are Louis Vuitton established in 1854 as a luggage company, Prada established in 1913 and Gucci established in 1921 as producers of leather goods, and Hermés established in 1837 as a producer of saddles and other leather goods. The choice to look at a bag as the case for exploring the legal, economic, and social dimensions of copying in fashion does not solely have to do with the challenges these regulations pose to the fashion industry. Because bags are such easily identifiable fashion items, they have assumed a key role in status representation, which in turn infuses them with social and creative potential. The complication of original and copy in fashion in general, and bags in particular, holds social and commercial challenges but also potentials. This is seen in the example of the generic, inexpensive bag known in the United States as the Chinatown tote. Taking inspiration from the sidewalk, or even from the gutter, to the catwalk and further to the consumer is nothing new. In 1935, Elsa Schiaparelli was inspired by the local fishwives in Copenhagen, who wore hats made from newspapers. She appropriated this as the inspiration for silk prints incorporating newspaper articles, both positive and negative, about herself. In 2000, John Galliano employed a similar idea with newspaper articles for his AW collection for Dior. In this instance the homeless along the Seine rather than fishmongers were the inspiration for the overall derelict style of the collection. Vivienne Westwood presented a similar vagrant look for her AW10/​11 menswear collection. Other

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recent examples of an upward flow of fashion inspiration are Louis Vuitton AW10/​ 11 “Raindrop Besace” that resembled hefty bags and Lanvin’s black purses for SS14 that could easily be mistaken for trash bags. Examples such as these operate within the realm of antifashion understood not as fashion indifference but as a “symbolic device of opposition, rejection, studied neglect, parody, satirization, etc.” (Davis 1994: 161) of what is fashionable at a given time. While antifashion is part of fashion as such, since fashion operates through change, the Chinatown tote can be argued to move beyond the general logic of change. Because what is interesting about this tote within the context of IPR and fashioning identity is the question of “individual character” and “substantial taking” in the design and how the complications of these terms provide potential for subversion in relation to status representation. At first glance, the case of the Chinatown tote appears to represent an example of low fashion content at a high price. The plaid bag is globally associated with a range of functions and meaning. The modest tartan bag in woven nylon is popular in many parts of the world but is generally considered to be cheap, practical, and primarily associated with low-​income groups. It is used around the world as makeshift luggage and it comes in various square sizes and in a variety of colors such as red, blue, green, and black. The bag goes under several names depending on context. One example is the Nigerian pidgin term “Ghana Must Go,” referring to the use of the bag as a quick and inexpensive way of packing belongings during the series expulsions of immigrants between Ghana and Nigeria during the 1960s–​ 1980s. Other terms also reflect this association between the bag and cultural displacement:  “Türkenkoffer” (the Turkish suitcase) in Germany, “Bangladeshi Bag” in England, “Efiewura Sua Me” or “help me carry my bag” in Ghana, and “Guyanese Samsonite” in Trinidad. In China it is simply referred to as “hong lan dan” (blue and red bag) and historically it has been called “Homecoming Bag” in Hong Kong with a similar reference to the crossing of borders, but in this instance referring to the Chinese leaving Hong Kong to return to China (Svetvilas 2008). The rise of the Chinatown tote to luxury fashion fame may be symptomatic of what Dana Thomas (2007) has referred to as luxury’s loss of luster. Rather than the political and humanitarian undercurrents, it is more likely the legal connotations of the Chinatown tote that the fashion industry has been relating to in its flirtation with the humble carrying device, which can be purchased in Chinese stores in New York City for less than $2. Within the context of North American cities such as New York City, the bag is associated with the trade in counterfeited designer bags taking place at locations such as Canal Street in Chinatown. In February 2006 at New  York Fashion Week, the brand Jack Spade, the male counterpart to the brand Kate Spade, released the “Chinatown Collection,” a range of bags resembling the plaid tote bag. The materials and design were strikingly similar to the Chinatown tote with the exception of the Jack Spade

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Figure  4.3  The inexpensive bag is used around the world as a practical carrying device. Here it is a homeless woman dragging her belongings across a Hong Kong street next to a Louis Vuitton store, 2014. Source: Author’s collection.

label and CC for Canal Street Collection monogrammed on the side and a selling price of $85. The poor quality and reference to copying did not deter consumers, on the contrary: “The Jack Spade bag has everything that real counterfeits do: Flimsy construction, inferior materials, a low price, and an intentionally misleading trademark. It also has one thing that most knockoffs don’t: A waiting list” (Scafidi 2006). The label was even intentionally crooked and instead of Warren Street, normally on the label, it read Canal Street to emphasize that this was a take on a knockoff. Jack Spade credit card holders, wallets, various bags, and limited edition caps have since appeared in the same material and pattern. Kate

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Spade’s intention was to comment on the blatant copying of her bags. In an interview in New York Magazine, she explains how she sees people go by her shop with copies of her bags that have not even been introduced in stores yet (Preiser 2007). In the fall of 2006, Marc Jacobs presented his Louis Vuitton SS 2007 collection, which included another version of the Chinatown tote. The bag was in braided leather with the LV travel stamp and sold for around $2.600 under the name Louis Vuitton Street GM. This version did not appear to have the same meta-​fashion/​ piracy intention of turning the tables on copying. Rather, Jacobs seemed to be taking this symbol of street peddling as a way of continuing his fashion fling with low culture since his grunge beginnings at Perry Ellis. This allowed his engagement with contemporary popular culture to function ironically rather than as a direct political statement. Supporting this perspective is the description of the bag as “a funny cheap checked shopping bag” (Mower 2006). The bag can, therefore, be seen as a play on the hierarchical structure of copying with a subversive twist. The stamp on the bag traditionally represents authenticity as “luxury status symbols delineating the rich from the poor” (Mower 2006). Here the status symbol is ambiguous because it appears on a luxury item that plays with the deliberately inauthentic. Raustiala and Sprigman’s notion of “more fashion content” takes copying the predictable step further with the counterfeit copies of the Louis Vuitton Street GM produced in China by companies such as Oayep.

Copy chic? In 2008, Harper’s Bazaar launched a campaign and blog “Fakes are Never in Fashion” intended to fight the trade in counterfeited fashion items. However, considering the luxury versions of the Chinatown tote, this statement might not hold true. At one level, the bag might be seen as a stylish parody or a comment on the parasitical lifecycle created by knockoffs where Spade and Jacobs invert conceptions of originality by copying the copyists. But the example might also illustrate something entirely different, namely, how new social tricks in fashioning identity are being incorporated into high-​fashion. It may be argued that the norms for copying in fashion are changing, turning copying into a form of iteration: the same but different. At least since Yves Saint Laurent’s collection, which famously brought beatnik style into haute couture in 1960 with black leather jackets and turtlenecks, high-​fashion has drawn on street style for inspiration. It might be argued that the Chinatown tote was already a trend on the streets of New York City and that this is what Kate Spade and Marc Jacobs were also tapping into. Though there is the obvious legal theme, the high-​end versions of the Chinatown tote echo a tendency in consumer behavior to flaunt something that is conspicuously unoriginal and may be an example of how fashion designers incorporate contemporary

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consumer strategies for creating distinction. This recalls the idea of the logic of wrong where being fashionably off is an ambiguous tactic of claiming status seen in the inversion of age in granny chic, novelty in vintage, and class in homeless chic. The status marker being inverted here is originality and authenticity as two cornerstones in both the fashion industry and politics of sartorial identity. So rather than demonstrating wealth and power, the social currency twists the key themes in the fashion industry of original and luxury. The deliberate display of the fake or the inauthentic challenges social and cultural expectations or norms and creates a more effective differentiation on and off the runway. When designers such as Spade and Jacobs play with a celebration of copying, low fashion content, and poor quality, this might be perceived as an attempt to attract consumers that are savvy to these strategies of wrong. Other examples of this take on copy chic can be seen in the M.I.A. x Versus, a capsule collection for Versace designed by English-​Sri Lankan rapper Mathangi Arulpragasam for AW13/​14. The collection was inspired by Versace knockoffs that the singer had seen on London markets (White 2013). This inspiration was foregrounded in the press images, one of which featured Arulpragasam in what appears to be a market for counterfeited fashion items. The role of copying in fashion is complex. Copying is socially and commercially fundamental to the dynamic of fashion, and the legal rules that regulate copying in other fields of creative expression are not necessarily in correspondence with the logics of fashion. It should be understood that the luxury versions of the Chinatown tote are not merely parodies or practical jokes. They are fashion at work. This chapter attempted to provide an overview of the issues involved when considering copying in fashion through a presentation of the piracy paradox and a brief study of the Chinatown tote. It was intended to provide new perspectives to the legal and social debate concerning copying. While the fashion pyramid as described by Raustiala and Sprigman (2006) might reflect certain parts of the luxury fashion industry, there are also examples that run counter to the premise of copying in fashion, as has been seen in the case of the Chinatown tote. With its modest origins, the tote demonstrates how an item that is considered high-​end in design and price does not necessarily follow the vertical flow implicit to the piracy paradox. In order to understand how basic commodity apparel comes to represent “more” rather than “least” fashion content, new social strategies in status representation were foregrounded. Rather than a reversal of the fashion pyramid implied in an upward flow, the logic of wrong strategy is in fact a necessary complication of that dynamic toward what has been described as a scattered flow. This subversive social strategy promotes the celebration of the “wrong” located here in the conspicuously inauthentic and inexpensive as a means of scrambling the signals and stalling the inevitable process of social emulation in fashion.

5 SARTORIAL SHRUGS AND OTHER FASHION UNDERSTATEMENTS Fashion understatement is about giving the impression of a relaxed attitude to appearance. For women this play on the unspectacular has a ring of empowerment to it. In 2013, this was exemplified with American singer Beyoncé’s hit “Flawless” that seemed to encourage embracing the uncensored you: “We flawless, ladies tell ‘em/​I woke up like this/​I woke up like this.” The lyrics translated into the popular Instagram hashtags #iwokeuplikethis generating 1.6 million posts by late 2016 of early morning selfies. Related hashtags were #nofilter that further promoted unedited beauty among both celebrities and regular women. While essentially communicating a positive message, many of these images of sleepy beauties were just as composed as any other image on Instagram subject to filters and styling. This display of rehearsed carelessnes turned them into fashion understatements where looking like you made no effort became an ambiguous status claim. This tactic was not limited to beauty but was also seen in deliberately bland or modest styles of dressing. The intentional lack of fashion effort echoes what Fred Davis (1994: 63) referred to as underplaying status signals. He describes the sartorial dialectic of fashion as finding different voices that may be toned to the high pitch of overstating. This logic of wrong is aimed at maintaining the structure of status symbols—​with the examples of age and class—​as a necessary sounding board for the exaggerated inversion seen with granny chic and homeless chic. Underplaying or understating are conspicuously quiet voices that operate in the opposite end of the distinction spectrum by treading so visually lightly that the impression is that of a complete annulment of status hierarchies altogether. This chapter looks at the mechanisms of fashion understatements through examples such as gender fluidity, the full beard, the extreme casualness of tailored sweatpants, and the raw beauty of not wearing makeup. Both the loud and soft voices of fashioning identity communicate symbolic messages of social belonging while also taking in the shifting style narratives generated by the fashion industry, cultural context, and current events.

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Figure 5.1  Using gender fluidity explicitly in marketing as seen in this Diesel campaign, Copenhagen, 2016. Source: Author’s collection.

Sartorial shrugs Being fashionable always requires a calculated effort in the management of appearance. These “status attitudes” (Davis 1994:  65)  become particularly clear in the case of understatements that may seem to celebrate a nondescript look but are distinctly premeditated in claiming status through blurring the line between being fashionable and fashion indifferent in what Fred Davis (1994: 66) describes as fashion’s “calculated affront to reigning status conventions.” The specific codes of fashion literacy vary from style community to style community, echoing what Diana Crane (2000:  247)  has phrased the “chaotic aggregations of codes that are not universally understood.” Status displays are intended to be deciphered by those sharing the same visual codes, and when others miss the point this can serve to heighten the communicative impact of these understatements. Fashion has traditionally been associated with extravagance, expense, and fantasy; what has been described as fashion’s “frenzied passion for the spectacular” (Lipovetsky 1994: 131). In the twenty-​first century, it could have been

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expected that style pluralism and the practice of individual self-​ expression would have reached new peaks in the everyday practice of fashioning identity. However, the opposite seems to be the case. When studying current style trends, there appears to be a visual backlash with especially young people choosing to demonstrate the sartorial extension of their personality through unobtrusive means. Surveying fashion history, there has been a general tendency until the twentieth century to convey social status demonstratively if considering fashion to be an activity reserved for the privileged few. Statements of wealth and power were transmitted through qualities of excessive expenditure, daring, and novelty. The right levels of being different without being strange, elegant without being ostentatious were negotiated continuously and still are today. Among the historical precursors of understatement is late eighteenth-​century dandyism in Britain that represented a shift from opulence to subtlety expressed through cut, fit, and styling in mainly menswear (Wilson 2003: 180). Wilson (2003: 182) describes the act of the dandy’s search of subtle perfection in dress as a form of antifashion by giving an “impression of indifference.” Just as with understatement in current fashion, dandyism represented a paradox of making a fashionable effort to escape the grapples of fashion while in fact carefully reinforcing the very same mechanism. Coco Chanel famously encouraged women to dress as plainly as a maid. The tension between proclaiming wealth and pretending poverty was used as a calculated error that Davis has termed “conspicuous poverty” (1994: 72). In the early twenty-​first century, there are signs of a new wave of fashion understatements that celebrates the discreetness of dressing down not only for those who can afford a maid but to the fashionable masses as well. A reason for this development is that distinction through commercial mass-​fashion has become more difficult due to the reduction in time lag, and turning to subtler or more ambivalent displays has become increasingly common. This chapter considers whether fashion statements have turned more muted not as an annulment of the distinction strategies of fashion but as a reconsideration that allows for greater degrees of subtlety. Selected style narratives of understatement are explored as symptomatic of new, elusive strategies of distinction and potential prospects of signification exhaustion. The focus will be on two main approaches to understatements: First, the nonchalance of looking ordinary or appearing slovenly—​referred to here as sartorial shrugging—​as a paradoxical fashion statement that reflects a move from conspicuous presence through fashion to being conspicuously “indifferent.” Understatement is related to certain conceptions of antifashion appearing to claim a place outside fashion in line with clothing that is strictly functional, such as uniforms, or culturally defined, such as traditional or national dress. Fashion

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indifference appears to circumvent fashionable status games—​in this case in relation to themes of gender, beauty, and dress decorum—​but are in fact quite sophisticated tactics of distinction that are difficult to emulate because they are so discreet. Second, the display of what is referred to as biological capital as a way of stalling emulation is seen through two examples, namely, eschewing makeup among women and the full beard among men as a different form of staged indifference that is linked directly to the body. It confers the fashion narrative of minimal effort in a different way because it relies on the physical potential of the individual. In this sense, having a striking beard or skin and features strong enough to go clean-​faced is not about the perfect flaw as discussed in the previous chapter on granny chic. Rather, understatement is about accentuating the biological capability that is practically impossible to copy. Within the context of fashioning identity, sartorial indifference is feigned because it relies on strategies of distinction within the prevailing fashion process of absorption and reconfiguration. Not making an effort or seeming to be style oblivious are considered within a context of compulsive information sharing, instant fast fashion access to runway knockoffs, and the tendency in both Western society and the fashion industry toward fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality. The examples revolve around the central theme of sartorial dialectic of identity through analysis of media material from mainly Western news media, magazines, blogs, Instagram, and fashion campaigns. This material is treated like documentation of the current consumer climate, like a mirror room of fashioning identity that serves to both reflect and enhance the style narratives it registers.

Inconspicuous consumption In his autobiography, Christian Dior (2007: 10) calls for a “sober elegance without the least hint of ostentation.” Dior mastered the discreet style that underplayed the craftsmanship involved in haute couture. In retrospect, this may seem curious considering the material extravagance of New Look from 1947 that could use up to 25 yards of fabric for the skirt, which was considerable considering the shortage in postwar times. However, in terms of understatement as social currency among the wealthy, Dior’s praise of simplicity is a forerunner of the inconspicuous vein in luxury fashion today. In the 1960s, Jackie Kennedy promoted the underworked look of the Nothing Dress that fitted Mary Quant’s contemporary dismissal of snobbery from fashion. It challenged established norms of status and prestige while still leaving no doubt as to who had fashion prominence. As argued later by Davis (1994: 63) in the 1990s, opulent displays of status continued to shift from a sign of superior status to the opposite, namely “vulgar nouveau riche.” The debate over whether

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or not to flaunt what you have and what is even worth flaunting is a key theme in the present treatment of fashioning identity. Logic of wrong inverted classed status markers by feigning poverty through a poor look to alienate copycats as seen in the case of homeless chic. This form of dressing down is different from inconspicuous consumption treated in this chapter. While the former relies on “conspicuous mistakes” (Davis 1994: 66) to claim social status, the latter relies on subtle affirmation of classed status to create distance from overt ostentation while still displaying wealth. The premise of status representation within the context of the fashion industry has changed radically since the turn of the twentieth century. A leveling of the fashion hierarchy has meant a shift in perceptions of status and exclusivity. Luxury has been democratized and fashion consumer culture has been characterized as “generic” (Levy 2014) in the sense that multinational fashion corporations adopt high-​end fashion trends to the mass-​market for the sole purpose of expansion and profit, which means that the fashion available in retail has become more generic. Japanese fast fashion chain Uniqlo’s retail design is recognizable exactly because it presents generic staples in almost taxonomic order. This tendency for leveling both globally and between high-​end and mass market has by some corporations been used as a tool for differentiation as seen in high-​low capsule collections between luxury brands and fast fashion retailers. This tendency toward inconspicuous consumption is reflected in the flirt luxury brands have had with the mundane such as slashed Balmain jeans selling for more than $1,300. In the early twenty-​first century, economic recession, growing concerns over climate change, and the ensuing rise in activism may be seen as drivers in an antielitist, anticonsumerist direction. The luxury industry is booming but the displays of wealth have become more discreet at least within a Western context (Postrel 2008; Surowiecki 2009; Evans 2012; and Aslet 2015). This is to be considered within the wider social impact of luxury through, for instance, social media and e-​commerce. The speed of visual dissemination through Instagram can lead to a sense of fashion styles quickly becoming overexposed. This is mirrored in the rapid availability of luxury derivations in mass-​fashion which has perhaps led to the wealthiest becoming subtler in their consumption of fashion and more conspicuous in their philanthropy (Evans 2012). This seems to assume that fashion operates with mono-​style demarcations that are seen to shift systematically between seasons. However, there is never just one dominant style narrative at a given time but a multitude that are often contradictory. During the global economic recession of 2008–​2012, new terms were coined such as “recession chic” (Fisher 2009) as in low cost dressing and “investment shopping” (Freeman 2009)  as in spending on discreet luxury that would last. At the same time, fashion media such as Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar were pushing in the opposite direction with glamorous metallic shimmer

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from both high street and luxury fashion as a key trend for SS09. This example is symptomatic of how fashion and particularly fashion media tend to suffer from tunnel vision, never looking to the sides but always focusing on the fashion narrative that suits the social or economic agenda of the moment. Inconspicuous consumption is not the same as abandoning status displays altogether but should be viewed as a reconsideration of prestige as constituted not only in symbols of wealth and power but also through alternative social currencies such as fashion literacy, knowledge, and time. The following examples explore how the visual understatements represent new ways for fashion to thrive on ambivalence. Here, the impression of not making an effort—​as seen with the Nothing Dress—​is considered in relation to current fashion through what may be seen as the sloppy minimalism of dressing not just plainly but also utterly boring as an act of rehearsed carelessness.

Fashionable displays of the ordinary Casualization has been gradually increasing at least within a Western context since the early twentieth century: from the introduction of sportswear into fashion in the 1920s, the mainstreaming of pants in the 1950s as a milestone toward bridging the gender wardrobe gap and the gender bending of the 1970s hippie styles, to contemporary practices of extreme casualness. As will be discussed in the chapter on trans-​global fashion narratives, world dress is generally understood as everyday clothes for the masses globally such as jeans, sweatshirts, T-​shirts, shirts, and athletic shoes (Eicher and Sumberg 1995: 300a). It is within this perspective of an indistinct universal uniform that casualization is to be considered with a focus on the social leveling rather than cultural translations. Visually, there no longer appears to be such a thing as being underdressed at least within specific social groupings. While there are still unwritten dress codes and social norms for what is suitable to wear in specific contexts—​from the workplace to formal events such as weddings—​much of the dress practice related to individual identity displays in Western contexts is symbolically negotiated in an ongoing process. Within this framework, the sartorial difference between going to the gym, dressing up for a party, and getting ready for bed seems blurred. The question is whether the rise of extreme casualization is symptomatic of signification exhaustion in fashion or whether this apparent return of fashion to function is merely camouflage for scrambling sartorial messages and thereby simply yet another version of calculated identity games? In 2013, the English language media ranted about a new unisex style trend that eliminated all frills and celebrated the ordinary. It was a no fuss look that was

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Figure  5.2  The full beard is considered a display of distinction through biological potential, 2016. Source: Author’s collection.

more than casual because it intentionally demonstrated restraint in ornamentation and held its own refinement in insisting on looking normal. The style trend was dubbed normcore, an amalgamation of “normal” and “hardcore,” which proposed that looking ordinary or even boring had strangely enough become fashionable. The term was coined by K-​Hole, an art group doubling as trend forecasting agency, for a project in October 2013 to capture a specific attitude in contemporary Western youth culture expressed through blandness rather than distinction and extravagance. As described by cofounder of K-​Hole, Emily Segal: “There’s an exhaustion with trying to seem different. People are genuinely tired by the fact that to achieve status you need to be different from everyone else around you” (Farrell 2014). While the concept of normcore was actually intended to refer to an essentially postmodern idea of adopting identities to fit into various social groups, the term resonated with the fashion media and industry hitting the slightly altered chord of affected fashion indifference. Oxymorons such as “mainstream minimalism” (Duncan 2014b) and “radical banality” (Mullins 2014)  highlighted the intentional ambiguity of fetishizing the boring and mundane in defiance of the fundamental fashion law of distinction. The style trend appeared to circumvent the very fundament of fashioning identity, namely, “the pleasure of difference” (Lipovetsky 1994: 49); but as a symbolic disguise it was also a strategy of distinction adding another level to the paradox. The media

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declared that “Blending in is the new standing out” (Cochrane 2014a) and it is “the bland leading the bland” (Doonan 2014). In this sense, normcore represented a potential final frontier in promoting mainstream or boring looks as fashionable.

Deliberate lagging Normcore may be read as deliberate lagging behind in fashion, being intentionally indifferent and out of fashion. Fashioning identity rests on time lags in releasing new items in cyclical rhythms and the gradual adoption by the fashionably inclined toward a point of saturation that is at least at a structural level thought to coincide with each new fashion season. Laggards are considered to be at the very end of this adoption cycle, rendering fashionable delays an obvious source of ambivalence. Fashion has historically had an infatuation with difference as part of a sensation for transformation and social distinction. This is the case with the dynamics in social group affiliation that engage in friendly battles of who can claim fashion status. The fashion industry has institutionalized the importance of difference in organizing collections in seasons with a built-​in sell-​by date. As demonstrated in normcore, difference is celebrated for its own sake rather than for any obvious visual qualities. Within this logic, blandness as an anti-​aesthetic holds potential for difference within specific fashion contexts as a curious demonstration of individuality and novelty. Though playing with humble looks has been in fashion before—​from the peasant styles of the 1940s to the bohemian look of the 1990s—​normcore was still a shock to the fashion system. The question in the following is what the celebration of down-​dressing, described as “stylized blandness” (Duncan 2014a), says about fashioning identity to determine whether we are moving toward a state of signification exhaustion. The normcore style narrative was visually associated with American Midwest dress practices in the sense of privileging functionality, comfort, and looking casual over “fashion” (Kaiser and Bernstein 2013: 62). One example of the transference of this unobtrusiveness onto the media was an editorial from the fashion magazine Hot and Cool by stylist Alice Goddard. The spread was composed of screenshots from the Google Map’s Street View app of people in an anonymous US town. Goddard explained that because the individuals were not aware that they were being photographed and the images therefore were not “over-​fussed,” the outfits were considered more “interesting” (Duncan 2014a). Taking something “ugly and gross, and making it good” (2014b) as a visual lack of agency reflects a larger theme of not making an effort, the unintentionally chic, as an emblem of cool also seen with granny chic. This approach to fashion seems to confirm what

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Teri Agins (1999: 282) predicted already in 1999: “Never before had fashion been so out of style.” While normcore may have started out as a marketing spoof, the term hit the fashion spot at the time. The phenomenon was not so much crossing the final frontier of fashion as following the traditional rules of fashion distinction, albeit with an ambiguous visual appearance. In addition, normcore exemplified the labyrinthine convolution of time in fashion that tends to double back on itself, in this case in resonating the 1990s as an earlier instance of “calculated underdressing” (Davis 1994: 65). The 1990s have experienced a revival in the 2010s (Mower 2015) indicating a fashion climate ripe for the deliberate lagging of normcore. As argued by Rebecca Arnold (1999), the 1990s saw a push away from relentless perfection and stereotyped beauty, which at the time was visually represented by photographers such as Corinne Day and designers such as Helmut Lang. Naomi Klein’s No Logo (2000) similarly paved the way for a critical attitude to the globalized brands as the book exposes the harsh realities behind the allure of the global luxury market. A similar association is William Gibson’s (2003: 2) brand critical book Pattern Recognition in which the main character, Cayce Pollard, is a coolhunter who removes all logos from her attire from clothing to accessories:  “A small boy’s black Fruit of the Loom T-​shirt, a thin gray V-​neck pullover purchased by the half-​dozen from a supplier to the New England prep schools, and a new and oversized pair of black 501’s, every trademark carefully removed.” Within the context of a 1990s revival, this dressing to under-​impress suggests not so much a new parameter of casual tedium as yet another fashion display remarkable for being unremarkable. So when normcore was described as symptomatic of a “post-​aspirational” condition (K-​Hole 2013: 32), there may have been elements of consumer resistance in looking ordinary, but there are certainly also indications that blandness is part of an elusive distinction strategy. As argued earlier, the increased pace in fashion production, brought on especially by the rise of fast fashion, has complicated the process of emulation. When fast fashion companies such as H&M and Zara can produce new garments within a few weeks, the time lag between inception and demise is, at least theoretically, radically reduced. This has led to the development of new strategies of status representation where discreet sartorial details are infused with a subtle and even paradoxical potential for individual differentiation. As explained specifically in regard to normcore: “the details that distinguish you are so small that nobody can tell that you are actually different” (K-​Hole 2013: 18). This display of micro-​differences in a look comprised of sweatshirt, jeans, and trainers becomes a way of keeping people guessing:  “Only those truly in the know will get it” (Cochrane 2014a). Being in the know is akin to the notion fashion literacy. In this sense, mimicking the mainstream is a social performance. The mundane minimalism of normcore may be exemplified in a white T-​shirt where only subtle visual hints allow the fashion

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literate to distinguish between the $5 supermarket shirt and $500 designer version, including which of the two has the social currency relevant within a specific context.

Staged casualness While normcore roared through 2014, the concept was predictably killed off by the media in 2015 (Leach 2015). Nevertheless, the pull of staged casualness continued in various forms. One example was the rise in popularity of athletic apparel made for sports but worn as fashion outside the gym—​popularly referred to as athleisure—​which made up 17  percent of the entire American clothing market at a time when sports activity among the general population was down (Sanders 2015). Workout clothes worn to be seen grossed £6.4bn in the UK in 2015; a market that is projected to grow to £8bn by 2019 (Cartner-​Morley 2016b), which is one indication that casual has perhaps become more aspirational than the latest designer It-​bag. The tracksuit is of course no newcomer to fashion. In the 1980s, this sportswear standard became the unofficial uniform for the growing rap scene as did sneakers, leggings, and caps. But the 2010s saw a more extreme turn in the broad impact of sportswear on fashion with an understated luxury edge. The informal and low-​key athleisure look, while subtle, casual, and comfortable, did not come cheap. From Chanel couture sneakers selling for more than $900 to the more affordable classic Nike pool-​slides, the extreme casualization may look multifunctional but the purpose is pure fashion. Dressy sweatpants—​also referred to as tailored sweatpants or jogger pants—​for both men and women may cost up to $1,300 while performance leggings sell for $300, both still following the normcore trail as yet another cunning disguise of looking fashion oblivious. The casualization of fashion practice and the leveling of the fashion industry at least within a Western context is well documented in fashion research from the influence of sportswear on the development of an American look in the 1930s and 1940 (Arnold 2009)  to the shift from function to fashion for the sneaker (Steele 1998b). Values of comfort and practicality are seen as drivers in the rise of relaxed dress, and on an ideological level casual has become associated with “ideals of democracy and freedom” (Arnold 2009: 30). While dressy sweatpants and performance leggings may be channeling streetwear and gym culture, the trend was celebrated for making it possible to look good without any effort (Robin 2015). Feeling comfortable in clothes that are easy to care for may be one explanation behind the popularity of leisure sweatpants and leggings; but considered within the context of sartorial shrugs as underplayed status claims, the trend also suggests a “studied slouchiness” (Robin 2015). Similar examples of this fashionable drowsiness in contemporary

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fashion could be the return of pajamas as day wear (Cochrane 2015) that further erases the norm of dressing for the occasion.

