Surprise and seduction: Theorising fashion via the sociology of wit

Dita Svelte

A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

School of Social Sciences Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences UNSW Sydney

12 September 2019 THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname or Family name: SVELTE First name: DITA Other name/s: ISHTAR ARTEMIS Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) School: School of Social Sciences Faculty: Arts and Social Sciences

Title: Surprise and seduction: Theorising fashion via the sociology of wit

Abstract 350 words maximum:

What insights might a sociology of wit as applied to the phenomenon of fashion generate? This thesis applies the sociology of humour to fashion to develop a concept of wit that contributes to further understanding fashion. The thesis argues that this concept of wit is characterised by qualities of surprise and seduction. Surprise is defined as the experience of an unexpected, creative intellectual insight expressed in a pithy manner; seduction is the experience of being led astray, and also the desire of the subject to be led astray. The thesis demonstrates the presence of empirical sites of wit within fashion in the form of the dandy and glamour. It utilises Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus [2000] (1836) to further conceptualise the wit of fashion at the intersection of theories of humour and theories of fashion. The contribution of the wit of fashion to classical texts in the sociology of fashion is considered with reference to contemporary empirical examples. Thorstein Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption is expanded to develop an idea of the ‘conspicuous wit’ of fashion from the perspective of the designers Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga; Roland Barthes’ idea of the singular, integrated, economically oriented fashion system is expanded to encompass the proliferation of contemporary witty fashion systems through an examination of Moschino and the work of the house of Viktor & Rolf.

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~ ! ~2 Originality statement

‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’

Signed: Dita Svelte

Date: 12 September 2019

~ ! ~3

Acknowledgements

With immense thanks to Dr Melanie White, for her abundant enthusiasm and infinite patience. I could not wish for a more careful and attentive supervisor.

Thanks also to my partner, Ash Haroon, for his love and continued support throughout the process of writing this thesis. I could not have completed this project without him.

Thanks to my peers Dr Megan Catherine Rose and Abbie White for their advice and friendship. Additional thanks also to Dr Emilie Auton and Dr Nicholas Apoifis.

Thanks to Associate Professor Paul Jones for his support during the conceptual formulation of this project, and Associate Professor Claudia Tazreiter for her helpful comments.

I would like to acknowledge the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UNSW Sydney, for contributing research funding toward this work.

~ !5 ~ Table of Contents

List of figures, page 7.

Chapter One Introduction: A Dress and an Epigram, page 12.

Chapter Two Literature Review: The Elements of a Sociology of Wit, page 32.

Chapter Three Elements of a Sociology of Wit, Part One: Surprise and the Dandy, page 69.

Chapter Four Elements of a Sociology of Wit, Part Two: Seduction and Glamour, page 107.

Chapter Five Wit’s Contribution to Fashion Studies: Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, page 163.

Chapter Six Wit and Contemporary Fashion Studies, Part One: Veblen and the Conspicuous Wit of Gucci, Vetements and Balenciaga, page 190.

Chapter Seven Wit and Contemporary Fashion Studies, Part Two: A Proliferation of Fashion Systems, page 238.

Chapter Eight Conclusion: The Sociological Wit of Fashion – Surprise and Seduction, page 283.

References, page 290.

~ ! ~6 List of figures

Chapter One Introduction: A Dress and an Epigram

Figure 1.1. Jean-Paul Gaultier ballgown, page 12.

Figure 1.2. Detail, Jean-Paul Gaultier evening gown, page 15.

Figure 1.3. Matthew Darly, The Flower Garden (1777), page 19.

Figure 1.4. Edina and Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous, page 20.

Figure 1.5. Ben Stiller as the fictional character Derek Zoolander, page 20.

Figure 1.6. Madonna’s conical bra lingerie, produced by Gaultier for the Blond Ambition tour of 1990, page 21.

Figure 1.7. Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress, worn for the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards, page 22.

Figure 1.8. Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran in concert, page 23.

Figure 1.9. Iconic David LaChapelle images from his ‘Disaster’ series, featuring Viktor & Rolf, page 23.

Figure 1.10. Karl Lagerfeld’s iconic silhouette, page 24.

Chapter Two Literature Review: The Elements of a Sociology of Wit

Figure 2.1. Screenshot of an email from burberry.com, indicating instant fashion’s new temporality, page 37.

Chapter Three Elements of a Sociology of Wit, Part One: Surprise and the Dandy

Figure 3.1. Engraving of Beau Brummell, page 72.

Figure 3.2. Detail from the cover of The World According to Karl, where the ‘a’ in Karl has been replaced by his iconic silhouette, page 90.

~ !7 ~ Figure 3.3. Lagerfeld interviews himself, moments before walking out on his interviewer for banal and irritating questions, page 91.

Figure 3.4. A typical image from Fuck Yeah Menswear, with terse poetic text superimposed over a stylish image, page 92.

Figure 3.5. An example of Janelle Monae’s typical monochromatic attire, page 94.

Figure 3.6. Still from Monae’s ‘Pynk’ music video, page 95.

Chapter Four Elements of a Sociology of Wit, Part Two: Seduction and Glamour

Figure 4.1. Red carpet glamour – Cate Blanchett in Armani Privé at the 2014 Oscars ceremony, page 110.

Figure 4.2. Nicole Kidman’s 1980s ‘glamour shots’ for Dolly magazine, page 111.

Figure 4.3. Glamour as abstract mask. Ernst Blumenfeld’s image of Jean Patchett from the cover of Vogue, January 1950, page 111.

Figure 4.4. David Beckham – sports star and style icon of masculine glamour, page 112.

Figure 4.5. The glamorous Villanelle in vintage taffeta skirt and Rosie Assouline blouse page 140.

Figure 4.6. Think pink! Villanelle in costume before a particularly gruesome public evisceration, page 141.

Figures 4.7-4.14. Villanelle does Vienna, pages 143-144.

Figure 4.15. Blue in Burberry, page 145.

Figure 4.16. Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and Eve Pilastri (Sandra Oh) first meet in a hospital bathroom. Villanelle is instantly attracted by Eve’s tangled mane, page 146.

Figures 4.17-4.18. Villanelle dresses for a psychological assessment for her fitness to kill in Molly Goddard and Balenciaga, page 147.

Figures 4.19-4.20. Public assassination, Villanelle style, page 149.

Figures 4.21-4.23. Unexpected designer luggage – the best kind of surprise, page 150.

Figure 4.24. An intimate dinner date ends at knifepoint, page 151.

~ 8! ~ Figure 4.25. Prelude to penetration, page 152.

Figure 4.26. Roman holiday. Villanelle, in a striking scarlet pantsuit, overlooks the fallen body of Eve moments after shooting her, page 153.

Figure 4.27. Fake Hèrmes elevator kill, page 154.

Figure 4.28. ‘Love in an Elevator’ lipstick, page 154.

Figures 4.29-4.31. Macquillage! page 155.

Figures 4.32. Blood-bond via makeup, page 156.

Chapter Six Wit and Contemporary Fashion Studies, Part One: Veblen and the Conspicuous Wit of Gucci, Vetements and Balenciaga

Figure 6.1. Gucci menswear Autumn-Winter 2017, page 193.

Figure 6.2. Vetements’ famous DHL T-shirt, presented as part of the Spring-Summer 2015 collection, page 194.

Figure 6.3. Gucci website men’s homepage – a flurry of bold colour, exotic locales, accessories, pets and excess, page 195.

Figure 6.4. Balenciaga’s minimalist grid homepage, page 196.

Figure 6.5. Clicking through Balenciaga’s website reveals more minimal grids, page 196.

Figure 6.6. Balenciaga ‘shopping bag’, Autumn/ Winter 2019, a lambskin imitation of the typical designer shopping bag, page 197.

Figures 6.7-6.12. Selection of images from Gucci’s sci-fi advertising campaign for Autumn/ Winter 2017, page 210-211.

Figure 6.13. #TFWGucci commissioned memes, demonstrating puns (‘watch’ + ‘dog = ‘watchdog’), and humorous cartoons, page 212.

Figure 6.14. #TFWGucci memes with a touch of glamour, page 213.

Figure 6.15. Balenciaga lambskin version of IKEA’s classic plastic shopping bag, page 214.

Figure 6.16. Vetements birthday T-Shirt, page 215.

~ !9 ~ Figure 6.17. Guccify Yourself, page 220.

Figure 6.18. Guccification, page 221.

Figure 6.19. Gucci Garden shawl, featuring many emblems of the garden, including the iconic kingsnake, butterflies, roses, love hearts and the slogan often used by the house, ‘Blind for Love’, page 222.

Figure 6.20. Gucci Ghost charm with distinctive eyes composited from the Gucci double ‘G’ logo, page 223.

Figure 6.21. Gucci Hallucination presents a re-worked vision of Bosch’s hell as a hyper-opulent paradise, page 223.

Figure 6.22. Ophelia, Gucci style – smiling, not drowning, page 224.

Figure 6.23. Animated Gucci emojis, featuring two-headed cats, ‘Guccy’ branding. Butterflies and bandaids, page 225.

Figure 6.24. Vetements x Reebok sports sock, page 230.

Figure 6.25. IKEA vs Balenciaga, page 231.

Figure 6.26. IKEA’s guide to identifying a ‘real’ version of their famous bag, page 232.

Figure 6.27. A shirt with a shirt stitched on top, page 233.

Figure 6.28. Easy access? Or too much hard work? Balenciaga’s collaboration with Levi’s, page 234.

Figure 6.29. Balenciaga platform Crocs, later designed with a high heel, page 234.

Chapter Seven Wit and Contemporary Fashion Studies, Part Two: A Proliferation of Fashion Systems

Figure 7.1. ‘DON’T $TOP THE FA$HION $Y$TEM’. Moschino advertisement, Autumn/Winter 1999, page 238.

Figure 7.2. ‘LONG LIVE CATWALK$ PHOTOGRAPHER$ CA$TING$ AND THE PRE$$’. Moschino advertisement, Autumn/Winter 1999, page 239.

Figure 7.3. ‘Viktor & Rolf on strike’, Autumn/ Winter 1996-1997, page 259.

Figure 7.4. ‘Russian Doll’, Viktor & Rolf, Autumn/ Winter 1999-2000, page 260.

~ ! ~10 Figure 7.5. Viktor & Rolf ‘Le Parfum’, 1996, page 264.

Figure 7.6. Viktor & Rolf ‘Le Parfum’, 1996, page 265.

Figure 7.7. Text by Viktor & Rolf, page 265.

Figure 7.8. Viktor & Rolf ‘NO’ coat, page 267.

Figure 7.9. Viktor & Rolf ‘The Fashion Show’, page 268.

Figure 7.10. Viktor & Rolf’s ‘The Fashion Show’ as interpreted by The Simpsons, page 269.

Figure 7.11 Doll miniature of Viktor & Rolf dress for ‘Black Light’, page 272.

Figures 7.12-713. ‘Wearable Art’ by Viktor & Rolf, Autumn/ Winter 2015-2016, page 274.

Figure 7.14. Viktor & Rolf ‘Wearable Art’, page 275.

Figure 7.15. Jean-Paul Gaultier ballgown, page 278.

~ !11 ~ Figure 1.1. Jean-Paul Gaultier ballgown. From the ‘Romantic India’ haute couture collection, Spring/Summer 2000. Photograph by Dita Svelte from The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 17 February 2015.

~ !12 ~ Chapter One

Introduction: A Dress and an Epigram

For me allure is appeal. It’s something you’re drawn to, something that you can’t look away from. It’s something that offers magnetic, almost magical visual stimulation – in both fashion and life (Jacobs, 2010: 2).

Who can say that these photographs of beautiful women don’t mysteriously affect the harvest, the weather, and global politics? (O’Brien, 1991: 78).

The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes (Carlyle, 2000 [1836]: 51).

1.1 Gaultier’s camouflage couture

I will begin by reflecting on one of my inspirations for this thesis. This inspiration is a dress, but it is not just any dress. It is a Jean-Paul Gaultier creation from the ‘Romantic India’ haute couture collection of Spring/Summer 2000. This dress is a décolleté evening gown with chiffon bodice and a flowing tulle skirt, accentuated by elbow length gloves [Figure 1.1]. A classical evening gown silhouette is rendered in complexions of camouflage – bunches of ‘khaki, cinnamon, papaya’ (Brooklyn Museum 2013: 8) – printed, patterned, and pinched together. I first saw an image of the dress in a magazine compendium of haute couture collections published after the collection’s presentation in Paris, January 2000. (This was, of course, in the pre-internet era when fashion imagery was not immediately visible online). At the time, I was struck by the gown’s whimsicality in mixing camouflage and couture in one exquisite creation. The contrast between the classically flowing line of a ballgown with the military motif of camouflage resonated with me as simultaneously shocking, memorable and above all witty. That is, in one singular garment, the apparition of Gaultier’s couture presented a bold and amusing vision, encapsulated an astonishing idea of intellectual creativity, and demonstrated a wicked sense of fun. In synthesising camo and couture, this dress provided a compressed and compelling experience of surprise. ~ 13! ~ While this particular dress has been frequently celebrated in print and in exhibitions1, my first encounter with the dress in person was at The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk exhibition presented at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, in 20152. The experience of seeing the dress as a physical and material object surpassed all my expectations. Up close, the fine details of its skilful execution were revealed with sublime clarity. I was able to appreciate the fractal geometry of the camouflage pattern as it extends down the line of bunched ruches of tulle, carefully modulated so that patches of colour touch but never overwhelm each other. In this dress, camouflage is not simply a print, but structurally constitutive of the gown itself, as the hand-stitched gatherings of tulle attach to each other to form a pattern in three dimensions [Figure 1.2]. The semi-opacity of the materials grant the garment an unmistakable lightness, despite its autumnal palette. Expert craft and technique here are paramount, representing three hundred plus hours of hand-stitched expertise from members of Gaultier’s maison (National Gallery of Victoria 2014: 93).

1 The dress can be found in Tim Newark’s account of the aesthetic influence of camouflage in Camouflage (2007), and in an editorial photo by Karl Lagerfeld reproduced in Hardy Blechman and Alex Newman’s definitive Disruptive Pattern Material: An Encyclopedia of Camouflage (2004). The dress also featured in the exhibition Love and War: The Weaponised Woman (2006), curated by Valerie Steele at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. The actor Sarah Jessica Parker famously wore the dress as one of fourteen different costume changes as presenter of the 2000 MTV Music Awards (Brooklyn Museum 2013: 8).

2 From its origins at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2011, the exhibition ran for a remarkable five years, finishing its run in June 2016, South Korea (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, nd.) ~ !14 ~ !

Figure 1.2. Detail, Jean-Paul Gaultier evening gown. Photograph by Dita Svelte at The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 17 February 2015.

Through its skilful construction, the dress produced in me a remarkable and striking effect of capture and immobilisation: I did not want to step away from it. In the terms mentioned by Marc Jacobs in one of the opening quotes of this Introduction, the dress possessed an astonishing appeal – I liked and admired it – and a powerful allure – I was drawn towards it. Having treasured the memory of this particular dress for some time, and having been drawn toward it in a country such as Australia where major international fashion exhibitions are both relatively infrequent, and often require a

~ ! ~15 substantial investment of travel time to access, I could only surmise that this dress exerted on me an effect of irresistible seduction. Appeal and allure compressed in one singular experience, as Jacobs might express it.

The Gaultier dress thus offered itself up to me as what I might describe as a pure ‘moment of fashion’, one encapsulating creativity, skill, and delight – all qualities associated with wit. As sociologist of fashion Barbara Vinken describes this immersive experience, ‘Fashion is defined as the art of the perfect moment, of the sudden, surprising and yet obscurely expected harmonious apparition’ (2005: 42). Experiencing such a powerful response to this dress in terms as a witty fashion ‘moment’ – one that managed to both surprise and seduce me – certain questions arose. Why was I so attracted to this particular garment? In what manner did it exert such a powerful effect on me, and others, as evidenced by its continued popularity in exhibitions across the world? Could this experience of a witty ‘fashion moment’ possess broader import for the study of fashion itself? In thinking about these questions, I was reminded of another source of amusing fashion inspiration that has lingered with me.

1.2 O’Brien’s epigram

Like the Gaultier dress, this further ‘moment of fashion’ has continued to resonate with me in its ability to surprise and seduce. I refer to another of the quotes that opens the Introduction, written by renowned fashion journalist and former Interview editor Glenn O’Brien3. In its full form, this epigram reads ‘Fashion photography might often seem stupid and shallow, but who can say that these photographs of beautiful women don’t mysteriously affect the harvest, the weather, and global politics?’ (O’Brien 1991: 78). This pithy provocation comes from an essay, ‘Pink Thoughts’, in The Idealising Vision: The Art of Fashion Photography. This tome, featuring contributions from fashion luminaries such as Richard Martin and Anne Hollander, is a mix of evocative editorial photography and equally evocative fashion writing. O’Brien’s piece stands out in this collection as a camp, stream-of-consciousness meditation on fashion photography’s relationship to subjects as varied as pornography, beauty, models, mythology,

3 Interview is of course the famous celebrity and and fashion magazine originally founded by Andy Warhol. ~ !16 ~ narcissism and even fashion itself as a ‘force of nature’ (1991: 78). His essay takes its cue from a certain tradition within non-academic fashion writing of exaggerating the sometimes surreal and bizarre diktats of fashion4 ; indeed, O’Brien’s playful style throughout his essay – not just in this singular quote – suggests that we perhaps take his own amusing musings with a grain of salt.

And yet, there is something more to this formulation than just a glib quip at fashion’s expense. On a first reading, O’Brien’s epigram relies for its witty effect on the sense that the question he poses is one we might find, at first glance, inherently ridiculous. The domains of fashion photographs of these impossibly unattainable women and the fruits of the harvest, the vagaries of the weather and the unpredictability of politics are apparently so disparate that their mere juxtaposition produces an implausible and witty ‘pink thought’, as O’Brien calls it. The latter phenomena, after all, are perhaps usually regarded as more socially significant than the effervescent ephemera of fashion. As Herbert Blau notes in the title of his 1999 monograph, fashion is often dismissed as

‘Nothing in itself’5 . The suggestion that the domain of fashion might intertwine with other, supposedly more ‘serious’ domains, produces the ‘punch’ in O’Brien’s punchline – that fashion and the serious do not usually commingle. In a similar fashion, the final quote that opens this chapter – Teufelsdröckh’s maxim that ‘The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes’ from Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (2000) [1836] – might be intended to remind us that the intersection of decorative dress and philosophical reflection is prima facie ridiculous.

The juxtaposition of an idea of fashion with these supposedly serious domains in O’Brien’s witty epigram invited for me contemplation of how these phenomena might interact. What would it mean if fashion did possess a material impact on the world beyond pretty pictures? How might this impact on global phenomena such as the harvest, the weather, and global politics be measured? What other phenomena might

4 O’Brien concludes his piece by writing, in a one-line non sequitur to the material that precedes it, ‘As a fashion guru once said, “Think Pink!”’ (1991: 78); this remark, and the title of his essay ‘Pink Thoughts’ itself, references a musical number from the Audrey Hepburn vehicle Funny Face (1957) which features an over-the-top magazine editor played by Kay Thompson. This exhortation to ‘Think Pink!’ itself is a further allusion to US Harper’s Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland’s famous epigram: ‘pink is the navy blue of India’ (Vreeland 1985 [1984]: 139).

5 The full title of Blau’s book is Nothing in Itself: Complexions of Fashion (1999). ~ ! ~17 fashion interact with? In Teuflesdröckh’s phrase, how might we derive wisdom from looking ‘fixedly’ on clothes? Why should it be assumed that fashion, given its centuries- old hold on the Western imagination, does not affect – in either an oblique or explicit manner – myriad other facets of social existence?

In inviting these questions, O’Brien’s epigram – just as with the Gaultier dress – managed to surprise me through its presentation of an unexpected and creative association in a compressed form; it also seduced me by leading me to consider the relationship of the apparently trivial subject of fashion photography with whole realms of existence usually considered beyond fashion’s purview.

1.3 The wit of fashion in other empirical sites

Having encountered two very different experiences of fashion, albeit ones that shared a similar quality of wit, I considered whether this quality of wit was apparent in other empirical sites of fashion. Indeed, I quickly found that wit and fashion are well- connected within empirical sites of popular culture. For example, as Flood and Grant (2014) have documented, in the eighteenth century the production of printed caricatures that exaggerated elaborate fashions of the day were a popular source of entertainment that allowed people to laugh at the foibles of the fashionable set [Figure 1.3]6. Fictional and literary examples of the connection between fashion and wit further abound. Perhaps the most famous example is Hans Christian Andersen’s re-telling of the story of the Emperor and his New Clothes. Published in 1837, Andersen’s version continues to persist as one of the most famous extant fairy tales7. The genre of the amusing fairy tale continues to inspire practitioners of fashion today. For example, the designers Viktor & Rolf, beloved by those interested in fashion for both their artistic flair and witty interventions in the fashion system even published their own volume of fairy tales,

6 Catherine Flood and Sarah Grant’s Style and Satire: Fashion in Print 1776-1925 (2014) describes the relationship between fashion plates and fashion satires. They note that at times the two were often indistinguishable and often drew inspiration from each other with artists producing both fashion plates and satirical works. Peter McNeil (2010) also briefly sketches the relationship of satirical caricatures and fashion, and contextualises them within a contemporary perspective such as, for example, in the work of John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood.

