<nettime> socialists dress like shit

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

Jacobin comes to the rescue!

Also, all you need to know about the Trump-Gucci connection.


Crimes Against Design

Eamon Levesque

Donald Trump isn't just ruining lives. He's ruining fashion.
Reconcile yourself with the idea of the Trump Presidential Library.

In the next four to eight years, a temple of Donald Trump's 
contributions to America while in office will be built. The last one 
hundred years has seen every president receive one of these 
installations (even Nixon), which usually serve as a cross between a 
research archive, a charity headquarters, and a time capsule.

There's no doubt that this presidency will be studied tweet-by-tweet by 
generations of Adderall-chomping poli-sci undergrads, and we already 
know how Trump's charitable endeavors shake out. The time capsule 
portion is the one that seems the most hard to imagine at this point. 
What relics from the Trump era will populate the dioramas and displays 
of the Trump Library, his equivalent of Jackie Kennedy's pillbox hats or 
Bill Clinton's saxophone?

We're starting to see the answer in an unexpected place. Fashion, from 
inaccessible couture on down to everyday wear, has started to show the 
signs of being consumed by Trump and his presidency's themes of greed 
and authoritarianism -- either by falling to his cultural influence or 
reacting to it.

Fashion often gets left out of leftist critiques of the arts, likely 
because it's viewed as empty consumerism and because many socialists 
dress like shit. But fashion and the fashion press have more access to 
the average family's budget than any other art form. Short of never 
leaving the house, you're going to see how people dress. Clothing and 
shoes have a direct line of cultural and financial influence across all 
genders and demographics.

This is especially true at the intersections of young people, people of 
color, and the working class: one of 2016's most popular memes was kids 
shaming kids for not being able to afford expensive sneakers. As a 
massive capitalist tool for driving expenditure, and one that spends 
billions in advertising targeting the people with the least 
discretionary spending, why shouldn't socialists pay attention to 
fashion? Especially when the influence of our demagogic, gaudy president 
starts showing up in that world?

Luxurious Impracticality

You don't have to be a Vogue subscriber to see that the current, 
dominant trend in fashion, especially menswear, is unrepentant opulence 
in a way that hasn't been seen since the 1980s.

Maximalism was likely due for a comeback after the industry went through 
a grey period throughout the late 2000s to 2014 or so. But the timing of 
its return lines up a little too well with the man who is the embodiment 
of everything wrong with the eighties getting elected president.

As Meryl Streep explains in The Devil Wears Prada, fashion, unlike good 
economics, tends to follow a trickle-down policy. Looks from established 
names like Dior or buzzy, rising labels like Gosha Rubchinskiy are 
showed on the runway, sold at a huge premium, then copied a season later 
by Zara and H&M, before finally infiltrating the realm of what normal 
people wear about a year and a half post-debut.

Following the ugly chain of garish maximalism all the way back takes us 
to creative director Alessandro Michele's debut at Gucci in January 
2015. You've probably heard of Gucci, but maybe not of Alessandro 
Michele. Michele was promoted from accessories director to heading the 
entire label, which was desperately in need of someone to shake things 
up after years of looking somehow trashy and boring at the same time. 
Michele did more or less exactly what he was paid to do: his first big 
move was to take Gucci's signature loafer, chop the back off and fill it 
with kangaroo fur.

At first, things weren't all bad. Michele showed a willingness towards 
gender neutrality and racial diversity in his shows, and the colors were 
a nice break from minimalist tedium.

But things got a little weird as we moved into the Trump administration. 
Kellyanne Conway rocked one of Michele's coats to the inauguration, 
which she described as "Trump Revolutionary Chic." Milo Yiannopolis 
began to make a point of staying draped in it.

At the first Trump-era Gucci show, the colors got brighter, patterns 
clashed harder. Clothing went from stand-out pieces you could feasibly 
work into your wardrobe at a normal-person job to the completely 
unwearable -- Borat's mankini showed up. The "fuck-you" factor of the 
clothing was ratcheted up a great deal. Gucci's red-green stripe used to 
be a tiny, subtle (yet still annoying) indicator of affluence; now it's 
plastered across the front of the suits and shoes.

The Trump-Gucci connection goes back quite a bit: the brand's Manhattan 
flagship has been installed in Trump Tower for some years. Briefly 
following the election, name-dropping the brand was one of the only ways 
to get by security at the Tower.

This perhaps isn't surprising, as the brand's current direction and 
Trump have a shared love of impractical items designed to telegraph 
wealth. There's a shared logic between shipping literal tons of obscure 
Italian marble into the United States to deck the lobby of Trump Tower 
and dropping $5,000 on a pink satin bomber with beadwork that looks like 
it would fall apart if sneezed on. The unwieldiness of the object 
represents the owner's ability to bend the world around themselves to 
accommodate for their eccentricities.