The fashion nun Normcore style may also be seen to play into themes of gender fluidity by toying with the visual standards of feminine beauty through a form of affected modesty. This relates to the argument put forth by Fred Davis that fashion operates at least in part according to “the dialectics of the erotic and the chaste” (Davis 1994). The complex relationship between clothing, body, and perceptions of attractiveness has been widely explored in regard to especially female dress practices and logics of change (Craik 1984; Steele 1997; Entwistle 2000; Crane 2000; Wilson 2003). An early example is James Laver who operated with a concept of “contemporary seductiveness” (Laver 1946: 203) as a parameter of shifting beauty ideals. Laver describes how the attraction between the sexes might be seen as increased when the part of the body that is exposed—​arms, legs, shoulders, neck, bust, and so on—​changes allowing a part or zone that has been concealed to come into focus again. The dynamic of “shifting erogenous zones,” an idea originally developed by psychologist J. C. Flügel (1930), is driven by the tension between opposites of, for instance, liberty and restriction, as in the case of the corset. The suggestion is that when one erotic possibility is exhausted—​ the loose silhouette of the 1930s as an example—​restriction in the form of a boxy silhouette of the 1940s becomes “a new Seduction” (Laver 1946: 214). The terminology is still applied in fashion media today regardless of the antiquated gender roles implied in Laver’s approach. An example was Vogue pronouncing thighs as the new erogenous zone at AW 2016 runway shows (Yotka 2016). Contemporary seductiveness applies at a symbolic level when considered within the context of fashioning identity as an ambivalent play for attention even when displays are discreet. Laver (1967: 119) described this thus: “Fashion is a game of hide-​and-​seek, played between seduction and modesty.” An early example of this fashionable modesty was the Sack-​dress introduced by Balenciaga in 1957. The silhouette was perceived as unattractive by many men because it did not accentuate the natural feminine form. It appeared that the seductive element was intended to be deciphered by women for status claims rather than men for erotic purposes. The reception of the style was interesting because it addressed the gender of the intended reader of fashion codes. As Valerie Steele argues through historical sources regarding the Sack-​dress: “You still believe that women adorn themselves to entice men . . . Well, it just isn’t so. The ungainly chemise is everywhere, yet boys date the girls as eagerly as ever. So clothes, evidently, have nothing to do with these masculine urges” (Steele 2006: 42). Implied here is that women tend to communicate fashionable identities to each other

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rather than as part of attracting a partner. While there are erotic components in dressing, the emphasis here is on how tampering with beauty ideals are generally intended to be deciphered by one’s own gender group. Consequently, modesty or slacking may not be about man repelling, but instead a rather sophisticated strategy of distinction. At the same time, the bland minimalism of normcore may also be seen as coming out of a fashionable pull toward modesty as part of an escape from beauty regimes. This restrained minimalism—​what US Vogue termed the “fashion nun” (Anderson 2015)—​may free women from pleasing others in order to focus on being comfortable in her own body and in her personal appearance. This development has been under way for some years when considering fashion editor Suzy Menkes’ (2006) argument that fashion was witnessing a “chaste sobriety” and a departure from “vulgarity” when the Paris collections were characterized by long, modest silhouettes and a respectful attitude to women. Ingrained in this is the potential for the subversive performance of gender in declining any effort at being both erotically alluring and sartorially progressive to others by embracing oneself with neither apology nor crutches. While this may be seen as particular to the 2010s, the combination of modesty and androgyny is reminiscent of both grunge in the 1990s and the hippie movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. The difference in the current version is the mass-​impact and increased complexity of the sartorial amalgamations. The following brings the theme of understatement closer to the body through two examples:  The no-​makeup trend for women and the full beard for men. Here it is the biological potential that determines the inherent distinctive force rather than material objects that can potentially be purchased by anyone with the adequate cash flow and access.

Biological capital The 2010s have seen an increased focus in Western society on political gender issues exemplified by the global impact of solidarity movement for gender equality “HeForShe” organized by UN Women. In 2015, feminism was described as having a “zeitgeist moment” (Valenti 2015), which could be argued to be related to similar activist developments in regard to sexuality within especially a Western context, for instance, when same-​sex couples won the right to marry in the United States (2015). In the 2010s, there has been a considerable rise in LGBT figures in Western popular culture, supporting the political activism toward greater tolerance. Particularly transgender people have been featured more widely than earlier as models, performers, actors in popular TV shows, fashion campaigns, international events such as the Eurovision Song Contest, and themes for feature films. This tendency toward more spectrum-​oriented perceptions of gender

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and sexuality appears to filter into the general attitude in the UK. A recent study conducted by YouGov showed that only 26 percent of British youth between 18 and 24 identify as exclusively heterosexual (Ewens 2015). This fluidity is also reflected in and promoted by the fashion industry that has a history for pushing gender, body, and sexuality boundaries engaging in the symbolic struggle between gender as a social and cultural construction, on the one hand, and a biological fact and condition, on the other. The apparent renegotiation of body, including gender displays and beauty ideals discussed in this chapter, is treated more for social effect than political engagement. However, a greater awareness of embracing healthy body and gender images can be a positive side effect, as discussed in relation to age where granny chic was a way of dismantling age stereotypes. Generally, women have been allowed to borrow more from men’s wardrobes than the other way around. Iconic examples of cross-​wardrobe exchanges for women are Marlene Dietrich in Morocco (1930), Yves Saint Laurent’s famous Le Smoking (1966), and Diane Keaton in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall (1977); and for men the glam rock of David Bowie in the figure of Ziggy Startdust in the 1970s and the transgendered beauty of model Andreja Pejic who before transitioning from male to female wore the iconic bridal gown in Jean Paul Gaultier’s couture show (2011). The wave of androgyny in the 2010s has pushed the boundary from the unisexing of boyfriend jeans and shirts toward the more radical notion of non-​ gendered dressing. Retail has tapped into this as a consumer trend. An example is the famous UK department store Selfridges that launched its “Agender Project,” which experimented with reorganizing a section of its store as gender-​ neutral in 2015. A feature in the debate has been the gender coding of colors, particular pink. Within recent Western cultural history, pink has been viewed as emblematic of how media, products, and marketing are seen to prescribe heavily stereotyped and limiting roles to young girls. A clear example of this perception of pink is UK-​ based Pinkstinks that since 2009 has campaigned against what they perceive to be the “pinkification” of girlhood, for instance, by challenging gender-​segregated toys. It is interesting that pink was not promoted as a gender signifier until just before World War I. In the early twentieth century, there was a tendency for blue to be for girls because it was considered a delicate color, while pink was for boys because it was considered to be a strong color (Maglaty 2011). Perhaps as a nod to color heritage or an effect of fashion gender-​bending, pink has been trending in the hypermasculine work of football most prominently with Nike’s Mercurial Superfly cleats in shocking pink popular among boys and professionals alike primarily in European soccer nations. It is the nature of fashion to turn on itself, reversing its newly established aesthetic norms. In 2015, pink appeared to be making a comeback in fashion

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in the runway shows for SS16 (Fisher 2015). Reconsidering pink for women and girls within the feminist climate seemed controversial despite, or rather because of, the sweetness associated with the rosy hue. An illustration of this was provided by the Louis Vuitton SS 2012 collection under Marc Jacobs, which was described at the time as “sugary sweet” (Armstrong 2011). The color palate was candy pastels, including pink in the collection itself as well as in the print campaigns that featured pastel milkshakes in a pink ice-​cream parlor setting. The runway show features an old-​fashioned carousel underlining the sweet innocence projected by the collection. However, as argued in reviews of the collection, there was a sense of “ironically exaggerated femininity” (Bowles 2011) suggesting that the sweetness was ambiguous and not to be taken literally. In an interview, Marc Jacobs described that “sweet” and “nice” had become controversial fashion qualities:  “The fashion industry is scared of sweetness. You’re not allowed to say nice, it is almost derogatory. Like there’s something wrong with saying that something is nice” (Blanks 2011). In this sense, dressing up and looking pretty is no less fashion progressive for women than toying with fetish or vagrancy. This brings attention to status attitudes as symbolic codes for the fashion literate. Pink may be pivotal in struggles for greater gender awareness, but it is also just a prop in the ongoing status ploy of fashion.

Fashioned bodies Related to gender fluidity is the growing effort to promote positive body image that emphasizes embracing yourself rather than conforming to beauty standards that are often gender specific. In popular culture, candid TV series such as Girls (2012–​2017), created and starred in by Lena Dunham, have pushed perceptions of female body ideals. Just as the series, her book Not That Kind of Girl (2015) is a testament to empowering young women, in her case, through humor, with chapter headings such as “ ‘Diet Is a Four-​Letter Word:  How to Remain 10 Lbs. Overweight Eating Only Health Food.” Dunham represents a growing body-​positive movement. In the beauty industry, this movement is reflected in self-​esteem-​driven campaigns such as Dove’s “Real Beauty” that aim to challenge norms regarding body ideals in terms of age, proportions, and features. Perhaps related to the pull for a positive body image, the market for intimate wear appears to be shifting from the Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated pin-​ up type of feminine beauty ideal toward a more natural ideal that emphasizes comfort. In 2015, US and UK newspapers reported that the young women were saying no to thongs and shapewear and were instead opting for boy shorts and high-​waist briefs which were up 17  percent in 2014. This could be seen as a move toward what is described as “comfort fashion” (Phelan 2015; Robin 2015) that relates to the extreme casualness already discussed. The Victoria and

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Albert Museum in London recently included a gender-​neutral pair of Acne underpants in their permanent collection. Again this echoes a more general tendency for what has been termed a “new paradigm of luxury” (Miller and Woodward 2012: 113) in which one dresses to please oneself rather than to impress others. Construction of gender in fashion often links in part to emphasizing parts of the body that are considered feminine and attractive within a specific cultural norm and temporal context. However, the strategies of fashioning beauty and gender perceptions are always negotiated (Eco 2004). Standards of beauty, gender constructions, and shifts in sartorial taste are closely linked reflecting the intimate and complicated relationship the body has with fashion. While fashion has been considered to make women more beautiful or alluring, makeup has throughout most of history been used to enhance natural beauty—​from eyeliner in Ancient Rome to wider selections of products for diverse skin tones in the twenty-​first century. This sets the fashion scene for a fluid perception of how gender and physical beauty are constructed and performed through fashion as both a political endeavor and social status claims. However, concurrently with gender fluidity in contemporary fashion, there are also tendencies that might be read as gender normative. This is seen in the use of biological capital among both women and men—​from exposing the raw beauty of a face to growing a full beard. As for the apparent critique of not only gender stereotypes but also a more general level of consumerism and the fast pace of fashion, the irony is, of course, that fashion has an ability to capitalize even on the most radical resistance. From the bare-​faced celebrities and invisible makeup on runway models to the rise of the bearded campaign models and boom in beard-​related accessories, the following examples may be seen as illustrations of how fashioning identity thrives on playful and sometimes political ambiguity.

Raw beauty The body is fashioned even in a state of undress and therefore holds potential on its own for status representation. The suggestion is that while the fashion industry provides the majority of the tools for fashioning identity in the form of clothing and accessories, there are also forces that circumvent this system by operating with the body as not something to be dressed or shaped but as the tool itself. A  visually prominent site for exploring this conception of biological capital is the face. The body is the vehicle for fashion adding movement and transporting the material garments into social and societal contexts. But fashion also influences the form and expression of a body, not just the dressed body but also the naked body. As argued by philosopher Lars Svendsen (2006:  79), our perception of

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bodies is always related to contemporary fashion ideals: “If you remove all the clothes, you will not find a ‘natural’ body but a body that is shaped by fashion.” An example that proposes the narrative of an au naturelle appearance but may in fact be a dressed look is the vogue for a naked face. Cultural production tends to oscillate between maximalism and minimalism. In fashion, minimalism has seen various revivals over the course of the nineteenth century, from the reductionism of Madeleine Vionnet to the jersey of Coco Chanel in the first half of the century to the gender-​bent tailoring of Yohji Yamamoto and the democratic appeal of Calvin Klein in the second half. Examples of minimalism from the early twenty-​first century include designs by Alexander Wang and Phoebe Philo. A similar fluctuation is seen in perceptions of ideal body types from the waifs of the 1920s and 1990s to the voluptuous hourglass figure of the Italian Renaissance and 1950s. The early 2010s saw an extreme minimalism in a beauty trend among Western women of giving up makeup. With a historical reference, makeup as a form of body ornament brings to mind cultural critic and architect Adolf Loos’ radical search for an aesthetic purism. Linking architecture and fashion as both serving the primordial function of cladding and protection, Loos (1982; 1997) championed the bland surface that concealed the inner riches. While referring to mainly architecture in his famous essay “Ornament and Crime” from 1908, the pure surfaces as screens between the world and true individuality may hold true for the celebration of the undressed face more than a century later on the runways, fashion media, street styles, and social media. This example of women opting for extreme beauty simplicity, humorously referred to as “face nudists” (Waldman 2014), suggested that eschewing makeup and letting natural beauty speak for itself was a gesture of revealing the inner riches, to paraphrase Loos. While a gesture of rejecting gendered, commercially constructed body regimes, the clean face also played into a broader consumer trend toward demanding greater transparency. This transparency regarded the content in beauty products but also spanned conditions for workers in the fashion industry, animal welfare, and organic alternatives in the food industry. This links the beauty trend of dressing down the face to a broader trend of the politically engaged consumer and a social pull toward simpler, slower, and community-​oriented living. Choosing not to wear makeup may be seen as an example of this new paradigm of dressing for oneself rather than according to unattainable beauty standards. The luxury element may lie in rejecting the effort and discomfort that may be associated with applying and wearing makeup. This beauty laziness can be seen as an understatement that at least at a symbolic level rejects gender restrictions in returning to a perceived natural ground. However, implied in this politically laced project is the social effort of distinction operated in this example through the merciless power of what is referred to in this context as biological capital. Here the physical body rather than crafted materials is a source of distinction.

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Key drivers of this pure look were seen with the #nomakeupselfie phenomenon on Instagram as part of a cancer awareness campaign (2014). The campaign was supported by a series of celebrities who appeared to use the opportunity to promote a more “real” image. The hashtag #nomakeup attracted enormous attention on Instagram generating more than 17 million posts (September 2015). On the runways, fashion designers if not abandoning makeup altogether then at least promoted the nude look in 2014 and 2015, most markedly with the Marc Jacobs SS15 where the models wore no makeup at all. Disseminating the trend, fashion media offered guidance for women who opted for the natural look but needed to fake it, what was referred to as “no

Figure  5.3  The tailored sweatpants as a form of extreme casualness represent an elusive status claim, 2016. Source: Courtesy Frank Cerri.

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Figure 5.4  The raw beauty of the clean, makeup-​free face is seen as a status marker of absence rather than addition, 2016. Source: Courtesy Frank Cerri.

makeup makeup” (Niven 2014; Wong 2015). The implication in relation to the theme of fashioning identity is that feigning purity results in an affected naturalness. While the natural beauty trend still sends a message of empowerment in promoting positive body image, it is not only an example of democratic beauty but also a promotion of the raw material that makes the status competition of achieving the contemporary beauty norm all the more difficult. As part of negotiations of status, the premise of natural beauty is in effect more merciless than fashionable adornment including makeup because it operates through this concept of biological capital rather than financial exclusively. The premise here is that biological potential—​as in good genes and youth—​is very difficult to emulate and therefore highly operative as part of distinction strategies. Put in a different way, buying the latest designer bag is easier than compensating for “imperfect” skin or “weak” features even with barely there makeup. In terms of distinctive potential, there is a similarity between the Instagram image of singer Beyoncé waking up with a flawless complexion and the impeccable craftsmanship of a Dior couture dress because of the resistance to imitation. Both represent a vertical flow, the former, corporeal, and the latter, material. So while raw beauty as a form of extreme purity promotes positive self-​image, it does not dismantle the gendered, commercial paradigms of beauty altogether. Fashion generally involves a material object as pivotal in the display of status. However, the concept of raw beauty operates on the paradoxical premise

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of identity display not through addition of clothing but rather through absence. While the fundamental mechanisms of distinction still apply, the means are discreet with subversive effect, celebrating doing nothing as fashion forward. This point brings the scope of nude beauty into a broader perspective of status representation. Echoing the example of the Nothing Dress in the 1960s, New York Magazine writer Kathleen Hou (2014) attempts to answer the question “Why has makeup gotten so minimal?” in an article of the same name, and finds the answer to be: “Not trying hard, after all, will always be cool.” The lack of effort and biological potential doubling as a positive means of differentiation are not just seen in beauty among barefaced women but also among men who celebrate fashion ennui through a full beard.

Lazy chic The revival of the full beard in many Western countries in the early twenty-​first century may be seen as an example of new strategies of distinction that replace cultural capital with biological potential. Though there have been media stories that beard transplants were becoming more popular (Gander 2014), the individual’s ability to grow a full beard is still the primary parameter for distinction. The beard invariably joins physical ability with public identity affecting the complex mechanisms of cultural productions of masculinity (October 2008: 67). Semantically, the word “exclusive” implies that something is out of reach or someone is excluded. Having bearding potential involves renegotiating the concept of exclusivity in relation to what is physically rather than economically achievable. As a form of organic fashion accessory, the full beard is interesting because it circumvents the cultural economy of the fashion system. Beard potential is genetically determined and only the management of it requires fashion skills. The corporeal reality of the beard means that it cannot be enhanced by force but relies on biological aptitude and time to produce follicles. Just as with the barely there makeup, the full beard often feigns the appearance of being untouched. This affected naturalness relies on skills in shaping the beard. This is by definition understated because only the trained eye and appropriate social context can determine what is the right beard. In contrast to purchasing a fashion item which requires one action, the beard, being organic material that is constantly evolving, demands continuous attention, which implies a high level of fashion skill. This creates a contrast to a traditional fashion norm according to which brand value and social status are easier to identify and therefore also more conducive to emulate. In a study of young bearded men in Denmark (Mackinney-​Valentin and Brun Petersen 2017), the management of beards was seen as part of social positioning through what may be termed lazy chic. The informants in the study showed a general tendency to foreground themselves as too lazy to shave. This may relate

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to the theme of understatement for the purpose of comfort and pleasing oneself rather than conforming to standards of beauty, in this case, the laborious act of shaving daily. However, in the study, the celebration of sluggishness formed a contrast to the informants’ eagerness to share tips and experiences regarding the grooming of their beards with scissors, brushes, and wax. In addition to handling the beard, close attention was paid to assemblage in which the beard was regarded as a type of accessory. The informants shared a desire for their overall look to not appear overworked or deliberate. The social status in looking like you did not try too hard was a result of trying to escape social stereotypes. Through a socially defined “right” balance between effort and slacking, each individual negotiated what was perceived as an appropriate level of fashionable laziness within shifting social contexts. The findings showed that the beard and general sartorial assemblages aimed at being not too perfect or too calculated. A beard that was too sculpted seemed like the man was trying too hard, while an unkempt beard gave the impression of being slovenly or dirty. The positive foregrounding of laziness appeared to work as a smoke screen that served to stall the inevitable process of style emulation. Again, ambivalence worked as a tool for status understatement where belonging without being a stereotype was an intentionally difficult balance to strike. The act of doing nothing led to a subtraction in the case of raw beauty and addition in the case of the beard. But in both examples, the semblance of procrastination could be considered a viable social instrument for differentiation outside the commercial frame of fashion. In terms of the seduction principle, the findings showed that a beard hierarchy was established over the course of the focus group interviews, with those who had the greatest bearding potential at the top. The discourse when describing the beards considered most attractive centered on potent words such as “girth,” “manly,” “solid,” “savage,” and “powerful.” The men clearly oriented themselves toward other men rather than attracting women, echoing the tendency among women already discussed. As stated by one informant: “From man to man you rise in an unarticulated hierarchy with a good beard.”

Identity assemblage This chapter has looked at strategies of understatements where inaction rather than addition or enhancement, conspicuous laziness rather than ostentatious effort provided new means of fashioning beauty. It may seem tempting to explain understatement as an escape from the visual and material overkill of twenty-​ first-​century consumer culture. Social media and e-​commerce have pushed the opportunity for involvement in fashioning identity to perhaps nauseating limits. The essentialism of letting go of this—​leaving the makeup off, growing a beard, wearing whatever—​could be a plausible motive. The overload of impressions

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and expectations may cause a need for simplifying and pairing back both emotionally and also in the individual expression of fashion. But as argued in this chapter, sartorial shrugging and biological capital are not the equivalent of significance exhaustion. The fashionable understatements appeared here to outline the prospect of a non-​gender, non-​demographic scenario for fashion in the future. While the fashion industry is showing initiative to organize retail spaces and collections in a more generic, gender neutral way, this chapter has brought forth examples suggesting that while there are political tones in loosening norms regarding gender, sexuality, and social status, tension still runs between fashion rights and wrongs even within ambiguous displays of the apparently boring, lazy, untouched, or casual. Even the remarkably ordinary is a product of creative acts of assemblage placing the emphasis not only on what is worn but how. This element has been termed style and is seen throughout fashion history from draping the Kashmir shawl correctly over the shoulders in the late eighteenth century to perfectly distressed jeans in the 2010s. The way something is styled is almost as important as what is worn when fashioning identity, including the way a face is not made-​ up and a beard is not styled. Fashioning identity in the 2010s reflects neither the style pluralism of bricolage nor a signification exhaustion through nondescript means. Within the context of this book, all creative acts of assemblage rely on fashion literacy that enables an effective deciphering of the relevant status claims. Fashion skills over finances appear to be the fashion key for especially a substantial part of the young, urban set within a Western context. However, the condition of scattered flows of adoption allows for a range of fashion narratives to operate simultaneously. While there are tendencies toward understatements, there are also examples of the opposite when considering the dramatic rise in surgical body management with breast augmentations, liposuction, and Botox treatments as forces pulling away from sartorial shrugging and embracing natural body image. Another example is the rise of the full beard coinciding with the popularity of Brazilian waxing especially among women in their twenties (Saunders 2013). The tendency for going hairless is also seen among men, referred to as “manscaping.” A study made by Mintel showed that one in three British men between the ages of 16 and 24 removed pubic hair regularly (Bilmes 2014). This trend for hair removal is an obvious contrast to the perceived naturalness of the beard and constitutes a far less visible style trend that may link more to the logic of wrong with its symbolic link to porn. While hairlessness is a form of anti-​ornamentation that links to the minimalism of face nudism and normcore, it is still just one fashion narrative among many others. A concurrent and radically different narrative to this visual reductionism is seen in the example of tattooing that in addition to sidestepping the speed of fashion through conspicuous permanence also represents a striking form of hyper-​ornamentation.

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6 NOT SO FAST FASHION: THE NEW PERSEVERANCE “[H]‌er choice of leopard print is objectionable on every possible count of taste. It is outdated, a little bonkers, intrinsically associated with the late 70s and somehow redolent of very tacky and somewhat distasteful sex” (Freeman 2002). The comment was made by Hadley Freeman in The Guardian after the then chairman, Theresa May, had worn leopard printed high heels to the Tory Party conference in 2002. Fourteen years later, May was making her first speech to the nation outside 10 Downing Street, now as Britain’s Prime Minister—​in kitten-​heel leopard-​spot shoes. The example illustrates the longevity of leopard print and the taste ambivalence associated with the pattern in fashion explored in this chapter. A key narrative in fashioning identity is change. Visual changes in fashion—​ referred to here as trends—​offer the opportunity for personal expression and transformation. Change sets the beat for the fashion industry through the organization in seasons, and for the consumers through regulating the process of adoption keeping the first movers in suitable distance from the late movers. In the words of Gilles Lipovetsky (1994:  20), fashion is a “system of frivolous change” that distinguishes it from clothing that is concerned primarily with function. But even in fashion there can be too much of a good thing. According to some fashion reporters, the pace of change in the fashion industry seems to be running amok as a result of the increase in annual collections and the opportunities for real-​time fashion through digital media:  “The speed at which fashion evolves now feels out of control. Trends move more quickly than ever before; they come and go in a matter of weeks, not months or years as they used to” (Coulson 2005). According to a piece in The Economist, the effect may be burnout among high-​profile fashion designers and the end of trends altogether (“The Creed of Speed” 2015). Within this context of mad velocity, there paradoxically appears to be a deceleration toward a slower and more gradual modus of visual change. In this sense, there seems to be a tension between the increased pace of change in production,

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on the one hand, and sartorial style, on the other. The issue is whether the apparent visual slowing down of some trends such as leopard print, referred to here as leopard, might be symptomatic of a tendency for consumers to have reached a point of signification exhaustion, continuing a theme in the book, or whether it is yet another example of social currency that relies on ambivalence—​in this case, of resisting novelty and feigning visual constancy—​as part of inverting the status symbol of change. This chapter explores current patterns of style change by looking at the perseverance of leopard in the period 2006–​2016. In trend forecasting, a fashion trend is generally considered to last from six months to three years, and a trend is defined by changes in colors, silhouettes, materials, cuts, combinations, styles, and moods (Kongsholm and Frederiksen 2015). Trend forecasting does operate with longer time frames, for instance, with the concept of a megatrend that may last anything from a decade to a century. A megatrend is characterized as a development that reshapes society on a more general level (Brannon 2005; Kongsholm and Frederiksen 2015). The leopard trend appears to last as long as a megatrend while maintaining the properties of a fashion trend, thus by sheer longevity challenging the established perception of trend dynamics. The aim is to describe the complexity of current trend patterns to provide new perspectives of change as gradual and mutating. In line with the theme of the book, this approach forms an ambiguous premise for fashioning identity because of the difficulty in maintaining dichotomies between fashion forward and mainstream inception and demise of a trend. This reflects other core dichotomies in fashion such as in and out, high and low, new and old, chaste and seductive (Davis 1994; Rogers 2003; Brannon 2005), which are also treated in this book. The suggestion is that trends operate according to connections rather than oppositions, which in turn influence the conditions on which we understand the process of constructing identity through fashion. This relational dynamic has already been touched upon in the convolution of time of the discarded chic of vintage fashion where the line between past and present, old and new was blurred, coexisting in a socially negotiated ambiguous now. It was also seen in the sartorial shrugs of putting considerable effort into looking blasé with the full beard or wearing workout clothes outside the gym. Here fashion intention and fashion indifference merge in a paradoxical alliance intended to be read by a loosely defined group of fashion literates.

The new speed of fashion? The fashion industry and media promote novelty and transformation to create attention and stimulate consumption. These conditions of style obsolescence operate through the gradual deterioration of the symbolic, social, or

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cultural value of a fashion item. This reflects the traditional perception of fashion change: from economist John Rae in 1834 who referred to fashion as “ceaseless revolution” (Rae 1983: 266) to cultural historian Elizabeth Wilson (2003: 3) who argued in 1985 that “fashion is dress in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles.” As indicated by sociologist Rene König (1971: 173), fashion change is associated with the desire for difference specifically with reference to women:  “The modern woman wants to appear always attractive and always different.” Difference requires an opposite or contrast to work. In fashion this often comes in the form of newness in either an objective or perceived sense. This view is linked to fashion as a social practice that operates through logics of difference for the pleasure of personal transformation and social distinction. However, the conditions for difference have changed with the development toward democratization and decentralization of the fashion system. A quarter of a century ago, Fred Davis (1994: 107) predicted how the development in production methods, rise in the standard of living, social changes in society, and more rapid exchange of information would speed up the pace of trends. Style obsolescence is considered to have intensified with the rise of fast fashion since the 1990s (Reinach 2005). The organization of fashion in seasonal collections has gradually moved toward a constant flow of new products in what fashion writer Suzy Menkes (2013) refers to as the “the new speed of fashion”; a result of the still greater demand for novelty with many designers putting on up to ten shows a year and fast fashion chains providing a constant flow of products. The impression that fashion is producing more fashion in shorter intervals is illustrated by the fact that Zara produces 40,000 different products a year that ship to stores twice a week (“The Creed of Speed” 2015). Capsule collections between luxury and high street brands are potentially leading to a leveling of the fashion industry and a shorter life span for fashion products. This chapter looks at how this development in the fashion system has influenced trends and whether the acceleration in production is necessarily reflected visually in trends. This is done by studying the trend for leopard—​also referred to as cheetah, ocelot, and jaguar—​in the Euro-​American fashion market by tracking the development of the trend since 2006. The material used is visual and textual representation of leopard in British and American magazines, news media, and websites including blogs. The material is suitable because it provides varied documentation of the trend through editorials, coverage of runway shows, fashion spreads, global fashion campaigns, and street fashion. The visual material is used to illustrate how the trend has developed over the period in terms of shape, materials, and color of leopard print. The textual representations are used to discuss the social and cultural associations and timeline of the trend, which serves to outline the premise of contemporary status claims. The idea that fashion trends hold the seed to their own destruction and self-​detonate at a given time, preferably coinciding with the end of the fashion

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Figure  6.1  Leopard print capturing new territories including strollers, 2015, Amsterdam. Source: Author’s collection.

season, is evidently challenged in the case of leopard. If the trend does not end, then how can the system be rebooted? This has consequences for the fashion industry and for the performance of status attitudes that are both driven by the notion of change. Through a study of leopard, the suggestion is that rather than fashion coming to a halt, the patterns of change may be described in a different way that reflects the ambivalence in management of status displays discussed. This was seen with the conspicuous poverty of homeless chic and the rehearsed carelessness of celebrities and models posting no makeup, no filter images on Instagram as an affected embrace of the natural. These social strategies are ambiguous because they are tricky to read and therefore difficult to copy. Looking cheap in an expensive way or following a natural beauty ideal if you have the face for it is a tactic that may more easily fail than the conspicuous consumption of buying an expensive designer It-​bag to express high economic status. Leopard is ambiguous because it seems to represent a static expression within the context of fashion that is characterized by pace.