7 See Diana Crone Frank and Jeffrey Frank (2005) for a recent translation of this story from the Danish, including excerpts from Andersen’s original Preface. ~ !18 ~ beautifully illustrated with drawings interwoven with the ribbon imagery familiar to those with knowledge of their material design work (Viktor & Rolf 2011).

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.3. Matthew Darly, The Flower Garden (1777), satirising the coiffures of the fashionable set including an entire miniature garden, complete with folly; image from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed 23 December 2016.

Examples of the connection between humour and fashion persist in popular culture in print, film, TV and music. A favourite genre features stories that send up the pretensions of fashion professionals, such as Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter (1994), Absolutely Fabulous (TV series 1992-2012, and 2016 movie [Figure 1.4]), The Devil Wears Prada (book 2003, movie 2006), or the cult classic Zoolander (2001) with Ben Stiller’s pouty ~ ! ~19 ‘Blue Steel’ model-pose mockery retaining cultural currency today [Figure 1.5]. Madonna and Lady Gaga integrate amusing interpretations of fashion into their performances – think for instance of Madonna’s conical bra (also by Gaultier) or Lady Gaga’s (now-mummified) meat dress [Figures 1.6, 1.7].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.4. Edina and Patsy, the wildest and the worst of the London fashion publicity machine/ fashion scene and self-described ‘fash mag slags’. Image accessed via iview.abc.net.au, 20 April 2019.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.5. Ben Stiller as the pouty and amusingly stupid male model Zoolander, displaying his famous ‘Blue Steel’ signature look. Image accessed via variety.com, 19 April 2019.

~ ! ~20 Figure 1.6. Madonna’s whimsical conical bra lingerie, produced by Gaultier for the Blond Ambition tour of 1990, used in the concert version of Express Yourself (1989). Photograph by Dita Svelte from The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibition, 17 February 2015.

~ ! ~21 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.7. Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress, worn for the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards. The ultimate rendition of fur, perhaps; whereas the PETA models merely went naked, Lady Gaga goes beyond this to display animals literally as strips of flesh. Image via cosmopolitan.com, accessed 20 April 2019.

Diana Vreeland, the legendary editor of US Harper’s Bazaar, was famed for her ridiculous and hilarious fashion advice. In her column ‘Why Don’t You…’, she made surrealist suggestions such as ordering ‘Schiaparelli’s cellophane belt with your name and telephone number on it’ or rinsing ‘your blond child’s hair in dead champagne to keep it gold, as they do in France’ (HarpersBazaar.com, 2014). Today, fashion journalists such as Hadley Freeman for The Guardian continue to poke fun at fashion’s sillier aspects in her column ‘Ask Hadley’, such as her commentary on a picture from a duet performed by Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran where, ‘while Beyoncé looked magical, Sheeran dressed like he had come from a lock-in at the student union’ (Freeman 2018b) [Figure 1.8].

~ ! ~22 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.8. A study on contrasts: Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran in concert musically, if not in style. Image accessed via theguardian.com, 24 April 2019.

Fashion advertising and editorial photography features images of the exaggerated and the hilarious, as found in the camp tableaux of luminaries such as Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Mario Testino, Terry Richardson and David LaChapelle [Figure 1.9].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.9. Image from David LaChapelle’s ‘Disaster’ series, featuring a Viktor & Rolf creation comprised of pillows and quilted bedding, here worn by a model who has apparently literally slept through the apocalypse. Image accessed via chasseurmagazine.com, 19 April 2019.

~ ! ~23 Certain fashion designers themselves intervene in the fashion system in witty ways, including the aforementioned Viktor & Rolf, Franco Moschino, and, of course, Jean- Paul Gaultier himself. Perhaps the ultimate contemporary exemplar of fashionable wit is (the now sadly deceased) Karl Lagerfeld, chief designer for Fendi and Chanel for several decades, and creator of his own eponymous label. Over the course of his career, Lagerfeld constructed himself as the ultimate modern dandy. Lagerfeld was as renowned for his familiar silhouette of dark glasses, ponytailed bob and slim-fitting Dior suits as he was for his design talent and controversial quips [Figure 1.10].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 1.10. Karl Lagerfeld’s iconic silhouette. Image accessed via vogue.com.au, 19 April 2019.

Given these rich pickings in popular culture, one might expect a nuanced connection between wit and fashion to have already been established in the academic study of fashion. However, existing material favours historical examples over conceptual

~ ! ~24 innovations, such as in the discussion of the social importance of satirical printed fashion plates from the eighteenth century onwards (McNeil 2010; Flood and Grant 2014; McNeil 2018). Other authors acknowledge the connection between wit and fashion in certain designers, but gloss over connections between fashion and humour. For example, the work of Viktor & Rolf is often praised for its commentary on the fashion system as a form of art practice rather than one of wit itself (Evans and Frankel 2008; Davies 2008; Arnold 2009; Loriot 2016). Others identify the operation of an amusing exaggeration at work in certain fashion innovators, but view this as the expression of the comic grotesque rather than perhaps a property intimately related to fashion (Granata 2016).

1.3 Statement of purpose and approach

Given the above discussion, the purpose of this thesis is thus to investigate how an idea of wit might contribute to understanding fashion. In undertaking this investigation, this thesis will utilise my personal experiences – such as the surprise and seduction I found in the Gaultier dress and O’Brien’s epigram – and further empirical examples from the collective world of fashion.

This thesis will adopt the approach of sociology in undertaking this investigation. Sociology is an appropriate discipline to consider the experience of wit in fashion as it mediates individual experience with collective phenomena (see, for example, the work of sociologists of fashion such as Georg Simmel 2003 [1904]; Gilles Lipovetsky 1994 [1989]; Barbara Vinken 2005; Yuniya Kawamura 2011, 2018). Affect studies has also been proposed as an intriguing approach to reconciling individual experience with collective social phenomena. Sara Ahmed is the leading theorist in exploring how the emotions interact with broader social phenomenon (The Cultural Politics of Emotion 2004, 2014; Queer Phenomenology 2006; The Promise of Happiness 2010). Ahmed is interested in how ‘“emotion” has been viewed as “beneath” the faculties of thought and reason’ (2014: 3). Affect studies has been widely considered by fashion theorists as a valid approach to their object of study, given the intimate and personal nature of clothing, but also its wider social import. (See, for example, Johnson 2001, Broome 2006, Ruggerone 2017, McDowell 2017, Shinkle 2017, Davidson 2019.) Given the ~ ! ~25 importance of affect studies in highlighting the individual emotional experience as a valid site of study, in my own investigation of wit I will focus directly on the pleasurable and fun aspects of fashion as found in the Gaultier dress and O’Brien’s epigram. In their Introduction to Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists (2016), fashion theorists Agnés Rocamora and Anneke Smelik emphasise that the study of fashion need not be overly dry or serious – just as fashion is often pleasurable and fun, so also can be the analysis of fashion itself. Rocamora and Smelik evoke, ‘the pleasure of studying fashion’ (2016: 14). As they write, ‘Theory has all too often connotations of dry abstraction or high degrees of difficulty. But it can be exciting and exhilarating to think through fashion… [U]ltimately, fashion is not only fun, but it matters’ (2016: 14-15). A sociology of wit that recognises individual experience, collective phenomena, and pleasure and fun – these are the approaches that inform this thesis.

1.4 Research question, aims, and method

Given the above discussion, the research question of this thesis can be formulated as follows:

To what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion?

In addressing this question, the thesis will pursue the following aims:

To provide a theoretical framework for a putative sociology of wit;

To support this theoretical framework by demonstrating how empirical sites of fashion might exemplify the principles found in a sociology of wit;

To demonstrate how the capacity of a sociology of wit might provide insight into contemporary expressions of fashion.

~ ! ~26 In providing an analysis that addresses the above research question and aims, the thesis will adopt the following method. Firstly, I will investigate the literature of the sociology of humour to theorise a putative sociology of wit. Next, I will determine whether this sociology of wit is supported by further empirical examples. Finally, I will examine further empirical examples to investigate whether this sociology of wit can inform contemporary fashion studies.

1.5 Sites of analysis and summary of argument

In pursuing the research question, aims and method of this thesis my empirical sites of analysis will include a wide range of materials, including visual and material objects; fashion imagery and photographs both original and reproduced from a variety of sources such as print, websites and social media; and fictional examples from books, TV, and film. Given the enormous amount and range of extant material evidence available in the realm of the study of fashion, a process of selection will be undertaken in identifying the most appropriate examples which support the investigation of my research question. As I introduce these empirical sites in the subsequent chapters I will provide specific reasoning to explain why these examples have been chosen. In general, however, the principle as to how these examples will be selected echoes the point of inspiration that opens this thesis. In discussing the Gaultier dress above, I describe the way in which it speaks to me as a witty ‘fashion moment’ – that is, it functions as a harmonious apparition that synthesises qualities of creativity, skill and delight. Similarly, the empirical sites I will explicate also function as powerful ‘fashion moments’ within the context of each chapter – examples that are compelling, exciting, and continue to inspire continued reflection on their meaning within the study of fashion. And while I acknowledge that phenomena such as fashion and wit will naturally produce varying responses in different individuals, the empirical examples I introduce to advance my thesis argument are – as we shall see – also broadly acknowledged within popular culture as synthesising qualities of wit and fashion.

Having explained in general how the many empirical sites I provide in this thesis to support my theoretical argument will be selected – and noting that in the chapters that follow, specific reasons will be provided as to why these examples are appropriate in ~ ! ~27 advancing the investigation of my research question – the thesis argument will proceed as follows. I will firstly provide a theoretical account of sociology of wit as per the first step of my method. I will then examine empirical sites of wit within fashion via this theoretical framework, as per the second step of my method. Finally, I will examine further empirical sites to investigate the value of a sociology of wit in contemporary fashion studies, as per the third step of my method. I will now outline in more detail the specifics of this argument in the chapter summaries below.

1.6 Chapter summaries

Chapter Two, the Literature Review, will provide overviews of the sociology of fashion and the sociology of humour. It will synthesise elements from each of those approaches to suggest a specific sociology of wit as appropriate for studying fashion via the theoretically elaborated concepts of surprise and seduction.

In explicating this sociology of wit, in Chapter Three this thesis will first explore an empirical site where fashion and wit are explicitly connected – that of the figure of the dandy. It will consider the English tradition of witty dandyism, inaugurated by Beau Brummell, to show that the dandy’s desire to surprise is expressed equally in his sartorial innovations as it is in his verbal epigrams. It will provide further empirical examples of contemporary dandyism to show that this iconic ‘man of fashion’ continues to remain relevant as an emblem of the surprise of fashion.

Chapter Four will consider an empirical site where fashion and wit are not usually explicitly connected – that of glamour. Glamour is intimately connected to fashion. As Elizabeth Wilson writes, ‘That elusive concept, glamour, is more closely associated with fashionable dress than with any other aspect of Western culture’ (2007: 95). However, glamour is usually regarded within the study of fashion as a primarily visual, ineluctably distant and unattainable quality (see, for example, Buckley and Gundle 2004, Postrel 2013). Glamour is also rarely associated with humour; rather it is connected to Hollywood stardom and remote luxury. This chapter will utilise a non- traditional empirical site to show how glamour is conceptualised within a specific system as a form of witty seduction. Seduction might be described as the power to lead ~ ! ~28 astray, as well as the secret desire of the victim to be led astray. In theorising seduction, I will discuss Jean Baudrillard’s intriguing and provocative text Seduction (1990) [1979], which directly connects these ideas of seduction, glamour, fashion and wit. In connecting this idea of the seductive wit of glamour to fashion, I will also consider a range of other empirical contemporary sites of glamour in fashion, focussing on the TV series Killing Eve (2018-present).

In Chapter Five, I will consider in more detail Thomas Carlyle’s satirical Sartor Resartus (2000) [1836] to demonstrate how wit can produce genuine insights into the study of fashion. In this text, the fictional Professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh is identified as the author of a potential ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ that is deliberately fragmentary, piecemeal, and obfuscatory. Nonetheless, as critics such as William Keenan (2001) and Michael Carter (2003) argue, this supposedly satirical work actually contains insights that would later be recognised as valid within the sociology of fashion. This chapter will then consider how wit not only sharpens and clarifies the insights found in Carlyle’s text, but also how it might further contribute to understanding contemporary manifestations of fashion. The chapter thus functions as a bridge to the final two chapters of the thesis, which discusses wit’s contribution to contemporary fashion through considering two important and highly original sociological theorists of fashion – Thorstein Veblen and Roland Barthes.

The first of these chapters – Chapter Six – will focus on the witty potential of Thorstein Veblen’s famous theory of conspicuous consumption, outlined in his classic economic and sociological text, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1998) [1899]. Veblen describes conspicuous consumption as the idea that ostentatious displays of luxury goods serve to mark and reinforce distinctions between social groups. For Veblen, expensive clothing represents a special example of the principle of conspicuous consumption due to its obvious visibility – it is worn on the body, where everyone can see it – and exhibits the requirement, unique to fashion, that the style of garments constantly change. Veblen’s theory remains influential as an explanation for the ostentatious futility of displays of fashion. For example, commentators such as Quentin Bell have reconfigured Veblen’s theory, such as in the idea of ‘conspicuous outrage’ found in On Human Finery (1976, second edition; 1947 first edition), and Jonathan Faiers (2016) has expanded on the idea ~ ! ~29 of ‘stealth luxury’ via his analysis of different luxury forms of the supposedly basic white T-shirt.

This chapter will consider a further example of conspicuous consumption – conspicuous wit – via the work of two rather different fashion designers in the context of contemporary luxury studies. It will consider Alessandro Michele’s outstandingly successful vision for Gucci from 2015 onwards – noted for its ostentation and vulgarity, via a mish-mash of Renaissance prints, sci-fi accessories, zoological themed jewellery, and a whole range of over-the-top sartorial signifiers that might have been directly borrowed from di Lampedusa’s The Leopard (2007) [1958]. It will also consider the ironic 1990s Eastern bloc aesthetic of Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga, who is primarily known for his deliberately anti-fashion appropriation of common consumer garments. Gvasalia has reconfigured garments such as DHL driver T-shirts and produced collaborations with ‘normcore’ brands such as Oakley, Levi’s, and Reebok, where basic items of mass apparel such as sunglasses, jeans and socks are rebranded with the Vetements name and sold at designer fashion prices. In his design capacity for Balenciaga, Gvasalia has similarly made the traditionally unattractive and cheap expensive items of luxury fashion, such as with his crystal-encrusted Crocs or his $2,000 leather designer versions of oversized blue plastic IKEA shopping bags. The concepts of surprise and seduction vital to the sociology of wit will be foregrounded in both these examples.

Chapter Seven will consider contemporary manifestations of fashion through the idea of proliferating fashion systems. Drawing on Roland Barthes’ discussion of a singular, integrated, economically oriented fashion system, as described in The Fashion System (1983) [1967], this chapter will examine the expansion and continued growth of unique and witty fashion systems in the contemporary moment. (I will shortly expand on this idea of the fashion system in the Literature Review.) The ideas of surprise and seduction will be applied to the work of the house of Viktor & Rolf – acknowledged masters of compelling, must-see, and most importantly, witty catwalk presentations.

Throughout this thesis, I will continue to reflect on the Gaultier dress and O’Brien’s epigram via the theories explicated, as well as other empirical sites such as the dandy ~ ! ~30 and glamour. Finally, in my conclusion – Chapter Eight – I will reiterate the importance of the concepts of surprise and seduction essential to formulating a sociology of wit. I will provide a summation of my argument, state the contributions to academic knowledge that the thesis provides, and give indications for the advancement of my future research.

~ 31! ~ Chapter Two

Literature Review: The Elements of a Sociology of Wit

Fashion is, no doubt, sociology’s darling (Vinken 2005: 4).

2.1 Aim of Literature Review

The Introduction to this thesis discussed the connection between fashion and wit via an exploration of my personal experience of the wit of fashion supported by empirical examples from popular culture. There I highlighted that fashion is both an individual experience yet also a collective social phenomenon. The Introduction proposed the approach of sociology as providing appropriate insight into this dynamic. In fleshing out the sketch of sociology provided there, this Literature Review provides an overview of the sociology of humour in order to provide a theoretical basis for a putative sociology of wit that will assist in answering my research question: To what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion?

2.2 The study of fashion

I will first distinguish among some key terms used in the study of fashion. This is necessary as there are many theoretical descriptions of fashion that will be used throughout this thesis at different points. These key terms include ‘fashion’, ‘Fashion’, ‘dress studies’, ‘consummate fashion’, ‘postfashion’, ‘fast fashion’, ’instant fashion’, and even the ‘end of fashion’. The study of fashion is most often contained within the term ‘fashion studies’. An open and inviting interdisciplinarity might be described as the key quality of ‘fashion studies’. For example, Valerie Steele describes fashion studies as ‘above all an interdisciplinary field that welcomes insight and analysis from multiple perspectives, embracing anthropology, art history, cultural and intellectual history, economics, gender and queer studies, material culture, and other fields, some of

~ ! ~32 them also newly emerging’ (2010: xvii)1 . Having noted this interdisciplinarity quality, I will now define the various terms used to describe fashion.

2.2.1 Lower case ‘fashion’

Whilst the etymology of the word ‘fashion’ derives from the Latin facere, ‘to make’, this definition does not capture the sense in which the word ‘fashion’ often signifies within the study of fashion. The phenomenon of what might be called general, lower- case ‘f’ ‘fashion’ as a widely understood cultural term is defined primarily by its quality of incessant change. Elizabeth Wilson writes in a widely quoted formulation from Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity that ‘Fashion is dress in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles. Fashion, in a sense, is change’ (1985: 3). To borrow a succinct phrase from Roland Barthes, fashion may also be described as the ‘collective imitation of regular novelty’ (2006 [1962]: 68). In this view, incessant change and the production of novelty in clothing styles are integral elements of this definition of ‘fashion’.

2.2.2 Upper case ‘Fashion’

Another consideration of fashion comes from Roland Barthes’ definition of upper case ‘F’ Fashion in his book The Fashion System, published in French in 1967 and translated into English in 1983. As historian Linzy Brekke writes, it is here that ‘Barthes coined the term “the fashion system” and lays out its framework’ (2005: 12). Barthes – energised by the scientific potential of structuralist semiology – interprets a year’s worth of French fashion magazines to exposit an elaborate system of signification or production of meaning. Barthes analyses the apparently inconsequential maxims of fashion writing, like ‘A little braid gives elegance’ or ‘A leather belt, with a rose stick in it... on a soft shetland dress’ (1983 [1967]: 27, 3). As Paul Jobling notes, some of these extracts are paraphrases that Barthes himself constructs rather than direct quotes from the magazines he studies; 1999: 86-88, 2016: 145). The cumulative effect of these

1 For further descriptions of the iterations of fashion studies in terms of interdisciplinarity, see also Black, De La Haye, Entwhistle, Rocamora, Root and Thomas 2013; Nicklas and Pollen 2016; Faiers 2016a; Rocamora and Smelik 2016; Jenss 2016.

~ ! ~33 apparently innocuous utterances is to generate a compelling idea of capital ‘F’ ‘Fashion’ itself as requiring constant change in clothing. For Barthes, the capital ‘F’ of ‘Fashion’ is indicative of the imperative that gives the phenomenon its forceful status as a kind of social law. As Barthes writes:

Why does Fashion utter clothing so abundantly? Why does it interpose, between object and its user, such a luxury of words? The reason is, of course, an economic one. Calculating, industrial society is obliged to form consumers who don’t calculate [otherwise] clothing would be bought… only at the very slow rate of its dilapidation… In order to blunt the buyer’s calculating consciousness, a veil must be drawn around the object – a veil of images, of reasons, of meanings (1983 [1967]: xi).

The idea of the ‘fashion system’ thus describes the industrial apparatus of design, production, distribution, marketing and sales which has disseminated fashion from the end of the nineteenth century and propelled it through most of the twentieth. The system includes haute couture, prêt-à-porter or ready-to-wear, and mass fashion. However, Barthes’ description of this singular fashion system, while compelling, does not necessarily tell the whole story. The proliferation of different types of fashion – consummate fashion, post-fashion, fast fashion and instant fashion, as I will discuss below – point to the existence of multiple fashion systems. Before discussing these alternate conceptions of fashion, I will first describe another characterisation of the study of fashion – ‘dress studies’.

2.2.3 Dress studies Charlotte Nicklas and Annebella Pollen (2015) prefer ‘dress’ as a more inclusive term than ‘fashion’ because, as they argue, it encompasses all forms of clothing, not just fashion, everyday wear, or what might have previously been described as formal or ceremonial outfits considered as ‘costume’. Nicklas and Pollen to highlight that ‘We have used the term “dress”… to signal the inclusivity designated by the term… this book allows discussion of a very broad range of clothing and wearers, many of which have been hitherto neglected’ (2016: 2). In this thesis, I will continue to use the term ‘fashion studies’ due to its predominant usage amongst practitioners within this field of study. Furthermore, the focus of this thesis is on fashion rather than what Nicklas and Pollen might characterise as everyday dress.