Gucci brought this trend into the limelight and onto the backs of the 
Trump clique, but the originator and perhaps greatest culprit is 
Vetements (French for "clothes." Edgy!) a "design collective" that has 
catalyzed a comeback of some of fashion's worst tendencies.

The brand grabbed the spotlight when it tricked a bunch of celebrities 
into thinking that paying $350 for a $10 DHL uniform t-shirt was cool. 
Subsequently, it tricked a bunch more people into paying over $1,000 for 
jeans with the pockets moved around a bit. IMaxTree

Coasting off the strength of these two stunts, Vetements launched a 
collection where they collaborated with intentionally "downmarket" 
brands, releasing their own "takes" on Hanes t-shirts, Carhartt work 
pants, Canada Goose jackets, and Juicy Couture sweatsuits.

The takes share two characteristics. First, they're utterly unwearable 
by "normal" people. The Carhartt pants are blown up to snowman 
proportions to render a piece of "workwear" completely useless in a 
"work" context. The Goose jackets (normally expensive, but at least 
practical and warm) are inflated to make the wearer look like a deranged 
Kenny from South Park. These are mutations of practical clothes, aimed 
at the type of person who have no need for practicality as they're 
wealthy enough to remove any real work from their world. Sleeves that 
reach to your ankles are fine when you've hired someone to open doors 
for you.

To that end, Vetements' versions of these clothes are also marked up by 
about ten times their original price point.

This philosophy is distinctly Trumpian. I have little doubt that this 
poor guy will haunt the "design" exhibit of the Trump Presidential 
Library and Luxury Resort.

The draw of the "luxurious impracticality" that characterizes so many 
fashion developments in the new Trump era is multiplied by "insider 
appeal." As opposed to Gucci, whose clothes broadcast your wealth to 
every onlooker, Vetements telegraphs its message only to those in the 
know, or who have the leisure time to track down who made that hoodie 
Kanye was wearing in that one photo with Lorde. It's a claim at the 
avant-garde at a price point that automatically disqualifies it from 
being remotely avant-garde.

Vetements' influence is spreading: label Enfantes Riches Deprimes 
(French for "Depressed Rich Kids" -- also edgy!) is trying to pull 
roughly the same trick by convincing buyers that there has to be 
something subversive about a $4,000 leather jacket or a $7,000 cashmere 
noose. Meanwhile, the quality of the clothes is nothing better than 
you'd find at Target, and the graphics are mostly minor photoshop jobs -- 
what you'd expect from your local skate shop for $25.

While more practical than either of the two brands previously mentioned, 
the implicit purpose of the garments is still the same: reminding those 
around you how rich you are. Credit to ERD designer Henry Levy for at 
least being honest, when he said in his recent Guardian profile, "The 
price point is not only a marker of value, but intrinsically part of the 
piece itself ... I have no interest in making affordable pieces for the 
masses."

Rich people twisting working-class culture into signifiers of affluence 
is nothing new, but there's still something irritating about a rich 
French kid making bank by ripping off the logo of working-class 
stalwarts like Black Flag and then decrying "the masses." But this is 
exactly where fashion seems to be taking us under Trump: clothing whose 
design is devoid of artistic merit, existing only to show how many zeros 
can fit in a checking account.

This doesn't have to be the case. As easy to parody as it may be, 
fashion can, and often is, still interesting and subversive at a 
reasonable price point.

Angela Missoni put pussy hats on every model in her last show, a gesture 
that's very much in character from a label with a long history of 
aligning itself on the right side of women's issues. Designer Raf Simons 
used his entire collection this season to showcase the works of the late 
Robert Mapplethorpe, re-introducing a hugely influential queer 
photographer to another generation of fans. His arrival this season as 
Calvin Klein's creative director took all the worst elements of Trump's 
mid-eighties milleu -- double breasted suits, square-toed shoes -- and 
made them look remarkable.

Of course, these top-tier brands are completely unaffordable to most of 
us, and are better off as sources of inspiration than objects of desire. 
But there's still plenty of worthwhile, artistically inclined clothing 
found at normal-person prices. Supreme, the streetwear brand which has 
kids lining up for miles in Lower Manhattan, regularly serves as a great 
intro to amazing art of all forms by collaborating with Rei Kawakubo, 
Daniel Johnston, or Basquiat. On the journalism side, blogs like Man 
Repeller have extolled a way of dressing yourself expressively without 
blindly latching to a brand or reaching an insane price point.

Self-presentation can be a liberating, beautiful thing, but as of this 
writing, it's under siege by those who believe the world spins around 
them and would like their clothing to reflect this notion. Let 
Vetements, Gucci, and ERD cover the Melania mannequins in the Trump 
Library's half-assed fashion exhibit. But don't let these influences 
corrupt an art form that's been at its most empowering when it's at its 
most inclusive. Go thrift a denim jacket and spill beer on the next pair 
of Kangaroo loafers you see.

About the Author
Eamon Levesque is a writer living in Brooklyn.


[ Lifted from https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/06/trump-gucci-vetements-fashion-couture-art ]

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