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Gradual change Considering the apparent acceleration of trends since the 1990s and the decrease in time lag in both adoption and production, there appears to be a need for adjusting how we understand trend mechanisms. Trends tend to be described according to linear developments over time reflected in, for instance, seasons or first movers heading an adoption process. In contrast to this temporal understanding, an alternative approach could bring in spatial and dimensional perspectives, potentially creating an opening for a model that contains rather than eliminates ambiguity to better reflect the current conditions for fashioning identity as treated in the cases of this book. Examples already used that illustrate this containment of ambivalence are vintage as both old and new, normcore as both modern and mainstream, and the Chinatown tote as both original and fake. Here the figure of the rhizome is considered as a model for understanding this spatial conception of trends. The rhizome as a philosophical concept was developed by philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari (1996). Inspiration was drawn from botany in the form of a rhizome that refers to a horizontal, underground stem that strikes new roots down into the soil and shoots new stems up to the surface, as seen with, for instance, bishop’s weed, lawn grass, and oak fern (Mackinney-​Valentin 2013). According to Deleuze and Guattari, the rhizome is a way of understanding complex structures—​culture, society, thought—​beyond dichotomies and hierarchies. The rhizome has been used as a metaphor for the Internet with its limitless expansion, random intersecting points, and ability for rupture and regrowth (Hess 2008). Within this context, trends may be understood as a complex network of lines running between various nodes that translated visually may represent various expressions—​in this case of leopard—​in terms of size, color, and pattern or further expansions such as literal renditions of the leopard animal. Leopard as a rhizome points to an open system where change is not marked by seasonal shifts but by gradual change through regrowth and expansion. Instead of considering the fashion system to be imploding from the new speed, this conceptual understanding may provide tools for a more constructive approach. The concept of the rhizome offers a framework in which difference is gradual and motivated through connection rather than contrast. Trends do not necessarily begin and end with specific events, designers, or collections but operate according to more complex systems where disparate elements are connected and new territories are explored, as suggested by Deleuze and Guattari. In this sense, a trend changes in a more organic way by seeming to cultivate itself from the middle. This is seen in the example of the leopard trend that over the course of the ten years studied develops visually as well as expands from womenswear into other fields such as sportswear and menswear and beyond to just about

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anything including brooms and strollers. Using the case as an example, leopard is an identifiable trend system but at the same time an open and dynamic structure that, as described of the rhizome, is characterized by gradual mutations and intersections: “The rhizome operates by variation, expansion, conquest, capture, offshoots” (Deleuze and Guattari 1996: 21). The following will use leopard as a case to illustrate this spatial system where trends are seen as formative and relational, incorporating the findings of the previous chapter into a conceptual frame. The argument here is that the development seen in the leopard trend is not necessarily linear—​ as seen with conventional adoption processes (Rogers 2003)—​but may also operate in many directions at once, containing rather than dismantling differences between sexy and elegant, trashy and classy, innovative and mainstream. These transformations do not necessarily move toward a point of saturation but operate on transformations within the visual framework of leopard. Considering this as a condition for constructing social identity, the sameness of this leopard trend is a simulated monotony because changes do take place but on a subtle scale through gradual variation and expansion. This premise is compatible with the social currency of ambivalence because it accommodates the departure from dichotomies which inevitably effects the adoption flows. While leopard shows the vertical flow through luxury fashion and the upward flow of the “trashy” side of leopard, the coexistence of difference within the same trend points to the notion of scattered flows that allows for the adoption process to move in multiple directions at once.

Spot on To flesh out the conceptual description of patterns of change, a brief historical outline of leopard’s role in fashion is required. Leopard spots as both textile print, knit, fake or real fur, and more rarely embossed leather and embroidery, have been part of fashion and dress since ancient Egypt, where the pattern was often associated with female deity. Leopard is an example of stylistic borrowing across cultures that can be traced back to the late thirteenth century (Loughran 2009: 245). There are indications that leopard and fur have been used as a style statement since the seventeenth century among French aristocrats (Wishner 2003; Mistry 2013) perhaps inspired by Napoleon’s archaeological discoveries and increased exploration of the Far East and Africa (Bell-​Price and Da Cruz 2005: 120–​123). In the twentieth century, leopard has been associated with “animalistic come-​ hither” (Cartner-​Morley 2013b), “sexual innuendo,” and “erotic allure” (Bell-​Price and Da Cruz 2005: 123). An example is the iconic pinup star Bettie Page who was featured in a leopard outfit with a cheetah between her legs in a famous photo shoot by photographer Bunny Yeager in 1954. Page was nicknamed

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Figure  6.2  American pin-​up glamour model Bettie Page, born Nashville, Tennessee, pictured here with a cheetah while on a modelling assignment at Africa USA, a wildlife park in Boca Raton, Florida, 1954. Source:  Courtesy Bunny Yeager/​Paul Popper/​Popperfoto/​Getty Images.

“Jungle Bettie,” which brings in the “idea” of Africa in Western fashion (Loughran 2009:  244). Not considered here is the ritual use of leopard fur among, for instance, the Zulu people. The association between leopard and Africa or “the wild” has been prevalent in Western fashion described in phrases such as a “rumble through the jungle” linked to the “African trend of the moment” (Menkes 2013). In the twentieth century, leopard has generally been associated quite literally with the animal and its African origins. An iconic example is seen in Christian Dior’s Spring 1947 collection which included a leopard printed “Africaine” dress. This and similar

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high-​fashion renditions of leopard represent an elegant rather than sexy association. In the 1960s, leopard fur as luxurious and chic was epitomized by Jacqueline Kennedy whose leopard coat was copied extensively in the early 1960s. This trend raised concerns about the depletion of leopard stocks in East Africa (“Fifty Thousand Leopards to Make Coats and Handbags” 1964), leading WWF to run a campaign encouraging women to stop wearing leopard, cheetah, ocelot, and jaguar to “change a destructive fashion trend” (“Appeal for Linnean Collections” 1968). The textual representations of leopard in the present study show that the entire social spectrum associated with leopard—​from classy to trashy—​appears to be activated providing rich material for diverse forms of social currency which in turn may also have boosted the longevity of the trend. At one level, leopard is described as “drag” (Murrow 2009), “trashy” (Newbold 2013), “sluttish” (Cartner-​Morley 2013b), and “vulgar” in an article titled: “It’s Time to Think the Unthinkable: Leopard Skin has Gone Classy” (Scarborough 2013). As another journalist puts it: “It’s almost permitted bad taste” (Newbold 2013). At another level, leopard is described as “stylish” (Charalambous 2013) and “elegant” and “refined” (Cartner-​Morley 2013a). This challenges the dichotomy between good and bad taste, bringing to mind Susan Sontag’s seminal work on camp, in which she argues that camp offers a new set of standards for aesthetic judgment. Leopard could be seen as dissolving the “good-​bad axis” (Sontag 1964). However, considering the function of ambivalence in fashioning identity, leopard illustrates the open system of the rhizome rather than an attempt to dismantle any axis. The same is the case when a journalist debates whether leopard is “terrible or terrific?” (Freeman 2014) the implication being that the coexistence of both may constitute the power of leopard. The conceptual framework of the rhizome allows for the question to remain unanswered, and the fact that the question is of good or bad taste is unresolved may postpone the point of saturation because the symbolic social significance becomes difficult to define. So it is in the ambiguity that the secret to longevity may lie, which in turn could hold new perspectives in relation to sustainability and the notion of “slow fashion” (Clark 2008). In this perspective, the endurance of leopard cannot simply be explained by the pattern being “classic” and “neutral” in line with grey, black, and brown, as argued by some media (Cartner-​Morley 2011; Laverne 2013; Moss 2013; Shi 2013). Being visually striking and symbolically dubious appear to disqualify it as neutral or classic. In addition, the trend did not remain visually stable in the period but developed gradually through variation. In its current revivals, the leopard trend is evidently not a repetition of the same visual expression over a ten-​year period but expresses a series of mutations and expansions that may be perceived as novel and desirable in a subtle way. Looking back in history, this approach to fashion change as gradual rather than radical has been seen before. In charting fashion revivals historically, Agnes

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Brooks Young explored the possible laws of recurring trends through quantitative analysis of fashion plates in the period 1760–​1937. With reference to the general rhythm of revivals or cycles in fashion history, she argued that each new trend was a variation rather than a departure from the existing trend because fashion change is “evolutionary and not episodic” (Young 1937:  170). While obviously referring to an age where social norms, gender role, economic status, and the production of fashion were all thoroughly different from those of the early twenty-​ first century, her point is still interesting when attempting to understand the perpetuation of leopard and what it means for status negotiation. Since Young’s observations, similar perspectives have been introduced. Arjun Appadurai (1996: 78) argued that “the continuous change of small features” is at the heart of fashion. In his study of first names, Stanley Lieberman (2000) described trends as changing gradually based on existing trends, what he termed the “incremental replacement mechanism.” An example of this is the development of the tailored suit for men, which responds to trend changes through minor adjustments in fabric, cut, number of buttons, placement of pockets, size of lapels, and so on. What is interesting when considering leopard as a largely commercially driven trend is the suggestion that the fashion industry, perhaps based on popular demand for slowness, seems to be forced to adjust the cadence of visual change from the episodic to the evolutionary while still maintaining the increased velocity of production. This balancing act appears to be disorienting because it presumes a leveling of the fashion industry’s traditional hierarchy of price and status. This brings to mind the departure from a hierarchical toward a more horizontal, relational structure at least at the conceptual level of the rhizome.

Forever new Leopard appears to cancel out novelty by reproducing itself in seemingly endless versions. However, the endurance of leopard does not entail that the trend remains the same visually or in terms of sartorial assemblage. On the level of media discourse, the way the trend is described and the styling advice provided develop toward a bolder use of the print over the period. Earlier recommendations on how to wear leopard tend to be cautious with statements such as “a highlight is the classiest way around this trend” (Fox 2006) and “Leopard prints is a seriously hard trend to wear so be very careful” (Iamfashion 2006). As the trend progresses, there is a tendency for larger doses of leopard becoming acceptable. The leopard trend expanded from being featured mainly in accessories and garment details toward a more comprehensive effect as seen with, for example, head-​to-​toe leopard looks from brands such as Gucci, Michael Kors, and Stella McCartney. Visually, the trend also diversifies from a more literal rendition of leopard toward more abstracted versions in terms of size and color,

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Figure 6.3  Gucci window display in Copenhagen, 2014. Source: Author’s collection.

moving from the traditional earth tones toward bolder colors and varying sizes of the dots. Visually, leopard became, on the one hand, even bolder with neon, clashing patterns and multiple colors, as seen with Kenzo’s almost psychedelic SS13 collection, and on the other hand, it went in a more subdued direction, for instance, with Saint Laurent and Alexander Wang’s grey-​toned leopard. What is essential in regard to the leopard trend is not the point of origin but the persistence of the trend. Several media sources echo the wonder that the trend has endured within and despite a context of the new speed and constant demand of newness in fashion. This is seen directly in article titles such as “Why leopard’s spots refuse to fade from fashion” (Mistry 2013). Indirect examples are

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seen when considering the time spectrum for when leopard could be considered on trend. The year 2006 was chosen as the point of departure for the study because this was when the trend seemed to intensify, according to several UK and US media sources (Freeman and Fox 2006; Porter 2006). The tendency increased in 2007 (Cartner-​Morley 2007; Horyn 2007; Nelson 2007). Statements such as “leopard print is at last getting some respect” (Cartner-​Morley 2007) and “Leopard-​print tights? Yes, please” (Neustatter 2007) express this sense of leopard being back in fashion. What is curious then is that looking at media representation from 2006 to 2016, the trend is continuously described as a novelty (Wilson 2007; Freeman 2008; Murrow 2009; Gaynor 2010; Larocca and Kang 2011, “Street Style: Leopard” 2012). In 2013, surprise was still being expressed within the industry itself that the trend continued to grow. Fashion director Holli Rogers of Net-​ a-​ Porter reversed her decision to take a break from leopard. She saw that brands such as Stella McCartney and Burberry were going for leopard in AW13, so the influential web shop brought in leopard again: “Leopard print felt fresh again—​something I wasn’t expecting this season at all” (Shi 2013). Seven years after leopard started seeing a revival, the ambiguity between novelty and mainstream continued its paradoxical journey because leopard was still being announced as making a “roaring fashion comeback” (Shi 2013)  in Financial Times. The same was the case in 2015 with The Guardian also referring to the “roaring comeback” but adding that leopard “was emerging as a strong contender for trend of the season” (Cartner-​Morley 2015). French Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, WWD, The New York Times, and American Elle had leopard as a top trend well into 2016, Vogue referring to the print as “sweet spots” (2015). Having covered the continuous rise of leopard in The Guardian, fashion writer Jess Cartner-​Morley (2016a) argued that “the way to wear [leopard] shifts from season to season. For this spring, your leopard look is 90s charity-​shop grunge, rather than 60s glamour.” The quote points to the evolutionary rather than episodic change in fashion, which fundamentally disturbs the seasonal logic of the fashion industry but sits well with the sartorial ambivalence of fashioning identity.

Beyond saturation? Considering the visual course of leopard, there seems to be no death by popularity. There are already signs of an alignment between luxury and high street as the trend takes off in 2006 with the simultaneous presence of leopard in both luxury fashion and fast fashion. So, against social adoption conventions, the trend does not begin in high-​end fashion only to flow vertically down through the fashion hierarchy as cheaper copies. This is seen when the AW2006 collections

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of high-​end brands such as Prada and Louis Vuitton and high street brands such as H&M and Top Shop feature leopard prominently at the same time in campaigns, catalogues, and window displays. This level trend not only complicates the traditional hierarchy of fashion, but also disturbs the cadence of fashion where a time lag between fashion originals and cheaper copies have traditionally created conditions for consumer adoption processes as described by sociologists from Georg Simmel (1957) to Everett Rogers (2003). Rather than dismantling trends to create conditions of relativity for the performance of fashioning identity, the suggestion is that the example may reveal a different form of change that moves through connections and relations. This horizontal system still operates according to a logic of social contagion, but the status tactics follow a scattered rather than a linear flow of adoption. A search on ShopStyle, the Style.com marketplace that linked major fashion brands with 70 million users worldwide in 2015, for leopard on November 13, 2013 gave more than 11,155 finds in womenswear alone. This number became 18,200 two years later (November 13, 2015), again reflecting all price ranges suggesting, if anything, an increase in the trend rather than a decrease. The search reflected the leveling in the fashion industry when comparing luxury items to similar fast fashion items. One example was a D&G leopard printed coat at $11.450 and a similar coat from Mango at $99.99 on sale from $149.99. The alignment of high-​end and high street is emphasized by the fact that the mass-​ market item is even on sale, which would usually indicate the demise of a trend. The tendency was apparent across product categories:  Lanvin leopard print boots at $2.890 and Diba leopard print boots at $20.70 marked down from $69. Givenchy “Calf Hair Large Antigona Duffel” at $3.595 and a similar bag by J. C. Penney “Forces of Nature Leopard-​Print Satchel” at $45. While the question of materials and design quality and how this attracts different consumer segments is relevant here, the point of the comparison is to illustrate the apparent reduction or perhaps even absence of time lag between high-​end and emulated versions. This influences the logic of style obsolescence by shaking the hierarchy of price and status. However, this leveling does not equal a democratic sameness in terms of fashioning identity but rather promotes a subtle form of ambiguity that increases the level of complexity through apparent sameness. As early as 1963, before the rise of fast fashion, sociologist Charles King raised the issue of shorter time lags in the adoption process. King (1963: 112) argued that there was hardly any opportunity for vertical flow in fashion adoption at the consumer level, as described by Simmel. Since then, this process has only intensified, blurring the lines between luxury and mass-​fashion, as seen in the example of when Mango items are on sale even as the D&G luxury versions are retailing at full price. Considering both the duration and broad impact of the trend, it is surprising that so many global luxury fashion brands chose similar visual expressions in

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Figure 6.4  Nike Mercurial Vapor IX endorsed by Cristiano Ronaldo, 2014. Source: Author’s collection.

their marketing. In 2013 alone, brands such as Tom Ford, Gucci, Saint Laurent, Kenzo, Just Cavalli, DKNY, Stella McCartney, Dolce & Gabbana, and Burberry featured leopard prominently in their print campaigns. If fashion marketing is understood as “the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships, in order to capture value from customers in return” (Kotler and Armstrong 2010: 29), it seems less effective to share visual expressions with the competition. The trend is not only characterized by longevity and variation but also by offshoots into related areas, such as the introduction of leopard into sportswear. While designers such as Stella McCartney used leopard for several seasons in her sportswear collaboration with Adidas, the trend has also spread wider. An example from 2014 is leopard in soccer cleats such as Nike Mercurial Vapor IX endorsed by Cristiano Ronaldo and Adidas Topsala Messi endorsed by Lionel Messi, both global soccer superstars. Considering the social and cultural history of leopard, this entry into the masculine realm is radical and points to the force in the trend for capturing new territories. The advance into sportswear is related to the trend’s wider conquest, to use Deleuze and Guattari’s phrase, of menswear. This was seen from Saint Laurent’s subdued black-​and-​white leopard print shirt for SS13 to Dior’s bolder faux leopard coats for AW13/​14. Visually, the expansion into menswear brings new offshoots to the trend in the shape of more literal renditions of the trends as seen in Louis Vuitton’s snow leopard knitwear for AW13/​14. Brands such as Paul Smith, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, and Marc Jacobs perpetuated leopard into SS16 and Pre-​Fall 16 suggesting that the organic mutations of leopard would continue.

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Fashionable implications Throughout the period 2006–​2016, the leopard trend has been present at all levels of the fashion system without apparently losing its force within a Western context. The phenomenon seems to beg the question whether fashion has gone beyond a point of saturation because consumers no longer care about identity dialectics. This echoes the apparent “post-​aspirational” condition of the style trend normcore (K-​Hole 2013:  32), which gave the impression of being exhausted with distinction but was in fact more about the ambiguous status statement of stylized blandness. This study of contemporary patterns of change through the perseverance of the leopard trend points to new gestures of distinction that are related to looking intentionally old, with gray hair as in granny chic, or appearing slovenly with a full beard. The inverted status marker of leopard is both one of taste and of change, proposing the tactic of mainstream individualism. This strategy appears to dismantle the principles of style obsolescence because the symbolic value seems to last longer than the function of the garments. This departure from the rapid deterioration of symbolic value and the suggestion that the temporal model of adoption may be limited, invites reconsideration of how we conceptualize trend mechanisms in a way that takes into account the ambivalence essential to fashioning identity in the early twenty-​first century. The study of the leopard trend shows that the new speed of fashion characterized by a constant production is not necessarily reflected visually. Rather than expressions of fragmentation and style pluralism, the perseverance of leopard indicates a more elusive premise of saturation based on social and price leveling. The trend is not devoid of visual changes, but instead of radical shifts the changes operated gradually. It might be argued that the changes were not linear in the sense of being driven by copies of high-​end design originals in a Phoenix-​ like process where the trend burns up only to rise again in a new form in an endless cyclical of replacement of visual expressions. Rather, the impression is that the changes are dimensional moving in many directions at once, echoing the scattered flow of adoption through incremental change and ambiguous social currency. The rhizome as a philosophical concept loosely informed this relational perception of trend mechanisms as unfolded through the leopard trend. The horizontal system characterized by a potentially limitless, multidirectional growth constitutes a new way of conceptualizing the conditions of fashioning identity. The ruptures and continuous formations that were seen in the leopard examples reflected the open system of the rhizome that is “connectable in all of its dimensions; it is detachable, reversible, susceptible to constant modification” (Deleuze and Guattari 1996: 12). This is exemplified by the visual link between

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a leopard-​printed stroller, Bettie Page as “Jungle Bettie,” Lionel Messi scoring a football goal in a pair of leopard print cleats, and the eternal elegance of Jackie Kennedy wearing a leopard fur jacket. In these examples, leopard demonstrates adaptability as a trend by connecting to various dimensions within the same conceptual system. The leopard trend, rather than something to be exhausted through saturation, appears to be a formative structure that generates new versions of itself in a process of gradual mutation through variations of style, color, pattern, placement on the body, and material, as well as extending from the early attention to accessories toward head-​to-​toe looks. Finally, the trend conquered new fashion territories such as kidswear, sportswear, and menswear, as well as expanding into interior decoration, electronics, luggage, and more. While the trend relates to versions within the same leopard system, the visual dialogue could be expanded to what may be termed trend clusters. Examples are how some versions of leopard connect visually with the pattern clusters of polka dots, the dying technique of ikat, and of camouflage. While the leopard trend has been susceptible to modification for a decade, the same may not be the case for all trends. Considering peplum or clogs, these fashion phenomena are less composite and perhaps therefore less open to variations and expansion when they revisited fashion in the early twenty-​first century. Considering the long history of the leopard pattern in fashion with its links to themes of seduction, class, and ethnicity, the rhizomatic approach seems to require a certain level of complexity. The leopard example may indicate that parts of fashion move according to connectible, formative patterns while others may follow the linear process toward saturation with shorter and shorter intervals. It is impossible to determine in which way the development will go, but considering the urgency of sustainable solutions in fashion, one might hope that the perseverance of trends such as leopard will be a positive driver toward slower fashion where the gradual visual changes are reflected in the pace of production.

7 THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND: FASHION AND SUBCULTURAL IDENTITY “Guts and blood, bones are broken/​As they eat your pancreas.” The lyrics of American death metal band, Cannibal Corpse, are growled out from the Hades stage at the largest heavy metal festival in Denmark, Copenhell. There are 11,000 fans gathered to celebrate a shared passion for metal music and culture. The aggression of the lyrics and sound is mirrored in the morose darkness of the visual language on stage and the subcultural rituals among the fans such as head-​banging and showing the “Devil’s Horns” hand gesture. The sartorial displays among the fans are equally somber with the black band T-​shirt as mandatory. In stark contrast to the solemn, even belligerent visual, textual, and musical expressions are the welcoming attitude of the fans, mainly among themselves but also toward those visiting the subculture, exposing an interesting discord between the visual culture and the cultural values of the metal subculture. This is how the heavy metal scene appears in 2015 in all its cacophonic gloom and glory. This chapter broadens the study of fashioning identity to include subculture with heavy metal as the focus. The social role of the heavy metal band T-​shirt is studied empirically as a display of subcultural ambivalence performed through themes of authenticity, mainstream, and inverted snobbery. Included in this chapter is a consideration of the status of subculture in the 2010s particularly regarding the role of resistance, youth, and style tribes. Two metal festivals were studied in Copenhagen, Denmark. The one-​day winter festival in 2015, When Copenhell Freezes Over, served as a pilot study. The data was used to develop and adjust the research design for the annual summer festival, also in 2015, Copenhell that took place for the sixth time. Both studies employed visual registration, observation, and interviews with mainly regular fans but also performers, vendors of merchandise, festival organizers, and other

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Figure 7.1  Ormar, a native of the Faroe Islands, wears a Machine Head T-​shirt, Copenhell festival 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

music professionals such as music journalists and representatives of the Danish Musicians’ Union. Metal is a type of rock musically based on a thick, hard guitar and drum sound with roots in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and AC/​DC are seen as pioneers of the genre which is considered to have been established in the mid to late 1970s with bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Contemporary metal still shares sonic, visual, and verbal codes of early metal (Weinstein 2000)  but has morphed into a range of subgenres including thrash metal, black metal, Nu metal, Viking metal, progressive metal, speed metal, and more.

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Across subgenres, metal music has opposition at its core and has been criticized for sanctioning elements of hatred, extreme violence, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, perversion, and Satanism. This brought on moral contempt and even lawsuits against bands in the 1980s and 1990s (Weinstein 2000: 20), maintaining the general sense that metal is in resistance to mainstream culture. For perspective, it is interesting to note that not a single incident of violence has been reported to the police during Copenhell that was held for the first time in 2010. With 11,000 fans mosh-​pitting and crowd-​surfing for three days the contrast between empathy and violence, inclusion and opposition, nostalgia and innovation is notable. This points to both the symbolic nature of resistance in metal and to the role of ambivalence in fashioning subcultural identity. The present case study of band T-​shirts at Copenhell combines a narrow geographic focus with an international scope with bands and fans gathering from around the world. Globally, metal music is most popular in Scandinavia, measured according to number of metal bands per 100,000 people (Kristobak 2014). In a global study, the streaming service Spotify documented how metal is the genre most listened to and has the highest genre loyalty crowd in contemporary music (Kelly 2015a). While tastes in popular music shift, the metal fan base is considered to be consistent and loyal (Empire 2013) despite a temporary commercial decline in the 1990s. Metal fans are also known for continuing to purchase recordings and merchandise while other genres have gone digital: “Metalheads are completists, and metal as a genre is incredibly diverse; there are thousands upon thousands of metal bands out there to whom fans may pledge fealty, and they do so with an (economic) vengeance” (Kelly 2015a). This sense of loyalty and dedication forms a theme in the interviews and observations in the study, as expressed through the loud sartorial voices of the band T-​shirt. Copenhell is a testament to the range of contemporary metal by featuring a wide spectrum of the subgenres with corresponding sartorial styles. Common for the metal genre as a whole is the role of displaying fandom through band T-​shirts. The visual language of these shirts appears as violent, extreme, and uncompromising as the music they represent. In this sense, the shirts seem to be a way of transgressing social codes to express what sociologist Dick Hebdige (1999:  91–​92) described as “forbidden content” and “profane articulations” in relation to punk subculture.

Metal visual culture Everything that we adorn ourselves with, however functional or seemingly haphazard, communicates something about us in terms of culture, gender, religion as well as tastes, attitudes, and dreams. But some sartorial expressions speak

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louder than others. Band T-​shirts are very clear as statements of musical preference and subcultural identification; a “readable text” that expresses attitudes, values, and norms used in identity construction (Weinstein 2000: 127). The visual and textual universe of metal should not be seen as advocating violence, suicide, and drugs but is argued to offer a space for coping with complicated and dark feelings (Holiday 2015). Viewed in this light, the tension between a visual culture of violence and a social culture of empathy points to a subcultural ambivalence that is constructive. The visual vocabulary within metal culture shows some diversity within certain subgenres. This includes members of the Asa belief, a revival of Old Norse heathenism, who wear capes and animal skins, the decked-​out Gothic Lolitas, the minimalist Nu metal fans, and Cosplayers wearing furry animal suits such as pandas or tigers. However, the majority of the fans conform to specific thematic and visual standards. The metal uniform is quite conservative following a relatively fixed catalogue of acceptable garment types and styles. Sartorially this translates into the massive dominance of black, most consistently in the omnipresence of the black band T-​shirt. Black or blue jeans and the denim vest with band badges are also common. Corporeal decorations such as a full beard for men and tattoos complete the metal uniform. Caps and leather vest or jacket are also seen especially among older fans. Less frequently and linked more closely to specific subgenres are masks, face paint, long leather jackets, kilts, and top hats. The visual imagery on T-​shirts, which often features the album covers, provides clues to contextualizing the mood or meaning of the music (Weinstein 2000: 29). The visual style of metal is informed by themes of chaos, power, and danger. References on especially T-​shirts draw on Teutonic and Runic influences from pre-​Christian Northern European mythology, biker culture, gothic horror tales by, for instance, Edgar Allan Poe or J.  R. R.  Tolkien, heroic fantasies, and technological science fiction imagery. Prominent designs include skulls, skeletons, snakes, dragons, daggers, and Christian crosses. The cross is seen in a wide variety of designs from elaborate Celtic to thick iron and simple thin silver. The sartorial style of metal draws on the motorcycle gangs of the late 1960s such as Hell’s Angels as well as from the hippies from the same period. Contemporary metal visual culture is described as a “bricolage of its parent cultures” (Weinstein 2000: 127). The visual culture is insular in that variations tend to play off the existing visual vocabulary rather than absorbing inspiration from outside sources. The aesthetic most obviously with the T-​shirt prints navigates a fine balance between incremental innovation, conservatism, and nostalgia. This effort at continuation strengthens the culture internally which is further supported by the sense of opposition to what is considered mainstream.