~ !34 ~ 2.2.4 Consummate fashion and postfashion

Sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky, in The Empire of Fashion (1994) [1987], describes a contemporary era of consummate fashion – a global situation where the logic of fashion’s novelty extends beyond clothing and strict imperative declarations of what is ‘in’ this season have been replaced by a generalised logic of novelty that extends to every aspect of consumer society. As Lipovetsky writes, ‘Fashion is no longer an aesthetic embellishment, a decorative accessory to collective life; it is the key to the entire edifice’ (1994 [1987]: 6; emphasis added). For Lipovetsky, ‘attractiveness and evanescence have become the organising principles of collective life’ (6). Fashion is nothing less than a ‘globally positive power’ (6), fuelled by the urge for individualism predominant in modern democracies.

Another sociologist of fashion is Barbara Vinken. For Vinken, fashion has moved beyond its Francophiliac tradition of the ‘hundred year fashion’ (2005: 35) – where, post the work of the first couturier Charles Frederick Worth, the tripartite hierarchical structure of haute couture, pret-a-porter and street fashion that dominates the system was established – to a model that Vinken calls postfashion. In the era of postfashion, differing modes, styles and genres mix at the whim of the devotee of the fashion rather than by decree – one might wear a designer Chanel jacket with jeans, Doc Martens and a mass-produced white T-shirt. As Vinken writes, ‘Postfashion breaks the dominance of Paris fashion, which with its couturiers had been the last remainder of French power of the eighteenth century... The fashion designer loses his absolute power. His inspirations no longer come to him from an obscure genius. Fashion becomes a co-production between the créateur and those who wear the clothes’ (35).

2.2.5 Fast fashion and instant fashion

~ 35! ~ Fast fashion refers to the practice of mass-market retailers such as Zara and H&M producing knockoffs of more prestigious runway designs in a very short timeframe, often a matter of weeks (see, for example, Bhardwaj and Fairhurst 2010). Constant copying of designer items at low prices is the modus operandi of these companies. In recent years, designer houses have responded by introducing by what I call instant fashion, where garments presented on the catwalk are immediately available for purchase after the show. For example, in 2016, Burberry – a recognised innovator in the digital fashion space – presented a full collection that could be ordered moments after the catwalk presentation finished for delivery in eight weeks. By 2017, one could pre- order select items from a collection that had not yet even been fully revealed to the press for immediate dispatch. This digital innovation continues. For example, now that Riccardo Tisci has taken the reigns from Christopher Bailey as head designer at Burberry, clothing drops have moved from seasonal collections to include extreme short-term availability. For example, some limited items are available to purchase via Instagram for 24 hours only [Figure 2.1].

~ !36 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 2.1. Screenshot of an email from burberry.com, indicating the new temporality of instant fashion – with a reminder countdown of the time ticking away while this limited drop is available on 17 July only. Promotional email, 17 July 2019.

2.2.6 The end of fashion, and the multiplication of fashion systems

Recent writers have suggested that the fractures within the fashion system in the twenty- first century imply that we are now encountering the idea of ‘the end of’ the fashion system. Li Edelkoort is a trend forecaster whose Anti-Fashion manifesto – subtitled ‘Ten reasons why the fashion system is obsolete’ (2015) has sparked much debate, online and academically, including The End of Fashion conference convened in

~ ! ~37 Wellington, New Zealand, in December 2016 by Vicki Karaminas and Hilary Radner2. Writing for the Business of Fashion, editor Imran Amed suggested in 2016 the ‘fashion system [is] seemingly at a breaking point’ with ‘economies… teetering, markets crashing and oil prices plummeting’. But he also offered hints of hope amongst the chaos of collapse. Amed writes that ‘We need to destroy what we have, in order to reset, refocus and rebuild’ (2016: 3). As Vicki Karaminas and Adam Geczy write in The End of Fashion, Clothing and Dress in the Age of Globalisation: ‘Culturally speaking, to consign something to death is to open a door to an afterlife, which can be as cliché or reinvention’ (2018: 1). Karaminas and Geczy concur that ‘The “end of fashion” is therefore not to be taken literally but rather in terms of the way fashion and the fashion system, as we have understood it to be in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have radically changed’ (2).

2.2.7 Overview of definitions of fashion

Given the diversity of definitions of fashion provided above, it might be appropriate to speak of the proliferation of fashion systems, rather than a singular fashion system as described by Barthes. This thesis will continue to examine the importance and differing specificities of differing fashion systems – including ones defined by humour and wit – rather than assuming that there exists a singular fashion system with straightforward hierarchies of style such as couture and prêt-à-porter. I will return to this issue in my final chapter, which will focus specifically on Barthes and the proliferation of fashion systems.

2.3 The sociology of humour

Having delineated various conceptions of fashion, I will now turn to the sociology of humour to provide an account of a putative sociology of wit that could inform the research question of this thesis, that is, to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? I will provide an overview of the three main theories of

2 My own paper presented at this conference, ‘Liberating the Wit of Fashion: Barthes’ Fashion System vs Carlyle’s Philosophy of Clothes’, critiqued how the idea of the end of fashion is presupposed by a particular idea of a fashion system (Svelte 2016). The general idea of the ‘end of fashion’ has of course been mooted previously, such as in journalist Teri Agin's The End of Fashion: How Marketing Changed the Clothing Business Forever (1999). ~ !38 ~ humour before discussing in more detail the most appropriate theory in terms of the specific properties of wit.

Influential sociologist of humour and taste Giselinde Kuipers writes that ‘Humour is a quintessentially social phenomenon’, with its focus on shared social interaction, use of ‘socially and culturally shaped utterances’ and focus on ‘topics and themes… central to the social, cultural and model order of a society or a social group’ (2008: 361). In a comprehensive overview of the field, ‘The Sociology of Humour’. Kuipers sketches the three most influential theories of the sociology of humour – superiority theory, relief theory and incongruity theory3. While these theories sometimes overlap in their concerns and ideas, these three traditions are distinct enough to be treated separately in providing an overview of the field.

2.3.1 Superiority theory

The first theory of humour, superiority theory, holds that humans laugh at someone or make mock in order to establish and reinforce our own sense of self, or as an attack on others, either as individuals (making fun of a specific person) or as part of a social group (jokes about gender, class, sexuality, ethnicity and so on). This theory of humour can be traced back to the writings of Aristotle and Plato4. However, the most famous and influential formulation of this conception of humour derives from the work of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). In Chapter IX of Human Nature (1650), ‘Of the Passions of the Mind’, Hobbes writes that ‘men laugh at the infirmities of others, by comparison of which their own abilities are set off and illustrated’ (1999 [1650]: 54). That is, people laugh at others in order to reaffirm their own better circumstances. Of the qualities of wit in particular, Hobbes writes ‘men laugh at jests, the wit whereof always consisteth in the elegant discovering and conveying to our minds some absurdity or another’ (54). For Hobbes, in the case of wit ‘the passion of laughter is nothing else but a sudden glory arising from sudden conception of some

3 While inevitably there is some categorical overlap, each of these three characterisations of humour possess enough distinct properties that practitioners of humour studies are comfortable with this terminology.

4 See, for example Zijderveld 1983: 20; Billig 2005: 40-45; Morreall 2008: 214-215; Kuipers 2008: 362. ~ 39! ~ eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of others, or with our own formerly’ (54-55)5. Hobbes famous phrase ‘sudden glory’ is oft-quoted by theorists of humour (see, for example, Davis 1993, or Billig 2005) to capture the spirit of superiority theory’s separation between categories of people marked by one group’s belief in its favourability over the other. Hobbes’ influence on thinking about humour is indeed considerable.

For example, Charles Baudelaire’s essay on The Essence of Laughter (1855) discusses superiority theory to identify the crucial elements that the viewer finds amusing in artistic works such as caricature, pastiche, and pantomime. Baudelaire writes that ‘Laughter comes from a man’s idea of his own superiority’ (1972 [1855]: 145; see also explicit references at 148, 149, 154, 160, 161). Superiority theory for Baudelaire is the preeminent explanation of humour. While Baudelaire recognises that laughter takes ‘diverse’ forms (150), in general’ he writes, ‘laughter is the expression of the idea of superiority, no longer of man over man, but of man over nature’ (151)6. For Baudelaire, the essence of the comic is to ‘instil in the spectator, or… reader, the feeling of joy at his own superiority and the joy of man’s superiority over nature’ (161).

Some contemporary authors also conceptualise humour as principally an expression of a superior attitude. John Durant and Jonathan Miller’s volume, Laughing Matters: A Serious Look at Humour (1986), is based on a conference in Belfast which approached humour from a variety of perspectives, including neuroscience, psychology, film and literary studies. It contains a number of insightful essays that examine the comic from the superiority perspective. Michael Neve writes that ‘large parts of the public business of laughter are simply forms of garish stereotyping. Learning that what we are really doing in laughter is laughing at, in order to make the object of our laughter unhappy and reduced, is a real lesson’ (1986: 36). As Neve writes, ‘Behind the cackle lurks the desire, lurks the intention to hurt’ (36). Also in this volume, sociologist Christie Davis also discusses the well-known phenomenon of ethnic humour. In ‘The Irish Joke as a

5 Hobbes restates this idea and phrasing when he writes in Leviathan ‘Sudden glory, is the passion which maketh those Grimaces call we LAUGHTER’ (2017 [1651]: 48).

6 The former aspect Baudelaire calls the ‘significative comic’; the latter the ‘grotesque or absolute comic’ (1972 [1855]: 152). ~ !40 ~ Social Phenomenon’, Davis writes that ‘jokes about the stupidity of some other group have a near-universal popularity. Such jokes provide the teller with a sense of sudden playful superiority which seems to be the essence of much humour generally’ (1986: 45). Davis notes that jokes about stupidity often vary their targets from country to country and over time – for example, in the US, jokes about the Irish transformed into jokes about Polish residents as the former became more assimilated – operating on a centre-periphery dynamic inflected by geography and culture. As Davis writes, ‘It is the people at the centre who are the arbiters of language and culture’ (51).

Another attempt to recast thinking about humour in terms of superiority theory comes from social psychologist Michael Billig, whose text Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour (2005) attempts to redress what he calls a surfeit of what he calls ‘ideological positivism’ in the study of humour (2005: 10). In other words, he comes to bury humour, not to praise it. Billig acknowledges that ‘humour is central to social life’ but argues ‘not in the way…. That much popular and academic writing on the topic suggests’ (2). He writes that ‘It is easy to praise humour for bringing people together in moments of pure, creative enjoyment. But it is not those moments that constitute the social core of humour, but, instead, it is the darker, less easily admired practice of ridicule’ (2). Indeed, for Billig ‘ridicule lies at the core of social life’ (2) and his book examines a number of the social functions of this type of humour in order to redress the imbalance in favour of overtly positive theories of humour. As he writes, ‘superiority theory… may offer clues about the maintenance of power, order and ideological self-deception, as well as discouraging the unquestioning acceptance of laughter’s goodness’ (39).

While superiority theory is useful in identifying the ambiguities inherent in humorous utterances, actions and situations, it does posses limitations. Despite its influence in the other fields, superiority theory has not been recognised as the dominant sociological theory of humour. Kuipers notes that ‘classical theorists describe superiority as an individual experience: the communicative or relational aspect of the joking and laughing is generally not examined in these theories. In other words: while addressing a social event, superiority theories of humour are not very sociological’ (2008: 363). Furthermore, Kuipers argues that superiority theory possesses a certain ‘conceptual ~ ! ~41 unclarity’ in that in ‘writings about the use of humour as a “weapon” [the terms] hostility, aggression, superiority, and rivalry are often used interchangeably’ (368).

2.3.2 Relief theory

I will now turn to the second major theory of humour, relief theory. Relief theory holds that humour functions to release tension within the person who laughs. As Kuipers writes, ‘The discharge of tension is still one of the main functions humour is believed to fulfil, and as such the relief theory has had great influence on modern humour scholarship, mostly via the work of Sigmund Freud’ (2008: 362). However, as is the case with superiority theory, Kuipers writes that ‘“pure” relief theorists, explaining all humour and laughter as a release of tension or “safety valve”, cannot be found anymore in humour scholarship’ (362). Nonetheless, relief theory remains of interest via the two principal theorists identified with relief theory are the sociologist Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud.

Spencer is acknowledged as providing the first explication of what is known as the relief theory of humour. He tackles the subject of humour as a physiological problem of the nervous system. Spencer’s essay ‘On The Physiology of Laughter’ (1860) is an important contribution in this field. As he asks, ‘Why, when greatly delighted, or impressed with certain unexpected contrasts of ideas, should there be a contraction of particular facial muscles, and particular muscles of the chest and abdomen?’ (395). For Spencer, ‘Such answer to this question as may be possible, can of course be rendered only by physiology’ (395). Spencer’s theory relies on a principle of ‘Nervous excitation’ which begets ‘muscular motion... and when it rises to a certain intensity, always does beget it’ (1860: 395). He views nervous energy as a quantifiable amount present in the human body, although one that differs from individual to individual, but that is always relieved according to an almost mathematical logic of an ‘equivalent manifestation of force’ (397). For example, ‘should anything determine an unusual efflux in one direction, there will be a diminished efflux in other directions’ (397). For Spencer, however, the expression of humour is always a question of the relief of excitation to maintain equilibrium in the human nervous system. As he concludes in his essay, ‘We

~ ! ~42 should probably learn much if we in every case asked – Where is all the nervous energy gone?’ (402). Is physiology, however, sufficient to explain humour as a form of relief?

While Spencer sees the explanation for the comic deriving from a physiological relief of nervous excitation, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) seeks an explanation for humour through a psychological theory of relief. His book, Der Witze und Seine Beziehung zum Undbewussten, published in 1905 is the most detailed expression of Freud’s theory of humour7 . Freud notes the importance of an apparent trivial subject like humour in the Introduction to the book. He notes that ‘A new joke acts almost like an event of universal interest; it is passed from one person to another like the news of the latest victory. Even men of eminence... are not ashamed in their autobiographies to report their having exercised some excellent joke’ (1960 [1905]: 15). He also writes that we must ‘bear in mind the peculiar and even fascinating charm exercised by jokes in our society’ (15; emphasis added), recognising the strangeness and attraction that characterises some forms of humour. Kuipers notes the further sociological importance of Freud’s text by identifying two crucial elements. Firstly it emphasises the social relations between the participants in the joke – the teller, the audience, and where relevant, the ‘butt’ of the joke (363). In Laughing Matters, Michael Neve agrees for Freud ‘no true joke is alive... without someone (else) hearing it’ (1988: 41). Secondly for Kuipers, Freud’s theory opens up critical examination between humour and socially constructed ‘taboos’. Jokes represent one way of relieving sexual and aggressive derives otherwise ‘inhibited by society’ (2008: 363)8 . As Morreall writes, for Freud, ‘mental energy is summoned for a psychological purpose but then is seen not to be needed for that purpose. The superfluous energy is discharged in laughter’ (Morreall 2008: 224). Mental energy builds up in the unconscious, but instead of repressing feelings, laughter is released and the mental energy that would have been used in repression is expressed as laughter. Freud’s theory of laughter is thus similar to Spencer in that in both cases

7 Translated in 1916 into English as Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious by A. A. Brill, the book is more commonly known today as Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. This 1960 translation by James Strachey justifies the change in title by noting that ‘In ordinary English usage “wit” and “witty” have a highly restricted meaning and are applied only to the most refined and intellectual kind of jokes. The briefest inspection of the examples in these pages will show that “Witz” and “witzig” have a far wider connotation’ (1960 [1905]: 7).

8 Kuipers does note that Freud’s treatment of the joke is more subtle than this, in general terms the formulation of the joke as relieving sexual and aggressive derives is broadly correct (2008: 363-364). ~ ! ~43 relief is the primary function of laughter, although the former identifies it as psychological and the latter physiological.

Despite the eminent theorists who explicate relief theory, it has not been widely adopted within the sociology of humour. Spencer’s physiological explanation has been dismissed as reductive; Freud’s psychological explanation has been regarded as too individualistic to provide much insight into the collective aspects of sociology (Kuipers 2008; Morreall 2008). I thus now turn to the the the third and final theory of humour that might inform this thesis.

2.3.3 Incongruity theory

The third and currently most prominent theory in contemporary thinking about humour is incongruity theory. Incongruity is the combination or juxtaposition of different elements or ideas to produce an unexpected, surprising and amusing effect or insight. This theory is widely recognised, as Kuipers writes, as currently the ‘dominant perspective in humour scholarship’ (2008: 363). Many influential scholars, philosophers, journalists and writers have contributed insights into the development of incongruity, including Kant, Schopenhauer, Hazlitt, and Kierkegaard (Morreall 2008: 225-229). For the purposes of this review, the origins of incongruity theory will be traced in Western philosophy before discussing contributions from Henri Bergson, as well as renowned sociological theorists such as Anton Zijderveld (1983), Murray S. Davis (1993) and Peter L. Berger (2014).

In the subsequent section, an account of the development of incongruity theory will be provided in the explicit description of wit provided by the English philosopher Locke, subsequent remarks building on his work made by the politician and critic Joseph Addison, and a consideration of the work of Henri Bergson. Additional resources will be discussed where they provide relevant insight, such as the contributions of the linguist Walter Nash and scientist Jonathan Miller.

John Locke (1632-1704) is widely credited as introducing to the English-speaking philosophical tradition the elements would later be described as incongruity theory. His ~ ! ~44 notes on wit in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) were influential on subsequent philosophers and theorists of humour. In Chapter XI of the Essay, ‘Of Discerning, and other Operations of the Mind’, Locke first distinguishes between wit and judgment. Locke first notes the ‘common observation, that men who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always the clearest judgment or deepest reason’ (2004 [1690]: 153). Locke explains that this is because ‘wit [lies] most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting together those with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy’ (153). Judgment, in contrast to wit, ‘lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas, wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another’ (153). For Locke, wit’s ‘beauty appears at first sight, and there is required no labour of thought, to examine what truth or reason there is in it. The mind without looking any further, rests satisfied with the agreeableness of the picture, and the gaiety of the fancy’ (153).

Several important insights can be unpacked in Locke’s conception of wit that influence subsequent theorists of humour. Firstly, there is an assemblage of ideas that otherwise might not be associated in the mind; secondly, the ability to conjoin these ideas with quickness to produce a sudden effect; thirdly, that the mental result of this assemblage is found pleasant and agreeable to the receiver of the witticism; finally that these ideas are often characterised by their opposition to strict reason and rationality through techniques such as metaphor and allusion. The first three ideas listed here express the importance of assembling apparently separate ideas with quickness to produce a sudden and amusing effect; the final idea identifies the strategies by which these incongruous delights might be created. In unpacking Locke’s ideas I will first discuss the idea of surprise before turning to the wider sociological implications arising from Locke’s idea later in this review.

While as Billig (2005) notes of The Essay Locke himself ultimately comes down in favour of the properties of judgment over wit, Locke’s text does open up the possibility for later authors to discuss, as Billig calls it, ‘the pleasantries of wit’ (2005: 63). This pleasure is inextricably mingled with the concept of surprise crucial in producing the ~ ! ~45 effect of wit. Through a discussion of the English-speaking philosophers who follow Locke, Billig demonstrates how the quality of surprise came to the forefront in their thinking. For example, Billig notes that in David Hartley’s Observations on Man (1749) ‘laughter is evinced by surprise arising from “some more than ordinary degree of contrast or coincidence”’ (64). Billig also quotes Lord Kames, whose Elements of Criticism (1762) states that wit is ‘A junction of things by distant and fanciful relations, which surprise because they are unexpected’ (64). Billig further notes that Dugald Stewart’s Elements of the Philosophy of Mind (1792) ‘stressed the role of surprise: the witty person draws together ideas the listener does not expect’ (63). Billig argues that these writers who followed Locke in foregrounding the pleasure found in an idea of surprise seek to distance themselves from Hobbes’ previously dominant ‘miserly view’ of laughter (61). While this interpretation may be insightful, it should also be acknowledged that Hobbes himself – whose view was certainly of a darker tinge – also identified the element of surprise in his commentary on wit. As Hobbes writes in Human Nature, ‘whatsoever it be that moveth laughter, it must be new and unexpected’ (1999 [1658]: 54). The shock of novelty is thus embedded in Hobbes’ own work. In terms of wit generally, then, its capacity to surprise can be identified as its most striking and prominent characteristic.

A celebrated characterisation of this commingling is found in a famous essay – one of a series on wit – by the politician and critic Joseph Addison (1672-1719). In an essay published for The Spectator, ‘True and False Wit’, Addison quotes with approval Locke’s remarks before expanding his own views on the subject. Addison writes that ‘every Resemblance of Ideas is not that which we call Wit, unless it be such a one that gives Delight and Surprise to the Reader: These two Properties seem essential to Wit, more particularly the last of them’ (1842 [1711]: 103; emphasis added). Addison follows Locke’s schema by arguing that wit is found in the pleasurable surprise engendered by juxtaposing two apparently dissimilar or unrelated ideas. Addison writes:

In order therefore that the Resemblance in the Ideas be Wit, it is necessary that the Ideas should not lie too near one another in the Nature of things; for where the Likeness is obvious, it gives no Surprise. To compare one Man’s Singing to that of another, or to represent the Whiteness of any Object by that of Milk and Snow, or the Variety of its Colours by those of the Rainbow, cannot be called Wit, unless, besides this obvious Resemblance, there be some further Congruity discovered in the two Ideas that is capable of giving the Reader some Surprise. Thus when a Poet ~ !46 ~ tells us, the Bosom of his Mistress is as white as Snow, there is no Wit in the Comparison; but when he adds, with a Sigh, that it is as cold too, it then grows into Wit (1842 [1711]: 103).

