Hello there,
I really don't know if I'm in the right place or not, but for quite a while I've been wanting to ask someone in the fashion industry about how politics and worldview generally work. As in all art fields, I'm sure you guys have your share of liberal, forward-thinking people, with undoubtedly a few exceptions as well. Sometimes it seems to me that the more crazy-talented an artist is, the more likely they are to have developed a very educated and liberal world view. You go to the art community of any city and you'll find some of the most liberal areas of the world.
What I don't get is how this squares with fashion. Fashion seems so tied into the idea of people engaging in "mindless consumerism" as it were...spend a whole bunch of money on stuff you don't need because there's a name attached to it and whatnot. It's all about the elite classes determining that you don't fit in and to fit in you have to surrender all of your money to the god of outer appearance rather than working on the inside. It's part of the same idea of Noam Chomsky's theories around sports and television - that they distract us from what is truly important and from making progress as a society. Wearable sculpture I get. Aesthetic harmony, I get. But it is the industry, not the art that drives the constant need to outmode old fashion ideas so people throw away the stuff they got just last year and have to buy new stuff to stay in style. I'm sure there are socially conscious designers...probably some very prominent ones...so how do they make these two apparent dichotomies fit together in their minds? I'm not looking to argue so much about liberalism vs conservativism or any of that old mess, I'm just curious how high consciousness and high fashion fit if at all.
I really don't know if I'm in the right place or not, but for quite a while I've been wanting to ask someone in the fashion industry about how politics and worldview generally work. As in all art fields, I'm sure you guys have your share of liberal, forward-thinking people, with undoubtedly a few exceptions as well. Sometimes it seems to me that the more crazy-talented an artist is, the more likely they are to have developed a very educated and liberal world view. You go to the art community of any city and you'll find some of the most liberal areas of the world.
What I don't get is how this squares with fashion. Fashion seems so tied into the idea of people engaging in "mindless consumerism" as it were...spend a whole bunch of money on stuff you don't need because there's a name attached to it and whatnot. It's all about the elite classes determining that you don't fit in and to fit in you have to surrender all of your money to the god of outer appearance rather than working on the inside. It's part of the same idea of Noam Chomsky's theories around sports and television - that they distract us from what is truly important and from making progress as a society. Wearable sculpture I get. Aesthetic harmony, I get. But it is the industry, not the art that drives the constant need to outmode old fashion ideas so people throw away the stuff they got just last year and have to buy new stuff to stay in style. I'm sure there are socially conscious designers...probably some very prominent ones...so how do they make these two apparent dichotomies fit together in their minds? I'm not looking to argue so much about liberalism vs conservativism or any of that old mess, I'm just curious how high consciousness and high fashion fit if at all.