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The T-​shirt For metal fans, attending concerts and festivals is about the music. But it is also about dressing the part and working on your fan wardrobe. Merchandise is an essential part of metal subculture and the pivotal item is the band T-​shirt. While the visual culture of metal also includes posters, stage sets, album covers, pins, and banners, the T-​shirt is chosen as the case here because it is worn literally close to the heart making it suitable for subcultural statements and self-​expression. The T-​shirt is a staple in wardrobes around the world, being cheap to produce, easy to fit, and relatively durable. More than two billion T-​shirts are purchased annually (Wallander 2012) for a range of purposes from high-​fashion and fandom to function alone. In this sense, the T-​shirt is a paradoxical presence in fashion as both the most innocuous item of clothing as well as one afforded highly personal and political potential. The T-​shirt has the versatility of a blank canvas and thereby represents not only “mass informality” (Cullum-​Swan and Manning 1994: 428) but also highly personal “identity badges” (Eckler 2010: 4) through which culture, belief, and taste may be conveyed, as well as corporate advertisements, ironic slogans, souvenirs, and, in this case, subcultural markers of belonging. T-​shirts are in this sense both individual and social, reflecting the general tension in fashion between individualization and equalization (Simmel 1957). The origin of the T-​shirt has various claims. Among the strongest is that they came from US and British navies in the 1880s and were developed to give sailors more comfort. While this was not the first underwear, it is considered to be among the first examples of underwear being worn as outerwear (Easby and Oliver 2007). In 1913, the US Navy added a crewneck undershirt without buttons and in wool. During WWI, the French soldiers wore cotton undershirts that were cooler in summer which come close to how we understand the T-​shirts today. Taking the sartorial leap from functional underwear to fashion, the white T-​shirt became an emblem of rebellion personified by silver screen bad boys Marlon Brandon and James Dean in the 1950s. In the 1970s, British designer Vivienne Westwood and her partner Malcolm McLaren were the godparents of the “statement T-​shirt,” which they sold from their shop SEX. Channeling the DIY punk vibe of the time, they effectively shocked the public with their clothes, most famously with the Destroy-​T-​shirt, which was emblazoned with a swastika and an inverted crucifix. Statement T-​shirts took a more distinctly political turn in the 1980s with designer Katharine Hamnett. She famously wore an oversized statement T-​shirt printed with “58% Don’t Want Pershing” in large type to a meeting with then prime minister Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street in 1984. The T-​shirts were intended to be readable even from a distance, turning the body into a campaigning tool. Since then, the statement

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T-​shirt has been linked at least symbolically to resistance in various forms of political statements (Barnard 1996; Steele 1997; Polhemus 2011). In the twenty-​first century, the T-​shirt is still an effective means of expression even in its most basic form. In 2013, officials in Kunming, the capital of the Chinese Yunnan province, demanded that white T-​ shirts be monitored exactly because of their potential for political statements. The white T-​shirt was described as an invitation for critical comments about the government, which led authorities to attempt to suppress the wearing of T-​shirts at protests by requiring anyone buying one to register their purchase and disclose their personal details (Cocozza and Kaiman 2013). However, using the expressive potentials of the T-​shirt can backfire, especially when referring to political activism. Ostensibly supporting the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in 2011, rapper Jay-​Z presented a T-​shirt with the slogan “Occupy All Streets” with the ‘w’ crossed over and an ‘s’ added. It was read as an opportunist move appropriating activism to sell T-​shirts, under the cover of his Roc-​a-​Wear clothing brand (Batey 2011), echoing the public perils for a brand when “politics become aestheticized” (Wilson 2003: 204). Plain or printed, the expressive potential of the T-​shirt continues regardless of, or perhaps because of, its global pervasiveness as political protest, identity claim, fashion statement, ironic digression, or a simply functional garment. And in this case, as a badge of subcultural affiliation.

Fashion and subculture Subculture, understood here as taste cultures, is similar to fashion in using sartorial expressions to display group identity. Within subculture studies, dress as a mark of subcultural membership (Thornton 1995; Hebdige 1999) is often noted for noisy, visual styles: From punks with their DIY expression of anarchy over retrograde Rockabillies to comics come alive with Cosplay and Japanese Decora-​ style emulating childhood. While there are mechanisms of style change within subcultures, these visual developments tend to grow from within the cultures rather than following the institutionalized cycles of change in fashion and the omnivorous visual appetite of fashion designers. In this way, the visual dynamic of the band T-​shirt resembles the horizontal, gradual change discussed in relation to leopard print as a rhizomatic system. Generally, subcultures tend to be characterized by visually constant identity markers that are “resistant to rapid change” (Campbell 2012: 17), while fashion is constantly renegotiating visual standards. Style within subcultures may be seen to manifest group rather than personal distinction “to underline cultural continuity rather than fashionable fluctuations” (Polhemus 2011: 40).

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The dominance of black contributes to tying metal culture together. The entanglement of metal attire and fashion is linked in an affinity for black and a celebration of the opposing tension of the color. Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto describes black as characterized by duality: “Black is modest and arrogant at the same time. Black is lazy and easy—​but mysterious” (Eisenman 2014: 101). In his comprehensive study, Black, The History of a Color (2009), historian Michel Pastoureau unfolds the meaning and role of the color black in Western history. He argues that black is the hue of darkness, evil, and death, as seen in, for instance, the Middle Ages, but also in the rebellious subcultures in the twentieth century such as punk and goth. This sense of bad black runs concurrently with black as an elegant and refined color. Especially since the early twentieth century, this good black has been strong in Western fashion: from “the little black dress” attributed to Coco Chanel (1926) to contemporary designers such as Gareth Pugh and Alexander Wang; or Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy who for AW15 sent an almost entirely black collection down the runways. The black band T-​shirt as both a subcultural emblem and fashionable attire combines the good and bad black, so to speak. While the band T-​shirt worn by nonfans is only fashion, it is both subcultural emblem and fashion for the fans. Black has created a shared visual base between subculture and fashion, showing both the strong visual impact and the complex meanings of the color: “Black is simultaneously modern, creative, and powerful” (Pastoureau 2009: 189). While ambiguity is integral to fashionable displays, the subcultural expression of affiliation is also more complex than the easily identifiable band T-​shirt may at first indicate. Contemporary conditions with virtual realities, fluid notions of identity, and the loss of grand narratives appear to have challenged the conditions for subcultures as driven by resistance. Metal culture today expresses visual and sonic resistance but not necessarily with the subversive urgency of “semiotic guerilla warfare” and the conception of consumerism as false consciousness previously associated with subculture (Eco 1995; Hebdige 1999). The present study reflects the basis of the post-​subculture approach stressing that subcultural identification is not automatically defined by class but through the practice of stylization (Muggleton 2000; Brown 2003). Examples of these shifting subcultures, described as “wandering mass-​tribes” (Maffesoli 1996), are Sea Punks and Health Goths that were transient, highly web-​diffused style tribes that appeared to never move beyond the stages of memes to form an actual subculture. Caroline Evans (1997: 171) asks whether resistance as the traditional backbone of subcultures has become irrelevant with the fragmentation of dominant society leaving subculture as a framework for individuals looking for a sense of community through shared interests rather than disenfranchised youth collectively rebelling. Evans is foresighted in proposing a more fluid model of subcultural identity especially

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considering the digital opportunities for virtual assembly and style dissemination not yet fully developed at the time. A contemporary example of a subculture that has gone from niche to global community is Bronies, the teen and adult fans of the animated cartoon “My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic.” While the exact number of Bronies is not known, the Bronies Facebook fan page has 64,000 likes (July 2015)  and the largest fan event, BronyCon, drew more than 10,000 attendees in Baltimore (2015). In addition, there are local Facebook Bronie groups from Indonesia to Peru. It seems plausible that a seemingly marginal subculture would not have gained such a substantial global following outside the context of digital communication suggesting that the new media landscape may offer different opportunities for subcultures rather than reduce them to transient style communities. Evans also brings attention to the radically reduced time lag between the emergence of a subculture—​in her case the ravers of the late 1980s—​and its co-​option into mainstream consumer culture (Evans 1997: 174). However, the implications that the co-​option of subcultural style emblems into mainstream consumer culture is harmful to the subculture does not apply to the findings in the study of metal culture despite the effect of digital platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr that have impacted popular culture since Evans’ study. This may be due to the longevity and substantial global following of metal as well as the high level of loyalty. The metal subculture is still mainly about expressing affiliation through shared musical experiences, taste preferences, and the symbiotic bond between band and fans (Thornton 1995; Brown 2009). The band T-​ shirts are emblems of at least symbolic resistance, tools for identification with the metal subculture and by implication a distinction from the mainstream. This perception is shared among all fans at Copenhell regardless of subgenre allegiances and perceived levels of dedication. The shirts might be seen as antifashion or fashion indifferent in the sense of being outside the fashion system. Antifashion has varying meanings within fashion and subculture studies. A common understanding of antifashion is that it is integral to the fashion cycle in referring to the new fashion that comes in as oppositional style that turns what was once considered fashion into antifashion—​and the other way around. This notion that antifashion equals démodé is similar to the definition used by Fred Davis who argues that antifashion is that which is no longer in fashion. In this sense, antifashion always relates to the fashionable ascendant (Davis 1994: 161). This endless process of absorption and reconfiguration seen in fashion does not appear relevant to a subculture such as metal, considering the role of resistance and the loyalty to the culture which supports continuation over change. For most metal fans, fashion is superficial, changing for the sake of change alone and unscrupulous in its appropriation of subcultural style. But while metal fans have an acute awareness of wanting to be antifashion in the sense of

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displaying fashion indifference, metal, as other musical genres, operates with more or less structured cycles of new tracks and albums; annual festivals and the merchandise follow this cycle. This involves a certain level of incorporation of the new while not necessarily rejecting the old or current. Fans tend to keep their old T-​shirts as memories but also as material evidence of dedication. In the twenty-​first century, antifashion is read by some as the end of fashion altogether. Predicting the trends for AW16/​17, influential fashion forecaster Li Edelkoort released an “Anti-​Fashion Manifesto” (Hendriksz 2015)  that proclaimed fashion dead due to the radical changes within the fashion industry. Especially marketing and the decentralization of fashion in which design process, production, and consumption have become geographically dispersed were seen as leading to the destruction of fashion. Where the decentralization of fashion as described by Edelkoort has maybe led to a new level of fashion illiteracy in terms of knowledge of fabrics among consumers, the digital conditions for fashion distribution have opened new opportunities for fashion and music fans alike even in remote areas. One fan from the Faroe Islands speaks of the difficulties in acquiring band T-​shirts because of the lack of distribution when living on a small group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean: “We don’t get a lot of metal concerts in the Faroe Islands, but I can buy the shirts online and stream the music so I feel connected to the culture even though I live in such an isolated place” (Ormar, 24). So while digital commerce and communication have perhaps pushed the metal culture toward the mainstream threatening its core of resistance, the development has at the same time strengthened the culture globally.

Subcultural persistence Within a general perception of subcultures as either extinct (Clark 2003) or transient and fluid (Evans 1997; Maffesoli 2011), metal culture is remarkable because of its sheer longevity. As described by one of the key scholars of heavy metal, Deena Weinstein, it is “the beast that refuses to die” (Weinstein 2000: 11). Since the rise of youth culture, at least in a Western context, in the 1950s as both a lifestyle and marketing strategy, the study of subculture has tended to look at class-​based, age-​specific resistance as performed in part through stylistic assemblages (Bennett and Hodkinson 2012: 1). Youth cultures were seen to battle issues of estrangement that called for various subcultural strategies of resistance. The base of rock music has traditionally been determined as a youth culture from the point of view that the music appealed to the turmoil young people experience in the transition from freedom to responsibility (Weinstein 2000: 106–​107). A thorough reworking of the conception of subculture has been carried out in recent years. Scholars such as David Muggleton (2000) took subculture

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studies away from the class-​based approach, and Paul Hodkinson challenged the notion that subculture can only thrive outside the scope of commerce and media. These approaches mark a contrast to much earlier research on subcultures. The Chicago School tended to approach subculture as delinquent youth cultures in various ways (Thrasher 1927; Cohen 1955; Miller 1958). The general view was that subcultures were problems and in social conflict with general society. The later Birmingham School (CCCS) broadened the scope to include groups characterized by spectacular styles such as mods and punks. These groups were mainly studied within a cultural studies, neo-​Marxist framework, with a key theme of symbolic resistance to class oppression (Hall and Jefferson 1977; Hebdige 1999). The present study of metal band T-​shirts continues the path laid out by scholars such as Sarah Thornton (1995), Paul Hodkinson (2002), and Andy Bennett with Paul Hodkinson (2012) in exploring a multigenerational subculture that thrives with and through media and commerce. Though subculture studies have been criticized for a focus on males, which Angela McRobbie and Jenny Garber (1977) challenged already in the 1970s by shifting the focus to the role of girls in youth culture groups, this study is mainly concerned with male metal fans, reflecting the predominantly male participation in metal culture. The age range moves beyond youth and ranges from 10 to 50. Within the context of fashioning identity, looking at band T-​shirts reflects a larger theme of the close relationship between fashion and music. As explained by fashion scholar Patrizia Calefato (2004:  117):  “Fashion and music are two intimately connected forms of worldliness, two social practices that go hand in hand, sustaining one another in the medium of mass communication and drawing on a common sensibility which translates into taste.” In metal culture, sartorial displays are integral to the experience of the music. Informants described how they are very conscious of what they chose to wear to go to concerts and how this subcultural uniform often differs from their everyday dress practice. They curate their look to fit their personal definition of fan authenticity while also being sensitive to the dress practice of the social setting they identity with as well as the particular influx of sartorial novelty within the subculture. There are a number of ways that the dialectic of identity among metal fans at festivals differ from the general fashion practice on the street. Most fashion style tribes—​such as normcore and hipsters—​are characterized by being wary of identifying with a specific group. In contrast, identifying as metal or even a subgroup of the metal subculture is integral to the subcultural identity formation of many metal fans. Common for the informants is the sense that visual and sonic expressions of metal are defined through opposition to and perceived deviation from mainstream culture. An example is that when mass fashion copies an identity marker such as the band T-​shirt, it is seen as an affront to the core of the subculture. The impression is that the visual status

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Figure 7.2  Lars wears one of his fifteen Slayer T-​shirts, Copenhell festival 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

displays of the shirts are dissociated from the “ambivalence management” (Davis 1994: 25) studied in the previous chapters by being very explicit in their display of opposition to mainstream culture and the perception of being separate from the fashion system that appropriates subcultural emblems to achieve an “edgy” or “authentic” style.

The band T-​shirt Band T-​shirts are most often purchased at concerts, festivals, or online from official merchandizers or directly from the bands. The price averages at $27 for official band T-​shirts. However, there is also a thriving market for vintage band T-​shirts especially from classic metal bands. These are often sold online at sites such as Etsy or Ebay as collectors’ items with prices for original band T-​shirts from early bands such as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest fixed at for more than $500. Finally, fast fashion brands sell licensed reproductions of

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original band T-​shirts for around $19. The role of fast fashion creates a situation where the status of the shirt in terms of fashioning subcultural identity becomes more ambiguous. This is seen when an original Iron Maiden T-​shirt from “The Number of the Beast” tour in 1982–​83 is sold for $500 and a reproduction of the same shirt is sold for $39 from Topshop (2015). Since the mid-​1980s, metal merchandising has become a significant generator of profits (Weinstein 2000: 206). Today, original metal merchandising is a considerable commercial enterprise within official circuits, but metal band T-​shirts are also sold and worn outside the subculture, for instance, through high street shops, online stores, street stalls, concerts, festivals, and thrift stores. In recent years, high street brands such as K-​mart, Primark, Topshop, and H&M have sold iconic metal T-​shirts from bands such as Slayer, AC/​DC, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, and Black Sabbath around the world. There are also examples of luxury brands incorporating references to metal band T-​shirts, such as Tommy Hilfiger’s “People’s Place Originals” (2015) with vintage-​looking band T-​shirts and

Figure 7.3  Collaboration between H&M and Slayer, 2015. Source: Courtesy Frank Cerri.

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the “Join a Weird Trip” T-​shirt by Balenciaga (2013) that mimics the 1990s band T-​shirts. Two years later, the Balenciaga shirts sell for $380 on eBay, indicating the high social value the visual vocabulary of band T-​shirts represented at the time. This type of incorporation of subcultural style into fashion has previously been criticized for being produced in an “oppressive mode” (Hebdige 1999: 130) that resulted in exploitation of subcultures by capitalizing on their style (Polhemus 1994; Hebdige 1999). The products coming out of this subcultural appropriation have been seen as lacking “intrinsic meaning” (Cullum-​Swan and Manning 1994: 429) because the visual signs are removed from the culture that generated them. Fashion is a notorious visual stalker constantly on the lookout for inspiration. Anything holds potential for becoming fashion: From the homeless people along the Seine for John Galliano’s SS2000 couture show for Dior to American fast food for Jeremy Scott’s SS14 show for Moschino. This may be seen to confirm that “in modern Western societies, no clothes are outside of fashion; fashion sets the terms for all sartorial behavior” (Wilson 2003:  3). Because fashion has this elegant yet unscrupulous way of ingesting even the most radical counterculture to its domain, metal, but also punk, hippies, goth, and grunge may seem to be “victim of their own success” (Brown 2009: 66) turning subculture unwittingly into a fashion victim. As perhaps the oldest living subculture, metal is, nevertheless forty years down the road, still a coherent group with a “definite identity, argot and ritual” (Brown 2003: 213) materialized with the band T-​shirt. The present study explores how this dialectic mainstream appropriation affects the function of the T-​shirt as a “visual testimony” to subcultural identity (Sayer 1992: 73).

Copenhellsters vs. Copenhipsters Subcultural ambiguity is evident in the relationship the informants have to the culture in general and T-​shirts in particular. As marks of loyalty to both the metal genre and specific bands, the shirts represent a social bond with other fans. “If you meet someone in Morocco and he is wearing a Slayer-​shirt, you know he is alright,” explains promoter of Copenhell for Live Nation, Jeppe Nissen. It is customary for fans to acknowledge others in band T-​shirts through gestures or conversation: “It is a community that makes you feel you are not alone in the world” (Mikkel, 17). Since the early days of metal, this loyalty has been rooted in individual feelings of alienation or desire to oppose the mainstream. This acceptance and even celebration of being an outsider runs throughout the interviews: “We are just a bunch of nerds sitting around listening to music that we love. People in metal have always felt like outsiders who stick together” (Kim, 34). Copenhell as a gathering of nerds is linked to the struggle for artistic recognition of the music as a genre and the understanding that skills and effort are required to be a true metalhead. As explained by Lars, a representative from the Danish Musicians’

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Figure 7.4  Christina in a Copenhell 2015 festival sweatshirt and Mikkel in Bloodbath band T-​shirt, Copenhell festival 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

Union: “It takes training and knowledge to appreciate the music, just like opera or wine tasting” (Lars, 45). But while the band T-​shirt works as an icebreaker at festival and marks of group identification on the street, there are also negotiations taking place within the culture through the shirts regarding levels of fan authenticity. “You need to distinguish between copenhellsters and copenhipsters,” as one fan explained. Dedication over time and deep knowledge of the music are among the highest rated values in this hierarchy of authenticity that may be distinctly displayed through original concert T-​shirts from earlier, significant tours. There is an articulated resistance among fans to those who are not true metal, often spelled “trve.” These “poseurs” (Arnett 1996)  are the ones who wear band merchandise without knowing the band. Related to this is wearing a Slayer T-​shirt from Swedish fast fashion retailer H&M as several at the festival did. This could in principle equal what has been described as “the subcultural kiss of death” (Thornton 1995: 6), referring to the supposed effect of media and commercial validations of subcultures. Dick Hebdige has been criticized for excluding metal from subculture studies. This “invisibility” has been redressed by a number of scholars (Walser 1993; Weinstein 2000; Brown 2003). Music scholar Andy Brown (2009: 71) argues that Dick Hebdige did not include metal as a subculture because while metal was

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popular among large groups of the working classes and lower-​middle classes at the time, it was clearly based around a manufactured and marketed commodity experience. Brown rejects the notion that business and subculture are mutually exclusive, and focuses on subcultural adoption of commercially mediated items within youth culture. Brown (2009:  79)  talks about how the youth market is a collective act of consumption, which valorizes certain commodities as subculturally meaningful, so that their purchase and possession both signify and embody subcultural membership. The present study opens the age-​frame to include a multigenerational scope that also involves the possibility of part-​time memberships without reducing the level of dedication. Brown (2009: 64–​65) is opposed to the dialectical position proposed by CCCS where an industry—​in the present case the music industry—​is a promoter of capitalist ideology taking on the role of integrating youth leisure into profitable reproduction through the promotion of teen consumerism. Wearing a metal T-​shirt is a display of support for the bands as subcultural emblems but also as financial support. By acquiring merchandise, metal fans and performers advertise bands by wearing their T-​shirts either to concerts or on stage while at the same time providing a form of crowd-​funding to especially new and upcoming bands. According to Jeppe Nissen, profits from merchandise are essential for the survival of small bands and constitute a handsome pension for the established bands. He estimates that about 30  percent of a small band’s earnings—​including concert ticket sales and album sales—​comes from merchandise, with T-​shirts as the key item. So not only do the shirts show a pledge of allegiance to the culture, the financial support that they represent is also the closest way of giving the bands money, short of handing it directly to them. So while some bands are dismissed for selling more T-​shirts than albums, there is also the positive aspect that all proceeds go to the band because no cuts are taken of merchandise sales (Holiday 2015). The subcultural ambiguity lies in opposing mainstream through conspicuous sartorial displays—​ in line with what Hebdige (1988) famously referred to as “hiding in the light”—​while also accepting the commercial mainstream, for instance, through the H&M band T-​shirts because of a codex of social inclusion. In the interviews, many fans expressed this opposition between mainstream and opposition, which was rooted in wanting to support and expand metal as a serious genre while maintaining the tolerant attitude of the culture. There was agreement that in order to wear the shirts you should know and love the band. It is seen as a lack of respect for metal culture when “wannabes” or “hipsters” wear band T-​shirts. “Those girls who just wear band T-​shirts because they think they are cool are idiots,” as one female merchandise vendor at Copenhell declared. However, generally the initial disdain toward mainstream encroachment of metal culture was modified during the interviews. This balancing of metal

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knowledge and dedication with the nonjudgmental attitude were seamlessly balanced forming the core subcultural ambivalence: “I don’t know Slayer that well so I don’t feel it would be right for me to wear a Slayer-​shirt. But I don’t care what other people do” (Christina, 17). These negotiations are organized according to a complex set of subcultural norms that are collectively accepted but individually performed. Central to these unwritten rules is determining the level of commitment and how to display it correctly. One example is whether or not to wear the same T-​shirt as the band you are hearing and whether the band members themselves should wear their own shirts on stage or those of other bands to show support. Within this context, the band T-​shirts, while a visually brutal, uncompromising, subcultural emblem, also contain aspects of fashioning identity. Because, implied in these subtle ambiguities is a strategy of distinction that echoes Georg Simmel’s seminal fashion paradox between the conflicting forces of social equalization and individual differentiation. The impression from the interviews is that this tension is never fully resolved, suggesting that the process of negotiating is in part a goal in itself driven forward not by the fashion industry but by the metal system of new albums, concert tours, and festivals that generate new T-​shirt designs. As in other examples of fashioning identity, the key agenda is sticking out through qualities that are difficult to emulate. In the case of the otherwise so explicit band T-​shirt, not looking like you tried too hard is the core elusive quality, just as in the examples of sartorial shrugging. As described by one fan: “Metal is a vain genre. People are almost too aware of how they look. But it is not about dressing for the occasion. Metal is 24/​7” (Lasse, 49). This ties the process of fashioning subcultural identity closer to the strategy of underplaying status signals seen in the rehearsed carelessness of the uncluttered Little Nothing Dress in the early 1960s to the extreme casualness of wearing joggers to a party or the perfectly unkempt beard as a display of lazy chic. The general understanding among the fans is that while the level of dedication must be unconditional, the style must not get in the way: “Some people are so into everything being done in a particular way when dressing as a metal fan” (Emmi, 23). The codex among the die-​hard fans is being serious about the music but not seeming like you are trying too hard to look in a particular way. Mikkel says that people should just listen to the music and find themselves: “Some people try too hard to fit in. Let it come naturally. Don’t be a cool rebel just to be different” (Mikkel). While this is presented as arguments of true fandom, there are clear distinction strategies at play here that relate to subtle hierarchies of authenticity echoing Sarah Thornton (1995: 185): “Distinctions are never just assertions of equal difference; they usually entail some claim to authority and presume the inferiority of others.”

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Mass-​niche Media and blogs are quick to criticize fashion brands for producing metal band T-​shirts with the argument that it empties these emblems of subcultural allegiance and meaning (Volsing 2014). This makes companies such as H&M guilty of “identity bootlegging” (Kelly 2015b) as part of cashing in on the metal lifestyle. The initial reaction among fans to this appropriation is also one of scorn. “I really hate that H&M sells Slayer shirts because they have no respect for the music. They are stealing my culture,” says Kim who is a longtime Slayer fan. However, just as the critique of posers wearing the band T-​shirts without knowing the music, the contempt is always followed by ambiguous tolerance as seen when Kim continues: “But they can do whatever they want. I don’t care.” Expanding on the theme of high-​low capsule collections discussed in the Introduction, the H&M collaboration with Slayer appears to undermine the opposition to mainstream so fundamental to metal culture. While capsule collections within the fashion industry were argued to be a win-​win global marketing strategy that opens both brands to new market segments, the subcultural agenda is another. While there are clear economic benefits for the bands engaging in these collaborations, in this case Slayer, they also represent a potential blow to the subcultural capital by incorporating metal into the mainstream that it is so opposed to. But considering that the key role of exclusivity in luxury fashion is essentially also a form of resistance to the mainstream, the difference between the Slayer and Karl Lagerfeld collaborations with H&M might not be so different after all. In general, the true metal fans buy their band T-​shirts at concerts, festivals, or online at official retailers such as EMP, while the consumers that purchase the fast fashion versions are generally not fans but buy the shirts for their visual appeal rather than as subcultural emblems. There were several fans wearing the particular H&M Slayer T-​shirt at Copenhell, and when asked they did in fact see themselves as true fans. “I like the design and as long as the bands make a profit from the sales I do not care that they collaborate with fashion companies” (Hanne, 22). This attitude was also shared among fans who did not own the shirt but would consider buying it. “I would buy it if the price, quality and design were good” (Ormar, 24). It appears that the fast fashion metal mash-​ups hold paradoxical currency for distinction rather than representing a subcultural kiss of death. Some of the seasoned fans expressed this subcultural ambiguity by distancing themselves from the authentic band T-​ shirt: “Some people call the collaboration between H&M and Slayer selling out. But I actually wear that particular shirt with pride—​I am so secure in my fandom that I can even wear something that plastic” (Lars). The shirt becomes a tool for subversive empowerment for Lars who is a longtime Slayer fan with fifteen band T-​shirts to show for it.

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Whether fans support or reject the metal collaborations with fast fashion, the H&M Slayer T-​shirt is an example of how the appropriation of subcultural capital into mass-​fashion may irk many fans who feel that the fashion industry is freeloading on their authenticity, but at the same time it does not seem to violate or subtract anything fundamental from the culture. The example suggests the rise of mass-​niches in subcultures as merging fandom and fashion in a way that maintains the power of identification regardless of the mass visual impact of metal emblems. In some cases, they work as a tool for subversive empowerment among even diehard fans.