For Addison, the surprise wrought by a witty congruence composed of incongruous elements is essential to the production of wit. Without the essential quality of delight, wit does not exist; the incongruity of surprise itself is intermingled with the experience of enjoyment to be found in wit.

Another proponent of incongruity theory, and one of the most influential sociological thinkers on the comic, is Henri Bergson. Bergson’s text ‘Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic’ (2005) [1911], originally published in 1900, is widely acknowledged among sociologists of humour as an important milestone in the development of incongruity theory. In particular, Bergson’s definition of the comic as ‘Something mechanical encrusted on the living’ (2005 [1911]: 18) has invited lively discussion, debate and commentary on its precise meaning (see, for example Zijderveld 1983, Davis 1993, Kuipers 2008). Bergson’s musings on the comic are thus a prime resource for sociological approaches to incongruity theory. While his essay explicitly focusses on explaining the phenomenon of laughter as the principal identifying characteristic of the comic, Bergson provides many insights into humour that contribute to the idea of surprise essential to an idea of wit.

For Bergson, ‘laughter has a social meaning and import... there is nothing comic apart from man’ (2005 [1911]: 65). For Bergson ‘the comic spirit has a logic of its own, even in its wildest eccentricities. It has a method in its madness’ (2005 [1911]: 1). Bergson seeks to explain this eccentricity and madness to be found in the comic in terms recognisable as an incongruous theory of the comic. Bergson’s explanation of the comic as ‘Something mechanical encrusted on the living’ is the cornerstone of his thinking on the comic. As noted above, this definition has provoked widespread discussion due to its evocative language (‘encrusted’) and the various interpretations applied to definitions of the mechanical9. My reading of this enigmatic phrase is that, for Bergson,

9 For example, Davis categorises Bergson’s work under the heading of wit’s effects of ‘incongruity’ and ‘ambiguity’. He renders Bergson’s machine metaphor literally under the ground of ‘human/ object’ (1993: 136), describing comic instances where physical machinery interfaces with humans to surprising effect. He extends Bergson’s schema to a then contemporary comparison with computers and modern communications technology (135-136). ~ 47! ~ the comic operates by transubstantiating an individual into an object, one dissociated from normal human interaction and one that, in a moment of surprise, provokes a shared laughter.

Bergson describes this process this as the ‘momentary transformation of a person into a thing’ (2005 [1911]: 28), or ‘the vaguer image of some rigidity or other applied to the mobility of life’ (19). An element of dissociation, immobility, and even perhaps a sense of the uncanny are emphasised in this ‘encrustation’, further highlighting the basic incongruity between mechanical forms and living objects10. The potent strangeness arising from these conflicting frames of reference is for Bergson that which generates the incongruity that characterises the comic experience. As Zijderveld remarks in discussing Bergson’s conception of the comic, ‘humour introduces into [an] institutionalised and mechanical order an element of surprise, of the unexpected, of the non-mechanical’ (1983: 21; emphasis added). For Bergson, the crucial distinction is between the mechanical and the living. However sociologists of humour often broaden Bergson’s schema beyond this to include any two sufficiently different objects or ideas. Indeed for Zijderveld, ‘one of the major techniques of humour is... the skilful exploitation of the unexpected and the unpredictable. This is usually done by the opposition or mere juxtaposition of two totally different frames of meaning’ (1983: 22). In moving beyond a general notion of the comic to a specific definition of wit, Zijderveld theorises that wit itself is characterised by a peculiar juxtaposition As he writes, ‘If it does not slide off into the realm of the absurd and the bizarre, such playing with with the meanings of common-sense logic may come close to what is called wit. The technique of the witticism is usually to confront two sets of meanings which should logically be kept apart’ (1983: 14).

Bergson spends some time in delineating the properties of wit in Chapter II of his Essay, ‘The Comic Element in Situations and the Comic Element in Words’. As Bergson writes, ‘no investigation into laughter would be complete if it did not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the underlying idea’ (2005 [1911]: 52).

10 Berger critiques the rigidity of this division, suggesting that the mind/ body division implicit in this binary is consistent overall with Bergson’s theory of elan vital, it is too extreme overall. For example, it is not really applicable to all genres of humour, such as satirical jokes made in the service of political commentary (2014: 28-29). ~ !48 ~ For Bergson, to analyse wit is to recognise that is ‘nothing more than the comic in a volatile state’ (55). Bergson describes wit itself as taking one of two forms, writing: ‘Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word “wit” (esprit), the broader one and the more restricted’ (52). Bergson utilises metaphors of performance to explain this distinction. The two types of wit that he identifies may be identified according to the division in theatre between the genres of drama and comedy11.

In the first case, Bergson writes that ‘what is called wit is a certain dramatic way of thinking’ (2005 [1911]: 52). Here wit enacts an intellectual performance, putting ideas in dialogue with each other for the benefit of audience. In this type of wit, ‘Instead of treating his ideas as mere symbols… [the wit] hears them and, above all, makes them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the stage, and himself, to some extent into the bargain’ (52). This wit is thus both a staged public performance and a conversation designed to engage the intellect of both performer and audience. Bergson emphasises the intellectual aspect of the performance by comparing this species of wit to poetry. Bergson acknowledges the possibilities provided by wit’s creative aspects, noting that ‘In every wit there is something of a poet’ (52). However, whereas the poet is absorbed ‘body and soul’ by the act of creation, losing themselves in their work, a person of wit always maintains awareness of the intellectual dimension of their words. As Bergson writes, while ‘poetic creation calls for some degree of self- forgetfulness’ (52), the wit ‘only brings his intelligence into play’ (52). Thus while the poet feels, the wit thinks12. What might be called wit’s intellectual creativity is thus one of its defining characteristics.

The second type of wit Bergson identifies as another ‘special variety of dramatic art’ – comedy. He writes that ‘What is here called wit is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few strokes – dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and rapidly, that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them’ (2005 [1911]: 53). Pithy compression unified with quickness of response are of the essence. Bergson suggests that this type of wit is

11 Indeed, for Bergson ‘a witty nation is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre’ (2005 [1911]: 52).

12 Bergson writes that the poet could transform into a wit at any time by resolving no longer to be ‘a poet in feeling, but only in intelligence’ (2005 [1911]: 53). That is, for Bergson, wit is quite separable from emotion. ~ 49! ~ often deployed to twist meaning in response to an other, either an individual (such as a member of the audience in the theatrical scenario), or as a general response aimed at the viewpoint of the whole world. As Bergson describes it. ‘You take up a metaphor, a phrase, an argument, and turn it against the man who is, or might be, its author, so that he is made to say what he did not mean to say and lets himself be caught, to some extent, in the toils of language’ (53). Wit thus provides a strategy to entangle the other in a dialogue in which meaning is transposed, inverted or otherwise toyed with13 . To use Bergson’s own phrase from the opening of the Essay this wit has a ‘method in its madness’. The effect here relies on the reply being fast, clever and compact – a lengthy reply would not possess the same effect.

In Bergson’s sociological overview of the incongruous comic two key elements are delineated that comprise the quality of surprise essential to the incongruous comic. These qualities may be described as intellectual creativity and pithy compression. This review will now provide a few additional remarks which further flesh out these ideas. It will then conclude with a consideration of the implications these ideas might have for a sociology of wit characterised by the vital idea of surprise.

2.3.3.1 Wit’s surprising quality of intellectual creativity

As Bergson makes clear, wit’s property of intellectual creativity is one of the defining characteristics generated by surprising wit. Indeed, for many authors this aspect is the quality that provides wit with its formal distinction as a subcategory of humour. For example, Billig – although cautious of the potential deleterious aspects of humour – notes that historically wit’s intellectual aspect provides another means of its differentiation from humour as a general category. As Billig writes in tracing the conceptual history of wit from Locke onwards, ‘Wit involved playing with ideas or words, whereas humour occurred when the object of laughter was a person’ (2005: 61). Billig writes that, post the influence of Locke, it was thought that ‘To be witty was to be creative’, and it was this emphasis on wit’s powerful intellectual quality that prepared

13 Bergson discusses he strategies of repetition, inversion and interference in actions and words to discuss how wit transforms and plays with language (2005 [1911]: 55-64). ~ ! ~50 the way ‘for a long-lasting rehabilitation of wit’ amongst philosophers of humour (65)14. Billig, like Bergson, thus emphasises the verbal and ideational aspect of wit and its link to creativity. However, other authors suggest that wit may not be limited to linguistic forms, but also can be a form of performance. For example, Berger suggests that ‘pure wit [is] a game of intellect and language, possibly also of behaviour’ (1997: 126, 2014: 126; emphasis added). That is, wit does not necessarily need to take a verbal form, although it may often do so. The idea of a non-verbal wit, embodied and invested in clothing will be of use in considering the habitus of the dandy, for example, or the spectacular displays of runway shows. These empirical examples will be expanded in further chapters.

Wit’s surprising intellectual and creative aspect foregrounds what Kuipers defines as a ‘phenomenological’ view of prominent in incongruity theories of humour. Kuipers (2008) does not explicitly link this terminology to Merleau-Ponty’s seminal writings on phenomenology (1962) [1945], instead focusing on the creative and intellectual ability of wit to challenge established views and question orthodox modes of thinking. As Kuipers defines it, the phenomenological approach ‘conceptualises humour as a specific “outlook” or “worldview” or “mode” of perceiving and constructing the social world. This humorous outlook is generally considered to be one option among several in the “social construction of reality”’ (2008: 376). Or, as Davis describes it, ‘incongruity is a relational concept: nothing can be incongruous in itself but only by standing out phenomenologically from an otherwise congruous system’ (1993: 13). The phenomenological approach to fashion – while perhaps terminologically vague – is for the most part celebrated by proponents of incongruity theory as ‘positive’ (Kuipers 2008: 378) in its capacity to challenge how we perceive, organise and categorise the world.

For example, Zijderveld writes that one possible effect of humour is to ‘render all our legitimating ideologies and hopeful utopias powerless and helpless’ (1983: 58). Indeed, for Zijderveld, ‘This may be humour’s most important function: it often works as a de- ideologising and disillusioning force’ (58). Zijderveld writes ‘In their humorous

14 Billig notes that in the 1960s, intellectual Arthur Koestler ‘proposed a cognitive parallel between wit and scientific creativity. Both bring together disparate, seemingly incongruous ideas’ (2005: 65). ~ 51! ~ exploits, people play with meanings, turn them about and inside out, twist them and contrast them with opposite meanings’ (12). In his work Zijderveld identifies the ability of humour and wit to create a Carrollesque ‘looking-glass reality’ (1982; 1983: 36) that provides an opportunity to reflect on the norms and ideas most take for granted in everyday life15 . Davis agrees that ‘Comedy shatters the standard sociological categories…. The comic shows the world to be disordered – or at least ordered in another way than most people, especially sociologists, believe’ (1993: 155). Forms of humour thus possess a power belied by the apparent froth of laughter that often accompanies them. For Berger this challenge to structure extends to the idea of a singular and fixed reality itself. As Berger writes, humour can be ‘dangerous, potentially subversive, even if the individual practicing it has no such thing in mind. The comic in general, and wit in a very intellectual manner in particular, disclose… multiple realities’ (1997: 152). For Berger, it is no longer a question of ‘the world, but a world’ (152). A phenomenological approach to the sociology of wit thus demonstrate the multiplicity and contingency of reality itself.

Even commentators who approach the subject of the comic from a more traditional scientific approach recognise the capacity of humour to challenge how we think about the world. For example, Miller questions whether there might be ‘some evolutionary significance in this curious performance of laughter… Could it be that there is an evolutionary pay-off in the pleasure which is associated with the cognitive situations which seem to induce this activity?’ (1988: 9). Miller states that ‘the value of humour may lie in the fact that it involves the rehearsal of alternative categories and classifications of the world in which we find ourselves’ (11). Indeed, for Miller humour is best defined as ‘a disorder of categories’ (13). He points out that in ‘those cognitive situations which actually bring about laughter – we almost always encounter rehearsals, playings with and redesignings of the concepts by which we conduct ourselves during periods of seriousness’ (11; emphasis added). Miller’s invocation of the terminology of seriousness reflects a perceived tension between fashion’s supposed triviality and futility, versus concerns of so-called ‘real’ importance. As Kuipers writes, ‘The phenomenological approach generally contrasts the humorous worldview with the

15 See, for example, Zijderveld’s (1982) discussion of the historical importance of the fool in challenging the accepted wisdom of the time in a carnivalesque manner. ~ ! ~52 “serious” worldview… ambiguity and non-seriousness are central’ (2008: 377-378). Berger agrees that ‘In ordinary, everyday life then, the comic typically… intrudes, very often unexpectedly, into other sectors of reality. These other sectors are colloquially referred to as serious’ (1997: 6). A sociology of wit must be alert to this tension between the serious and the non-serious as an important dynamic that informs the phenomenological approach to humour.

2.3.3.2 Wit’s surprising quality of pithy compression

Having discussed wit's capacity for generating intellectual creativity, I now turn to a more detailed consideration of another of its qualities – its expression in a compressed and pithy form. In Bergson’s explication of wit as a form of comedy, as discussed above, he pinpointed wit’s ‘gift’ for producing an effect in a ‘few strokes’, with subtlety, delicacy and rapidity. The remarks of the linguist Walter Nash on wit are of further assistance here. He describes this pithiness of wit as a form of compression. In a chapter in The Language of Humour (1985), ‘Witty compression, comic expansion’, Nash writes ‘The quickfire gag, the punch-line, the dry aphorism, are irresistible because they compress so powerfully, imply so much in a little compass – a phrase, or even a single word. Such compression is a classic element in the technique of humour; “brevity”, we are inevitably reminded, “is the soul of wit”’ (1985: 13). Nash goes on to identify various types of this compressed expression of wit such as the common joke, the epigram, the slogan, the... wisecrack’, arguing that ‘the same characteristics of patterning, of careful arrangement, of well-timed emphasis, of generic complexity, may indeed be discerned’ in all of these forms (25). Wit then, not only is oriented towards intellectual creativity, but in its format is expressed in a succinct, punchy manner so that, as Bergson writes, ‘that all is over as soon as we begin to notice them’.

Berger also describes the importance of wit’s compact pithiness. Berger writes that ‘Freud... correctly emphasised the importance of economy of expression in wit. The most effective wit employs sparse means to achieve a rich result. Wit is sharp, pithy, pointed – all the adjectives suggest economy’ (1997: 137; 2014: 127). For Berger, the forms of the joke and the epigram are specifically associated with the pithy compression of wit. He describes the joke as ‘one of the most common expressions of wit, at least in ~ 53! ~ Western cultures’ (1997: 137; 2014: 127). For Berger, ‘Jokes can be described as very short stories that end with a comically startling statement. In English, the term “punch line”, denoting this concluding statement, graphically indicates the comic strategy involved here; so does the German term die Pointe, “the point”, which even suggests the sharp end of a dagger’ (1997: 137; 2014: 127).

The pointed form of the epigram is also especially associated with wit. Berger notes that wit’s specific quickness may especially be found in the form of the epigram – ‘a brief comment that pretends to encapsulate a startling insight’ (1997: 136; 2014: 126). In comparison to the joke, which contains a strong narrative element, Berger suggests that ‘the epigram delivers a highly economical kernel of alleged insight’ (1997: 138; 2014: 128). Berger’s remark that the epigram ‘pretends’ to contain an ‘alleged’ insight might be read as a pejorative characterisation, but here Berger is simply pointing out that it is impossible to determine an objective truth-value of wit given its phenomenological orientation to challenge how we think about the world16. Berger’s choice of the metaphor ‘kernel’ is suggestive here in the context of the epigram, as it contains an association not only with the central or most important part of the whole, but its potential, like a seed to grow into something larger.

2.3.3.3 Summary of the idea of surprise in wit

In the above review of the sociology of humour, the theories of superiority theory, relief theory and incongruity theory have been surveyed. It is clear from the specific textual examples provided and thematic foci, incongruity theory is the theory most closely and explicitly aligned with a concept of wit, through its focus on intellectual creativity and pithy compression. Of these three theories, incongruity theory thus provides the most useful framework for conceptualising a sociology of wit characterised by surprise. Nash memorably describes this theory as characterised by ‘diverse elements wrought together in a scrupulous design’ (Nash 1985: 25). Through incongruity theory, the sociology of

16 Berger writes: ‘While wit (or any other expression of the comic) does not necessarily transmit valid information about specific areas of experience, it does provide an insight into reality as a whole. At its simplest, this is the insight that things are not as they seem, which further implies that things could be quite different from what is commonly thought. The comic in general, and wit as its most cerebral expression in particular, establish distance from the world and its official legitimations’ (1997: 141; 2014: 141). ~ !54 ~ wit can be theorised in terms of its qualities to engender a delightful surprise through its pithy expression, and its intellectual creativity and capacity to challenge the status quo.

2.3.4 Wit as a form of seduction

In a phrase I quoted in the Introduction, Vinken writes: ‘Fashion is defined as the art of the perfect moment, of the sudden, surprising and yet obscurely expected harmonious apparition’ (2005: 42). Here we have all the elements of sociological wit found within incongruity theory – the pithy presentation via a sudden ‘apparition’ of a ‘moment’ that is once eminently surprising and yet harmonious and perfect. Vinken’s definition of fashion not only encapsulates all the elements of wit discussed in the above review of incongruity theory, but also introduces a tantalising idea that a certain fashion may be ‘obscurely expected’ – as if fashion arrives, in its ‘perfect moment’, with an insight that one did not realise one needed, but yet strikes one with sudden rightness at the appropriate time. It is almost as if the recipient of this moment of fashion is searching for an insight which only fashion bestows. The passion for fashion is thus not merely a decree imposed from above, as in theories of trickle-down effect (Simmel 2003 [1904]) or conspicuous consumption (Veblen 1998 [1899]) , but a tantalising exploration of the frissons of tension between individual desire and fashion’s collective omnipresence.

One might also describe an incongruity theory of wit that promotes a phenomenological worldview not only in terms of its ability to surprise, but in terms of its capacity to lead thought down new and unexpected paths that one did not initially consider. Wit thus possesses, one might say, an ability to lead rightwards thinking astray. Of course, there is another name for this condition of being led astray. That is, seduction.

Indeed, ‘to lead astray’ is the very dictionary definition of the word provided by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED Online 2019). To seduce is to lead astray ‘in conduct or belief; to draw away from the right or intended course of action to or into a wrong one’; ‘to tempt, entice, or beguile to do something wrong, foolish, or unintended’ (OED Online 2019). All of these instances share a sense of derangement from a natural and proper state of being or course, a deviation from what is considered morally appropriate or behaviourally astute. And yet, might not seduction’s sense of derailment from what is ~ 55! ~ considered appropriate also echo the capacities of a theory of wit itself that contains a phenomenological capacity to challenge how we think about the world? While the Oxford English Dictionary casts an idea of seduction in negative terms, might not the function of wit precisely be to challenge notions of what is considered proper and good? After all, who judges what is proper and improper? And on which criteria are these concepts judgements exercised? In other words, seduction might also be a key component of a phenomenological sociology of wit – albeit, one that has not received theoretical explication within the three theories of humour – superiority, relief and incongruity – reviewed above.

Furthermore, the slow process of seduction, or being seduced, also speaks to the effective duration of wit. While surprise may engender an initial jolting shock or insight, the insights generated may linger in the mind, long after that first moment of delight has passed. The intellectual insights offered by wit, after all, are not immediately forgotten, but can loiter tantalisingly. This idea is certainly pertinent to the study of fashion, where certain ‘fashion moments’ – such as the Gaultier dress or O’Brien’s epigram – continue to fascinate long after they are first encountered. Seduction is not only an end result, but an ongoing relation of curiosity, reflection and inspiration. It is a journey rather than a final destination.

How might an idea of seduction contribution to a sociology of wit? How would this concept of the wit of seduction relate to fashion? In scoping the possibilities of this question, this Literature Review will now turn to the work of Jean Baudrillard.

2.3.4.1 Baudrillard, seduction and fashion

Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007), originally trained as a sociologist, is well known for the interest he displayed in fashion throughout his academic career. His epigram from Symbolic Exchange and Death – ‘Modernity is a code, and fashion is its emblem’ (1993 [1976]: 90) – is oft-quoted within fashion studies. This remark, posited at the midpoint of the evolution of Baudrillard’s thinking, between the strict Marxism of his early work (for example, The System of Objects (1996) [1968] through to his speculative theory- fictions, from Fatal Strategies (1990) [1983] and beyond to the America series ~ ! ~56 (commencing (1989) [1986]) and the Cool Memories series (commencing 1990 [1980-1985]), conceptualises fashion via his famous idea of simulation as found in Simulacra and Simulation (1994) [1981]). That is, in a world of simulation characterised by the domination of the image over reality, fashion is the perfect emblem of (post-)modernity due its constant and unashamed substitutions for one element or detail for another. It is the process of churn and change found in the code’s logic of permutation rather than any reference to a meaningful reality that characterises fashion. Fashion in this mode resides beyond value-bound categories such also ugliness and beauty; it is merely the generative expression of an ever-mutating signifying code.

