Society and Fashion in the Age of Postmodernism - Essay Example

CULTURAL SEMIOTICS: SOCIETY AND FASHION IN THE AGE OF POSTMODERNISM. Although postmodernism is a complicated term and covers areas as diverse as architecture, fashion and technology, one should be able to list a few of its working principles without much difficulty. This would include an appreciation of the plasticity and constant change of reality and knowledge, an added emphasis on concrete experience over abstract principles, and a firm belief that no single a priori thought system should govern one's belief. The 'Eurocentric' character of Western thought and the resultant cognitive bias that expressed itself in our notions of class, race and gender came under scrutiny. The key word of the post modern was radical perspectivism. The postmodern subject floated in a universe that was at once open and without foundations. The fluidity of postmodernism seeped into areas considered to be impregnable till then. Language lost its 'meaning', culture lost its 'centre' and history found itself struggling for being, let alone authenticity. Because of the work of thinkers like Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard 'mental structures' began to wobble; foundational assumptions came under a cloud. What is man's role in a society Is not he the subject of several forces including language and discourse Can he lay claim to any 'Truth' when even the hyponyms of it were being questioned Perhaps the answer to this whirlpool of uncertainty lay in his summoning up his infinite potential of creativity for a plausible answer. The one that bagged consensus was 'celebration'. A celebration of the joke called life. Of the absurdity called existence. Everything, including architecture and fashion, responded to this interpretation. (Postmodernism may say that there are not any facts but only interpretations, but the human mind considers this as a fact. What a joke) Perhaps, the greatest manifestation of this new-found enterprise was in the salad that combined 'high' and 'low' culture. Music strove to mix 14th century church chant with the latest in euphony. Buildings displayed gothic arches with a bunch of steel tubes to add to its effect. And in vogue were straitjackets with a naughty hint of one's backside. Joanne Finkelstein recollects anthropologist Jonathan Friedman's observation that in African Congo during the 70s and 80s, wearing haute couture was almost like a cult. The currency of the young subculture was to wear the latest in European fashion circles. Although the social and economic differences between Congo and Paris were too vast to be mentioned, the young sapeurs chose to bridge dream and reality through clothes. So much so that wearing haute couture was like realizing a dream. And this imbalance between dream and its realization, between valuing a particular object and having the capacity to possess and maintain it was a fundamental dynamic of fashion, according to Finkelstein1. However, in the 'subcultures' of Britain which included teds, punks, skinheads and hippies the dynamic of fashion was something totally different. Dick Hebdige points out that the main aim of the subcultures was to cobble out of the available forms, a new set of genres that will free them form the manacles of tradition2. However, Hebdige admits that the commercial culture itself had the wherewithal to counter the hegemonic culture by producing for the subcultures. By marrying the high with the low, the radical with the conservative, it produced a range of clothes for the punk that is still looked upon as an act of positive aggression. These two divergent theses coalesce to the synthesis that in fashion there cannot be a common protocol. At a time when 'consilience' is the order of the day and terms like 'society', 'identity' and 'nation' are themselves undergoing significant semantic changes, 'fashion' which is the signature of these terms in flux cannot remain steady and static. In postmodern zeitgeist is not only that fashion influences society but also that society influences fashion. Fashion becomes an avenue to the declaration of one's existence as well as to resistance. The idea is clearly expressed in the book The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image (2000) edited by Ian Griffiths and Nicola White. Griffiths and White argue that the rise of the information society had produced a comparable sense of rupture in contemporary sensibilities and social practices. Fashion socialized human beings for change and prepared them for recycling. The open personality of fashion was the personality that a society in the process of rapid transformation most needed4. Perhaps, the best explanation of postmodernism in the light of style and fashion and other cultural semiotics has been provided by theorists like Jean Baudrillard. He theorized how information networks and media proliferation brought about a transformation from an industrial order of mass production to a society premised on the reproduction of signs and images. Whereas images once reflected and represented reality, or even produced an ideological mystification of reality, the image now serves to distract us from the fact that there is no reality to which it seems to refer. Baudrillard goes so far as to claim that in a society of such free - floating signs, they can only refer to other signs and without reference to any reality. His concept of 'simulacrum' or copy without an original is applicable to all postmodern forms of production including architecture and high fashion. Chandelier earrings, goth make up, bling-blings are all examples of postmodern simulacra, or cultural semiotics of the present. There are other writers like Frederic Jameson who do not see postmodernism as much as a break with the past than as a development of it. He theorises postmodernism as the 'cultural dominant' of post- war consumer capitalism. He too claims that in postmodernism there is the transformation of reality into mere images and that everything in the social sphere is mediated by the cultural5. According to Jameson, one of the qualities of the postmodern condition is 'pastiche', or an appropriation of the past style. Another quality is the 'death of the individual', or an appropriation of the individual to a mere cog in the machine. This is most evident in fashion because the 'individuality' of the model is completely masked to foreground the product he/she endorses. The model supplies only the 'blank canvas' for others to work on. She does not endorse; the product endorses her. But more interesting is how Jameson brings in the element of schizophrenia into the world of high fashion. He says that sanity lies in creating notions of 'I' or 'me' from links between the present and the past. In the perennial present of the world of fashion, aging is a matter of metaphysics. The model or the person representing the present cannot stale or wither; it is not the 'I' that stride down the aisle, but it is the 'construct' of the many factors including the hair stylist. "The presentation of the model is schizophrenic. Models are perpetually young, seemingly outside of time. If one begins to age, she is replaced by another who is more youthful. The public takes no notice: the nameless model is condemned to live in the perpetual present5." Perhaps it would be nave but realistic to turn to Alison Lurie for her observations on clothes and fashion. Her comments do not endorse any ensemble; she speaks for clothes in general and how fashion, society and clothes together make a statement. Genuine articles of clothing from the past (or skillful imitations) are used in the same way as a writer or speaker might use archaisms: to give an air of culture, erudition or wit. Just as in educated discourse such "words" are usually employed sparingly, most often one at a time - a single Victorian cameo or a pair of 1940s platform shoes or an Edwardian velvet waistcoat, never a complete costume. A whole outfit composed of archaic items from a single period will imply that one is on one's way to a masquerade, acting in a play or film or putting oneself on display for advertising purposes6. Although postmodernism ( convulsion of modernization) is an age of pluralism, perspectivism and linguistic turns and crises, plain horse sense can never become obsolete. It would be better to have a three piece formal jacket with your bling-blings. Endnotes 1. Joanne Finkelstein. Chic Theory. Australian Humanities Review. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/AHR/archive/Issue-March-1997/finkelstein.html 2. Dick Hebdige. The Function of Subculture. The Cultural Studies Reader(ed. Simon During).New York: Routledge, 1999. 3. Ian Griffith and Nicola White (eds.). The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image. 4. Frederic Jameson. Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New York: Verso, 1991. 5. Julia Chan. Fashion Models in Postmodern Consumer Society. http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/feminism/women/model.html 6. Alison Lurie. The Language of Clothes. New York: Owl Books, 2000. ________________________ Read More