Multigenerational subcultures Copenhell is to a surprising extent a family affair. In the merchandise stands, band T-​shirts come in all sizes: From extra large to baby onesies. Couples with strollers, toddlers with headphones, and preteen boys with their fathers are common sights. What used to be a youth phenomenon, in line with most other subcultures since the middle of the twentieth century, has turned multigenerational. Since the middle of the twentieth century, there has been a tendency for youth to rebel against older generations through their taste preferences including fashion (Steele 2006). Both in subcultures and fashion, distance to the older generation has been a motive of distinction. Early quantitative studies indicate a tendency for younger generations to resist the styles of the older: As long as any considerable number of people who have stuck to a superseded form of personal appearance are still living, the young may tend to avoid such a mode as old hat. These distasteful associations seem to be safely overcome only after the passage of a century or more. (Robinson 1976: 1139) Dwight E.  Robinson uses a comparative frequency over time (1842–​ 1972) of trends in men’s facial hair to suggest general patterns of taste dynamics. Robinson’s study relied on earlier quantitative studies of changing proportional dimensions in women’s dress fashion that showed waves of approximately a century’s duration (Richardson and Kroeber 1940). He suggests that his findings of fluctuations across generations express common underlying conditions in fashion changes. Metal departs from definitions of contemporary subculture as transient taste communities for youth. Metal fans continue to claim distinctiveness after decades in the same subculture in a condition that has been termed “post-​youth” (Bennett and Hodkinson 2012) that exist alongside the initiation of still younger fans. The average age among the 11,000 participants at Copenhell (2015) was 33.8, not

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counting children 12 and under who attend at no cost. This suggests that the metal subculture is expanding by attracting new fans often in their early teens while also retaining the existing fan base, the oldest of which are in their 50s. A user survey carried out by the festival organizers (Baagø 2015) show that contemporary subcultural membership is multigenerational, and while metal culture is clearly a celebration of resistance musically and visually, it is not class-​ based. The survey included 1,402 individuals, the equivalent of 13  percent of the participants at Copenhell. It was conducted through an online questionnaire distributed electronically through Copenhell’s Facebook page in the period June 26–​August 2, 2015. The focus was on determining the level of satisfaction with the festival regarding everything from food and camping facilities to music lineup. Included in the survey was a quantitative study of demographics that showed the development in the participants’ levels of education and income, both of which were on a rise when compared with data from 2012. In 2015, 25 percent had a Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, up from 21 percent in 2012, and 19 percent had a Master’s degree or more, which was up from 15 percent in 2012. This is to be held up against 20 percent being students in 2015 and therefore without a degree. There were 24 percent that had an annual income of $60,000, and again this is to be compared to 20 percent being students. The survey attributes the rise in level of income, age, and education to the festival having become more “serious” and “acknowledged” over the six-​year period. This rise is seen to reflect the development in the lives of the participants who are considered to be very loyal to the festival. The survey also measured the dimensions of loyalty in relation to quality of musical experience, emotional satisfaction, and value for money, and concluded that 70 percent of the respondents said that they had already decided to come next year, even without a single band on the program yet. Out of a scale of 1–​7, an average of 6,7 would recommend Copenhell to others. The focus here is not on the transition from childhood to adulthood or the shifting parameters of age, but on what this new inclusive age spectrum from baby to grandpa says of subcultures in the twenty-​first century as such. Considering the findings at Copenhell regarding age relativity among the participants, the study shows a considerable shift since the work on metal subculture by Deena Weinstein (2000: 111) who described ageing metal fans as not attending concerts, following new releases, or otherwise engaging in the culture. The impression from the interviews is that fans across ages share a similar enthusiasm and dedication to the music and visual culture of metal. At Copenhell, the rebellion in metal is something to be shared, not a tool for opposition between generations. Some parents describe it as sharing and passing on a way of life to the next generation. “It is our lifestyle so we are introducing the next generation to it,” as one father of two boys explained. Where many of the fathers described their own introduction to metal as a rebellion that was not

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Figure  7.5  Asger, aged ten, wears a Metallica T-​ shirt, Copenhell festival 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

embraced by their parents, metal now forms a bond between especially father and son. Especially for the preteen boys the appeal is not difficult to understand, with the theatrics of the universe inhabited with monsters and skeletons. However, there is also a genuine interest in the music among the young fans. Asger, aged 10, was attending Copenhell for the first time. He was there with his father who introduced him to the music at the age of 6. He described how he stands out from his classmates: They don’t get it. They ask me why I like metal. All they can hear is noise and people screaming. They can’t hear the difference. But I  don’t care. I  try to

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make my friends like it. Some of my friends sort of like the music but not as much as I do. (Asger, 10) The impression is that metal is a preference more than a rebellion, reducing the opposition to something that can coexist within group identification, including family and diverse age groups, rather than necessarily equaling social alienation. Asger is wearing a Metallica T-​shirt. He says that he used to listen to them a lot but now his favorite band is Obituary. He and his father share the interest in listening to the music but also in gaining knowledge of the bands. This tendency of wanting to know the history of the genre in order to become a true fan is characteristic of fans of all ages. Younger fans go through a process of initiation by getting to know the classic metal albums from before they were born. This follows a larger tendency in the culture of being collectors of the material artifacts of the culture including not only clothes but also merchandise such as vinyl records and magazines. This plays into a larger theme in this book of heritage, revivals, and patina bringing metal fandom and fashioning identity together at more levels. But the rebellion is not entirely gone. Older fans describe metal as part of a rebellion in their youth and as a way of creating a positive identity in a situation of feeling different from parents, classmates, and the mainstream in general (Jan, 51). This sentiment is also reflected in the younger fan base. As described by Christina, 17: “I used to be emo and some people think I am goth but really you can just call me ‘alternative.’ I just don’t want to be mainstream.” Metal creates a framework for exploring possible identities that have the feeling of opposition as the base. The examples show that the sense of opposition becomes a positive identity marker often established in teenage years, but is something that may continue throughout a fan’s life. In this sense, metal fandom is not just a transitional process from youth to adulthood but becomes an integral part of an identity even after establishing families and careers. Thus, the symbolic opposition of metal becomes a component in a more complex assemblage of identity.

Humor and inverted snobbery The departure from class and youth rebellion and the introduction of the multigenerational, well-​educated metal subculture add complexity and therefore also expressive potential to the culture of both fandom and fashion. Despite the loud visual statements of metal, the importance of slippery status claims in the previous chapters was echoed in regard to themes of authenticity, sincerity, and mainstream. However, the elusiveness is also seen in the inverted snobbery in the music and visual expressions in dress, branding, and stage settings. Kim is wearing a classic Slayer T-​shirt, a knitted Slayer hat, and a knitted Slayer

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sweater. He describes the kitschy sweater with a sense of irony without leaving any doubt about his dedication as a fan: “It was a Christmas edition so of course I had to have it.” This irony is mixed into the dystopia of the theatrical stage shows and melodramatic band names such as Cannibal Corpse, Suicidal Tendencies, Life of Agony, Body Count, and Nuclear Assault. It is seen in the VIP area renamed as “RIP” and restaurants like Urban Warfare, Devil’s Choice, and Pigs from Hell. This balance between the honest brutality of metal music and irony through exaggeration is also seen quite clearly in the description of bands in the program on the festival website. One example is the presentation of Danish black metal band, Solbrud: “Expect a concert where every number feels like being pierced, smashed and chopped to death by demons from the abyss” (Copenhell.dk). As Lars, a fan, describes this hyperbole: “By making everything so brutal, it is turned on its head and becomes almost harmless.” The violence becomes less literal and more of a release of energy within a positive context of a subculture celebrating itself. Many bands brand and express themselves lyrically, visually, and musically through putting themselves out there with a mix of offensiveness with a dash of humorous self-​deprecation. The interviews show that people who live life without compromise, taking life’s challenges in their stride, are admired. Having the courage to be an original and show your weaknesses and mistakes for the culture to ridicule is part of the glue that holds the subculture together. It is the stuff of urban myths that are shared at concerts, at band rehearsals, or while partying. This good-​natured mockery is part of the inverted snobbery prevalent in both the friendliness of the fans and the primal nature of the music and aesthetics. “The more you dare to expose your fuck-​ups, the more prestige and credit you get for being a true metal head,” as Lars explains.

Next step for fashioning subcultural identity Demonic on the outside, sympathetic on the inside; for more than four decades, metal fans have displayed fandom and fashion through the visual statement of the band T-​shirt. In the 2010s, this modest materialization of the subculture is still mandatory among fans despite the more ambiguous status these shirts represent considering how the fashion industry is freeloading on this fundamental subcultural symbol. But rather than being eliminated through commercialization, metal has managed to persevere as a multigenerational, often well-​educated culture that shares a musical totem while also battling levels of dedication and loyalty. The appropriation of metal by the fashion industry seems to have

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prompted subcultural ambivalence that balances sincerity and irony, mainstream and opposition within a dynamic that echoes the tensions of fashioning identity. Social processes of distinction and imitation are activated in this display of subcultural fashion. And perhaps this coexistence of brutalism with inclusion, sincerity with humor, rebellion for all ages is the key to metal subculture’s continuous endurance and possibly of other subcultures as well.

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8 TRANS-​GLOBAL NARRATIVES “I was 15 when I got my first football jersey. It was so special to me that I hardly ever wore it.” Frederick, 24, is taking a break from demolishing a shed for a UN employee. He has recently moved to Nairobi from his native rural village in search of new opportunities. He shares stories about his childhood which includes football, referred to here as soccer. His father was a soccer player and Frederick also loved to play until he became a teenager. “I played number 7, just like David Beckham.” On this particular day, he is wearing a Manchester United jersey that he shows off with great pride when posing for a picture before changing back into his work clothes of tattered T-​shirt and jeans. Frederick’s story is typical of the trans-​global narratives expressed through the soccer jersey as an expression of both fashion and fandom. The soccer jersey is both a display of allegiance to a particular soccer club, mainly from the English Premier League, and a tool in the sartorial dialectic of identity. This double function is similar to the study of the metal band T-​shirt that was considered a “visual testimony” to subcultural identity (Sayer 1992: 73) while at the same time working as a fashionable display of inverted snobbery using irony, authenticity, and hyperbole as expressive tools. Frederick’s childhood story echoes Billy Ehn and Orvar Löfgren’s (2010: 126) work on daydreaming, which shows how “fantasizing moves between being stuck in a special place and leaving that place and temporarily attaining a feeling of freedom.” The soccer jersey seems to contain this element of wishful thinking as an escape from realities or boring routines into a more rewarding fantasy world. The informants in this study generally dream of owning the newest, most authentic soccer jerseys, turning these objects into vehicles for fantasizing about a different life to ease the everyday reality. This chapter is concerned with fashioning identity within a non-​Western context through the act of wearing a soccer jersey. This involves considering the history of soccer in Africa and social aspirations among the male Kenyan informants. Themes of novelty and status central in the book are explored here in relation

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Figure 8.1  Frederick in his favorite Manchester United jersey, 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

to daydreaming and reality, the coexistence of local and global, local pride and transplanted culture, and unity and distinction as negotiated socially through the soccer jersey. The central theme is the performance of cultural ambivalence as a delicately assembled duality that appears to be maintained as a potential rather than constituting a fundamental identity conflict. Culture is defined here as “human-​made material items and patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior shared by members of a group who regularly interact with one another” (Eicher and Evenson 2015: 31). The jersey becomes an emblem of culture in the complex layers of emotion and actions that are socially performed in and through purchasing, wearing, or desiring it. Theoretically, the chapter is inspired by anthropologist Richard Wilk’s (1995: 111) attempts to move beyond the oppositions between “global hegemony and local appropriation” as unfolded in his study of beauty pageants in Belize, which, similar to soccer in Kenya, represents a global content being played out on a local stage. The present study of soccer jerseys in Kenya is inspired by the way Wilk (1995: 111) complicates the traditional opposition between “indigenous and imported, authentic and false, local and global” to establish a platform that focuses on the “complex interplay between local context and global

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content, rather than arguing for the primacy of one over the other.” This is done by empirically showing how the ambivalence between these oppositions is performed through the soccer jerseys. While the conditions of this fashion practice are touched upon in terms of the development in broadcasting rights in Africa which has stimulated the interest in soccer due to increased viewing access, the main focus is on how the informants used the jersey to engage in “status competition” (Davis 1994: 58) through traditional prestige hierarchies. The jerseys represent material status, scarce leisure time, and membership of a global community: at once a celebration of a shared passion, distinction strategy, and dream of a different life. Where the previous chapters have mainly explored the ambiguous inversions of status markers, from the deliberate act of looking poor with homeless chic to the conspicuously outdated discontinued chic of vintage, the soccer jersey appears at the level of fashionable self-​curation to return to a perception of fashionable dress as an aspirational display of “idleness and pleasure” (Laver 1946:  114). The authentic jerseys are an indulgence for the privileged few in Kenya that at the time of the study was characterized by considerable economic inequality. This reinforces a vertical flow where especially international soccer superstars such as Argentinian Lionel Messi are copied by middle-​and lower-​ class men motivated by the social currency of wealth and freedom. However, as the case will show, the social contagion is negotiated within the horizontal flow that involves young male influentials taking an oppositional stance to the older generation. There are no signs of what has been discussed in this book as the symbolic identity construction through “calculated duplicities” (Davis 1994: 22). Although opportunities to engage in the trans-​global fashion narratives have increased in Kenya through better access to cheaper copies of fashionable Western dress, the new, authentic brand jerseys are still out of reach.

“B” is for ball At a security post outside Malindi Airport in Kenya, a local policeman asks where I am from. “Say ‘Hi’ to Daniel Agger,” he says when I answer “Denmark.” The reference to the Danish soccer player formerly of Liverpool FC highlights the social and cultural role of soccer in Kenya as a cross-​cultural narrative that speaks to a sense of global community. Transnationally, soccer is a social icebreaker and a shared point of reference even for those who are not fans. The passion for soccer is evident in the public spheres in Kenya. In addition to figuring prominently on billboard ads for banks and mobile phones, there is a tradition for adorning all means of transportation with soccer-​related imagery. In polluted, traffic-​jammed Nairobi, these often highly creative decorations representing mainly European players, coaches, and team logos are seen on anything

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Figure 8.2  A mural on a local pre-​school in Watamu, 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

from modern buses to the crammed minivans (matatus) and three-​wheeled taxis (tuk tuks). The culture of soccer is brought in from a young age by playing the game with friends and watching the matches on TV with friends and family. Even in primary school, soccer is part of the education. On a colorful mural of the alphabet on the wall of a rural school, there is a “B” for “ball” with an image of a soccer ball. As described by Willy, a 24-​year-​old tuk-​tuk driver: “All boys in Kenya dream of becoming professional soccer players.” This dream is both a very real hope for a better life and a fantasy of becoming a soccer star which is shared by boys and young men around the world. In this sense, the case echoes certain general tendencies among soccer fan culture globally while also pointing to some particularities regarding the social fabric of being a young man in Kenya in the 2010s. The dream holds a sense of urgency for the informants considering their often difficult life situation.

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Viewing the soccer jersey as part of fashioning identity echoes Elizabeth Wilson’s (2003: 228) musings on how fashion constitutes “a world where we go adorned in our dreams.” The economic inequality and material aspirations also concerned those with jobs that were stable and considered a privilege. For instance, 32-​year-​old Frazier is a driver for an ex-​pat family in Nairobi and expressed contentment with his position. He is a soccer fan and clearly aware of looking fashionable. However, he did not own a football jersey himself: “I used to have a white Real Madrid shirt but it got stained so now I don’t have one. If I had one, I would love to wear it. It would be a Manchester United jersey.” In expressing his desire of owning a soccer jersey again, Frazier exemplifies the necessary distinction between need and desire when studying dress in Africa as argued by anthropologist Karen Tranberg Hansen (2000: 23), because fashion consumption in Africa represents hopes of a different and better life. This marks a fundamental difference to the previous chapters that to a larger extent emphasized the symbolic over the material value in the process of fashioning identity with sartorial understatements. This double dreamscape of soccer and fashion is materialized most prominently through the massive popularity of the soccer jersey among young men in Kenya. They are worn to watch games as emblems of fandom but also as fashion statements in everyday life. The data for the research was collected in 2015 over a four-​week period through observation, visual registration, and formal and informal interviews with approximately fifty young men from 18 to 35 in the capitol city Nairobi and the rural town of Watamu. These sites were chosen for considering possible variations in the social role of soccer jerseys between urban and rural contexts. However, the study will show that there were no substantial differences in regard to the process of status competition and the role of cultural ambivalence. For this reason, the data from the two places is organized thematically in the chapter rather than according to location. Interviews and observations took place in markets, restaurants, taxis, private cars, and homes as well as specific sites such as soccer game clubs or jersey retailers. This selection of locations was in part determined by the security situation in Kenya at the time of the study, which radically limited the areas of recruiting informants to mainly indoor sites rather than recruiting and observing them on the streets, which was deemed unsafe for visitors. The approach was interpretative and interviews were explorative, designed for the purpose of describing and understanding the performance of wearing a soccer jersey as status display. The semi-​ structured interviews and casual conversations were the most yielding overall while the formal interviews were more limited because of language barriers. The informants in the structured interviews were generally low-​income laborers who expressed hope of receiving material

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rewards as soccer jerseys or mobile phones for taking part in the study. This made for a slightly uneasy interview situation that was not conducive to the case. The spontaneous interviews with taxi drivers, retailers, and cooks were more directly useful because the conversations had arisen more naturally, and so the atmosphere was more relaxed, the information level was higher, and the language barriers were diminished.

Soccer history The role of the soccer jersey in Kenya is informed by historical factors. While early types of proto-​soccer have been traced back to Neolithic time when it was linked to fertility rites, the modern game of association soccer is rooted in the English public school system from the middle of the nineteenth century where the sport was used to maintain order and to develop the young players into “muscular Christian gentlemen” (Armstrong and Giulianotti 1999: 3). By the late nineteenth century, the game had established itself as the dominant sport among the urban working classes in the UK. Soccer arrived to Africa with colonialism and missionaries in the late nineteenth century through the major port cities. It then began to spread into the interior by means of newly laid railway lines, schools run mainly by missionaries, and the colonial armed forces. Soccer was played among British soldiers, sailors, traders, and government employees but was also seen as part of a “civilizing mission” (Alegi 2010: 1). The first documented game on the African continent was played in South Africa in 1862, a year before the official rules of soccer were codified. In that sense, the role of soccer in Africa is culturally ambivalent in part due to colonial association, while at the same time it has been played in Africa almost as long as it has been in Europe. The development of the Pan-​African soccer association CAF (Confederation of African Football) in 1957 was a move to strengthen Pan-​African soccer identity. Today, soccer is described as possibly the most popular cultural activity on the planet (Alegi 2010). It is the number one sport in Kenya and in Africa in general. A survey conducted by FIFA, the game’s governing body, in 2006 found that out of 46 million of the world’s 265 million registered players, more than one in six were African. In Africa, the sport is played in villages and cities alike, it is a popular spectator sport and soccer is covered extensively in the media (Hognestad and Tollisen 2004: 223). As a sport, soccer is bound up in local, national, continental, and global dynamics (Alegi 2010: xi), and the game appeals to all levels of African society, requiring simply a ball to participate. In Kenya, the preference for wearing soccer jerseys is concentrated among young men from lower income to middle income levels.

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Cultural exchange Soccer in Kenya joins the local culture of playing, watching, and talking about soccer with the global business of broadcasting and merchandising the sport. Expanding a tradition for displaying soccer fandom by simply wearing regular T-​ shirts in the relevant team colors, soccer jerseys especially from English Premier League clubs have become increasingly popular among young men in Kenya as both a display of team affiliation and as a fashion statement. The dress practice of wearing a soccer jersey suggests a cultural ambivalence while also tapping into a more general tradition of cultural exchange in and through fashion. The sartorial sharing and borrowing between cultures has influenced fashion for centuries. Especially since the early twentieth century, there has been a tendency to Westernize non-​Western clothing for fashion purposes. However, the conditions for this cultural exchange have generally been culturally unequal, tending to favor the West. This has ranged from historical developments in trade such as bringing woven fabrics to Europe from Asia by the Silk Road, to Paul Poiret’s love affair with orientalism, to the more recent example, relevant in this context, of fashion brands using Maasai plaid as inspiration as seen in OAMC (2016), Louis Vuitton (2012) and Thakoon Panichgul (2011). This form of inspiration at times leads to cross-​cultural hiccups particularly with interpretations of indigenous dress practices. The issue with this form of inspiration, often labeled “tribal” or “ethnic,” is the dividing line between cultural celebration and misappropriation. This grey zone has led to accusations of cultural appropriation as seen with lingerie brand Victoria’s Secret’s fashion show in 2012 where a model wore a Native American–​inspired headdress and the Chanel show held in Texas which was inspired by the American West (2013). Both examples were seen as controversial and called for public apologies for “ ‘playing Indian’ for profit” (Grinberg 2014). While fashion designers within a Western context are seen as visual globetrotters for whom inspiration comes in any shape or form, the cultural translation of Western dress into an African context operates on a different premise. Historically, cultural exchange in fashion has been driven less by inspiration and desire and more out of force and need. Europe and Africa have a particular history of cultural interaction in terms of dress practices, which is bound to colonization. Karen Tranberg Hansen (2013) describes how missionaries in the late nineteenth century preached against local clothing and adornment as heathen and instead encouraged both men and women to obtain shirts, dresses, and other nonnative items. In the first half of the twentieth century, clothes became the most prestigious commodity and the main prerequisite by which an African could acceptably enter European controlled areas. By this

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period, European-​style dress became a sign of progress and success and this has become the standard since then. As stated by Karen Tranberg Hansen (2013: 1): “Today in most African societies, on an everyday basis people wear the same garments as in the rest of the world.” Although there are variations across African nations and local contexts, this tendency toward global, sartorial uniformity has only increased over the past decades especially due to access through secondhand circuits; and in the case of the soccer jersey also through the influence of Western popular culture in regard to match viewing options. The possibilities for the cross-​pollination of dress cultures have increased with the technological developments in mediation of fashion information and distribution of garments. More than ever, we are fluent in trans-​global narratives aided by social media platforms, e-​commerce, and fast fashion expansion which have allowed clothing cultures from all corners of the world to potentially share in the visual wealth or generic blandness of fashion, depending on how you view it. Jeans are worn by everyone, from trendsetters in London to the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest (Miller and Woodward 2012), and sneakers are a global footwear standard for those who can afford it. While jeans and sneakers are categories of dress, the soccer jersey is a more specific example of a garment that is worn globally but geographically rooted mainly in Europe due to specific soccer club identifications.

World dress There appears to be an increased awareness of an “Afropolitan movement” (Shearlaw 2014) characterized by a global sense of style which potentially renders concepts such as “hipster,” “vintage,” and “street style” as relevant to the fashion forward in Nairobi as they are in New York City, Paris, or London. However, the majority of people in Kenya and other African countries wear what has been termed “world dress” (Eicher and Sumberg 1995), defined as Western-​ style shirts, jeans, and pants bought either cheaply or secondhand. This is evident for men in Kenya who tend to wear collared shirts and pants sometimes with a blazer. The main exception from this norm is the soccer jerseys. From the crowded streets of urban Nairobi to the dusty roads of rural Watamu, soccer jerseys represent pops of bright colors and distinct graphic patterns among the predominance of the neutral colors and plain design of world dress in menswear. Soccer jerseys have seen a dramatic rise in popularity over the past five years primarily among young men in the age range from late teens to early thirties. The sentiment is that if older men wear the jerseys, it seems that they are reluctant to grow up. But as Frazier explains: “The older generation doesn’t mind the soccer

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style. They prefer it to the fashion that came before which was the hip-​hop style of baggy pants and huge T-​shirts.” The quote highlights the jersey as part of fashioning identity associated with status competition and rebellion against older generations of men. The reference to the style shift from hip-​hop to the soccer jersey parallels a similar movement outside Kenya, including for instance northern Europe and North America that also saw a hip-​hop craze in the same period while currently witnessing popularity of the soccer jersey. The soccer jersey reflects a global tendency not only for that garment but for sportswear as fashion on a larger scale as already discussed through the example of the tailored sweatpants as an ambiguous social distinction strategy of staged casualness. This cross-​ cultural narrative where global content is performed in culturally diverse localities helps to maintain a focus on the complicated relationship between local and global, indigenous and imported. The case is intended to form what Wilk (1995: 111) calls a common set of “structures that mediate between cultures,” which aids in exploring the cultural ambivalence displayed through the soccer jersey. The soccer jersey as a type of T-​shirt might be said to belong to the realm of world dress. As argued in Chapter 7 on subcultural identity, the T-​shirt is an effective vehicle for sartorial communication on a local as well as global scale. The T-​shirt is both clothing and fashion, ranging as it does from functional anonymity to distinct individuality reflecting the tension in the identity politics in fashion of sticking out and fitting in. Economically, the T-​shirt represents the entire spectrum of fashion in one garment category: from the role of political canvas as seen with statement T-​shirts to the luxury designer cotton T-​shirts selling at up to $4,000. But most of all, the T-​shirt is the “Big Mac of fashion” (Reed and Atkinson 1992: 96), an omnipresent staple that is inexpensive, practical, and accessible. In Africa as in other places, the versatility and price of a T-​shirt make it suitable to communicate individuality, group identity, and status aspirations. However, while choosing a designer T-​shirt within a Western context is generally motivated by intent, the practice of wearing a T-​shirt in Africa may often be driven by what is possible rather than what is desirable. As a visitor to Kenya, the first impression of how T-​shirts are worn is a tendency for random assemblages of transplanted Western popular culture. A Bart Simpson shirt worn by a street cleaner or a Utah shirt worn by a mango seller resembles the postmodern concept of bricolage where secondhand corporate or novelty T-​shirts are mixed indiscriminately either for the color, brand, or imagined meaning of the design or for the function alone. In contrast, soccer jerseys are objects of desire. The informants communicate a high level of intent when they describe the selection and display involved in wearing the jersey, combining not only fandom and fashion, but also considering the material, fit, and versatility. As commented humorously by Willy: “And you don’t have to iron them—​I like that.”

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The soccer jersey as fashion The culture of wearing a shirt in support of a sports team stems from the UK. When the English Football Association approved shirt sponsorship in 1977, it gradually turned soccer shirts into lucrative spin-​off items for the clubs. Since then, the soccer jersey has become widespread in nations with an active soccer culture around the world in the double role of fan emblem and “fashion accessory” (Lions 2014: 182). With each season, new kit designs—​which in addition to the jerseys include boots, tracksuits, shorts, and bags—​are introduced. Most major European clubs release three new designs each season: Home, away, and the so-​called third shirt, a type of emergency shirt to be used at matches if the colors of the two others are too similar to those of the opponent’s. Matches are often coordinated according to the launch of new kits to create anticipation in the global community as part of a promotion strategy (Lions 2014: 24). In addition to soccer merchandise resembling a fashion cycle, there is also an increasing tendency for soccer players to be regarded as “style leaders” (Cochrane 2014b) alongside models, actresses, singers, and fashion editors. This is seen in media such as The Guardian that ran an overview of the players’ hairstyles of the season, from “Teddy-​boy quiff” to “extreme Mohawk” (Murray 2015), or lists of best-​dressed soccer players in magazines such as Esquire (Agovino 2014) and Vanity Fair (Kahn 2013). This celebration of players as desirable is widespread in popular culture. As expressed in InStyle magazine: “It’s no secret that soccer players are some of the best looking professional athletes, and their frames are made for designer clothing and underwear” (Vagner 2014). The link between soccer and the fashion industry has intensified in a number of ways. The players have been used as fashion models, such as Lionel Messi for Dolce & Gabbana and David Beckham for H&M and Armani. There are also examples of players acting as designers, such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic who each have their own fashion lines. In addition, luxury fashion brands sponsor the major teams, such as Lanvin for Arsenal soccer club for official club appearances since 2013. The jersey functions to identify a team by design and a player by number and name, but it also has a more active role of individual player engagement. In the matches, the jersey is associated with the ritual of exchanging team jerseys between players after a game or each player’s signature gesture when scoring. This role may be seen to infuse the jersey with a dynamic on the playing field that is easily translated into identity performance on the street. The jersey represents an emulation of the players as not only idols for their sports skills but also as symbols of personal achievement and financial success. Several of the informants argued that many young men in Kenya dream of going to America or the

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UK in search of a better life. “They imagine this dream might be accomplished by becoming a professional soccer player,” Frazier explains. This dream is nursed by still higher earnings for players especially in the Premier League. With the closing of the January transfer window in 2016, long before the 2015–​2016 season had even ended, BBC announced that the gross spending had already reached the record sum of one billion pounds (“Premier League Clubs’ Spending Reaches £1bn This Season” 2016). The dream of making it big in soccer is brought closer through online access to games and information about the sport and players. Frazier continues pointing to aspirations by proxy: “When this dream bursts, the sense of escape and closeness to Europe continues through being a fan and wearing the jerseys.” Willy blames corruption and low pay as barriers to becoming a professional soccer player in Kenya. He speaks from personal experience, having abandoned his dream of making a career in soccer. He decided that he had to have a life and dropped soccer, “You can’t play when you’re hungry,” he explains. This brings to mind the work on secondhand clothing in Zambia by Karen Tranberg Hansen (2000: 253) who describes how the West is seen as “an imagined place” associated with power, wealth, and material abundance. In a symbolic sense, the shirt becomes a vehicle for temporarily adopting a different persona and forgetting the routine or hardship of life for a moment at least (Lions 2014: 182). The low standard of living and the relatively limited opportunities for millions of Kenyan men, worsened by the issue of terror activity, create good conditions for this daydreaming. Not surprisingly, this player emulation through garments not only in Kenya but globally is capitalized upon through the increased use of player endorsement especially for jerseys, shoes, and cleats. Player superstars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, and Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior are among the highest paid players to endorse products by mainly Nike and Adidas. For a few of the informants, the jersey was foregrounded as mainly an emblem of fandom. Micah, a 25-​year-​old security guard, is an avid Arsenal fan and owns a good quality jersey that is six years old. It is very well kept and hardly looks worn. For Micah, this is linked to the importance he places on the jersey as a display of authentic fandom: “You are a true fan when you wear the jerseys for games and not every day.” He shares 12-​hour shifts with another guard and his leisure time is very limited. But he explains that mobile technology allows him to follow the Premier League games, bringing him closer to global soccer culture. However, for most of the informants, fandom and fashion are woven seamlessly together perhaps as a result of more strategic efforts by the clubs in designing and promoting their merchandise. On and off the field, the soccer jersey represents a certain duality for the informants. As a badge of fandom, it represents local, national, and international loyalties. As a fashion item, it speaks of social aspirations and the allure of Europe symbolized through brand merchandise and club identity.