However, it is Baudrillard’s ideas on fashion found in the later and more speculative writings of his later career that take his thinking beyond the concept of simulation and the code into the fascinating realm of seduction. His book Seduction (1990) [1979] encapsulates the essentials of these ideas in a speculative, polemical and even disturbing work. This book is characterised by textual play, provocation, suggestion and the pushing of ideas to their very limits (if not beyond). As Baudrillard scholar Douglas Kellner remarks, Seduction marks a ‘turning away from the more sociological discourse of Baudrillard’s earlier works to a more philosophical and literary discourse… his writing mutates at this point into a neo-aristocratic aestheticism dedicated to stylised modes of thought and writing’ (2007, para 44).

Baudrillard provides an impassioned defence of seduction’s ability to confound what he calls ‘orthodoxy’ in terms of the ideas about the world which late capitalism takes for granted as positive – ideas that an essential ‘nature’ can be opposed to the capitalist order of ‘production’, that power is a real force and that reality is fixed and singular. In opposition to these ideas, Baudrillard writes: ‘Seduction continues to appear to all orthodoxies as malefice and artifice, a black magic for the deviation of all truth’ (1990 [1979]: 1). In general, he describes seduction as a logic that confounds expectations by operating through strategies of ‘play, challenges, duels, the strategy of appearances’ (7). We can already see that these concerns with play, ambiguity and challenge echo the themes of the phenomenological perspective found within incongruity theories of humour, a connection that will be unpacked further in this review of Baudrillard’s work.

~ 57! ~ Baudrillard’s definition of seduction derives from the consensually agreed Latin formulation previously mentioned by the Oxford English Dictionary. He notes that the term ‘sed-ucere’ is a ‘strategy of displacement’ that means ‘to take aside, to divert from one’s path’ (1990 [1979]: 22). But for Baudrillard, seduction is not a one-way street leading to the wrack and ruin of an innocent by a corrupt and malevolent force, but a mutual, or as he calls it, ‘duel’ relation. While the term ‘duel’ here is inelegantly translated into English from Baudrillard’s affinité duelle, it broadly refers both to the challenge found in the idea of the sparring duel as well as the mutuality implicit in the idea of the dual17. For Baudrillard, pleasure arrives not only in the singular machinations of the seducer, but in the multifaceted and ambiguous experience of the seduced. Intriguingly, as will be discussed below, Baudrillard also connects the idea of seduction to both the phenomenon of fashion and also a concept of wit – thus producing a unique conjunction that might inform the sociology of wit as it pertains to fashion.

In Seduction, Baudrillard alludes to the potential characteristics of this intriguing concept in a series of meditations on subjects as diverse as pornography, cloning, theatrical staging and even telepathy18 . He argues that while the idea of ‘seduction’ was once historically forefront in the Western cultural imagination – comparable to other apparently obsolescent aristocratic values such as ‘valour’ and ‘honour’ – since the advent of modernity, the specific concept of seduction as an important an independent principle has languished. As Baudrillard writes, ‘The eighteenth century still spoke of seduction. It was with, valour and honour, a central preoccupation of the aristocratic spheres. The bourgeois Revolution put an end to this preoccupation… The bourgeois era dedicated itself to nature and production, things quite foreign and even expressly fatal to seduction’ (1990 [1979]: 1).

Indeed, Baudrillard acknowledges that historically an idea of seduction has suffered from a negative reputation as a form of deception. The introductory remarks of Baudrillard’s book immediately invoke the dark side by which seduction was originally characterised: ‘For religion seduction was a strategy of the devil, whether in the guise of

17 For example, in English translation Baudrillard writes of a ‘duel affinity with the structure of the other’ found in seduction (42), or a ‘duel and agonistic’ relation that characterises seducer and seduced (105).

18 See, particularly, the latter sections of the text for extended discussion on these subjects. ~ ! ~58 witchcraft or love… Seduction continues to appear to all orthodoxies as malefice and artifice, a black magic for the deviation of all truth, an exaltation of the malicious use of signs’ (1990 [1979]: 1; emphasis added). However, for Baudrillard, it is precisely seduction’s ability to ‘deviate’ supposedly objective truths that suggests the conceptual influence of seduction has not been entirely vanquished in the contemporary imaginary. From this description, we can already see the thematic resonances that Baudrillard’s theory has with a phenomenological approach of the sociology of wit with its desire to question apparently solid assumptions about the world. For Baudrillard, seduction remains a living principle, although one somewhat theoretically neglected. As he writes, a notion of seduction still ‘continues to haunt’ (2) society from the margins, and that this notion might be used to interrogate concepts which have flourished during the expansion of capitalism, such as ‘nature’, ‘production’ and ‘power’ (1). Baudrillard is troubled by how these apparently objective concepts have been established as proper, inevitable and desirable. For Baudrillard, thinking through seduction is represents one method of deconstructing the sociological primacy of these concepts.

For example, Baudrillard writes that seduction possesses ‘fabulous strength’ in revealing the ‘fundamental illusion’ of reality (1990 [1979]: 70). Indeed, in its ‘passion for deviation’, seduction possesses a unique ability to remove ‘from discourse its sense and turn... it from its truth’ (53). Seduction’s ability to derange the truth-value of various discourses and to challenge idea of a singular reality is the reason why, for Baudrillard, the concept of seduction is regarded with antipathy. This is the reason why, for Baudrillard, ‘all disciplines, which have as an axiom the coherence and finality of their discourse, must try to exorcise [seduction]’ (2). Baudrillard describes the capacity of seduction to derail truth-discourse as an oppositional reaction against the straightforward operation of power19:

Seduction is stronger than power because it is reversible and mortal, while power, like value, seeks to be irreversible, cumulative and immortal. Power partakes of all the illusions of production, and of the real; it wants to be real, and so tends to become its own imaginary, its own superstition (with the help of theories that analyse it, be they to contest it) (1990 [1979]: 46).

19 For a further expansion of Baudrillard’s view on power, particularly as he views Foucault’s characterisation of discursive power, see Forget Foucault (1987) [1977]. There, Baudrillard makes the argument that Foucault is only so able to beautifully and persuasively describe power because the forms that he looks at, are like the dinosaurs, quite extinct and irrelevant. ~ ! ~59 Seduction’s apparent weakness is also the source of its strength. Seduction does not partake of the illusion of power; it recognises the power inherent in illusion itself. That is, for Baudrillard, ‘seduction represents mastery over the symbolic universe, while power represents only mastery over the real universe’ (1990 [1979]: 8). The word ‘only’ is telling here; Baudrillard suggests that the domain of power is contained to a much more restricted ‘imaginary’ than it itself perhaps is capable of exercising. In contrast, the influence of seduction is not exercised as a direct force that imposes its superior will over a subjugated other, but rather takes place via more nebulous and unquantifiable strategies such as ‘charm and [the] illusion of appearances’ (53). What, then, is at stake in prioritising the illusion and appearances of seduction over a familiar concept of power?

For Baudrillard, seduction’s importance lies in its function as a ‘principle of uncertainty’ (1990 [1979]: 12). Indeed, the importance of uncertainty is arguably the key idea that informs the entire text. If seduction can be described as a principle of uncertainty, how is it able to challenge notions that underpin our assumptions about the world? Baudrillard emphasises seduction’s qualities of playfulness, its defiant refusal of truth and reality, and its emphasis on artificiality and illusion. Indeed, for Baudrillard, seduction ‘must be interpreted in terms of play, challenges, duels, the strategy of appearances’ (7; emphasis added). Baudrillard goes on to describe seduction itself as a ‘radical metaphysics of appearances’ (92). What does Baudrillard mean by this term? For Baudrillard, this metaphysics of appearances prioritises the terms usually regarded as inferior or superficial within Western philosophy. The metaphysics of appearances thus defy the implicit priority of concepts such as power and meaning. Baudrillard describes this metaphysics in the following terms: ‘It is a power of attraction and distraction, of absorption and fascination, a power that causes the collapse of... the real in general – a power of defiance’ (81). Indeed, for Baudrillard, through the ‘pure play of appearances’ seduction possesses the capacity to ‘foil all systems of power and meaning’ (8).

In expanding on this theme, Baudrillard opposes the idea of appearances as fascinating and seductive apparitions to the laborious work of the interpretation of meaning. ~ ! ~60 Whereas interpretation seeks to uncover the truth of the ‘hidden meanings’ found in signification, appearances possess a ‘passion for deviation – the seduction of signs themselves being more importance than the emergence of any truth’ (1990 [1979]: 53). The search for meaning within rationalist terms such as nature, production and power is, for Baudrillard, itself a trap. As he writes, ‘All appearances conspire to combat and root out meaning… and turn it into a game’ (54). Indeed, it is ‘the meaningless that makes for seduction’s unexpected charm’ (84). One of the most important qualities of seduction is thus its ability to take ‘from discourse its sense and turns it from its truth’ (53). As Baudrillard eloquently writes, to embrace seduction ‘is to be taken in by one’s illusion and move in an enchanted world’ (69).

This review of Baudrillard’s Seduction has so far focussed on its conceptual meaning and importance, rather than examines the strategies by which it operates as a general principle, and how it might function specifically as a form of wit. But in answering the latter question, it is necessary to first consider by what specific means seduction operates as a ‘metaphysics of appearance’ or ‘principle of uncertainty’.

2.3.4.1 The figure of the seductress, fashion, and a notion of glamour

The properties of Baudrillard’s strategies of seduction resolve into focus when he moves into a description of the seductress – the figure or ‘effigy’ (1990 [1979]: 85) of seduction personified. This seductress is not intended as a ‘real’ person or representation of feminine, but rather an archetype akin to the femme fatale or ingenue. Indeed, the seductress is certainly not biologically determinate; Baudrillard describes the epitome of the seductress, Hollywood stars, as ‘transsexual, suprasensual beings’ (95). Instead, Baudrillard valorises the seductress as an ambivalent figure that encapsulates a variety of denigrated cultural categories associated with a neglected conception of feminine

~ ! ~61 power20. The seductress is an important figure in understanding how Baudrillard frames his idea of seduction as a challenge to orthodoxy to because it is here that he outlines most precisely the strategies by which seduction operates. Furthermore, the seductress is one locus by which wit as a form of seduction is attached to concepts such as fashion and glamour, and we will return to this archetype when we consider the concept of glamour in Chapter Four.

Baudrillard notes that ‘The sovereign power of the seductress stems from her ability to “eclipse” any will or context’ (1990 [1979]: 85). Baudrillard writes that one strategy of the seductress power of fascination is ‘to be-there/not-there, and thereby produce a sort of flickering, a hypnotic mechanism that crystallises attention outside all concern with meaning’ (85). It is precisely this scintillant indeterminacy that produces the seductress’ irresistible fascination. Her beguiling indistinctness is enhanced by a refusal to engage with orders of meaning, truth or cause and effect. Baudrillard writes that ‘She constantly avoids all relations in which, at some given moment, the question of truth will be posed. She undoes them effortlessly, not by denying or destroying them, but by making them shimmer’ (85; emphasis added). For Baudrillard, the seductress’ effacement of meaning via a flickering of absent/ present appearances is that quality which grants and guarantees her allure. Seduction coquettishly ‘weaves and unweaves appearances’ (88) to produce a dazzling effect which challenges the distinction between ‘the authentic and the artificial’ that underpin certain notions of reality (10).

20 Baudrillard’s relation to essentialising the concept of the feminine was one of the key criticisms upon the text’s initial publication. While it is not the purpose of this chapter to elaborate the critique of feminism that Baudrillard provides in Seduction, he presents an original argument by positioning an idea of ‘the feminine’ not as the binary opposite of the masculine, but as that which seeks to challenge the duality of oppositional thinking. Baudrillard is critical of the project of the liberation of women through a celebration of female sexuality and desire as centred on the body. For Baudrillard, this project is doomed because sexuality and desire are constituted by discourse that is already structured by masculinist thought. In support of this claim, Baudrillard discusses attempts to redefine the terms of psychoanalysis. In Baudrillard’s view, the psychoanalytic origin of desire is irretrievably masculine: ‘Sexuality has a strong, discriminative structure centred on the phallus, castration, the Name-of-the-Father, and repression… There is no use dreaming of some non-phallic, unlocked, unmarked sexuality’ (1990 [1979]: 6). Baudrillard argues that focussing on the body as a potential site of emancipation only further binds the feminine to repressive masculine definition as expressed in Freud’s fateful maxim ‘Anatomy is destiny’ (9). For Baudrillard, engaging with concepts such as sex and desire only affirms the binary of masculine and feminine, rather than challenging the existence of the structure itself. For Baudrillard the concept of seduction suggests an alternative to a feminism centred on sex and the body through acknowledging the artificiality of these constructions. ~ !62 ~ Intriguingly for the research question of this thesis – to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? – Baudrillard directly connects the seductress’ elusive allure to the ideas of fashion and glamour. Indeed, seduction’s previously described ‘radical metaphysics of appearances’ for Baudrillard live predominantly in ‘the cosmetic arts and the glamour of modern fashion’ (1990 [1979]: 92). While, as Baudrillard notes, ‘Our entire morality condemns the construction of the female as a sex object by the facial and bodily arts’ (92), the seductress takes advantage of these techniques to produce her seductive ambiguity and uncertainty. For example, in the phenomenon of fashion, the body takes on artificial signs in order to signify something different – and more enticing – than what is visible in its unadorned, so-called ‘natural’ state. Baudrillard discusses how in ‘primitive’ magic, the signs adopted by the magician may be totemic such as the animal ‘finery’ of ‘furs and feathers’ (89); in contemporary manifestations of glamour, such as in the ‘cosmetic arts’ these signs take the form of makeup or ‘beauty masks’ (92). These signs are appealing precisely because they disguise, manipulate and play with the apparently natural human form. For Baudrillard, the allure of cosmetics inheres in their means of ‘effacing the face, effacing the eyes behind more beautiful eyes, cancelling the lips behind more luxuriant lips’ (94). Indeed, in terms of seduction, Baudrillard writes that it is never ‘natural beauty’ that seduces, but ‘artificial, ritual beauty’ (90). The transformation wrought through the ambiguity of seduction makes it impossible to distinguish real flesh from alluring illusion.

In support of this contention, Baudrillard quotes with approval Baudelaire’s famous essay ‘In Praise of Cosmetics’. As Baudelaire writes, ‘It matters very little that [a woman’s] tricks and artifices should be known to all, provided that their success is certain and their effect always irresistible’ (Baudelaire quoted in Baudrillard (1990) [1979]: 93). It is only necessary that the seductress ‘astonish and bewitch’ (Baudelaire in Baudrillard, 92). This telling quote highlights one of the most overlooked aspects of seduction – that is, seduction involves not only the act of being led astray, but also the desire and willingness of the seduced to be led astray. This intriguing idea – that seduction is not a passive process whereby the seduced is deviated from the proper and natural course by dark (even demonic) forces, but actively seeks the pleasure of seduction – suggests that seduction is not a one-way street, but rather a mutual relation. Baudrillard emphasises that while in previous times the challenge to a supposedly ~ ! ~63 authentic real presented by ‘cosmetic arts and the glamour of modern fashion’ was regarded as ‘diabolical’ by Christian authorities, the situation has in fact always been more complex (92). Baudrillard highlights this complexity when he quotes the philosopher Vincent Descombes: ‘What seduces is... the fact that... [seduction] is directed at you. It is seductive to be seduced, and consequently, it is being seduced that is seductive’ (68). Or, as Baudrillard puts it, ‘Love is a challenge and a prize: a challenge to the other to return the love. And to be seduced is to challenge the other to be seduced in turn (22). One might say – reframing the Oxford English Dictionary definition – that, in seduction, the desiring subject is not only led astray, but actively seeks to be led astray.

In this review of Seduction, we have so far described seduction itself as a challenge to orthodox thinking that not only leads one astray, but also reflects the seduced’s own desire to be led astray. The figure of the seductress, and the phenomena of glamour and fashion, have been established by Baudrillard as potent sites of seduction. But how can the idea of a mutually sought seduction itself contribute to a specific sociology of wit?

Baudrillard himself is keen to emphasise the connection between seduction and wit. He writes that seduction ‘demands a certain spirit in the eighteenth century sense, that is to say, intelligence, charm and refinement, but also in the modern sense of the Witz or stroke of wit’ (1990 [1979]: 101-102). Baudrillard first describes seduction’s capacity for wit in the terms we have seen it in incongruity theory as a form of pithy surprise. In the chapter ‘Death in Samarkand’, he recounts the story of a soldier who encounters Death in a crowded marketplace. Death makes an ambiguous gesture towards the soldier, leading the soldier to expect his imminent demise. The soldier flees the country as fast and wide as possible to avoid this fatal blow, but in doing so only hastens his encounter with Death. Taking the soldier’s life earlier than expected, Death provides the punchline: ‘I was surprised to see this soldier here, when we had a rendezvous tomorrow in Samarkand’ (72). For Baudrillard, Death’s ambiguous sign to the soldier in the marketplace is a witty seduction – a sign of hidden meaning that is in fact meaningless – one that impels the soldier to race toward his destiny earlier than expected. For Baudrillard, this unexpected synthesis of destiny from a series of sudden

~ ! ~64 unexpected events is ‘A conjunction that gives the sign’s trajectory all the characteristics of a witticism’ (73).

Baudrillard thus describes how seduction can function as a ‘stroke of wit’ or ‘trait d’esprit’ (1990) [1979]: 73). Later – echoing Freud’s language of the work of the unconscious in the joke – Baudrillard further writes that this ‘stroke has to bring disconnected things together, as if in a dream, or suddenly disconnect undivided things’ (103). The wit of seduction also possesses a ‘vivacity and economy’ (73) that might be expressed, and experienced, as a ‘flash of inspiration’ (112). Deploying this language of the ‘stroke’ of wit that produces inspiration via an economy of form, Baudrillard invokes the classic sociological conception of wit as a form of surprise previously described in this Literature Review. His idea that seduction possesses the capacity to challenge orthodox thinking is congruent, one might say, with the idea of surprise found in incongruity theory itself. As he asks, ‘what is more seductive than a stroke of wit?’ (102).

But Baudrillard also describes another type of wit that figures specifically in instances of seduction. He describes a class of witticism ‘where everything is exchanged allusively, without being spelled out’ (1990 [1979]: 112). Here, meaning is gestured towards rather than explicitly announced. Baudrillard recounts Kierkegaard’s Diary of the Seducer, whereby an innocent girl is drawn over a long period of months into the web of an apparently devoted suitor, only to be abandoned at the moment of her surrender to his advances. This courtship is primarily conducted by a written correspondence of flattery and resistance, offer- and counter-offer, drawing out the process of seduction through prolonged exchange and entendre. This allusive form of seduction relies on double meanings, covert in-jokes and even inklings of plausible deniability; little is rendered explicitly. Suggestion is everything. Nothing is what it seems. As Baudrillard writes, ‘Everything must respond by subtle allusions, with all the signs enmeshed in the trap’ (102). In this playful wit of seduction, the allusive becomes the alluring. Through its tantalising ambiguity, the seduction of wit conjures a fascination that invites further contemplation that lingers beyond the initial encounter. But at the last moment, having accepted her suitor, the victim is callously abandoned. At the point of her surrender, the seducer loses all interest – the seduced has become as a ~ 65! ~ corpse to his sated desire. Baudrillard writes that here, ‘that stroke of wit... ties, as if in advance, a movement of the soul to its destiny and its death’ (111).

In this case, the extended and alluring temporality of seduction persists beyond a surprise encounter and engenders a long-form ‘duel’ relation of challenge and riposte. Baudrillard describes this protracted, long-form seduction as ‘oblique’ (1990 [1979]: 106). This oblique and allusive form of seduction is for Baudrillard another important facet of wit. Baudrillard describes the wit found in Diary of the Seducer as akin to lovers’ ‘allusive, ceremonial exchange of a secret’ (112). Indeed, in its thought- provoking duration, the allusive wit of seduction – with its power to entice with an ongoing intellectual and emotional fascination – also speaks to the persistent experience of wit engendered by Vinken’s ‘fashion moment’, the continuing powerful effect of the Gaultier dress, the ongoing insights generated in O’Brien’s amusing epigram, or Locke’s own reference to the techniques of ‘metaphor and allusion’. The seductive quality of wit possesses a light but effective power – a deftness that is no less powerful than its surprising counterpart. As Baudrillard writes, ‘There is no need to play being against being, or truth against truth: why become stuck undermining foundations, when a light manipulation of appearances will do’ (10).

From the above discussion, we can see that the wit of seduction presents not only a challenge to orthodoxy in its ability to lead astray, but also in the desire of the seduced to be led astray. Wit may take the form of a shocking surprise, as we have previously seen in incongruity theory, but may also persist in a more long-form and thoughtful duration as may found in seduction. Furthermore, seduction is associated explicitly not only with fashion, but also wit itself. A consideration of seduction is thus essential to establishing a rounded and inclusive theory of the sociology of wit.

2.3.4.2 Critique of the idea of seduction

Efrat Tseëlon, who has written widely on Baudrillard’s ideas about fashion, and also to a lesser extension seduction (1995, 2010, 2016), finds that while Baudrillard’s theory of fashion as an ever-mutating code with no referent beyond itself intriguing, it does possess limitations. As Tseëlon writes: ~ !66 ~ Baudrillard’s assumption of the indeterminacy of the code and the instability of the signifier-signified relationship brings him to doubt the possibility of a referential function. This need not be the case. From a theoretical viewpoint, a looser signifier- signified relationship can simply mean fragmentation of society into smaller units of relevant frames of reference, with less rigid boundaries, rules and membership requirements. It may also imply shorter and faster cycles of change of what a relevant reference group regards as the appropriate code – but it does not necessarily indicate the abolition of a code (1995: 133).

This criticism certainly possesses resonances with how a singular fashion system has fractured into various ‘fashion systems’ or forms of ‘postfashion’ as described earlier. Furthermore Tseëlon doubts Baudrillard’s claim that fashion is truly independent of any other systems of signification, hence the empirical persistence of the attachment of meaning to items of clothing that we continue to encounter (2010, 2016). However, Tseëlon also acknowledge that ‘Baudrillard’s analysis... is an extreme view which is best understood as a heuristic rather than a literal description of a process’ (2016: 230). Baudrillard’s work is thus intended to inspire reflection and challenge conventional thought rather than map literally to an objective reality.

Perhaps the principal limitation with the concept of seduction as a form of wit is that it is presently under-theorised. Yet if seduction can be characterised a form of wit, and seduction is also associated with fashion, then a more nuanced account of the wit of seduction as it is found in fashion is required. Fleshing out the idea of seduction as a form of wit would also contribute to the study of humour in general. This Literature Review thus recommends an examination of seduction as a form of wit via further analysis of empirical sites that connect seduction, wit and fashion.

2.4 A sociology of wit comprised of the ideas of surprise and seduction

This Literature Review has provided an overview of definitions of fashion and the sociology of humour. The three dominant theories in the sociology of humour were surveyed – superiority theory, relief theory and incongruity theory. Incongruity theory was identified as possessing the closest relationship to how wit has been theorised, where two usually disparate elements or frames of reference are joined together to produce a novel and amusing insight. In terms of developing a sociology of wit

~ 67! ~ specifically, two key concepts were elaborated – surprise and seduction. Surprise is the expression of wit in a succinct and intellectually creative manner; seduction is the ability of wit to lead meaning astray, and the desire to be led astray by wit in intriguing and unexpected ways. Seduction also possesses the ability to challenge orthodox assumptions or thinking. A consideration of the concepts of surprise and seduction in synthesis thus provides the foundations of a theoretical sociology of wit. The next two chapters will explore in depth the concepts of surprise and seduction with reference to empirical examples how a sociology of wit may contribute to understanding fashion.

~ !68 ~ Chapter Three

Elements of a Sociology of Wit, Part One: Surprise and the Dandy

3.1 Aims of this chapter

In the Literature Review, a sociological theory of wit was explicated that discussed in detail wit’s capacity to surprise – that is, its ability to provide a pleasurable and unexpected insight in a compressed and pithy form. The aim of this chapter will be to provide empirical evidence from within fashion to support this theoretical formulation of surprise. In this chapter I have specifically selected the example of the dandy as the an appropriate site of analysis because it is precisely in this figure that an idea of wit and an identification with fashion are explicitly conflated.1 Given this close alignment, discerning the properties shared by the dandy and fashion itself will be a more readily apparent task. Furthermore, the dandy’s fame, popularity and well-documented history will provide a rich trove of empirical material for analysis. Since the initial appearance of the figure in eighteenth century Regency London, and the multiplication of dandy- types in history and geography – right up until the current moment – the witty quips and the sartorial innovations of the dandy have been recorded, reproduced, and pored over. The dandy is thus an ideal empirical site to begin the theoretical exploration of the intersections between wit and fashion.

I will note from the outset that there are two distinct historical strands of dandyism – the English tradition, initiated by Beau Brummell, focuses not only on the dandy’s sartorial innovations, but also his reputation for a surprising wit. This tradition includes subsequent figures such as the fictional hero of Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham (1828), who

1 A version of has been published in Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture as “Do you call this thing a coat?”: Theorising fashion’s surprising wit through the figure of the ultimate dandy, Beau Brummell’ at the following permanent link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2017.1354436 ~ ! ~69 was renowned for pronouncing outrageous and impractical maxims of fashion2 , Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) and Max Beerbohm (1872-1956). The French tradition, which later followed the English flowering of dandyism – and while clearly influenced by Brummell – focusses more on the philosophical idea of the dandy as an aloof, philosophical ascetic. This tradition is represented by figures such as Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly (1988) [1884], Honoré de Balzac (2010) [1830] and Charles Baudelaire (2010) [1863]. Since the latter, Continental tradition does not directly focus on wit, it is the English tradition of dandyism that will form the primary focus of this chapter. However, certain pertinent remarks from within the French tradition of dandyism will be included where relevant.

3.2 The dandy Beau Brummell – an empirical site of surprise in fashion

I will begin by providing some general remarks on the dandy, before moving on to the specific focus of this chapter, Beau Brummell. In the famous formulation found in Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, Carlyle describes the dandy as ‘a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes’ (2000 [1836]: 200). This novel male ton is indisputably a ‘man of fashion’, prized for his sartorial elegance and his celebrated wit. Indeed, the dandy is arguably unique amongst icons of men’s style and fashion because of his popular longevity and the continuing recognition of his style – the idea of the dandy is as familiar to contemporary observers of men’s style as he was striking to the inhabitants of Regency London. The dandy remains a vital touchstone of men’s fashion two hundred years after his arrival; in popular memory, he has outlived other coxcomb masculinities such as the foppish macaroni, the oafish buck or the swoon-inducing swell.

While costume historians such as McDowell (1997) and McNeil (2018) have provided explications of the philosophical and technical sartorial differences between the dandy, the macaroni, the buck and the swell, it is undeniable that in the popular imagination of

2 Bulwer-Lytton’s hero, Pelham, had a list of 22 essential style maxims, found in his fashionable novel Pelham (1972) [1828], such as ‘Always remember that you dress to fascinate others, not yourself’ (177) or ‘Dress so that it may never be said of you, “What a well dressed man!” – but, “What a gentlemanlike man!”’ (179). Bulwer-Lytton was stung by the inclusion of his maxims in Sartor Resartus and omitted them from his second edition (Moers 1969: 69). ~ ! ~70 fashion the latter three categories are of technical interest, undifferentiated by most followers of fashion. The dandy, however, remains a familiar touchstone of men’s style – whether in a minimalist mode of stark elegance, as we shall see in Brummell, or the more predominantly ‘peacock’ apparitions that characterise many forms of contemporary dandies, such as the African sapeurs (Tamagni 2016), or contemporary dandy subcultures that prize excess and expense, ostentation and accessories, over a stark and more formal classical silhouette (Adams and Callahan 2013, 2017). It is for these reasons that while I acknowledge the evolution of the ‘peacock male’, as McDowell (1997) calls him, I will retain the common and recognisable usage of the ‘dandy’.

This dandy appears and reappears in various countries through a number of geographical twists and turns; at times he poses as aesthete, revolutionary, and decadent; he even enjoys gender and ethno-cultural transmutations. As art historian Susan Fillin-Yeh asks as part of her project to extend the dandy’s domain beyond the confines of the white European male: ‘Why study dandies? Certainly because new ones continue to flourish’ (2001: 3). In the essays collected in Fillin-Yeh’s volume, for example, the dandy form is seen to arise across a variety of nations – not just the English and French; in a number of socio-economic contexts; and in a number of different genders and sexualities. Yet it remains true, despite these differences, that the term dandy is applicable to a number of styles of fashion, whether as an aesthetic of asceticism or in the more ostentatious peacock mode often found in self-identifying dandy subcultures (Adams and Callahan 2013, 2017).

In the case of the dandy, this chapter will explore how this surprising wit takes both a verbal and performative form. Theorising the former concept takes a cue from Bergson, with his theoretical focus on verbal wit; the latter from Berger’s recognition that wit can itself be a kind of performance. This chapter will argue that the dandy’s wit as it pertains to fashion is synthesised both in his pithy quips and epigrams and the sartorial details of his wardrobe. Here, I will focus my discussion on the original and ultimate dandy – George Bryan Brummell (1778-1840) [Figure 3.1].

~ 71! ~ Brummell is particularly intriguing as he appears to spring forth, fully-formed, in Regency London as society’s favoured ‘Beau’ – another indicator, if one should need one, of the surprise inherent in wit. Indeed, Brummell is widely acknowledged as the founder of dandyism. As Beau’s contemporary Captain Gronow notes, Brummell obtained his ‘elevated position simply from [his] attractive personal appearance and fascinating manners’ (Gronow in Hibbert 1971: 16). Costume historian James Laver writes that ‘his handsome face, his grace of carriage, his neat dress and… his easy conversation’ provided a ‘piquant combination which won acceptance everywhere’ (1968: 14-15). Ian Kelly, who has provided the definitive contemporary biography of Brummell, writes that ‘Brummell’s indefinable something was to be self- confident, and self-evidently great company’ (2005: 7). It will be the argument of this chapter that Brummell’s personal appeal was intimately entwined with his status as the ultimate ‘MAN OF FASHION’, and that his qualities of attraction were equalled both in the surprise found in his verbal wit, as well as the creativity, intellectual inspiration and pleasure to be found in the forms of fashionable sartorial wit he adopted.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 3.1. Engraving of Beau Brummell, c1810. Image reproduced from Breward, who describes ‘the arrogant pose... set off by carefully coiffed hair, an attention to hygiene, an intricately tied cravat, and neat black tailoring’ (2003: 162). ~ ! ~72 I will note that in this discussion of the dandy as it pertains to a putative sociology of wit characterised by surprise, I am not concerned with the historical minutiae of Brummell’s life. Rather, I will focus on the legends and stories that arose from Brummell’s appearance on the scene as an inspirational and iconic figure. This chapter will thus present an account of Brummell as a form of myth in Barthes’ sense of an iconic cultural sign (see for example Mythologies 1986 [1957]. I will, however, provide a brief biography for those who may not be as familiar with Brummell’s life as specialists in fashion studies might be3.

Possessed of no noble blood and having inherited only a modest fortune, the Beau was instead blessed with youth, elegance, and personable humour4. His friendship with the equally fashion-conscious Regent of the time, Prince George, quickened in military camaraderie, not only allowed him access to the upper echelons of society but also gained him membership of the most exquisite and exclusive clubs. Fêted for the perfection of his appearance via his cravats, coat, boots and breeches, and renowned for

3 The interested reader who wishes to know more about Brummell’s life is referred to two excellent and revealing biographies. The first is Captain William Jesse’s multiple volumes, first published in 1844. Jesse visited Brummell in exile in France, and many of the anecdotes and witticisms that later commentators rely on are reproduced from his The Life of George Brummell, Esq.; Jesse’s writings on the Beau are hagiographical, fannish, and even partly fictional. However, these textual limitations do not detract greatly from Jesse’s value as a primary source, as he is one of the few that took time to visit, interview and record the Beau’s words in person in his exile in Calais. That said, Jesse’s work does include much extraneous and irrelevant secondary material. It is hard to disagree with a review of Jesse’s work in The Dublin Review at the time of publication: ‘The whole would have been a more creditable production, if it were just one fourth of its present size. A number of silly letters are transcribed into it, and a quantity of still more silly verse, that would have been better omitted, with the evident purpose of puffing it out into two volumes’ (1844: 104).

A more factual complement to Jesse’s account comes from Ian Kelly’s meticulously researched Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Dandy (2005). This text provides additional factual texture to a portrait of Brummell’s life, while often relying on the anecdotes provided by Jesse himself, although considered with a more sceptical eye. In particular, Kelly’s discovery that Brummell’s eventual physical and mental decline was due to tertiary syphilis sheds light on the Beau’s routine of fastidious cleanliness, and mitigates against claims that his descent into physical and mental decay was due to the moral failing of being fashion-obsessed. The association of fashion with moral decay has been well documented by authors such as Aileen Ribeiro in Dress and Morality (2003) [1986]. The uncredited review of Jesse’s biography noted immediately above ends its survey of Beau’s later life with the following dire warning: ‘Many a young man, who enters life with bright prospects, with ample means, fascinating exterior, and brilliant talents, may be tempted to distinguish himself in the fashionable world as Brummell did. If such there be, and this page should meet his eye, let him remember the squalid and filthy old age of the once witty and fastidious Brummell; and, above all, recollect that he died in a madhouse’ (1844: 104).

4 See Potvin (2016) for an account of the role of a concept of ‘elegance’ in creating a unique space for emergent dandy identities in the early twentieth century, and its role in constituting a civilising discourse for these alternate masculine/queer identities. ~ 73! ~ his cutting wit, Brummell was for a time, the very heart of London society. Devotees would gather at his abode in 4 Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, to observe the progress of his toilette; well-dressed young gentlemen passed by the famous bay window at the Beau’s club, White’s, to see if they could attract his attention.

However, a falling out with the Prince Regent – largely attributed to his impertinent command ‘Wales, ring the bell!' to summon a carriage (Jesse 1844: 269)5 – meant that certain gambling debts accumulated by Brummell were less easily forgiven by society. Fearing a future entrapped in a debtor’s prison, on the evening of 16 May 1816, Brummell dined on cold fowl and claret, dressed for the opera and made a brief public appearance; shortly afterwards, he boarded a private carriage to Dover, where he crossed the Channel to France. Subsequently, his remaining London goods were seized and auctioned by Christie’s as ‘The genuine property of a MAN OF FASHION Gone to the Continent’ (Jesse 1844: 347). Although he continued to receive regular visitors from England from those still enamoured by the Beau, and in Calais managed to extract funds from a variety of sources – including a brief stint as a British Consul – Brummell’s mental and physical health declined, and the final flame of his genius was extinguished in 1840, when he died in an insane asylum.

It is generally agreed that Brummell is the first amongst dandies. I have previously indicated that English and French traditions of dandyism differ significantly in their specific focus; however, Brummell was certainly the unique precursor of all the dandy types that were to follow. For example, the work of the writer Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly’s Of Dandyism and of George Brummell (1988) [1844] is a foundational text in foregrounding the philosophical and ascetic qualities of the dandy within this French tradition. D’Aurevilly identifies Brummell as ‘the greatest dandy of his own or any time’ (29). Costume historian Colin McDowell agrees that ‘about the Dandies’ leader... there is no doubt. George “Beau” Brummell is accepted by all as the archetypal

5 Brummell’s biographer Captain Jesse writes that this account was denied by the Beau himself. Jesse believes the separation occurred because Brummell had made ‘sarcastic remarks’ at the expense of the Prince’s paramour, Mrs Fitzherbert (1844: 271); Kelly also provides a number of alternate explanations but notes, ultimately, there was ‘no clear falling-out’ (2005: 278). One final humiliation was too much to bear, however: the Prince Regent, intending to make his unhappiness with his former intimate known, publicly refused to acknowledge Brummell during an encounter at Hyde Park. Instead of being discomfited, Brummell allegedly turned to his companion and ‘in a distinct tone expressive of complete ignorance’ asked ‘A——, who’s your fat friend?’ (Jesse 1844: 273-274). ~ ! ~74 figure’ (1997: 59). Cultural and material historian Christopher Breward agrees that the Beau is the ‘paradigmatic dandy’ (2016: 125).

In particular, Brummell shines amongst all the dandy-types due to his reputation for his witty and surprising sense of humour that was equalled only by the perfection of his dress. As Kelly notes, ‘Brummell was renowned as a metropolitan wit before his personal style was copied by Londoners, Parisians and thence by urbane men the world over’ (2005: 6; emphasis added). What, then, are the connection between dandy, fashion and wit? How they might support a theorisation of the element of surprise, which I identified in the Literature Review as essential to a sociology of wit?

In establishing the quality of surprise found in Brummell’s characteristic wit, I will examine his numerous recorded verbal epigrams, which were admired and pored over by his peers. I will then explore how this quality of surprise informs the material and sartorial details of his dress. In this way I will contend that the dandy’s wit is not to be interpreted in isolation from his individual status as a man of fashion, but might further reveal insights into fashion, as per the research question of this thesis. I will focus my discussion on the distinction between verbal surprise as the basis of wit, and its more performative aspect. This distinction will assist in understanding how the dandy’s desire to surprise is contained both in his intellectually creative and pithy quips, and the similar succinct and provocative innovations of his material forms of dress.

To investigate these questions, I will analyse Brummell’s famous verbal epigrams and the memorable impressions they left on his contemporaries. Having discussed the verbal epigram, I will consider whether the dandy’s sartorial details can be explained solely in terms as a functional mark of distinction, as has been the traditional account of ‘the detail’ in fashion studies. For example, Roland Barthes argues in his essay ‘Dandyism and Fashion’ (2004) [1962] that the detail is a crucial signifier which distinguishes the dandy from other clothes-wearing men. However, for Barthes, the development of the fashion system ‘kills’ the dandy by adopting and replicating defining details more quickly than the dandy can invent them. In contrast to Barthes’ position, in this chapter I will suggest that the detail does not function necessarily as a marker of exclusion or distinction. I will argue that the sartorial detail also contains the possibility to provide a ~ 75! ~ surprising and unexpected intellectual insight in a compressed form. By identifying the strategies that the verbal epigram and sartorial detail share, I will demonstrate that the quality of wit essential to the dandy is inseparable from his overall approach to fashion itself. By performing this analysis we might better understand – to borrow Thomas Carlyle’s phrase – the ‘mystical significance’ of the dandy (1987 [1836]: 208), and thus, the dandy’s contribution to a theoretical account of surprise as it is found in the sociology of wit.

Before moving on to my discussion of the epigram and the detail, I will provide some context for Brummell’s continued importance for fashion studies by noting the contributions that he made to the canons of modern menswear. This is important both in recognising the surprising innovations provided by Brummell and providing context for the discussion of the sartorial detail to follow later in this chapter. Brummell’s sartorial approach is best summarised in his formulation: ‘If John Bull turns around to look after you, you are not well dressed; but either too stiff, too tight, or too fashionable’ (Kelly 2005: 1). It was not the Beau’s intention to stand out from the crowd through excessive ornament, but instead through the absolute perfection of his style. Although a gentleman might change his clothes several times a day according to various functions or duties, Brummell remains most famous for his morning dress, which was a combination of country sportswear and military details borrowed from his time as an officer of the 10th Hussars in Brighton. Brummell’s biographer, Captain William Jesse, writes that in its essentials his dress ‘was similar to that of every other gentleman – Hessians and pantaloons, or topboots and buckskins, with a blue coat, and a light or buff-coloured waistcoat; of course fitting to admiration, on the best figure in England’ (1844: 62).

However, Beau’s manner of distinction lay in the perfection of cut which provided him, as Ian Kelly writes, with ‘arrestingly body-formed clothing’ (2005: 170-172). Through collaboration with his tailors Brummell assisted in sculpting the basic woollen coat from something leaden and stiff into a carefully shaped and padded simulacra of the lithe neo-classical male torso. The contrast of shining black boots, skin-tight buff breeches and shapely navy coat was crowned at the neck by the whimsical burst of a white linen cravat. For jewellery, he possessed one plain ring and a watch-chain of ‘Venetian ducat gold’ in an unusual design of which he only ever showed two links ~ ! ~76 (Jesse 1844: 76). He also owned an enviable collection of accessories such as canes (some carved with caricatures of the heads of noted members of society) and snuffboxes, and claimed to possess a different one for each day of the year (Kelly 2005: 187). The perfection of Brummell’s sartorial details combined to make him the most highly-regarded specimen of the male sex of his time, and he became known as the arbiter elegantarium of Regency London – the ultimate ‘judge of propriety’ in taste and manners (6).

Brummell’s ensemble disavowed the excesses of the courtly dress of the previous century; he prized plain wool and linen over, as McDowell puts it, ‘Stiff satins, patches, paint and powder’ (1997: 54). Indeed, through his choice of practical materials and the flattering silhouette of his outfit, Brummell is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the prototype of the modern men’s suit. Alice Cicoloni writes that ‘the early twenty- first-century gentlemanly uniform of grey or navy suit, black lace-up shoe, white shirt, and modestly colourful tie more than nods to Brummell’s stylistic approach’ (2010: 204). Moers agrees that ‘The Brummell style… was suitable for all classes and occupations. Hardly altered in essentials, it would clothe democracy’ (1960: 33).

Brummell’s influence not only guided the genesis of the modern suit; his patronage helped establish the boundaries of London’s hallowed West End menswear mecca – a precinct that still exists and remains of continued importance as a source of perfection in menswear today. This area is enclosed, as Breward writes, by ‘Savile Row with its tailors, Bond Street with its purveyors of hosiery, perfumes and fine accessories and St James’s Street with its provision stores for connoisseur’s wine and tobacco, its social clubs and its celebrated hatter’ (2004: 30). In this precinct, one of course can still visit iconic purveyors of goods such as John Lobb shoes or the Berry Bros wine merchants (where the weight of customers, including Brummell, are recorded after being weighed on their massive wooden scale). Brummell thus assisted in solidifying the physical boundaries and reputation of London as the centre of gentlemanly style for centuries to come, right up until the present moment.