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In Kenya and other African countries, the status of a jersey and therefore also the wearer’s social position are often linked at a material level to an informal prestige hierarchy with three levels of value that are associated with either new or secondhand: the copy which is often of poor quality bought at markets or street-​ stands; the standard which is a better quality copy often purchased in what is referred to as “boutiques,” which may be stands at a mall or a local shack-​like store; and finally the expensive original jerseys—​officially referred to as authentic replica—​by mainly Nike, Puma, or Adidas which are sold in sporting goods stores most often at Western-​style malls. These “official copies” (Pope 2011: 44) may or may not be the same as the official team apparel, but are officially sanctioned. There are additional types of jerseys, not considered here for reasons of price and access, such as “training kits,” referring to the tracksuits worn during team practice. There are also the “player issue” jerseys that are the same as the shirts worn at the games. These shirts have a tighter fit, less stitching, are made of technological textiles, and have a higher price. “Match prepared” jerseys are the spare shirts never worn at a match by a player. And finally, there is the “match worn” jersey, which has a vintage-​like status and is purchased as a collectors’ item rather than to be worn. Prices for match worn jerseys are high, with a Manchester United jersey from the 1991–​1992 season selling for as much as $1,500 (2015). Finally, there are the personalized shirts popular especially among boys in northern Europe. Due to price and access, the copies and standard are the types of jerseys worn by the informants in the present study, reflecting in this narrow scope the relatively low standard of living they represent. While there are donations from the soccer clubs directly or from organizations or individuals, the majority of the jerseys are purchased by the wearers themselves. The striking presence in Nairobi and Watamu of the newest kits, especially from clubs such as Manchester United and Chelsea, suggests an efficient system of both copying and recirculation in secondhand markets. This hierarchy of the jersey is to be considered in relation to the secondhand circuit of clothing in Africa that in turn is linked to the secondhand base of much world dress. The authentic replica jerseys from especially European teams offer an example of globalization where corporate capitalism produces and disseminates garments targeting mass-​ market consumers culturally facilitated by mass media and the Internet (Rabine 2002: 2). However, there are also less readily identifiable trade lines that operate outside these global networks that are crucial when considering dress culture in Africa (Hansen 2000; Rabine 2002; Thomas 2003). Soccer jerseys make it into Nairobi markets and shops through a number of possible channels which in addition to official merchandise include charity donations from the West, quality copies often produced in Turkey, and lesser quality copies of African or European team jerseys produced in China or locally. Each source of origin brings with it varying communicative potentials for displaying status. This system is

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Figure  8.3  Stadi Market—​ short for Stadium Market—​ famous locally for new and secondhand sportswear, Nairobi 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

fundamentally different than communicating the intentional inauthenticity of buying a Louis Vuitton luxury version of an inexpensive carrying devise known as the Chinatown tote as discussed in Chapter 4. Here the luxury standards are inverted if only at a visual level with the staging of copy chic. In the case of the soccer jerseys, the motivation for buying anything less than the original is determined by means alone rather than ambivalent status displays. In this sense, the soccer jersey as fashion in Kenya follows the more traditional prestige hierarchy of the vertical flow in status emulation than many of the other cases in the book.

Fashioning goals There are no official records of how many copies are sold in Kenya, but based on observation and interviews, only an insignificant percentage of the jerseys worn are new, official replicas from the current seasons. This is confirmed in interviews with sales assistants working at the shop-​in-​shop Nike store at the Village Market Mall, a high security, American-​style mall in Nairobi. The store is one of the few commercial sites in Nairobi for buying these authentic replicas,

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and during the study there were only a limited number of available models—​ Manchester United, Manchester City, and Chelsea—​from their current kit. So despite the visual prominence of the soccer jerseys in Nairobi, the authentic shirts are not in demand due to the high price range limiting affordability mainly to expat Europeans in Nairobi. At the time of the study an authentic replica jersey was 8,700 Kenyan Shillings ($85), while the standard jerseys were sold for 2,500 Kenyan Shillings, and the cheap copies at markets cost around 1,000 Kenyan Shillings. In comparison, a modest house in Nairobi may be rented for 5,000 Kenyan Shillings a month and an unskilled laborer earns around 500 Kenyan Shillings a day. The type of men interviewed and observed for the study all represented middle-​income to lower-​income levels. Considering the price of the authentic replica jerseys and its capacity for conspicuousness, the desire to own these jerseys reflect social aspirations. With this in mind, placing the Nike store at the Village Market Mall next to the department for uniforms—​dust jackets and guard sets for men, nanny and maid outfits for women—​seemed to highlight at a symbolic level the tension between the dreams and reality for many people in Nairobi. Fashion, including in this case the soccer jersey, creates what Elizabeth Wilson (2003:  229)  has termed a “world in which reality and fantasy mingle.” The soccer jersey, then, becomes a vehicle for fashioning goals, so to speak, while at the same time playing into the general theme of fantasy in global soccer exemplified quite literally in the popularity of the online game Fantasy Premier League with millions of players worldwide. The global merchandising of soccer jerseys mimics the Western fashion system by being organized in seasons and driven by change. This institutionalized system of style obsolescence infuses the soccer jerseys with a fashionable infatuation with the new, as what Gilles Lipovetsky (1994:  15)  has described as “a cult of fantasy and novelty.” This appetite for the new is stimulated by social demand through the tension between social equalization and the desire for individual differentiation (Simmel 1957). Both soccer merchandise and fashion tend to follow a trajectory of gradual saturation of a new product, trend, or idea through the social battle of status from the early adopters to the laggards (Rogers 2003). In this sense, soccer also represents a powerful wholesale apparel industry that mirrors the adoption process in fashion by following this process of innovation, diffusion, and replacement. Elizabeth Wilson (2003: 229) has described this process of arranged obsolescence as the “ ‘tragic game’ of being chic,” tragic in that the moment of fashion fulfilment is always elusive because the conceptions of novelty are so transient. In the context of the present study, this sense of a tragic game moves beyond the wastefulness of fashion change to include a sense of desolation among some informants at the contrast between desire and means, dream and reality as played out through the jersey.

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The most popular soccer clubs in Kenya—​when displayed both as fandom and fashion—​are Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Liverpool from the English Premier League. These clubs are often jokingly referred to as the “Big Four” by informants, as a play on the “Big Five,” a phrase indicating the five most difficult animals to hunt by foot in big-​game hunting. The most popular of the four is Manchester United, which reflects a global tendency. For the season 2013/​2014, Manchester United sold a record two million replica jerseys worldwide (Ziegler 2014). In the season 2014/​2015, the success continued with three of the top ten selling shirts in the UK being from Manchester United (Sheen 2015). A poll commissioned by Manchester United themselves in 2012 states a global following of 659 million, with 173 million in the Middle East and Africa. Though the numbers have been criticized for being inflated as a tool for attracting sponsorship and potential investors (Gibson 2012, Prior 2013), the figures say something about the vast impact, both financially and socially, of soccer globally extending into the copy market. Regardless of the reliability of the numbers, Manchester United jerseys are the most prominent in both Nairobi and Watamu and are worn with distinct pride as a form of sartorial trophy. Many of the informants expressed this pride directly, such as Jackson, 32, who is a private cook: “My Manchester United jersey is very special to me. I am so proud of it.” Another example is Joef, 18, who says: “This is my favorite soccer jersey.” Joef is reluctant to write his own name on the jersey because of his “bad handwriting.” He is helped in this by his coworker Frederick. They are both working in Nairobi at the private home of an expatriate demolishing a shed and rebuilding it anew. They have each brought their favorite jersey as agreed the previous day, both being Manchester United. They are clearly very proud of their shirts as a display of fandom but also as a prized possession. “I love my Manchester United jersey” Frederick smiles. He considers the building job a step on the way to “something else.” He mainly wears his jersey for the games on Sundays. For him, watching and talking about soccer is an activity to be shared with friends in his limited leisure time. In that sense, the jersey represents a welcome diversion from the hardship of his everyday life, reflecting the idea of the jersey as a vehicle for daydreaming.

“Welcome to our club” There is a strong political vein in the research on the role of soccer in Africa, ranging from the colonial rational behind the introduction of soccer to Africa, the struggle for global recognition intertwined in soccer there, and the critique of FIFA for Eurocentrism (Darby 2002). The treatment in this chapter of these topics is limited to metaphorically wearing a dream in the form of the soccer jersey in Kenya as a social rather than political practice.

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Soccer jerseys represent a positive presence for the informants in providing at least symbolically a membership to the global community of soccer culture. Soccer is promoted by FIFA as a unifying force globally. At the same time, soccer is also a celebration of the nation-​state and a region. An example of the continuous “dialectic between the local and the global” in soccer (Finn and Guilianotti 2000:  257)  is seen in the official FIFA song for World Cup in Brazil in 2014, “We Are One.” The song reflects this duality with lines such as “It’s your world, my world, our world today” showing the unifying force of soccer, on the one hand, and “Show the world where you’re from” demonstrating the celebration of nation, on the other. National anthems, flags, and more generally the soccer jerseys are part of the nationalism and cultural identification of soccer. Because of its role as a unifier, soccer holds the potential for social outreach as a basis for positive development in deprived areas. This is seen in a number of projects in Kenya. One example is MYSA Mathare Youth Sports Association, the largest youth organization in Africa, located in Nairobi. The organization works toward building self-​esteem and group identity through soccer as a way of changing the image of the slum, with focus on soccer (Hognestad and Tollisen 2004: 211). Another example of soccer as a vehicle for positive social impact in Kenya is the Marble Gunners Tournament, a children’s soccer tournament held in selected cities in Kenya in 2015 and organized by Imperial Bank and Arsenal Football Club. Entry was 1,000 shillings per child, which was converted to a bank account. Fifty children were chosen in each city to be taught by Arsenal coaches. Manchester United has also engaged in the outreach activity. One example is donating soccer balls to children in the World Hope Community Project in Nairobi. Another is the RAF (Royal Air Force) “Taking Football to Africa Charitable Appeal,” which donates soccer jerseys to the slums of Nairobi as well as organizing soccer tournaments for local teams. In addition to soccer providing an occasion for social outreach in Kenya, the sport also has a positive presence on an everyday level. Watamu, a rural village on the Indian Ocean coast, has traditionally been a tourist destination with especially Italian and English visitors. During the time of the research (2015), the British and other foreign offices had issued a warning on travel to Watamu due to the troubles with terrorist attacks in Kenya in recent years. Tourism has declined since 2013, sapping Kenya’s second-​largest source of foreign exchange (Ombok 2015). In the period, Kenya had been hit by a wave of attacks that were mostly blamed on the al-​Shabaab militant Islamist group from Somalia. In Nairobi there had been attacks on the upscale shopping mall Westgate (2013) and Gikomba market (2014), the coastal region saw an attack on Mpeketoni in 2014, and a university was attacked in Garissa (2015). This had caused a considerable tourist drought in Kenya, including the two sites of investigation in this study: Nairobi and Watamu. While the warning was lifted for Watamu at the time of the study (2015), Malindi, only 15 km away, was still subject to travel restrictions. These

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restrictions explain the distinct absence of tourists in Watamu during the data collection. This affected the hotel industry but also auxiliary sectors such as taxis, tourist sites, and fishing, which seemed to further limit future prospects especially for the young. One informant talked about how al-​Shabaab had also recruited from the area. While the security concerns were felt in the absence of tourists in a village clearly geared toward tourism, the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. However, the limited opportunities for the local population were felt. Mida Creek Marine Reserve, one of main tourist attractions in Watamu, lay almost dormant. Though it was not peak season, this was unusual. Water, coconut, and jewelry vendors practically jumped at the sight of visitors for the first time in days. A young man walked by with an empty cart of water containers. He was wearing a tattered F.C. Barcelona jersey ripped horizontally across his entire chest. The purple jersey seemed to reflect both the surrounding decline and soccer as some form of hope worth holding on to. In Watamu, most men watch the Premier League matches on weekends in local clubs such as the Twaha, with an entrance fee of 50 shillings. The club is located in a nondescript shack off the dusty main road. It would have been impossible to find without a tip from a local hairdresser and the steady flow of mainly men in their best soccer jerseys. Apart from the board noting in chalk outside, showing which teams are playing and when, there is no other visual resemblance between this venue and sports bars or pubs in, for instance, the UK where matches are shown. It is a small, dark room with a projector. The place is almost full but quiet with anticipation. They are waiting for a match between two of the most popular teams not only in Kenya but globally: Manchester United and Arsenal. The chatting is done outside the club where the atmosphere is light and inviting before the match. “Welcome to our club,” they call out. “Are you a Man U fan?” Abasi, an Arsenal fan asks. Jamal, the Twaha club manager, explains that the games are a good social activity. “Some people go do drugs but we meet here, talk about the game, and tease each other if we are not fans of the same teams. It is a positive way to be together.” So while the jerseys are worn to display fandom when watching the games, the descriptions by the informants of these events often emphasized the social benefit: “We talk about the game, the technique, the discipline, we like the brainwork of soccer,” as Willy explains. The atmosphere between fan groups at the club reflects the positive sense of belonging and unification that is more than a global marketing strategy. “Football brings us together,” as one informant said. The friendly battle over soccer details and the hospitable attitude even to nonfans give the impression of belonging to a fan culture beyond team affiliation that is locally negotiated but globally operated. The sense of being at the geographical margin of fandom does not appear to pose a conflict. As explained by Jamal when asked why Kenyans support mainly Premier League teams:  “We

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have always supported the English teams. It is part of our history.” This material represents an example of the complex interplay between local context and global content, as described by Wilk, without having to rely on distinct oppositions. The cultural ambivalence of being both close to and separate from the Premier League is not addressed directly by any informants as problematic. The informants appeared to embrace the cultural ambivalence by seamlessly shifting between foregrounding local, UK, and global affiliations depending on the topics being discussed.

Transnational fandom In terms of transnational fandom, it has previously been the assumption in some research that the authenticity of identification depended on geographic proximity. Local fans tend to consider themselves more loyal than transnational fans because they attend matches and share national heritage and identity (Millward 2011). Some of the informants attempted to move beyond the issue of fan authenticity: “The games are there, and we are here. There is no need to fight,” as one informant explained it. Others were more explicit in aiming to merge these distant localities, in this case between Kenya and the UK, at least metaphorically. As described by Caleb, 20, a university student and vendor of football shirts: “There is a sense of soccer bringing us closer to the UK. When people are going to see a game they don’t say they are going to a club. They say they are going to the Emirates (Arsenal’s stadium) or Old Trafford (Manchester United’s stadium). We feel like we are in London when we are cheering with the other fans in the stadium.” Foreign fan associations have a long history especially for English clubs such as Manchester United. An example is Malta Manchester United Supporters Club (Malta) that was established in 1959, making it the oldest of its kind (Millward 2011). The culture of global fandom has flourished with the radical expansion in broadcasting of soccer since the 1990s facilitating the growth of transnational fandom. According to the official Premier League site, 212 countries around the world broadcast EPL matches and the TV audience for Premier League games is 4.7 billion (premierleague.com, 2015). The increased access to Internet and mobile viewing options in Kenya as in many other African countries promotes mass involvement in the global culture of soccer. A survey from 2009 listed seventeen different factors for why satellite fans supported Liverpool F.C. Among these were friends or family supporting the team, a personal connection to England, liking the team’s logo design, and ability to watch the team due to media coverage. Because there are multiple levels of involvement in soccer fandom, there is not just one way of supporting a team

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authentically (Millward 2011). This backs the sense of loyalty many of the informants express as fans while also contributing to the importance of the jerseys as fashion for the informants.

Individualization For many of the informants, leisure time was very scarce. In this sense, their soccer jerseys were an important part of their limited self-​expression outside work. Long workweeks but also dress codes played into the practices of wearing soccer jerseys. As Hamidi, a 25-​year-​old pharmacy clerk, explains: “If there are not certain expectations at work for how you dress, you can dress how you like. If I did not work at this pharmacy, I would wear my Arsenal shirt. But I hardly ever wear it because I almost always am at work.” Though the dedication to a specific soccer club was foregrounded by the informants in the study, this impression tended to shift when they were asked to describe their current shirts, their previous shirts, and the ones they wished for. There was a tendency for certain clubs to be less popular than they used to be, such as Real Madrid, and other clubs becoming more popular, such as Arsenal. This indicates that the shifts in how well the clubs did and which players were popular influence the choice of jersey, suggesting that they are as much fashion as fandom if not more. The jerseys were instrumental in constructing an attractive self for all of the informants in the study. Informants frequently used adjectives such as “cool,” “happy,” and “good looking” to describe how they feel when wearing their jersey. Even informants who said they only wore their jersey to matches as a sign of true fandom showed how the jersey was part of their self-​curation. As stated by Micah: “I look so good when I wear my Arsenal kit.” The majority of the informants lit up in bright smiles and enthusiastic expressions when speaking of their favorite soccer jersey. Standing straighter and pulling at the material close to the heart suggested a corporeal manifestation of this sense of pride: “When I wear my ordinary shirt I don’t feel as good as when I wear this jersey” (Willy, 24). As part of preserving these status symbols to make them last, there was a tendency for the informants to save their newest shirt for special occasions such as matches or leisure time. They were careful not to wear out the shirt too quickly. Willy only wears his jersey once a week in addition to game days in the weekend: “I don’t want to wear it out so I am saving it. I wish I had a jersey for every day of the week.” For the informants, wearing the jersey was about personal adornment and feelings of empowerment. There was a consensus among the informants that there is a conspicuous quality to wearing the jerseys that is distinctly fashion driven. This has to do with price since even the copies are more expensive than most shirts available in Kenya. Also figuring into the distinctive potential

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Figure  8.4  “I feel so happy when I  wear my Manchester United jersey,” Willy, tuk-​tuk driver in Watamu, 2015. Source: Author’s collection.

of the jerseys was the global brand value that the shirts represented, such as Nike, Adidas, and Puma. This was enhanced discursively when the jerseys were referred to according to sponsors of the particular club: “My Dreamcast is my favorite” and “I love my Chevrolet jersey” were some of the statements. Referring to the sponsors added another brand level to the jerseys including the club and sportswear sponsor as part of a complex layering of value motoring the individual distinction strategy. As Ahmed, a taxi driver in Watamu, explains: “We like to brag about our soccer shirts. It is an asset for us. It is all about being up-​to-​date.” This alludes to the appetite for newness integral to fashion and brings the jersey further away from fandom and more clearly into the social mechanisms of fashioning identity. As a possession representing a certain value, the jersey reveals what each informant has to flaunt. Current jerseys were a luxury for the informants. Most of them had the shirt they were able to purchase rather than the shirt they really dreamt of. Presumably for this reason, the informants from especially the lower income groups did not appear comfortable sharing the status of the shirt—​original, copy, secondhand—​and they often preferred to talk about their love for the sport instead:  “I feel the passion for the game when I  wear my jersey” (Justus, 24, vendor and student). The particular status of their jersey in terms of authenticity was often described in what appeared to be an imprecise way. Jerseys that were clearly well-​worn or cheaper copies were described as being authentic and recently purchased as new. Young men interested in soccer were highly literate in deciphering the

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status of other men’s shirts not only in terms of which club and season the shirts represent but also in relation to the level of its brand authenticity and newness. This seemed to activate the social negotiation of status linked to a specific type of garment compared to the other examples in the book that were often more diffuse, such as granny chic or normcore.

Cultural ambivalence When discussing the chapter informally with expats during the fieldwork, the most frequent question was why the focus was not on the colorful prints considered more traditional or authentic to the region. This was interesting because it pointed to what seemed to be a Western narrative of Kenyan clothing as opposed to the fashionable dress practice actually taking place. When observing what people on the streets of Nairobi and Watamu wore, there was only a very limited representation of the vivid prints that many Westerners associate with “African dress” without considering regional and cultural differences on the African continent. The chapter aimed to provide an approach to trans-​global narratives in fashioning identity. The data collected proved more difficult than expected. Access to informants and observation was limited due to the political situation in Kenya at the time. A broader interview-​base and more observation at markets, on the street, and in homes were planned but difficult to realize under the conditions. But it provided material enough for exploring how the mechanism of identity claims operates within a non-​Western context. While the preceding chapters explored the tension between novelty and continuity, mainstream and opposition, young and aged, masculinity and femininity, high and low tastes, the popularity of the soccer jersey among young men in Kenya in the mid-​2010s centered on fleshing out a different form of ambivalence, described as cultural ambivalence. Soccer as a sport is culturally ambiguous, being local in practice, global in mediation, and colonial in origin. The study of the soccer jersey as a form of cultural assemblage complicated cultural classifications because these systems oversimplify complex networks of exchange and influences (Rovine 2009: 46). This was seen in the soccer jersey as a social performance of joining notions of center and margin, local and global, and transnational fandom and aspirational fashion. The jersey points to the multiple influences informing everyday dress practices in Kenya. The case represented a trans-​global narrative of fandom that doubled as a social identity marker in which material value, seasonal change, and leisure time were the main social currencies. Included in this were positive messages of outreach, empowerment, and soccer as a community unifier as well as a temporary escape from a difficult or tedious reality.

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While the jerseys represent a rupture with conventional conception of authentic Kenyan dress, however problematic this term may be as exemplified with the predominance of world dress in Kenya, they also visualize the complex interplay between local context and global content where maintaining, rather than attempting to resolve, the cultural ambivalence provided a dynamic sense of social release and status negotiations.

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9 FASHIONING ZEITGEIST It was 1984 and I  was spending Christmas with my American family in North Carolina. I was 13. My uncle Jack gave me a red and black plaid flannel shirt, and as with most things at that point in my life, it made me feel awkward. I did not know what a lumberjack shirt was and I was therefore not even able to appreciate the unintentional irony of my uncle Jack giving me that particular shirt. The shirt lacked social significance for me because no one I knew wore one and it did not reflect any events, ideals, or attitudes that I could relate to. I was not yet familiar with the lumberjack as a North American icon, grunge music had not yet hit the mainstream, the hipster was not invented in its millennial version, and the historical tartans of Scotland were not on my visual radar. In other words, the lumberjack shirt did not reflect the spirit of the times—​the Zeitgeist—​at least not for a suburban teenager in Denmark. As a visual symbol, it represented a narrative vacuum for me that made it fashion irrelevant. In short, I refused to wear it. This personal anecdote is intended to illustrate the importance of fashion narratives in the sartorial dialectic of identity. These narratives serve to link the social process of fashioning identity to a specific context, bringing the personal, social, and societal aspects together. Here the fashionable garment is seen as an “open text” (Crane 2000: 243) that is able to acquire different meanings depending on context. At the same time, garments accumulate various narratives over time turning them into wearable archives of fashion narratives that may be re-​evoked at liberty in step with the changes in Zeitgeist. The lumberjack shirt is an example of this narrative ambivalence of being simultaneously empty of and saturated with significance. While the previous chapters have touched on the bond between the social tales of identity and the current political or societal attitudes or events—​such as the celebration of senior models as granny chic reflecting the boom in the world population of those 60 years and older, or the gender-​fluidity in fashion as a response to a new wave of feminism in the 2010s—​this chapter goes deeper into understanding the influence of Zeitgeist by charting the fashion narratives of the lumberjack shirt as a textile pattern and garment type. The case is intended to show how the fundamental process of fashioning identity with its social contagion, status tactics, and fashion flows have followed recognizable internal

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patterns while the external influence from Zeitgeist have provided the shifting visual ammunition for telling a timely fashion tale. Zeitgeist ties into the theme of ambiguity of the book in merging the fantasy of fashion with the reality of politics and society. These narratives are rooted in fashion collections themselves but also in street and popular culture linking them as a genre to urban legends or contemporary legends that offer both entertainment, a sense of social cohesion, and more or less credible explanations of current events.

Fashion as a mirror Viewing fashion as reflecting context is not new. Fashion historian Valerie Steele (1998a: 20) mentions Louis XIV (1638–​1715) as an early source who is rumored to have said “fashion is the mirror of history.” Zeitgeist is included as a perspective in much writing on fashion (Laver 1946; Beaton 1954; Brenninkmeyer 1962; Blumer 1969; Entwistle 2000; Breward 2003). Psychologist Ernest Dichter argued that the relation between fashion and context is dialectic: “fashion expresses the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, and in turn can influence it” (Dichter 1986: 29). Sociologist Joanne Entwistle (2000: 63) suggests that “fashion responds to social and political changes,” and cultural historian Elizabeth Wilson (2003: 47) refers to fashion as a “cultural barometer.” Zeitgeist is seen to be materialized through dress or style but must be “read” in order to become socially meaningful. This often takes place through the media when journalists or bloggers articulate the Zeitgeist as a fashion narrative to create a bridge between fashion and consumers. While street style represents a real-​time pulse of fashion, the fashion designer holds the ability to turn this spirit of the time into fashionable attire. As argued by fashion writer Alexander Fury (2016) in Vogue, the fashion designer is “a cartographer of the contemporary” who creates a form of “map of the moment in which we live.” Through fashion, designers as well as consumers engage in a conversation with their time on topics ranging from social issues to major political events. American marketing professor Paul Nystrom (1928) was one of the first to provide a systematic view of what he perceived to be key factors in determining the Zeitgeist, which included dominating events such as wars and macroeconomic conditions, dominating ideals such as patriotism or Greek ideals after the French Revolution, and dominating social groups such as the powerful or wealthy from royalty in the past to celebrities in contemporary society. In 2005, fashion and media scholar Evelyn Brannon (2005) updated these factors by adding dominating attitudes such as rebellion or conformity and dominating technology such as the invention of the car or the Internet. These factors have been touched upon throughout the book, from the dominating attitude of casualness in sartorial understating to the leveling of the fashion hierarchy as an effect of the

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dominating technology of social media. The present account of the lumberjack shirt over a period of three centuries is intended to illustrate how meaning is ascribed and redefined in fashion narratives within a political and macroeconomic perspective revisiting themes of memory, heritage, gender, class, and resistance from previous chapters.

Low-​calorie realism An example of a fashion narrative that tackles major political issues is provided by the fashion writer Suzy Menkes (2006), who in an article in The New York Times explored the possible link between the AW 2006–​2007 collections in Paris and the political climate at the time. In the article, she references current events of the time such as the war in Afghanistan, riots in the suburbs of Paris, debate over headscarves in Europe, and the Danish Cartoon Crisis that arose when a Danish newspaper printed satirical cartoons of the prophet Mohammad creating strong reactions in Europe and in the Middle East. The collections were characterized by long and layered silhouettes in black and muted notes with a predominance of veils and hoods. Based on anonymous interviews with designers and her own observations, Menkes (2006) argued that the styles could be a symptom of a “ ‘Muslim-​ization’ of fashion” expressed through a modest and sober style for women: “In a world clearly in turmoil, cocooning clothes are a response.” In the same article, Karl Lagerfeld is quoted as saying: “If you read the daily papers, you are not in the mood for pink and green.” These narratives are persuasive and may offer perspectives to the current political situation by creating a manageable framework for engaging with these issues. However, fashion stories based on Zeitgeist have also been criticized for being constructed retrospectively. In a study of first names and cultural change, sociologist Stanley Lieberson (2000:  272)  describes the Zeitgeist approach to fashion, what he terms “reflection theory,” as a “search for substantive significance behind each new fashion.” He argues that this approach often relies on “after the fact” explanations of trends that thereby become self-​fulfilling prophecies. Fred Davis also criticizes the importance placed by, for instance, fashion writers on Zeitgeist as a tool for understanding sartorial expressions. He argues that the idea of fashion understood as “mirror-​style invocations of the Zeitgeist” (Davis 1994: 133) is far too simple considering the complex, convoluted influences and processes in both the creative expression of designers and status tactics of consumers. Particularly within the fashion industry, fashion narratives are vehicles for stimulating consumption by telling a story that fits a particular mood at a given time and place. The fashion brands and media apply narrative tools to stage runway shows and ad campaigns including fashion film to engage the consumers. This

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in turn provides hooks for fashion writers that tell distilled fashion stories to consolidate disparate styles and activate the idea of fashion as a cultural mirror. These fashion narratives may be more fiction than fact, more show that sincerity, as a form of low-​calorie realism. While fashion is a significant social and cultural expression, it is still limited when it comes to conveying complex data, for instance, regarding major political issues such as war. Fashion may provide democratic, easily legible treatments of current events that tend to turn political realities into identity politics or marketing stunts. An example of this could be the runway show staged as a faux feminist protest by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel (2014). The runway was transformed into a Parisian street setting with guard rails, and the models carrying placards and banners with slogans such as “Women’s Rights are More than Alright,” “Ladies First,” and “HeForShe,” the latter referencing the UN solidarity campaign. While the show was seen to reflect the wave of feminism at the time, it was also criticized for trying to capitalize on the political movement by “co-​opting feminism to sell costly clothes” (Topping 2014). Elizabeth Wilson has described fashion as putting style above humanity, and the Lagerfeld examples show how fashion has a tendency to aestheticize politics. Fashion narratives reflect moments in fashion, a vertical dip into the current political situation. The lumberjack shirt as a case provides a horizontal take on the role of Zeitgeist in fashioning identity to show how one fashionable garment can be a vehicle for a range of fashion stories. This ability to contain a host of narratives is not just limited to the lumberjack shirt. Revisiting the theme of time, memory, and heritage, pre-​owned clothes—​also referred to as secondhand, vintage, thrifted—​have carried with them a number of stories even just going back a few decades. Pre-​owned has gone from nihilistic in the 1990s grunge days over nostalgic longing at the turn of the millennium to conspicuous goodness in the early 2000s when pre-​owned represented support of charity shops and recession chic from 2008 when buying pre-​owned was a display of spending restraint. In the 2010s, pre-​owned has been considered inherently sustainable in the context of climate concerns as well as aesthetically unique in the symbolic struggle against mass-​production. This brief outline suggests that the shifting Zeitgeist could infuse the same secondhand sweatshirt with a collection of fashion narratives that within the specific temporal contexts were readily understood. Pre-​owned then is saturated with significance while still open to new fashion narratives. These shifting narratives of pre-​ owned clothes may reflect what Gilles Lipovetsky (1994:  132)  has described as the “permanent circulation of things and meanings.” However, as the case study will show, fashion retains symbolic traces through changing narratives. The history of the lumberjack shirt—​also referred to as buffalo plaid (or buffalo checks) or simply as a plaid or flannel shirt—​is charted to create a form of storybook of the shirt with its distinct pattern.