However, not all are appreciative of the Beau’s sartorial contributions. As self-styled dandy himself Quentin Crisp observes about Brummell’s demise: ‘He left behind him a ~ 77! ~ way of keeping a cravat neat and he invented stretch-pants… It isn’t much of a legacy but his name glitters in the memoirs of almost all his contemporaries’ (1988: 10). This dismissal of the Beau’s gifts is rather unfair – but, of course, Crisp’s own reputation relied on witty mockery of social mores and the status quo (Crisp 1997 [1968]). Despite Crisp’s assessment, Brummell’s significant achievements in innovations in men’s dress guarantee his position in the canons of masculine fashion history. However, in a consideration of wit as assisting in understanding the sociology of fashion, the Beau’s reputation as the defining ‘MAN OF FASHION’ is not limited to these historical innovations in costume. It is also indissoluble from his reputation as a surprising wit.

In his day, Brummell was as renowned in for the intellectually creative and surprising appeal of his witty quips as he was for the perfection of his attire. Not only was the cut of his coat imitated and the high shine of his boots admired; his bon mots were recorded, published, studied, and contemplated by his contemporaries. I will now examine the close connection between the quality of surprise found both in wit and fashion, firstly as found in the Beau’s memorable verbal epigrams; then by a consideration of these verbal quips in the context of Veblen and Barthes’ idea of the detail; and finally by the performative implications of the Beau’s fashions innovations themselves.

3.3 The surprise of the witty verbal epigram

As was discussed in the Literature Review, the quality of surprise found in a sociology of wit might be defined as the provision of a creative intellectual insight in a compressed and pithy form. Other disciples of dandyism agree that this unexpected quality of surprise is a crucial element of the dandy’s wit. This is one point of commonality between the French and English approaches to dandyism. D’Aurevilly writes that ‘one of the consequences and principal characteristics… of Dandyism, is always to produce the unexpected, that which could not logically be anticipated by those accustomed to the yoke of rules’ (1988 [1844]: 33). The dandy even takes the logic of surprise to its extreme form, surprising how audience through refusing himself to be surprised. Baudelaire, in his own essay on dandyism, writes that the dandy’s delight in astonishing others is mirrored by his own refusal to be visibly amused; ~ ! ~78 dandyism is ‘the pleasure of causing surprise in others, and the proud satisfaction of never showing any oneself’ (2010 [1863]: 37). Vainshtein describes this ‘stoical rule of economy of emotions…[as] “nil admirari”’, the capacity ‘not to be surprised at anything’ (2010: 94-95). In keeping with this theme, Paul Jobling notes of the titular hero in the fashionable dandy-novel Pelham that the ‘idea of dispassionate display was at the core of the dandy’s identity’ (2005: 33). As Pelham himself reminds his audience, ‘Always remember that you dress to fascinate others, not yourself’ (1072 [1828]: 177).

Given the importance of the epigram to the dandy’s reputation as a ‘metropolitan wit’, how might an idea of this compressed form of witty text inform discussion of the dandy, and also the dandy’s contribution to fashion? The dandy, as an acknowledged master of the epigrammatic form, provides both insight and empirical evidence and into this question. In the years after Brummell’s departure from London, writers gathered and published selections of his finest witticisms. The Victorian journalist William Hazlitt was the source of the most influential collections. In 1820 he published a concise reservoir of quips under the title ‘Brummelliana’ in The Literary Pocket-Book, adding very little in the way of commentary; he later adapted this essay for The London Weekly Review in 1828, tweaking the wording of the earlier anecdotes he had provided and adding additional commentary. Hazlitt’s writings provide a nuanced appreciation of the formal characteristics and philosophical possibilities of Brummell’s epigrams6. In examining the quality of surprise found in a sociology of wit as it pertains to fashion as it pertains to the influence of Brummell, I will begin with a consideration of the important quality of pithiness found in his famous witticisms. Hazlitt agrees that the essentials of Brummell’s remarks relied on reduction and simplicity. For Hazlitt, Brummell ‘arrived at the very minimum of wit, and reduced it, “by happiness or pains”, to an almost invisible point” (1934 [1828]: 152). Hazlitt observes that ‘All his bon-mots

6 Hazlitt’s essays also remind us that commentators possess divergent views on the intent and effect of the Beau’s wit. Some see it as celebratory, and argue that the intention behind his bon mots was mostly self- deprecatory. For example, Jesse writes that Brummell was ‘ever ready with some droll excuse for his follies or extravagance’ (1844: 46); Kelly agrees that though Brummell's humour occasionally functioned via the ‘incisive ‘put-down’… [it] just as often figured as the casually warm and witty aside’ (2005: 77). In terms of the superiority theory of humour outlined in the Literature Review, these characterisations of Brummell’s words might also fit within a view of humour as functioning to express superiority, an idea found in the writings of d’Aurevilly (1988) [1844] or Billig (2005). In terms of the dandy specifically, d’Aurevilly views Brummell’s verbal wit as primarily an ‘acid’ which was both ‘charming and cruel’ (1988 [1844]: 42, 49]; his ‘witticisms crucified’ in order to reveal the frail vanity of his peers (56). Fashion historian Olga Vainshtein also construes Brummell’s wit as ‘sadomasochistic’, writing that ‘the majority of [his] victims are the assuming parvenus who were very well anxious to be well placed among the exquisites’ (2010: 104). ~ 79! ~ turn upon a single circumstance, the exaggerating of the merest trifles into matters of importance, or treating everything else with the utmost nonchalance and indifference… he has touched the ne plus ultra that divides the dandy from the dunce’ (152).

I will now examine a selection of the Beau’s epigrams to determine how they exhibit the witty impulse to surprise through their brevity, ability to challenge existing thought, and create new insights. In providing this evidence, I will theorise three rhetorical strategies or principles which produce surprise – inclusive distinction, the mystifying non-sequitur, and the sympathetic magic of fashion.

3.3.1 Questioning coathood

As we have already seen, Brummell was much admired for the fit of his navy wool morning coat, which was tailored to adhere to his sleek neo-classical frame. Indeed, such was the reputation of this garment that it appeared as if the stitched silhouette could be identified with the actual man. Hazlitt writes ‘that the poet’s hyperbole about the lady might be applied to his coat; and “You might almost say the body thought”’ (2007 [1820]: 330). Even after his falling out with the Prince Regent, Brummell remained the benchmark of perfection for those seeking to attain the heights of style. When an admirer asked Beau’s tailor what cloth he recommended, the tailor responded: ‘Why, Sir… the Prince wears superfine, and Mr. Brummell the Bath coating; … suppose, Sir, we say Bath coating, – I think Mr. Brummell has a trifle the preference’ (Jesse 1844: 64-65). The Beau’s position as arbiter elegantarium is also cemented by the following story, recounted by Jesse as follows:

On another occasion, the late Duke of Bedford asked him for an opinion on his new coat. Brummell examined him from head to foot… ‘Turn round,’ said the Beau: his Grace did so, and the examination was continued in front. When it was concluded Brummell stepped forward, and feeling the lapel delicately with his thumb and finger, said, in a most earnest and amusing manner, ‘Bedford, do you call this thing a coat?’ (Jesse 1844: 63).

In pronouncing judgment on the Duke’s attire in such a cool and compressed manner, Brummell provides a clear rebuke: Bedford’s taste is so questionable that the garment

~ !80 ~ he dares to nominate as a coat fails to resolve as such in Brummell’s rarefied perception. But what, after, all constitutes a coat? Given the multiplications and modifications of fashion, whereby one incremental change leads to another, and so on, how is it possible to transmit the quality of ‘coatness’ from one generation of garment to the next? This alludes to the possibility that Bedford’s offence is not that his new purchase is not a coat, but that it is the wrong kind of coat for the specific situation. Indeed, on what basis do we claim a morning coat as different from a topcoat, or from a garment suitable for evening? Ultimately, how do we know that this coat is a coat – and not, say, a jacket?

The Beau’s deceptively simple and pithy enquiry to the Duke of Bedford goes to the heart, one might say, of ‘coatness’ itself. Hazlitt agrees that the coat is ‘here lifted into an ineffable essence, so that a coat is no longer a thing… it would take infinite gradations of fashion, taste, and refinement… to aspire to the undefined privileges, and mysterious attributes of a coat’ (1934 [1822]: 152). The surprising insight to be found here is that a fact which is apparently obvious to everybody – that this is a coat – is one that the Beau remains oblivious to; but what is obvious to the Beau – that this may not be a coat – is equally insensible to everyone else. Here, the verbal epigram does not exclude the observer from this debate, but instead invites contemplation of the ‘ineffable essence’ of coathood. Here the epigram operates according to a principle of inclusive distinction. That is, a notion of distinction here opens up, rather than seeks to close down, an invitation to participate in a conversation about what constitutes fashion. This enquiry thus speaks to the idea of intellectual creativity that the surprise of wit sparks.

In the final section of this chapter, I will explore how a notion of inclusive distinction functions sartorially in Brummell’s demonstration of the perfection of his famous cravat.

3.3.2 The lakes of Windermere

I will next draw attention to a class of witticisms which possess the ability to produce a surprising effect by subverting the expectations of social niceties through strategic use of a mystifying non-sequitur. In these types of concise verbal utterances the Beau ~ ! ~81 creates astonishment by removing any conversational link between cause and effect, question and response. Enquiries or statements put to him that might reliably be thought to have a simple answer are confounded through replies that take an unexpected detour. Jesse writes that this ‘affectation, which was principally assumed for the purpose of amusing those about him, was another characteristic of [Brummell’s] wit’ (1844: 117). Jesse provides several rapid-fire examples of deliberately mystifying instances of the Beau’s social intercourse. In one anecdote the following is reported: ‘Having been asked by a sympathising friend how he happened to get such a severe cold? [Brummell’s] reply was, “Why, do you know, I left my carriage yesterday evening, on my way to town… and the infidel of a landlord put me into a room with a damp stranger”’ (Jesse 1844: 118). One is unsure whether it is the idea of dampness or proximity to a stranger that produces the sudden chill in the Beau’s demeanour. Brummell was further asked by an acquaintance ‘during a very unseasonable summer’, if he had ever experienced such weather; ‘Yes,’ the Beau replied; ‘last winter’ (118-119). The fashionable man’s criteria for how a season is judged is clearly not bound by matters such as chronological temporality. On being quizzed for the reason of the failure of a matrimonial speculation, Brummell responded: ‘Why what could I do, my good fellow, but cut the connexion? I discovered that Lady Mary actually ate cabbage!’ (126). Of all the reasons that the Beau, who had somewhat of a reputation as a womaniser7 , could find to break a lady’s heart, occasional cruciferous consumption is perhaps the most curious. One wonders if Lady Mary ever discovered the nature of her offence, or if she pined for the rest of her days, loveless but faintly fragrant with sulphur.

Hazlitt provides further examples of Brummell’s ease in confounding social niceties through finely honed and forceful maxims, ones that demonstrate Brummell’s fertile ability to challenge the conventions of his day. Hazlitt writes that ‘there is something piquant enough in his answer to a city-fashionable, who asked him if he would dine with him on a certain day – ‘Yes, if you won’t mention it to anyone’ (1934 [1828: 154); in a later altercation with the same person, to whom the Beau owed money, a hint as to repayment prompted the following response: ‘Do you count my having borrowed a

7 Kelly (2005) devotes considerable attention to Brummell’s varied sexual history, aiming to efface the myth that he was asexual or homosexual, as the dandy was often later portrayed; consider, for example, the decadent aesthete-dandy figure of Oscar Wilde described by Moers (1960). ~ ! ~82 thousand pounds of you for nothing?’ (154). As Hazlitt writes, ‘the assumption of superiority implied in the appeal… soars immediately above commonplace’ (154).

But perhaps the ultimate exaggeration of the mystifying non-sequitur might be found in the Beau’s studied amnesia when quizzed on subjects, that as arbiter elegantarium, he should reliably be expected to proffer a fashionable opinion. Hazlitt recounts that: ‘Somebody inquiring where [Brummell] was going to dine next day, was told that he really did not know: “they put me in a coach and take me somewhere”’ (2007 [1820]: 331). That the feted Beau Brummell would not know where his next engagement was to take place appears unlikely. Rather, the Beau’s desire for mystery takes precedence over the courtesy of a ready answer. By claiming genuine ignorance of his diary, Brummell achieves a calculated effect of incredulity in the hapless enquirer. This inattention is invoked in another famed exchange where the Beau’s opinion on a matter of taste was sought:

An acquaintance having, in a morning call, bored him dreadfully about some tour he had made in the North of England, enquired with great pertinacity of his impatient listener which of the lakes he preferred? …[Brummell] turned his head imploringly towards his valet, who was arranging something in the room, and said, ‘Robinson.’ ‘Sir.’ ‘Which of the lakes do I admire?’ ‘Windermere, sir,’ replied that distinguished individual. ‘Ah, yes, – Windermere,’ repeated Brummell, ‘so it is, – Windermere’ (Jesse 1844: 117).

The long-suffering Robinson thus becomes the surrogate of the man of taste’s preferences; if the good valet had named another lake in reply, it is doubtful that Brummell would have corrected him rather than belie his own languorous response. By delegating his fashionable view, the Beau reverses the reasonable expectation that the most exacting of dandies could be relied upon to know his own mind. The man of fashion thus disclaims his own capacity to form a fashionable opinion. In all of the above examples, one can never anticipate the dandy’s response to even the most innocuous of questions. The listener is forced to question their own assumptions through these condensed and aphoristic statements, jolting new avenues of thought about the society in which they find themselves. In this new age of status based on celebrity rather than class8, who is to say that Robinson – as a valued member of the

8 Several authors, including Moers (1960) and Breward (2000) regard Brummell as the first modern celebrity, in that his status was based on his taste-making rather than the circumstances of his birth. ~ 83! ~ Beau’s entourage – does not have a more precious understanding of fashion than, say, the Duke of Bedford himself?

In the final part of this chapter, I will parallel the principle of the mystifying non- sequitur to the sartorial surprises found in the Beau’s famous breeches.

3.3.3 The art of spitting

The final class of epigrams I will discuss is the ability to invoke the surprise of fashion without recourse to the physical realm. The first of these pointed and precise examples strikes at the core of the Beau’s famous fastidiousness. Hazlitt reports of Brummell that ‘When he went visiting, he is reported to have taken with him an elaborate dressing apparatus, including a silver basin: “For,” said he, “it is impossible to spit in clay”’ (2007) [1820]: 333). The twist here is that it is not the Beau’s spit which is abject, as one might expect, but the earthy clay receptacle in which he would expectorate. Only silver – luminous, reflective, polished – is equal to the task of receiving Brummell’s fashionable sputum. Indeed, Brummell’s body and the silver basin are of the same rarefied quality. The reason why the Beau finds it ‘impossible’ to spit in clay is that this act would grant the status of fashion – the Beau’s phlegm – to an object categorically beyond fashion – a common clay basin. The dandy here offers a sacrament of taste, not through his approval of sartorial items such as a finely-cut coat or polished boots, but through the ignoble substance of his fashionable body.

Another example of this type is provided in the following anecdote: ‘Being met limping in Bond-street, and asked what was the matter, [Brummell] said he had hurt his leg, and “the worst of it was, it was his favourite leg”’ (331). Hazlitt finds this tale reprehensible, suggesting as it does that ‘a man of fashion had nothing else to do than to sit and think of which of his legs he liked best; and in the plenitude of his satisfaction… to pamper this fanciful distinction into a serious sort of pet preference’ (1934 [1828]: 152)9. Yet the

9 The idea of a pet preference furnishes a number of other similar anecdotes, including the idea that he engaged different glove-makers to assemble different components for his gloves: ‘one for the hand, a second for the fingers, and a third for the thumb!’ (Bulwer-Lytton, quoted in Moers 1960: 32), or that he was so particular about his collar that he had one tailor to construct the bulk of his coat and a separate man Jenkins to finish the collar itself (Hazlitt 2007 [1820]: 331). ~ !84 ~ distinction is not at all ‘fanciful’, as Hazlitt claims. Here, an idea of fashion transcends the materiality of the clothing or garment; the verbal expression of a preference is inscribed directly onto Brummell’s own body. His corporeal form is subject to the same fierce scrutiny with which he might regard a freshly-tied cravat or novel snuffbox. The force of fashion thus inheres not in a material object or garment but is conferred by the Beau’s words. These utterances thus possess a form of sympathetic magic, whereby one object – through imitation or contagion – takes on the qualities of another. Here, through his quips, the Beau extends an idea of immaterial magic to material fashion itself – further provoking reflection in the listener as to how one might define the very notion of fashion itself10 .

Later in this chapter, I will further explore how this sympathetic magic of fashion extends to the sartorial details – specifically via the Beau’s ritual for blacking his famously shiny boots.

In examining the Beau’s witty quips, I have demonstrated that the verbal epigram operates through principles of inclusive distinction, the mystifying non-sequitur and the sympathetic magic of fashion. These principles are connected by their ability to provoke an unexpected response or provide an astonishing insight. That is, they function to surprise through the provision of an unexpected creative and intellectual insight in a compressed form. The Beau’s epigrams thus provide evidence that this idea of surprise is a crucial element of the sociology of wit. Having explored the verbal aspects of the dandy’s wit, I will now extend this discussion via consideration his performative aspects via a consideration of the sartorial detail. Here, however, we will first examine the work of Veblen and Barthes to conceptualise this idea of ‘the detail’ with more precision.

3.4 The surprise of the witty sartorial detail

10 For the classic treatment of sympathetic magic, see Part Three of the abridged 1922 version of Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (2014) [1922]. ~ ! ~85 The idea of the detail is crucial is crucial within the study of fashion11 . Within fashion studies, the detail might be identified as the smallest unit of change in fashion. As cultural theorist Prudence Black writes, ‘A detail like a cut of a lapel or the height of the heel is in itself “insignificant” but at the same time curiously carries all the weight of fashion’; it is capable of translating a feeling of ‘either lightness and delight – “this is new” – or heaviness and despair – “Ugh, this is so last year’s”’ (2009: 504). The detail’s theoretical conception can be traced back to Veblen’s discussion of conspicuous consumption in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1998) [1899]. This type of consumption signals status through displays of honorific waste. As we have seen, this type of consumption includes (but is not limited to) slaves, property, drugs and alcohol, pets, academic degrees, and of course, fashion itself. Veblen writes:

[T]he principle of conspicuous waste requires an obviously futile expenditure; and the resulting conspicuous expensiveness of dress is therefore intrinsically ugly. Hence we find that in all innovations in dress, each added or altered detail strives to avoid instant condemnation by showing some ostensible purpose, at the same time that the requirement of conspicuous waste prevents the purposefulness of these innovations from becoming anything more than a somewhat transparent pretense… The ostensible usefulness of the fashionable details of a dress, however, is always so transparent a make-believe, and their substantial futility presently forces itself so baldly upon our attention as to become unbearable, and then we take refuge in a new style [1899 (1998): 176-177; emphasis added].

For Veblen then, it is the detail that provides the impetus for fashion’s movement, as well as the alibi for each novelty’s eventual destruction. This Veblenesque determination of the detail is reiterated by Barthes in The Fashion System where he describes the detail as ‘the seed, the tiny being from which an entire harvest springs: a “morsel” of “nothing”, and suddenly we have an entire outfit permeated with the meaning of Fashion: a little nothing that changes everything’ (1983 [1967]: 243). Barthes argues that the detail operates as a persuasive economic imperative for people to consume fashion: ‘Fashion departs from the luxurious and seems to enter into a clothing practice

11 There is a wide range of general interest publications that trace important changes in the evolution of fashion via the detail – see for example The Killer Detail: Defining Moments in Fashion (Armanet and Quin 2013) or 1000 Fashion Details (Arroyo 2015). For those focused on costume history, the Victoria & Albert Museum produces a book series ‘Fashion in Detail’ which explores the detail in differing garments. These titles are organised historically (for example, Nineteenth Century Fashion in Detail (Johnston 2009) or by theme (Underwear Fashion in Detail (Lynn 2010)). And in terms of fashion education, there is a plethora of textbooks that identify the fashion detail as a significant object to be studied, for example Detail Drawing for Fashion Design (Drudi 2013) or Wargnier’s series Focus on Fashion Detail (2012). ~ ! ~86 accessible to modest budgets… [the] detail… consecrates a democracy of budgets while respecting an aristocracy of tastes’ (243).

For both Veblen and the Barthes of The Fashion System, the detail operates according to a logic of distinction – for the former, a distinction that generates fashion’s novelty, and for the latter, a distinction that speaks to the economic orientation of the fashion system itself. The detail thus always acts to divide: in both cases it separates one fashion moment from the next, or indeed, one class from another. Is it possible that there is something more to the description of the detail than this characterisation? Might it be that the detail might also be read as a principle of inclusion, as seen in Brummell’s fascination with Bedford’s coat? How might a notion of surprise found within the sociology of fashion act to include rather than divide? Providing answers to these questions first requires a more nuanced understanding of the idea of the detail itself.