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This is intended to illustrate historically how these fashion stories are told as part of branding, making sense of the world, and identity construction. The focus is on the symbolic ambiguity that comes out of the tension between sartorial signs being empty vessels waiting to be filled with meaning by the brand or wearer, on the one hand, and viewing objects as having layered meanings that accumulate with each return to the fashion foreground, on the other. In the early 2010s, the pattern was very popular in both womenswear and menswear as well as in a range of other lifestyle product categories, from ski clothes and rubber boots to bedding, hats, and even cars within a mainly Western context. By the mid-​2010s, peak plaid had been reached for men, at least according to The Guardian: “In a shallow grave alongside big beards and pale ale lies the last smoldering remnants of the plaid shirt. Once a wardrobe essential, it’s now the out-​of-​touch-​stone for many a man” (Dis 2015). The story is over, at least in the current version, only to be retold at a later date within a different Zeitgeist returning after a period of what Stanley Lieberson (2000) has described a lying dormant or hibernating.

Warp and weft The lumberjack pattern is created by the intersection of two different color yarns, typically red and black. A check pattern is essentially traversing stripes repeated in both the warp and weft of the cloth. The traversing stripes are determined by the direction of the threads in the loom to form the pattern. Stripes have been known as long as humans have decorated their textiles. This method creates a pattern ranging from intricate aesthetics such as complex tartans to minimalist check patterns such as those associated with the lumberjack shirt. The lumberjack pattern is essentially a two-​color tartan, “one of the simplest of all tartans, the variant of MacGregor known as Rob Roy” (Faiers 2008:  14). Because of the relatively simple methods involved, the pattern may go as far back as the year 700. However, one of the earliest recorded semblances of the lumberjack pattern is seen in the beginning of the eighteenth century in Scotland with the tartan Campbell of Lochlane named after Sheriff Campbell of Lochlane (Scottish Tartans Authority 2014). In Scottish Art 1460–​1690, Campbell of Lochlane is portrayed in a painting from 1730, wearing clothes in the red-​and-​black checks. According to the Scottish Tartans World Register, the pattern may also be associated with the Rob Roy-​tartan named after the Scottish Highland rebel Rob Roy Macgregor (1671–​1734) before the Battle of Culloden in 1746, after which tartans were banned (Macmillan 1990). The ban on tartans can be argued to have imbued tartans as such, and perhaps the Rob Roy in particular, with an air of rebellion and pride that may explain the appeal the pattern has had for varying counter-​cultural attitudes through the second half of the twentieth century.

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Figure 9.1  Duncan MacGregor wearing the MacGregor tartan. Commissioned by Queen Victoria and painted by Kenneth Macleay RA, 1870. Source: Courtesy Scottish Tartans Authority.

The Scottish heritage and narrative is linked to the North American lumberjack shirt through more than visual similarities. According to Gregor McCluskey, founder of Braeval Sporting Apparel which sells lumberjack shirts, the pattern was brought to North America in the nineteenth century by his great uncle Big Jock McCluskey, who emigrated from Braeval of Scotland to Montana. Big Jock traded blankets and shirts in the pattern. According to the Braeval website, the origin of the name buffalo plaid comes from Native American culture: “Legend

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has it that Native Americans had never seen cloth dyed a brighter red, and believed it was made from the blood of McCluskey enemies and prey. Like many things that crossed the Atlantic, the tartan received a new name and became distinctly American. Buffalo Plaid was born” (braeval.net/​our-​american-​history 2016). This account attests to the link between tartan and the lumberjack shirt adding Native American culture and mythology of the American West to the narrative fabric of the checks. This heritage tale is evidently part of the Braeval branding strategy. The plaid pattern ran as a banner across the website during 2015 as an indication of the importance of linking the brand to the checks. However, the link may be more than a corporate branding strategy. In a feature in Tartan Herald (the newsletter of the Scottish Tartans Authority), the buffalo plaid or Rob Roy tartan is also linked to Big Jock McCluskey, who was hailed by Native Americans as an invincible warrior. “From the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne, McCluskey bartered for buffalo pelts, offering a myriad of finished goods in exchange, the most coveted among the Indians were the heavy woven Scottish blanket, their dense, hearty weave colorfully emblazoned with his clan tartan’s signature red-​and-​black colors” (tartansauthority.com 2016). McCluskey also traded with the US Army outposts and fort traders, and in that way the term was spread. Though not mentioned in the account, the fact that Braeval is located in Montana, which has a long logger heritage, also marks a connection between the pattern and logging. Another example of a corporate use of the heritage of the checks is seen with the American outdoor clothing company Woolrich. The company was founded by John Rich II, a native of England, and the first Woolrich-​owned woolen mill was established in Plum Run in 1830 by Rich and his partner, Daniel McCormick. At the time, Northern and Central Pennsylvania were experiencing a lumber boom. Rich travelled to the lumber camps with woolen fabric in a mule cart to sell to the wives of lumberjacks. One of the earliest finished clothing items produced was the Buffalo Check Shirt in 1850 at the newer mill, what became known as Woolrich in 1888. The company offers a similar narrative concerning the origin of the term: “The name Buffalo Check was inspired by a herd of buffalo owned by the designer at the company who developed the pattern. The Buffalo Check pattern became popular with the lumberjacks, railroad workers, and others who had to work outdoors for a living” (Baker and Jalowitz 2011). So successful is this pattern for the company that it is used as a part of its corporate logo. The terms buffalo plaid and buffalo checks are used presumably to foreground the authenticity of that particular brand rather than constituting a historical documentation as such. Authenticity and related terms such as origin and heritage have been foregrounded as dominating ideals in recent times and as sources of status and meaning for consumers, who are interested in the provenance of the items they buy (Pine and Gilmore 2007). The commercial potential in associating a brand with the buffalo, a potent animal deeply associated with the mythical

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imagery of the American West, seems like an obvious choice for brands looking to signal a traditional, masculine image. That there does not seem to be any evidence of an actual folkloristic link between the animal and the characteristic pattern seems less important in branding matters. Finally, the popularity of the plaid shirt may to a large degree be attributed to Pendleton, the Oregon-​based company famous for their woolen shirts (Faiers 2008:  124). The American manufacturing company founded in 1909 built its business on work wear, and the durable shirts became a pop cultural icon in the 1950s and 1960s. The importance of this particular brand is seen by the fact that The Beach Boys, the band, wore plaid Pendleton shirts as their signature look on several of their album covers; when they first got together in 1961 they even called themselves The Pendletones.

The great outdoors Looking at the themes of outdoors, working-​class emblem, gender, and sexuality, representations of media narratives about the lumberjack shirt will be referenced from the period 2003–​2011 in which the pattern peaked in popularity. The New York Times is the primary source of media chosen because of the massive global impact the paper has both in print and online. The paper’s website alone has 65.8 million unique visitors each month (Score Media Metrix Multi-​Platform Study, 2015) holding a strong position in generating and disseminating fashion narratives about the lumberjack shirt within the region that claims its origin. In late twentieth and early twenty-​first centuries, the lumberjack pattern is rarely associated with Scottish history. Rather, the checks are generally linked to the narrative of the great American and Canadian outdoors as both a mythologized form of recreation and profession. Though there may be similar storylines between the masculinity and strength of a Scottish rebel and the North American logger, not all loggers wore lumberjack shirts. The local historian James LeMonds, who has documented logger culture extensively in Deadfall:  Generations of Logging in The Pacific Northwest (2000) argues that the lumberjack shirt is a myth. LeMonds comes from a logger family and recounts that no member of his family has worn the red-​and-​black plaid shirt. Rather, twilled cotton shirts often with vertical stripes, known as hickory shirts, have been the standard for at least fifty years: “My dad is 90 and has been around logging since 1935. He said that in the first half of the twentieth century, loggers either wore hickory shirts or just wore mackinaws over their wool underwear” (e-​mail interview with James LeMonds on November 19, 2010). Exploring digital collections of visual documentation of the logger culture supports this statement. For example, the University of Washington Library’s Digital Initiatives Program shows no examples of apparel resembling a lumberjack

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shirt pattern. The archive includes 130 images from the collections of one of the most important and prolific photographers of logging activities in the Pacific Northwest, Darius Kinsey (1869–​1945), who photographed loggers between 1890 and 1939. However, the photo archives of logger culture are also deceptive in the sense that we are not able to sense whether or not they wore colorful clothes, as the images are black-​and-​white. While the pattern may not have been common in the Pacific Northwest, it was seen in other parts of the country, according to the folklorist Robert Walls, an expert on logger culture. In a series of interviews, Walls argues that loggers in the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota) and New England, prior to the 1920s and especially prior to 1900, often wore very colorful checked, striped, and otherwise patterned outerwear (sweaters and jackets) in the snow while logging, as it gave them maximum visibility—​probably an act of occupational self-​preservation more than sartorial style. “When it started snowing hard, or if you were injured and in need of assistance, or you just needed to be seen on a dangerous logging operation, the patterns and colors stood out.” Walls also suggests that various ethnic groups brought colorful winter clothing traditions with them from northern Europe, especially the Scandinavians who settled in the Upper Midwest. Tensions and the need to contrast one ethnic group from another were intense, and clothing likely became one way to distinguish among different ethnic logging camps. Walls points out that part of this practice started with Native American-​Indian loggers—​especially members of the Penobscot and Wabanaki tribes—​in northern New England in the 1700s, as much of the early logger culture was intercultural (e-​mail interview with Robert Walls on November 14, 17, and 18, 2011). While adding further perspective to the link between logger culture and Native Americans, this also suggests that logger dress practice cannot be reduced to one pattern and color scheme alone. Rather, there seems to have been regional and ethnic diversity. This challenges the stereotypical association of the lumberjack shirt with logger culture, recalling Lieberson’s critique of Zeitgeist narratives as after the fact. At the same time, it not only adds depth to the symbolic layers of that particular pattern as something associated with the strength necessary in the logger profession, but also frames the color red as a signal of courage and as a manly trait. LeMonds ascribes the rise of the red-​and-​black check pattern to the popular mythology of Paul Bunyan, originally a French Canadian legend about a giant logger who fought against the British. Legend has it that a particularly large logger, Paul Bunyon (French spelling), fought fiercely during the Lower Canada Rebellion (1837–​1838) when local French Canadians revolted against the new British rule. Through the nineteenth century, the legend of Paul Bunyan grew as US and Canadian loggers entertained themselves in logging camps by telling stories about him (Brown 1945). Though others had printed stories about Paul Bunyan earlier, such as reporter and former logger James MacGillivray, who

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Figure 9.2  Paul Bunyan Statue (Kenton Commercial Historic District), February 3, 2014. Source: Courtesy WikiCommons.

published stories about Bunyan in the Detroit News Tribune in 1910 (Dorson 1959), it was the American copywriter William Laughead who reworked the legend for an advertising campaign for The Red River Lumber Company in 1914–​ 1922 in which the Bunyan figure appeared in a red-​and-​black plaid shirt, which has become synonymous with the iconic lumberjack. The mythical strength of Paul Bunyan plays on the narrative of logger culture, which is characterized by freedom, the outdoors, hard work, rugged individualism, and masculinity. This corresponds with the description by the sociologist Norman S. Hayner (1945) of the logger in “Taming the Lumberjack,” in which the logger is described as liking the woods, the fresh air, the good mountain water, and the hard work. A similar characterization of the logger is seen in a 1938 book by the river driver Marsh Underwood (1938: 30) in The Log of a Logger, in which the world of the logger is described by “great and glorious freedom” where “he-​ men could talk to he-​men in he-​man language.” Advertising linked the myth of lumberjacks closer to the red-​and-​black checks as a key theme even in its twenty-​first-​century revival. But there are also other central themes, mainly class and sexuality, that add to the complex fashion narrative of the shirt.

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Blue collar chic The current narrative of the lumberjack echoes the early 1990s not only in regard to the symbolic longing for the woods with the implied values of honesty, naturalness, and integrity (Hochswender quoted in Davis 1994: 62) but also in relation to the lumberjack as a working-​class identity marker. The New York Times has called the lumberjack style “the fashion elite’s recent romance with blue-​collar emblems” (Baldwin 2009). The symbolic appropriation of a working-​class symbolism is described in a different article in The New  York Times as “elevating those rustic shirts to sophisticated chic” (Robert 2010). The incorporation of rural dress practice within an urban setting is not new and is seen with figures such as the Beat writer Jack Kerouac, the rock star Bruce Springsteen, and former lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain (1967–​1994), who all romanced the plaid shirt as blue collar chic. With Cobain, the shirt became a tool in an antifashion movement under the heading of grunge that emerged in the 1980s. Coming out of the Pacific Northwest with its heritage rooted in Native American, logging, and pioneering, the link between the lumberjack shirt and grunge is present. When the music genre and dress practice of grunge spread from Seattle to the rest of the world, the plaid shirt became the material expression of the grunge state of mind, accompanied by worn-​out sneakers, parkas, and jeans (Lavine 2009). Often purchased second hand, the shirt referenced the nihilistic, anticommercial message of grunge music, while the outdoors reference of the shirt also echoed the rough and rumbling expression of the sound. An example of the grunge lumberjack style is seen on fans in the opening sequence of the video for Nirvana’s hit “Smells like Teen Spirit” (1991), giving it a lasting visual presence in subsequent fashion revivals of grunge. Faiers suggests that the grunge movement in the 1980s and 1990s appropriated the plaid shirt as an emblem of the working class as a reaction to the yuppie movement. For Faiers (2008:  124), it was “an antidote to the prevailing strait-​laced, clean-​cut images.” However, the revolt did not seem to move beyond the surface of the fabric, because the lumberjack shirt was adopted by the “disaffected offspring of wealthy middle-​class parents rather than the genuinely dispossessed” (Faiers 2008: 124). Others have argued similarly that the grunge rockers turned “lumberjack plaids into the insignia of yuppie revolt” (La Ferla 2003). Here the connection between fabric and significance seems to be based on a cultural convention and semiotic mash-​up rather than being rooted in an actual desire among consumers for a more rural or working-​class lifestyle. In the case of the “romance with blue collar emblems” the accuracy of the historical origin appears less essential than the symbolic potential they hold for social distinction. Since 2000, the lumberjack shirt was adopted by the offsprings of the yuppies in the shape of “urban hipsters,” again highlighting the narrative over the actual

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Figure 9.3  Gender bending in a black-​and-​white version of the lumberjack shirt, 2016. Source: Courtesy Frank Cerri.

demographic or class categorization. Rural, working-​class identity markers are often appropriated by the urban highbrow, in this case described as “the lumberjacks you see browsing the aisles at Barneys New York” (Trebay 2011). This has been referred to as “workwear couture” worn by the “urban hipster lumberjack,” noting that “it seems a little ironic that slender urban saplings are dressing like Paul Bunyan and the Marlboro Man” (Kuntz 2009). The lumberjack as a fashion narrative is deeply layered through history by echoing elements of Scottish heroism and he-​man logger culture. However, the links to the Zeitgeist proposed through media representation seem more like sartorial gestures than political stances or life choices. Fashion reporter Bill

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Cunningham (2010) captures this when referring to lumberjack looks and traditional Paul Bunyan checks as having only a “distant and romantic connection to the forest.” The case links to themes of back to nature and anticonsumption movements which resonate with growing concerns over climate changes and the search for greener alternatives in fashion. Even if only on a symbolic level, the hipster with his full beard, lumberjack shirt, and grandfatherly demeanor proposes a vision of slower life more connected to nature. The fashion story celebrates hard work, conscientiousness over convenience, and a back to basics lifestyle, but less as an invitation to action than a distinction strategy with harmony and community as the social currency.

Gender and sexuality Because of its association with conventional masculinity as strong, physical, and hardworking, the lumberjack shirt has been an obvious site for inverting both gender identity and sexuality norms. On the level of satire, the “The Lumberjack Song” (1969) performed in Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a classic example of how the shirt plays a role in breaking with stereotypical notions of gender. While the relationship between North America and the UK might also be a perspective in the sketch, what is interesting in this context is the play on gender identity through the lumberjack persona. The sketch features Michael Palin as the hardworking, freedom loving North American emblem of masculinity in a red-​and-​black checked shirt. The song opens with Michael Palin singing: “I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay/​ I sleep all night and I work all day.” However, as the song progresses, the impression of conventional masculinity is gradually dismantled as it is revealed that the lumberjack is a cross-​dresser: “I cut down trees, I wear high heels/​suspenders and a bra/​I wish I’d been a girlie/​Just like my dear papa.” The long-​running TV series The Simpsons offers a different satirical take on the role of the lumberjack shirt in relation to gender stereotypes. In season 13, episode 5 of The Simpsons entitled “The Blunder Years” (2001), Marge Simpson, the character of the housewife, accidentally buys Burly paper towels—​a take on the brand Brawny—​and falls in love with the image of the Burly Man. Dressed in a red plaid shirt as the embodiment of North American perceptions of masculinity, he says: “Hello, I’m Chad Sexington, the lumberjack from Burley paper towels.” This clichéd representation of gender categories is exaggerated for humorous effect when Marge says: “Burly you’re insatiable” and “Burly, you’re so rugged and manly.” The lumberjack shirt is also specifically foregrounded as a material expression of this masculine image:  “Look at those massive plaid shoulders.” What might be satirized here is the notion that the castrated male in the form of Homer Simpson is being overtaken by the figure of Burly Man. How seriously one should take this apparent act of attempted re-​masculinization is doubtful,

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but the example illustrates how the lumberjack as the stereotypical embodiment of rugged, North American manliness opens up to reconfiguring gender roles and categories. As synonymous with hardworking, straight masculinity, the lumberjack shirt also holds potential for negotiating perceptions of sexuality. Homosexual gay male American culture has used the plaid shirt by pushing the male stereotype to the limits, creating a subversive effect in defining macho-​gay identity. An example of this is the 1970s concept disco band Village People, which originally targeted a gay audience. Part of the band members’ onstage performance was dressing up as straight North American male stereotypes such as the policeman and the construction worker. One of these gay fantasy stereotypes is the cowboy, embodied by singer Randy Jones, who performed in Western wear including a red-​and-​ black lumberjack shirt. The example shows how the apparently paradoxical practice of a gay band member incorporating the image of straight males serves as a subversive motion intended to empower gay identity. By adopting the markers of straight sexual identity, Village People moved themselves from the margin to the center, disturbing the visual construction of sexuality in the process. An example mirroring that of Village People is the role of the flannel shirt as both an identity marker and cliché among certain groups in the American lesbian community. The gender and sexuality threads of the lumberjack shirt add more layers to the fabric of the narrative. The shirt lends itself to the subversive efforts of both male and female homosexuals, to hypermasculine markers expressed by males in both rural and urban settings, and also plays into the theme of “gender fluidity.” But the shirt may also be used in a display of power cross-​dressing where dressing mannishly—​for instance in a lumberjack shirt—​may have the effect of emphasizing femininity for those women who can pull it off. This points to hyper-​ femininity as a social currency seen in popular culture, from the 1980s pinup babe Catherine Bach who played Daisy Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard to Lady Gaga in the 2010s.

Is there a “right” zeitgeist? While I never wore the lumberjack shirt from my uncle, I ended up buying one myself a decade later when I was a student at university. At the time, it reflected the androgynous, slacker attitude of the early 1990s. Or at least that is how I  remember it providing a personal after-​the-​fact Zeitgeist narrative. My Uncle Jack still wears his plaid lumberjack shirt just as he did in 1984, showing that fashion responds to shifting moods of the time while clothing has a tendency to remain more visually stable. The fashion media—​including bloggers—​is a key driver in extracting meaning from the runways and street style alike, turning them into fashion narratives

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that are firmly rooted in a specific account of the current Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist, as considered through the lumberjack shirt, works as the site for fabricating narratives intended to create societal cohesion and to socially negotiate identity—​and perhaps also for the purpose of increasing magazine circulation and garment sales. The understanding here is that fashionable objects do not hold an inherent meaning but layers of social and cultural significance inscribed over time and continuously renegotiated within shifting settings. This narrative ambiguity retains previous narratives as a potential while being open to new stories. While not a simple reflection of the attitudes, ideals, and events of an age, the collected stories of the lumberjack shirt and fabric presented here took the shape of a prism through which a multitude of narratives were refracted. This suggests that fashion tales are often partial to tunnel vision, focusing on a single storyline and sometimes missing the bigger picture. The selective memory in these stories reflects the agenda of fashioning identity over political activism. Fashion narratives represent a vehicle for personal and cultural identity, linking them closely to memory and heritage. From this perspective, current affairs are a sounding board for fashion inspiration but also another type of narrative, as seen in literature, that contributes to reducing the complexity of reality into a sequential form that thereby may become easier to understand or deal with. Social cohesion as a positive side effect comes, as opposed to folktales, with a sell-​by date set by the media, the fashion industry, and the social saturation integral to status claims. While this lessens the impact on an emotional level, the condition opens the way for a continuous stream of fashion narratives that may not be correct in a journalistic sense but still right because they serve a social and economic function at a particular time and place.

AFTERWORD

I remember a holiday on the island of Martha’s Vineyard a few years ago where my extended American family had gathered for a summer reunion. One morning, everyone was getting ready to go to the beach. I was wearing a blue vintage dress that I had just bought a couple of days before in the East Village of New York City. I was feeling quite chic when my aunt Leigh asked me: “Do you need to change before we leave or are you wearing your bathrobe to the beach?” In this specific context, my vintage dress was off. It was read as an outfit to be worn lounging around the house in the morning. It became a family joke, but thinking back, the fashion narrative represents an example of clashing social currencies. For me, the bright blue dress with balloon sleeves and vintage vibe set me apart from the American casual of jeans and T-​shirts that my family had dressed in since I  could remember. Even in this familiar, holiday setting I  was engaged in fashioning identity without even giving it much thought. My aunt’s misreading of the codes corresponds well with the theme of status ambivalence in the book. This spectacle of identity is not necessarily an existential or even an emotional issue. Rather, as Davis describes, these “status ploys” are intended to communicate messages of distinction and belonging on a symbolic level. This sartorial dialectic of identity is not new in fashion studies, but the leveling and speed of the fashion industry in part due to fast fashion and digital mediation have prompted new strategies of social distinction inviting this reconsideration of the topic. Fashioning identity has historically revolved around key theme of gender, age, culture, social status, and class. Because this process increasingly involved trading on ambivalence, these parameters became sites of generating elusive status claims for the purpose of creating, and more importantly maintaining, distinction within the new speed of fashion. In the case of my vintage dress, it was ambiguously both old and new, bathrobe and dress, fashion and function. This echoes themes in the book regarding not only of vintage as discontinued chic, but also related themes of style revivals, memory, and fashion laziness. The casual American style, exemplified here by my family, hit the fashion big time in the 2010s as a paradoxical instance of fashion avant-​garde in the guise of normcore. This was treated as a display of understatement according to which the deliberate act of looking

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ordinary—​conceptualized as sartorial shrugging—​held a potential for distinction because the symbolic content was difficult to decipher and therefore also difficult to emulate. Returning to Copenhagen, the dress was potentially less susceptible to misreading because I was in my natural fashion element again. Here the dress could be understood as a display of inconspicuous consumption as it had been inexpensive or granny chic because of the imagined past as a garment previous owned by an older woman. These understated social codes that serve to intentionally mislead some and appeal to others rely on a shared fashion literacy that are, as the example of the dress outlines, highly dependent on context. In this sense, fashion provides visual metaphors for the construction of a social identity that trades on tensions that are never intended to be resolved. Within the context of fashioning identity, walking out the door is showtime. It is the culmination of a series of moments from the design of the garment to the purchase and final assemblage on that very day that creates the personal, sartorial now. The book has attempted to demonstrate that the basic mechanism of distinction and imitation is still in operation in the twenty-​first century, but what constitutes good fashion timing has been considerably complicated enhancing the role of ambivalence. Status ambivalence fundamental to fashion thrives on difference to achieve the effect of distinction. This has often involved hyping things that have previously been considered strange, excessive, or unattractive. The fashion philosophy is that the more resistance this overturning of taste creates, the more effective the distinction and the slower the process of social mimicking. Where access, economic limitations, or cultural and social restrictions have traditionally been key in maintaining the fashion cycle and thereby ensuring a time lag in the adoption of the new, there the current conditions of fashion production and consumption—​such as seasonless cycles and the collective value of individualism in much of the Western world—​have opened up new social strategies for creating and maintaining distinction. These strategies include the use of a logic of wrong as a subversive means of celebrating what may be perceived as wrong but doing so in a way that it is perceived as right within a specific social or cultural context. This was exemplified in the strategic mistakes of being fashionably off, such as looking intentionally aged by dyeing your hair grey, looking poor in an expensive way, as in the example of homeless chic, embracing the deliberately inauthentic in copy chic, or inverting the dogma of speed in fashion through the radical permanence of a tattoo. While the logic of wrong was considered to be loud overstatements, the basic mechanism was similar when considering the quieter understatements of sartorial shrugging. The predictions of identity displays being operated by “extreme individualism” (Wilson 2003:  154)  appeared not to be the case when considering muted fashion expressions. This outlined the prospects of signification

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exhaustion as suggested in the celebration of the ordinary or bland such as normcore or extreme casualness. Sartorial underplaying was analyzed in relation to gender through the affected modesty of dressing nun-​like. The suggestion was that the creative act of assemblage provides distinctive potential that may be more effective than the more obvious display of luxury brands. While the latter demands money, the former requires fashion skills to both put together and decipher. In this sense, discreet assemblages are more difficult to follow and therefore efficient in the game of status claims. This was continued in the concept of biological capital—​in the case of the raw beauty of a makeup-​free face and letting the beard grow wild—​considered as the act of doing nothing as a form of staged indifference. This theme introduced corporeal displays as part of fashioning identity. Common for these examples was the role of difference as a condition for the sartorial dialectic of identity to succeed. Inverting traditional parameters of status requires that the oppositional structures exist in order to have the effect of contrast. This implies that there are positive political and societal implications in these status ploys such as challenging age, gender, and sexual stereotypes; but at the same time this presupposes that the fundamental mechanism of strategic ambivalence is intact. Being of dubious taste and visually outstaying its welcome, leopard print was the vehicle in exploring alternative ways of describing fashion change as more evolutionary than episodic, more gradual than radical. The rhizome represented an open structure that is relational and formative rather than oppositional and finite. This approach offered the opportunity to conceptualize trends in a way that contains rather than eliminates ambiguity and pluralism. In this sense, the trend does not end with the arrival of the latest new thing but prolongs and cultivates itself through mutations and variations. Implied in the analysis of leopard print was the prospect of fashioning identity beyond saturation, potentially bringing the status competition to a halt. However, the ambivalence management in leopard print lay in the paradoxical perseverance of the trend that was socially translated into the display of simulated monotony where the subversive display of difference lay in the apparent sameness. The final chapters expanded the focus to include the subcultural ambivalence materialized in the heavy metal band T-​shirts that were used to negotiate tensions between fashion and subculture through themes of fan dedication and commercial mass niche. Metal as a subculture has outgrown its label as youth protest to include a multigenerational, often well-​educated fan base that still uses hyperbole to make a loud statement acoustically and visually while also adding friendliness, irony, and fashion in the mix. Engaging in the fashion play has historically been reserved for those privileged with the time, access, and resources to do so. The self-​indulgent and elusive displays of ambivalence discussed in this book are also a symptom of

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superfluity. It takes resources to engage in the complex strategic mistakes and underplayed identity tricks. Considering the theme of status competition within a non-​Western context highlighted this perspective while also bringing attention to how a trans-​global narrative, such as the soccer jersey, is activated locally in fashioning identity. The study of the soccer jersey among young men in Kenya suggested daydreaming, cultural ambivalence, and social aspirations as key themes. Wearing a soccer jersey involved negotiating social identity with peers and cultural bargaining within a larger context of difficult life circumstances. Both an emblem of desire and dissolution, the global community of soccer and its positive message of unity provided a constructive premise while the material emblems seemed to perpetuate a sense of social and cultural divide, being often out of reach at least in their most authentic versions. The book ends as it began, by considering the role of fashion narratives conceptualized here through the notion of Zeitgeist. By charting the shifting style stories linked to the lumberjack shirt—​as a textile pattern and garment type—​ the themes of personal, social, and societal agendas in fashioning identity were brought together. Considering how context informs the construction of social identity through fashion was considered to be a form of low-​calorie realism with a stronger social, than political, agenda. The desire for prettification and transformation is still strong in the twenty-​first century, but it has taken on new visual dispositions pretending to resolve while in fact dramatizing the tension of fashion by violating the standards of beauty in terms of age, gender, or the dogma of novelty. Fashioning identity is still about dressing the part and the politics of appearance with sartorial signs that are essentially up for grabs for those fashionably inclined, which necessarily includes the individual circumstances, opportunity to engage in fashion, personal taste, and cultural background. But the process has become more elusive, at least for some involving both subtler and more extreme symbolic displays of identity. Grant McCracken (2008: 231) humorously summed up the tendency for fashion research to constitute “the whipping child of the nervous intellectual.” I hope this book has demonstrated how fashion should be taken seriously. We are what we wear, but only some of the time and not literally. Fashioning identity is taken in symbolic stride as a serious and fun game of communication with social, creative, cultural, and economic implications.

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177

INDEX

Note: Locators of figures in bold #nomakeupselfie 75 Acne underpants 73 Advanced Style 39 affected ageing 40 affected modesty 17, 69, 157 affected naturalness 76–7 “Africaine” dress 86 “Afropolitan movement” 125 age ambiguity 40–1 corporeal patina 34–5 “identity” 34 logic of wrong 35–6 negative stereotypes of 33–4 perceptions of chronological 33 performative 33–4 symbolic 33 and subcultures 112–15 taxonomy of 33–4 “age identity” 34 “Agender Project” 71 Agins, Teri 67 Agovino, Michael 127 Alegi, Peter 123 Alternative Femininities: Body, Age and Identity (2004) 34 ambivalence 4, 6 age 40–1 between body-​positive attitudes and sexual objectification 1–2 “contemporary” 1–2 cultural 17, 119, 122, 124, 126, 135, 138–9 of fashioning identity 12, 14

of lagging 66 “management” 4, 14, 16, 103, 157 of sluggishness 78 of status 78 strategic 16, 30, 35, 43 subculture 17 “ambivalence management” 4, 14, 16, 103, 157 ambivalent original 47 Anderson, Kristin 70 Andrews, Katelyn N. 48 androgyny 25, 70, 71 “Anti-​Fashion Manifesto” 102 “anticomanie” 24 anticonsumerism 63 antifashion 54–5, 61, 101–2, 150 Apfel, Iris 16, 31–6, 40 Appadurai, Arjun 88 Armani 127 Armstrong, Gary 72, 92, 123 Armstrong, Lisa 72, 92, 123 Arnett, Jeffrey 108 Arnold, Rebekka 36, 67, 68 Arsenal 127, 128, 132–6 Aslet, Clive 63 athleisure 68, 81 Atkinson, J. 126 AW 2006 90, 142 AW 2007 142 AW 2010 41 AW 2012 41 AW 2016 69 Baagø, Tania 113 Baines, Barbara Burman 24, 25 Baker, Megan E. 146

178

178

Baldwin, Rosecrans 150 Balmain jeans 63 Balmain x H&M capsule collection, launch of 10, 13 Barnard, Malcolm 98 Barnett, Jonathan 47 Batey, Angus 99 Baudrillard, Jean 22, 28 Beach Boys, The 147 beard, full 3, 15, 17, 59, 62, 65, 73, 77–​81, 107, 110, 157 study in Denmark 77–8 Beaton, Cecil 141 beauty, in fashion 36 Beckham, David 118, 127 Bell-​Price, Shannon 85 Bengtsson, Anders 43 Benjamin, Walter 25 Bennett, Andy 102–3, 112 Bernstein, Sara Tatyana 66 Bertelli, Patricio 47 Betts, Kate 7 “Big Four” 132 Bilmes, Alex 79 biological capital 62 full beard 3, 15, 17, 59, 62, 65, 73, 77–​81, 107, 110, 157 raw beauty 17, 59, 62, 74–8, 83, 157 Black Sabbath 96, 104–5 Black, The History of a Color (2009) 99–100 black, color 99–100 Blanks, Tim 72 bloggers Ari Seth Cohen 39 Jennifer Broom 37–9 Petra Guglielmetti 39 blogs Advanced Style 39 “Fakes are Never in Fashion” 57 Venturess 37–9 Blumer, Herbert 5, 141 body-​positive attitudes, and sexual ­ body-​positive movement 72, 76 bodysuit 1 Boman, Eric 31 Bonaparte, Napoleon 24 Bordo, Susan 37

index

Bourdieu, Pierre 53 Bowie, David 25 Bowles, Hamish 22, 72 Braeval Sporting Apparel 145 brand partnerships 13 Brannon, Evelyn 81, 141 Breakfast at Tiffany’s 11 Brenninkmeyer, Ingrid 141 Breward, Christopher 141 bricolage 79, 107, 126 Briggs, Adam 35 Bronies 100–1 Broom, Jennifer 37–9 Brother Sharp 42 Brown, Andy 87, 100–1, 106, 108, 109, 148 Brown, Charles E. 87, 100–1, 106, 108, 109 Bueno, Antoinette 1 buffalo check 146 Buffalo Check Shirt 146 buffalo plaid 145–6 Burberry 22 Business Insider 2 CAF, see Confederation of African ­Football (CAF) “calculated underdressing” 67 Calefato, Patrizia 103 Campbell, Colin 99, 144 cardigans 25 Cartner-​Morley, Jess 1 Céline 31 Chanel 13–14, 40, 44, 53 Chanel, Coco 53, 61, 74, 100 changes in fashion 80 traditional perception of 82 Charalambous, Sophia 87 Chelsea 129, 131, 132 “Chinatown Collection” 55–6 “Chinatown tote” 46, 54–7 names of 55 versions of 55–7 Clark, Dylan 87, 102 Clark, Hazel 87, 102 Clay, Felix 87, 102 Cobain, Kurt 150 Cochrane, Lauren 36, 66–7, 69 Cocozza, Paula 99

179

179

Index

Cohen, Aaron 39 Cohen, Albert K. 102 Cohen, Ari Seth 39 Cole, Lily 37 Cole, Thomas 33, 40, 41 collaborations 13 “collective selection” 5 “comfort fashion” 66–74, 78, 98 “commonplace copying” 45 Confederation of African Football (CAF) 123 conspicuous goodness 143 conspicuous permanence 17, 79 “conspicuous poverty” 41–3, 61, 83 “contemporary seductiveness” 69 as ambivalent play for attention 69–70 coolhunter 67 copy chic 16, 57–8, 130, 156 copying, in fashion ambivalent acceptance of 47 intellectual property law 45, 47–8 “sartorial dialectic of status, the” 47 copyright law 45–6, 48, 50–2 in Europe 47–8, 52 registration of designs 50–2 “substantial taking”-​criterion of ­ copyright protection of fashion, as ­controversial issue 45–7 corset 9, 69 Cosgrave, Bronwyn 19 Coulson, Clare 80 Courrèges, André 11 Craik, Jennifer 69 Crane, Diana 140 cross-​dressing 153 crossovers 13 cross-​wardrobe exchanges 71 cultural ambivalence 17, 119, 122, 124, 126, 135, 138–9 cultural exchange 124–5 culture, defined 119 Cunningham, Bill 152 Da Cruz, Elyssa 85 dandyism 61 Darby, Paul 132 Davis, Fred 2–7, 20, 22, 30–2, 35–6, 40, 43, 47, 55, 59–61

Day, Corinne 67 Décor 26 Deleuze, Gilles 84–​5, 93, designs, registration of 50–2 Destroy -​T-​shirt 98 Diamond, Jay 36 Dichter, Ernest 141 Didion, Joan 31 Diesel campaign 60 “differentiation” 53 Dior, Christian 4, 9, 22, 40, 44, 53–4, 62, 76, 86, 92, 106 licensing deals 9–10 praise of simplicity 62 discarded chic 81 discontinued chic 16, 22–3, 27, 120, 155 diversity, in fashion age 35, 37 Dolce & Gabbana 127 Doonan, Simon 66 Dormer, Peter 41 Dorson, Richard 149 Duggan, Leeann 42 Duncan, Fiona 65–6, 145 Dunham, Lena 72 Easby, Amber 98 Eckler, Daniel 98 economic recession 29, 63, 143 Economist, The 80 Ehn, Billy 118 Eicher, Joanne B. 64, 119, 125 Eisenman, Leatrice 99 Elle 63, 90 Empire, Kitty 25, 95 English Premier League 118, 124, 132 Entwistle, Joanne 37, 69, 141 Erichsen, Freja Beha 44 Etsy 29 Evans, Caroline 63, 100–2 Evans, Jules 63 Ewens, Hannah Rose 71 “existing stock” 25–6 extreme casualness 17, 59, 72, 75, 110, 157 Facebook 100–1, 113 Faiers, Jonathan 144, 147, 150

180

180

“Fakes are Never in Fashion” 57 Farrell, Aimee 65 fashion change 6 fashion cycles 3, 8, 12–13, 34, 101, 156 fashion designer André Courrèges 11 Christian Dior 4, 53 Jean Paul Gaultier 40 Kate Spade 50 Marc Jacobs 49, 50 Mary Quant 11 Vivienne Westwood 41 fashion flows John F Kennedy’s sartorial choices 7 horizontal 9–12 scattered 12–14, 27 upward 12 vertical 8–9, 30 fashion houses Chanel 13–14, 40, 44, 53 Dior 4, 40 Gucci 54 Hermés 54 Louis Vuitton 13–14, 49, 50, 54, 57, 72, 91, 92, 124, 130 Prada 47, 54, 91 Resteröd 41 Uniqlo 63 fashion inspiration, upward flow of 54–5 fashion literacy 5, 39, 60, 60, 64, 67, 79, 156 fashion media 3, 62–9, 74, 89–90, 129, 141–2, 153–4 fashion models Andreja Pejic 71 Bettie Page 85–6, 94 Freja Beha Erichsen 44 Gemma Ward 37 Iris Apfel 31–6, 40 Kate Moss 44 Lily Cole 37 Mimi Weddell 37 Veruschka 35 fashion narratives 25, 28, 64, 79, 120, 143–4, 147, 149, 151, 153–4 “fashion nun” 69–70 “fashion pyramid” 49–50, 58 fashion system 3, 15, 21, 27, 52, 54, 66, 77, 82, 93, 101, 103, 131

index

Fashion, Culture, and Identity (1992) 5 fashioning identity 1–2 meaning 4–7, 14–15 “fast fashion” 48–9 Faux, David 48 fedora 2 feminism 1, 70, 140, 143 Field, George A.12 FIFA 123, 132–3, 134 Financial Times 90 Fisher, Alice 72 “Flawless” 59 “flocking” 53 Flügel, John C. 69 Fox, Imogen 88, 90 Freeman, Hadley 1, 80, 87 Friedman, Vanessa 2 Fury, Alexander 141 Garber, Jenny 103 garments Balmain jeans 63 bodysuit 1 Burberry 22 cardigans 25 Givenchy dress 11 hot pants 25 jumpsuits 25 jeans 12 leotards 1 lumberjacks, see as main heading Nothing dress 11, 62, 64, 77, 110 Sack –​dress 11, 69 soccer jerseys, see as main heading togas 24 tunics 24 Gaultier, Jean Paul 40 Gaynor, Violet Moon 90 gender coding of colors, pink 71–2 gender fluidity 15, 59–60, 69, 72–3 geriatric chic see granny chic Ghumare, Nachiket 41 Giang, Vivian 2 Gibson, Owen 67, 132 Gibson, William 67 Gill, Alison 42 Girls 72 Giulianotti, Richard 123 Givenchy dress 11

181

181

Index

“global hegemony and local ­appropriation” 119–20 “gloss of age” 28 Goddard, Alice 66 Goodyear, Dana 19 goth 100, 106, 115 GQ magazine 1 granny chic 31, 34 symbolic tool for young women 37 “Granny Chic: Old Ladyish Beauty Products That’ll Make You Totally Hot” 39 granny hair 40 Greek dress, 24 Greenblatt, Alan 43 Grinberg, Emanuella 124 Gross, Michael 37 grunge 12, 28, 57, 70, 90, 106, 140, 143, 150 Guardian, The 1, 80, 90, 127, 144 Guattari, Felix 81, 84–5, 88, 92, 93, Gucci 54, 88, 89, 92 Guglielmetti, Petra 39 Gullette, Margaret Morganroth 34 Gvasalia, Demna 36 H&M 10, 12–​13, 61, 68, 91, 105, 108, 111–12, 127 collaboration with Slayer 111 Hansen, Karen Tranberg 122, 124, 125, 128, 129 Harper’s Bazaar 57, 63, 90 Hayner, Norman S. 149 Health Goths 100 Hebdige, Dick 97, 99, 100, 103, “HeForShe” 70, 143 Hemphill, Scott 48, 53 Hendriksz, Vivian 102 Hepburn, Audrey 11 Hermés 54 Hess, Aaron 84 high low capsule collections 13–14 high-​high projects 13 hippie movement 12, 28, 64, 70, 106, 107 hippies 12, 28, 106, 107 “hipster” 103, 109, 125, 140, 150–2 Hodkinson, Paul 102–3, 112, Hognestad, Hans 123, 133

homeless chic 41–3, 58–9, 63, 83, 120, 156 homosexuals 153 Horyn, Cathy 90 Hot and Cool 66 hot pants 25 hyperfemininity 153 Ibrahimovic, Zlatan 127 “identity ambivalence” 2 “identity bootlegging” 111 inconspicuous consumption 16, 62–4 inconspicuous ostentation, status as 12 “incremental replacement mechanism” 88 “induced obsolescence” 51–3 Instagram 1, 40, 41, 59, 62, 63, 75–6, 83, 101 instant fashion 22 intellectual property law (IPR) 45, 47–8 intentional anachronisms 30 intentional inauthenticity 130 “intoxication with change, the” 53 inversion of status symbols 19–21 social class 41–3, 58 staged ageing 40 of youth 31–2, 40 IPR, see intellectual property law (IPR) Iris (2015) 31, 35 Iron Maiden 96, 104–5 Jack Spade 54–6 Jacobs, Marc 31, 49, 50, 72, 75, 92 copy chic 57–8 Jagger, Bianca 25 Jalowitz, Alan 146 Jameson, Fredric 22 jeans 12, 63–4, 67, 71, 79, 106, 125, 150, 155 Jenß, Heike 19 Jones, Liz 35 Jothianandan, Shakthi 51 Judas Priest 96, 104 jumpsuits 25 K-​Hole 65, 67, 93 Kahn, Mattie 127 Kaiman, Jonathan 99 Kaiser, Susan B. 5, 66 Kang, Jenny 90

182

182

Kardashian, Kim 1–2 Karl Lagerfeld x Louis Vuitton 13–14 Kate Spade 50, 56–7 Katz, Stephen 33 Kawakubo, Rei 42 Kelly, Kim 97, 111 Kennedy, Jackie 11, 87 Nothing Dress 62 Kennedy, John F. ambivalence toward hats 2, 3, 4 Kenya passion for soccer 120–2 soccer jerseys, see as main heading Kenzo 89, 92 King, Charles W. 9 Kjeldgaard, Dannie 43 Klein, Naomi 67, 74 Knowles, Beyoncé 1–2 “Flawless” 59 GQ magazine 1 Super Bowl 2016 1 Koda, Harold 24, 25 König, Rene 82 Kristobak, Ryan 97 Kroeber, Alfred 112 Krulwich, Robert 2 La Ferla, Ruth 150 labyrinth, fashion 25, 27, 34–5, 67 Lang, Helmut 67 Laver, James 8, 23–4, 35, 69, 87, 120, 141 Laverne, Lauren 87 Lavine, Michael 150 Laz, Cheryl 33–4, 39, 41 lazy chic 77–8, 110 Leach, Alec 68 leggings 68 Lehmann, Ulrich 24 LeMonds, James 147–8 leopard print 81 and Africa 86–7 alignment of high-​end and high street 90–1 as dissolving “good–​bad axis” 87 evolutionary change 87–90, 94 history of 85–6 offshoots 92 persistence of trend 88–90

index

as rhizome 84–5, 93–4 scattered flow of adoption 93 as simulated monotony 85 stylized blandness 93 tactic of mainstream individualism 93 leotard 1–2 lesbian 153 Levy, Madelaine 63 LGBT 70, 153 licensing practice of designers 9–10 Lions, Bernard 127–8 Lipovetsky, Gilles 4, 14, 19, 53, 60, 65, 80, 131, 143 “Little Nothing-​dress, The” 11 Löfgren,Orvar 118 Loos, Adolf Loschek, Ingrid 14 Loughran, Kristyne 85–6 Louis Vuitton 13–14, 49, 50, 54, 57, 72, 91, 92, 124, 130 Louis Vuitton Street GM 57 low-​calorie realism 17, 142–3, 158 lumberjack shirt 143–4 as blue collar chic 150–2 buffalo check 146 buffalo plaid 145–6 and gender 152–3 and grunge 150 and the outdoors 147–9 pattern 144–6 Scottish heritage 144–6 and sexuality 152–3 and tartan 145–6 “Lumberjack Song, The” 152 MAC 31 Macmillan, Duncan 144 Maffesoli, Michel 102 Maglaty, Jeanne 71 “mainstream minimalism” 65 makeup 4, 73 eschewing 17, 59, 62, 74–8, 83, 157 Manchester United 118, 119, 122, 129, 131, 132 “manscaping” 79 Marble Gunners Tournament 133 Margiela, Maison Martin 42 mass-​niches, rise of 111–12 “master statuses” 6, 30

183

183

Index

maxi dress 25 maximalism, and minimalism 74 May, Theresa 80 McCracken, Grant 158 McRobbie, Angela 103 Mears, Ashley 37 megatrend 81 Menkes, Suzy 21, 82 Messi, Lionel 92, 94, 120, 127, 128 metal culture 96 appropriation of subcultural capital into mass–​fashion 111–12 black 99–100 copenhellsters versus ­10 demographics 115 and digital commerce and ­ fan base 97 humor 115–16 inverted snobbery 115–16 merchandising 104–5, 109 multigenerational 112–15 “poseurs” 108 symbolic nature of resistance  in 97 visual culture 106–7 see also T-​ shirt midlife 34 Miller, Daniel 73, 102, 125 Miller, Walter 73, 102 Millward, Peter 135–6 minimalism, and maximalism 74 Mirza, Aisha 1 Mistry, Meenal 85, 89 Mitchell, Joni 31 Monty Python’s Flying Circus 152 Moss, Hilary 87 Moss, Kate 13, 44 Mower, Sarah 67 Muggleton, David 100, 102 Mullins, Paul 65 Murray, Scott 127 Murrow, Lauren 87, 90 music and fashion 103 metal culture, see as main heading and plaid shirt 150

“‘Muslim-​ization’ of fashion” 142 MYSA Mathare Youth Sports ­ Nelson, Karen 90 Neustatter, Angela 90 New York Magazine 57 New York Times, The 90, 142, 147, 150 Newbold, Alice 87 Nissen, Jeppe 107, 109 Niven, Lisa 76 No Logo (2000) 67 non-​gendered dressing 71 normcore 17, 65–70, 75, 84, 93, 103, 138, 155, 157 Not That Kind of Girl (2015) 72 Nothing dress 11, 62, 64, 77, 110 novelty 4, 19, 27, 29–30, 40, 47, 81, 88–​90, 126, 131 ambiguous redefinition of 22–3 Nystrom, Paul 141 Obama, Barack ambivalence toward ties 2 obsolescence, logic of 51–3 “Occupy Wall Street” movement 99 Old World Weavers 31 Oliver, Henry98 Ombok, Erik 133 online marketplace 29 Packard, V. 53 Page, Bettie 85–6, 94 Palmer, Alexandra 53 past and present, as mutually ­4 Pastoureau, Michel 99, 100 patina 28 Pattern Recognition (2003) 67 peasant looks 25 Pejic, Andreja 71 Pendleton 147 performance art, fashion as 1–2 Phelan, Hayley 13 Pieri, Kerry 25 Pine, Joseph B. 40, 146 pink, gender coding of colors 71–2 “pinkification” of girlhood 71–2 “piracy paradox” 48–9, 51–2

184

184

piracy, defined 45 planned obsolescence 51–3 Polhemus, Ted 14, 19, 27, 98 Pope, C. Clive 129 Porter, Charlie 90 Postrel, Virginia 63 Prada 47, 54, 91 Prada, Miuccia 36 Preet, Kamal 48 pre-​owned 19, 27–8, 143 punk 12, 15, 28, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 106 Quant, Mary 11, 62 Rabine, Leslie W. 129 “radical banality” 65 radical permanence, tattoos as display of 43–4, 79 Rae, John 82 “Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection” 31 Raustiala, Kal 48–9, 51–2 raw beauty 17, 59, 62, 74–8, 83, 157 recession chic 63, 143 “reflection theory” 142 rehearsed carelessness 16, 59, 64, 83, 110 Resteröd 41 revivals of style 19–20, 24–6 ancient Greek dress 24–5 fashion labyrinth 25 style hibernation 26 rhizome 84–5, 88, 93, 157 Richardson, Jane 112 Rob Roy-​tartan 144–5 Roberts, Julia 19–22, 30 Robin, Marci 68, 72 Robinson, Dwight E. 7, 112 Rogers, Everett 23, 34, 81, 90–1 rogue chic, tattoos as 43–4, 79 Ronaldo, Cristiano 92, 127, 128 Rovine, Victoria L. 138 Sack –​dress 11, 69 Saint Laurent 31 Sanders, Sam 68 Sapir, Edward 48 “sartorial dialectic of status, the” 47

index

sartorial shrugging 61–2 satire 6 Saunders, Louisa 79 Sayer, Shay 106, 118 Scarborough, Eliza 87 scattered flows 22, 79, 85 “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible ­Conversations” 36 Schiaparelli, Elsa 36, 47, 54 schizophrenia, of fashion 6–7, 15 Sea Punks 100 “seasonless cycle” 13 secondhand clothes 27–9 and tradition 28 “See-​Now-​Buy-​Now Revolution” 22 Segal, Emily 65 Segre Reinach, Simona 48 “Senior Moment” 37–8 sex appeal 1, 42, 69–71, 85–6, 153 Shakespeare, William 36 Shearlaw, Maeve 125 Sheen, Tom 132 “shifting erogenous zones” 44, 69 “Shock of the Old, The” 19 signification exhaustion 61 signification exhaustion, state of 17, 61, 64, 66, 79, 81 silver 40 Simmel, Georg 4–9, 14, 21, 35, 45, 49, 51, 53, 91, 98, 131 social regulation through “aesthetic judgment” 6–7 Simpsons, The 152 simulated monotony 85, 157 slippery status 15, 16, 28, 115 sloppy minimalism 64 slow fashion movement 29 soccer clubs, in Kenya 132 soccer jersey, in Kenya 118–39 cost 131 cultural ambivalence 138–9 as cultural exchange 124–5 daydreaming, and reality 118–19 as emblem of culture 119 as emulation of players 127–8 fashioning goals 130–2 as fashion 127–30 as form of fantasy 118, 121, 131 history of 123

185

185

Index

levels of value 129 Manchester United 118, 119, 122, 129, 131, 132 “match prepared” 129 “match worn” 129 merchandising of 131 research process 122–3 social negotiation of status linked to 136–8 “status competition” 120 style shift from hip-​hop 125–6 soccer jerseys, popularity in Kenya 28 soccer players 127 soccer, in Kenya potential for social outreach 133 social benefit 133–5 transnational fandom 135–6 social class, as inversion of status symbols 41–3, 58 social currency 5 Sofie, Woodward 125 Sontag, Susan 87 Spade, Kate 56–7 Sprigman, Christopher 48–9, 51–2 SS 2012 72 SS09 63 SS13 89 SS16 72, 92 “status competition” 120 status inconspicuous ostentation 12 inversion of symbols 19–21, 58 of youth, see as main heading inversion of status symbols Steele, Valerie 68–9, 98, 112, 141 Steinberg, Neil 2, 14 Stella McCartney 13, 88, 90, 92 stone wash 40 “strategic ambivalences” staged aging 16, 30, 34–5 tattoos 43–4, 79 “street style” 3, 12, 42, 53, 57, 74, 125, 141, 153 style 79 style hibernation 26 style narratives, of fashion 63 style obsolescence 16, 53, 81–2, 91, 93, 131 “stylized blandness” 66, 93

subcultural ambiguity 107, 109, 111 “subcultural kiss of death” 108, 111 subculture ambiguity 107, 109, 111 and fashion 99–102 multigenerational 112–15 persistence of 102–3 rise of mass-​niches 111–12 “subcultural kiss of death” 108, 111 suits 25 Suk, Jeannie 49, 53 Sumberg, Barbara 64, 125 Super Bowl 2016 1 “Supermarket of Style” 27–8 Surowiecki, James 63 Svendsen, Lars 73 Svetvilas, Chanika 55 sweatpants 17, 59, 68, 75, 126 symbolic ambiguity 144 T-​shirt 98 band 104–6 appropriation of subcultural capital into mass-​fashion 111–12 “identity bootlegging” 111 as social bond 107 visual imagery 106–7 black band 100 as emblem of rebellion 98 expressive potential of 98–9 as means of expression 98–9 origin of 98 soccer jersey, see as main heading “statement T-​shirt” 98 see also metal culture “Taming the Lumberjack” 149 tattoos 43–4, 79 Thomas, Dana 13–14, 55 Thomas, Dominic 129 Thornton, Sarah 99, 101, 103, 108, 110 Thrasher, Frederic Milton 102 Thrift store 19, 21, 28 time lags in fashion 23–4, 27, 34–5 charts 23 togas 24 Tollisen, Arvid 123, 133 top hat 2, 3, 7 Top Shop 91

186

186

Topping, Alexandra 143 Trademark Law Treaty (1994) 45 transgender 70–1 Trebay, Guy 151 trends evolutionary change 87–90 forecasting 81 spatial conception of 84 trickle-​movements, see fashion flows tunics 24 Twigg, Julia 33 ugly chic 36 ugly, as social currency 35–6 Underwood, Marsh 149 unisex style 64–5 US Vogue 37 Vagner, Nika 127 Valenti, Jessica 19, 21, 23, 27, 70, 77, 84, Valentino archive 19–20 Vannini, Phillip 41 Veblen, Thorstein 49, 53 Venturess 37 Veruschka 35 Vetements 36 Victoria’s Secret 72, 124 vintage 19–20 ambiguity of novelty 21–3 Décor 26 ethics of 29 last chapter style revivals 19–20, 24–6 time lags 23–4, 34–5 Vogue 13, 35, 37, 38, 63, 69, 70, 90, 141 Volsing, Kristian 111 “vulgar nouveau riche” 62

index

Waldman, Katy 74 Walker, Tim 37 Wallander, Mattias 98 Walser, Robert 108 Ward, Gemma 37 Weddell, Mimi 37 Weinstein, Deena 96–7, 102, 104, 106–​8, 113 West, Kanye 9 Westwood, Vivienne 41, 54, 98 Wilde, Oscar 6 Wilk, Richard 119, 126, 136 Wilson, Elizabeth 1, 5, 11, 61, 69, 82, 99, 106, 122, 131, 141, 143, 156 Wilson, Erik 90 Wishner, Leigh 85 Wissinger, Elizabeth 37 Wong, Jada 76 Woolrich 146 workout clothes 68, 81 world dress 17, 64, 125–6, 129, 139 Xiao, Emma Yao 48 Yaeger, Lynn 37 Yamamoto, Yohji 19, 74, 99 Yotka, Steff 69 Yves Saint Laurent 31, 57, 71, 89, 92 Zara 67, 82 “zeitgeist moment” 1, 70, 140, 143 Zeitgeist factors in determining 141–2 media representation 150–2 “right” 154 Ziggy Stardust 25

186

186