Barthes comments directly on the relationship of the detail and the dandy in his essay ‘Fashion and Dandyism’ (2004) [1962]. Here, he connects the dandy and the detail in a treatment much expanded compared with his brief remarks on the detail in The Fashion System. Barthes argues that the establishment of the fashion system ‘kills’ the dandy because the distinguishing detail can be too easily replicated, and the dandy is too easily exhausted of ideas. I will first note that Barthes’ remarks on dandyism must also be considered from within the perspective of French thought on dandyism, which approaches the concept via ascetic and philosophical minimalism rather than the engaging wit that is found in the English tradition, such as is found in Brummell, Wilde, Beerbohm or Bulwer-Lytton’s Pelham. Barthes’ remarks are also produced in the context of a 1960s approach to the study of dandyism, which assumes this concept to have reached a point of historical completion and finality. While this may have been the perception at the time of Barthes’ writing, as Moers also (1960) notes, the subsequent resurgence of the dandy DNA from the late 1960s onwards in a variety of ethno-cultural and gender contexts points to the fact that this assumption was perhaps premature. Barthes’ essay from the 1960s is thus far from the final word on fashion and the dandy, and might benefit from reevaluation within a contemporary context. Indeed, I will continue to revisit the figure of the dandy as it relates to wit throughout this thesis.

~ 87! ~ Barthes’ essay ‘Fashion and Dandyism’ is a fascinating and insightful meditation on dandyism proper. Barthes argues that historically‘To change clothes was to change both one’s being and one’s social class, since they were part and parcel of the same thing’ (2004 [1962]: 65). Barthes situates his discussion of fashion and dandyism in the context of post-Revolutionary France. At this moment in history clothing was modified not only in form but in spirit: ‘the idea of democracy produced a form of clothing which was, in theory, uniform, no longer subject to the stated requirement of appearances but to those of work and equality’ (65). Clothing became practical and dignified to suit the moral tone of the times. Yet, despite an appearance of democratic equality, class separations had not in fact been abolished: ‘the aristocrat still maintained a powerful prestige, albeit one limited to lifestyle’ (65-66). A new mechanism had to be invented to separate one individual from another. Barthes writes that: ‘It is here that we see the appearance of a new aesthetic category in clothing, destined for a long future...: the detail’ (66). This detail – the ‘next-to-nothing’ – played the ‘distinguishing role’ in matters of clothing: ‘the knot on a cravat, the material of a shirt, the buttons on a waistcoat, the buckle on a shoe, were… enough to highlight the narrowest of social differences’ (66).

For Barthes, the dandy enters this scene as a ‘man who has decided to radicalise the distinction in men’s clothing by subjecting it to an absolute logic… the dandy stands in opposition… only in absolute terms to the individual and the banal’ (2004 [1962]: 66-67). Barthes argues that for the dandy, the unique ‘vestimentary’ detail is no longer just an item of clothing or an accessory, but a way to present an ‘absolutely singular vision of self’ (67). However, this vision of the detail contains limitations. Barthes further writes that the dandy is ‘condemned to invent continually distinctive traits that are ever novel’ (67). Barthes notes that although the detail can be theoretically renewed indefinitely via constant innovation, in fact ‘the ways of wearing an item of clothing are very limited… any renewal of an outfit is quickly exhausted’ (2004 [1962]: 67). As soon as a form becomes standardised, it loses its unique quality. Given that Barthes’ identifies uniqueness as the defining characteristic of the dandy, the rise of the fashion system rings the death knell for the dandy. As Barthes puts it, ready-to-wear is the ‘first fatal setback for dandyism’ (68). From this moment ‘buying the latest Italian shoes or English tweed is now a very common thing to do in that it is a conformity to ~ ! ~88 Fashion’ (69). Barthes thus concludes ‘dandyism was condemned to be radical or not exist at all… it really is Fashion that has killed dandyism’ (68-69)12.

While Barthes’ Continental perspective on dandyism cannot be uncritically applied to the English tradition represented by Brummell, his essay certainly contains valuable insights. Barthes’ argument that the detail is the mechanism by which the dandy gains his reputation for style anticipates readings within fashion studies that focus on the detail’s semiotic aspects. For example, Olga Vainshtein (2010) connects the detail to the elaborate visual games favoured by the dandy that are played out via a variety of specialised accessories such as lorgnettes and opera-glasses. While this kind of semiotic analysis of the detail is valuable in complicating the dandy’s unique strategies for distinction, it does not account for why the dandy persists and flourishes in a contemporary setting. Furthermore, there are certain changes in the reappearance of dandyism that Barthes, writing from a particular historical perspective, is not in a position to retrospectively address.

Furthermore, in focussing on the detail as providing a logic of distinctive exclusion rather than as distinctive inclusion, Barthes’ overlooks the role that an idea of wit might play in creating new dandies. Indeed, the idea of surprise as it is found in a sociology of wit demonstrates the insufficiency of Barthes’ argument insofar that the proliferation of dandy types is not accounted for within his description of the detail. And indeed, the proliferation of these dandies is tied – like Brummell himself – to an idea of wit. I will now provide three additional empirical examples of contemporary dandyism that demonstrate that the wit of the dandy as expressed via the English tradition of surprising wit continues to flourish. I will then move on to consider how Brummell, as the first and original dandy, demonstrated his surprising wit through his performative sartorial innovations.

Firstly, consider the the dandy as iconoclast. When fashion mourned the passing of Karl Lagerfeld in early 2019, the world lost not only an iconic designer, whose work for

12 Barthes’ problematic comments about ‘the psychological traits (probably narcissistic and homosexual) which have made dandyism into an essentially masculine phenomenon’ (2004 [1962]: 69) deserve to be challenged.. His assumption is precisely the kind that Kelly (2005) wishes to contest in his own discussion of the Beau’s erotic activities as indicated at note 9. ~ 89! ~ Chanel, Fendi and his own label surpassed several decades, but it also lost one of fashion’s most recognisable dandy figures. Lagerfeld cited the release of Heidi Slimane’s super-svelte menswear collection for Dior Homme as inspiration to transform himself from plump to pointed – even releasing a book to celebrate his slimming down, The Karl Lagerfeld Diet (2004). Lagerfeld’s physical reinvention both added to his personal fame as a designer, and also created a dandy silhouette in the classical sense of the term – while the details of his dress varied very slightly from this point on, up until his death the essentials remained the same: slim-fitting black suit, silver ponytail, dark sunglasses, high collar or cravat, and fingerless gloves. Lagerfeld’s iconic silhouette has even spawned its own fashion monogram [Figure 3.2].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 3.2. Detail from the cover of The World According to Karl (Napias and Gulbenkian, 2013), where the ‘a’ in Karl has been replaced by his iconic silhouette. The book collects a number of Lagerfeld’s witticisms – or ‘Karlisms’ – covering issues of fashion, style, politics and life.

But Lagerfeld’s dandyism was not confined to his physical appearance. He was a consummate and provocative wit, regularly making outrageous statements to the press; his epigrams were recorded and published, much like Brummell – and even his famous cat Choupette had her own book deal (Napias and Gulbenkian 2014). In The World According to Karl: The Wit and Wisdom of Karl Lagerfeld (2018) [2013], Lagerfeld shared his pithy and provocative nuggets of wisdom, such as ‘Jogging pants are a sign

~ ! ~90 of defeat. You’ve lost control of your life, so you go out in jogging pants’ (Napias and Gulbenkian 2018 [2013]: 54), ‘My sunglasses are a burka for men’ (121), or ‘I hate intellectuals, especially if they are not very well dressed. Look at photos of people like Bergson: impeccable! Today they are all a little sloppy’ (116).

In a video interview conducted with himself, by himself, for mega-retailer NET-A- PORTER, Lagerfeld walked out on himself for asking banal and inappropriate questions. Tellingly, Lagerfeld first asked himself the question: ‘Is humour really important to us?’. His counterpart responded ‘It’s all improvised, I’m a very improvised person. But a very professional improvised person’ (NET-A-PORTER 2012; emphasis added), signposting that the work of the dandy was never done – and indeed, in a way, for Lagerfeld had become a career with a life of its own. As interviewer, Lagerfeld queried his doppelgänger, ‘Are you easily bored? And especially now?’. Lagerfeld the interviewee responded by remarking ‘What a strange question!’ and abandoning the scene entirely [Figure 3.3]. In the last decade, Lagerfeld’s dandy silhouette became so iconic that itself produced its own iconography – books, accessories, T-shirts and bags all bore the stamp of the sunglasses-wearing, pony-tailed dandy designer. Lagerfeld was a true iconoclastic twenty-first century dandy, whose intention – both in his design work and personal iconography – was always to surprise through the provision of an amusing and unexpected insight.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 3.3. Lagerfeld interviews himself, moments before walking out on his interviewer for banal and irritating questions. (NET-A-PORTER via YouTube 2019, accessed 7 April 2019).

~ ! ~91 Secondly, self-identified dandy subcultures have flourished in the twenty-first century, both as a subcultural phenomenon and also as a publishing exploit. In the light of the historical explosion in menswear, well-dressed gents and dandies of a variety of persuasions have proudly self-identified themselves as dandies. Online examples include global street-style blogs or shopping forums (such as the sartorialist.com or styleforum.net). A focus of online and print publications is the fascinated media coverage of the sprezzatura-obsessed attendees of the annual Pitti Uomo – the premier men’s fashion trade exhibition held annually in Italy, and origin of the famously Instagrammable ‘blogger blue’ suit. Various publications have been generated, such as the satirical but style-obsessed editors of the Fuck Yeah Menswear tumblr who, in their inevitable book, celebrate ‘waxing poetic on waxed jackets, highbrow humour in high waters, and double entendre in double-breasted sport coats’ (Burrows and Schlossman, 2012: ix).

These self-identified dandies tend to take themselves seriously, and yet not seriously at all. Burrows and Schlossman nevertheless display a genuine passion for fashion. They recognise that while style is paramount, qualities such as flair, daring and wit – in other words, the elements of sartorial surprise – are equally prized. In the published edition of Fuck Yeah Menswear poetic epigrams are often superimposed over the sort of stylish image that would appear in a more serious context in style blogs such as thesartorialist.com, once again emphasising the compressive possibilities of wit [Figure 3.4]. A publishing subgenre of manuals aiming to assist the desperate man of style in his transformation from sad schlub to sartorial success similarly use strategies of humour to both please and ease the putative, if somewhat previously reluctant, discipline of style (For example, GQ regularly publishes books focussing on men’s style and examples of fashion; Hardy Amies’ quippy ABC of Men’s Fashion, was republished by V&A in 2008).

~ !92 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 3.4. A typical image from Fuck Yeah Menswear, with terse poetic text superimposed over a stylish image: ‘I flip scripts/ When my blade trips/ Vents dip/ Twit clips/ Post dope dick pics/ Breasts blow open/ Bloggers Googling my knit slips’ (Burrows and Schlossman 2012: 231).

Thirdly, consider the female fop: dandy as cyborg. It has been principally in the twentieth century that inspirational dandy female figures have been explicitly recognised and celebrated. For example, Virginia Woolf and Coco Chanel, with their penchant for adopting the ease and comfort of menswear, have both been recognised as dandy-types. Fillin-Yeh also describes a number of other female dandies who have reigned over the twentieth century. Here, however, I want to pinpoint a contemporary female version of the dandy who has come into her own in the twentieth century. Post Donna Haraway’s enormously influential Cyborg Manifesto (2016) [1985], a number of entertainers who challenge the iconography of the flamboyant female fashion have ~ ! ~93 emerged, including Madonna, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé (as discussed in the Introduction).

One of the most recent inspiring innovative examples is Janelle Monáe, an African- American singer, actor and rap artist, who combines traditional elements of the dandy with the witty lyrics found in her songs. Monáe, in her musical ouevre, consistently adopts an outlaw cyborg persona in a world where artificial life is hated and hunted, and all of her albums reflect the thematics of the difficulty of being an artificial form of life in a world that punishes challenges to orthodox forms of being. This persona, living throughout in her music from 2008-2018, often reflect the pursuit and persecution of a transcategorical being out of time and place. In her videos and personal appearances, Monáe usually dresses in stylish monochromatic outfits – mostly alternates of black and white, sometimes with a splash of red – to maintain the consistency of her dandyish persona [Figure 3.5]. As she raps, ‘Black and white/ it’s always been my camo’ (Django Jane 2018).

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 3.5. An example of Janelle Monáe’s typical monochromatic attire. Image from thekit.ca, accessed 8 April 2019. ~ ! ~94 Furthermore, the lyrics of her songs are exceptionally unexpected and surprising in an often sexually politicised and hilarious manner. For example, in the song ‘Wondaland’ (2010), an homage to Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, she sings ‘Take me back to Wondaland/ I gotta get back to Wondaland/ Take me back to Wondaland/ She thinks she left her underpants’, emphasising the potential sexual implications of this somewhat curious journey of discovery by the Alice of Carroll’s novels. In ‘Yoga’ (2015), a collaboration with the rapper Jidenna, Monáe rhapsodises about the sexual/ health implications of this supposedly spiritual practice, singing ‘Baby bend over, baby bend over/ Let me see you do that yoga... Sometimes I’m sleepy/ Sometimes I’m vulgar/ Even when I’m sleeping I have one eye open/ You cannot police me/ So get off my areola’ – a reference, perhaps, to Janet Jackson’s infamous Super Bowl experience where one of her nipple covers briefly dislodged, invoking the wrath of a nation. Monáe’s most recent album, Dirty Computer (2018) features the single ‘Pynk’, a loving celebration of the the female genitalia; Monáe and her girlfriend, actor Tessa Thompson, appear in giant couture vulvas at various points throughout the accompanying ‘Emotion Picture’, as Monáe describes it [Figure 3.6], with Tessa at one point climbing out from between Monáe’s legs13 . For Monáe, ‘Pynk is my favourite part’ (2018).

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 3.6. Still from Monáe’s ‘Pynk’ music video, released in 2018. Image taken from theconversation.com, accessed 9 April 2019.

13 This does remind one of the faux-controversy about Fendi’s folded and fur-trimmed ‘vulva’ scarf from 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2018/oct/15/fendi-750-pound-vulva-scarf-makes- wearers-look-like-theyre-being-born ~ ! ~95 This proliferation of dandy types as described above thus suggest that the dandy’s death knell was prematurely rung by certain mid twentieth century theorists. Even classical dandies – such as Brummell himself – still retain the capacity to surprise, long after his personal demise. For example, as previously discussed, Brummell’s patronage established a flourishing precinct around London’s West End which survives today as the centre of modern men’s tailoring. The global influence of an ideal of ‘Savile Row’ and even the rise of ready-to-wear boutiques in this area have increased choices in sartorial matters rather than reduced them. The appearance of menswear rebels such an Alexander McQueen boutique in this precinct in 2014, or Savile Row’s function as the headquarters of a secretive spy network where style is as important as subterfuge, as found in the Kingsman spy movies (2015, 2017) show the possibility of continued witty evolution14.

Barthes’ argument that the rise of ready-to-wear ‘kills’ the dandy by limiting his consumer possibilities thus invokes a false tension between the freedom to create and the freedom to buy. Although this position may be consistent with Barthes’ view from the 1960s that the ‘fashion system’ is economically motivated, it does not tell us very much about the continuing cultural fascination with fashion itself. For example, in discussing Calvin Klein’s infamous ‘soft porn’ advertising campaign of the late 1990s, Breward writes, ‘At the end of the twentieth century the elements of the dandy’s philosophy relating to provocation and posturing have been re-incorporated by the mainstream fashion industry... Seemingly functional garments such as jeans and underwear are marketed on the flexed bodies of toned models in a deliberate attempt to court outrage’ (2003: 166). New forms of dandyism continue to proliferate in unexpected ways. Given the limitations of Barthes’ idea of the dandy, is it also necessary to regard his idea of the detail as established fact? Given my discussion of the element of pithy and provocative surprise as found in the sociology of wit, how might we conceptualise a notion of the detail that functions to include rather than divide? How

14 Indeed, online retailer MR PORTER has consistently produced specialist ‘Kingsman’ menswear collections since the release of the first movie release, presenting classic items of menswear with a witty twist – embroidered monogram pocket squares and even military style pyjama jumpsuits, a superficially ultimate practical item elegantly tailored to perfection. ~ !96 ~ might an idea of surprise as informed by a sociology of wit act as a mechanism for this inclusion?

In returning to my discussion of Brummell as the ultimate dandy and ‘MAN OF FASHION’ I will now explore how the sartorial detail functions as a form of performative surprise within a sociology of wit. I will argue that the detail can be read via the same strategies of inclusive distinction, the mystifying non-sequitur and the sympathetic magic of fashion that I identified in discussing the dandy’s verbal epigrams. In making this case, I will focus my discussion on three of Beau Brummell’s most famous fashion innovations: his perfect cravat, his tight-fitting breeches, and his highly polished black boots. I will then reconsider the ideas of contemporary dandyism I discussed above in light of this additional insight, as well as address the issue of dandyism as a form of female couture via my continued source of inspiration – the Gaultier dress.

3.4.1 The perfect cravat

I will begin my exploration of the Beau’s surprising sartorial details with a deceptively simple piece of cloth. Indeed, Brummell’s most famous sartorial innovation was to perfect the appearance of the cravat, or linen necktie. As Kelly writes, the cravat was the ‘badge of dandyism’ and the ancestor of the modern collar and necktie (2005: 164). Jesse agrees that Brummell’s cravat ‘became a model that was imitated, but never equaled’ (1844: 61). Before Brummell improved the style, Jesse writes that cravats ‘bagged out in front, rucking up to the chin in a roll; to remedy this obvious awkwardness and inconvenience, [Brummell] used to have his slightly starched’ (61). While some dandies had a reputation for applying this starch so liberally that the fabric froze and their necks became ‘immovably fixed’ (Hazlitt 1934 [1828]: 153)15, Brummell was careful to apply only the minimal amount to produce the desired effect. Jesse describes the “amusing operation” of the procedure recounted by a witness:

15 Moers notes that Brummell ‘imposed on his generation the practice of starching linen neckcloths, in order to produce a cravat folded with exactitude’, but emphasises that he himself advocated only a light starching (1960: 35). This comment about the quality of lightness associated with the sociology of humour echoes several comments found in the previous chapters’ Literature Review. ~ 97! ~ The collar, which was always fixed to his shirt, was so large that, before being folded down, it completely hid his head and face, and the white neckcloth was at least a foot in height. The first coup d’archet was made with the shirt collar, which he folded down to its proper size; and Brummell then standing before the glass, with his chin poked up to the ceiling, by the gentle and gradual declension of his lower jaw, creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions, the form of each succeeding crease being perfected with the shirt which he had just discarded (1844: 63).

Jesse writes that if Brummell’s cravat ‘was not properly tied at the first effort… it was always rejected: his valet [Robinson] was coming down stairs one day with a quantity of tumbled neckcloths under his arm, and being interrogated on the subject, solemnly replied, “Oh, they are our failures”’ (1844: 61).

‘They are our failures’: in one succinct phrase we have the whole expression of Brummell’s dandy attitude. In contrast to Barthes’ position that the detail must be constantly changed in order to distinguish the dandy from his fellow-men or the singular from the mass, Brummell aims for one end only: the perfection of form. It is not the distinction of novelty that Brummell seeks, but the mastery of a technique. Furthermore, in inviting spectators to participate in this process Brummell does not exclude his peers, but turns the coming-into-being of the cravat into a shared experience. The ‘our’ of ‘They are our failures’ is collaborative – inclusive not just of Brummell himself, or Brummell and the long-suffering Robinson, but of Brummell, his valet and the gathered admirers who have come to observe and learn. This entire ritual speaks to the performative aspect of wit – it contains an intent to surprise in a stunning and succinct ‘moment of fashion’ that relies equally on physical interaction with the Beau’s audience as much as it does on Robinson’s mournful quip.

Kelly has analysed the spatial arrangement of Brummell’s Mayfair residence in order to demonstrate that the Beau’s valet would have had to make a deliberate detour to be seen by eager visitors. For Kelly, this is a clear indication that ‘The “tumbled neckcloths” were part of Brummell’s stagecraft’ (2005: 164). But to designate this shared experience as theatre, divided between performer and audience, would be to underplay the mutual complicity between Brummell and his admirers. Brummell’s elaborate and public ritual does not exclude other dandies from the practice of perfecting the cravat, but is an invitation to them to acquire this knowledge via an amusing tableau. Who can say

~ !98 ~ whether the Beau’s upturned jaw twitching just-so really perfects each fold in the cravat’s meringue of cloth? Does the fact that no man could replicate it precisely even matter? While one might agree with Barthes that the dandy’s obsession with technique proves that ‘clothing is not simply an object to be used but is a prepared object’ Brummell’s invitation to his peers to observe and to participate in the process disproves Barthes’ idea that ‘it is to himself and him alone that [the dandy] offers a reading of his clothing’. The perfect detail of the dandy’s cravat does not mark a logic of exclusion, of separating one ‘failure’ from another, so much as a desire to include, delight, and indeed surprise. It is possible that the dandy’s clothing is ‘singular’, as Barthes writes, but it is equally true that the form that his fashion innovations take is is performative and social. As we saw in the example of Bedford’s coat, the detail here works not to exclude, but indeed exemplifies a welcoming logic of inclusive distinction.

3.4.2 Bulging breeches

I now turn to another detail which parallels the notion of the Beau’s many mystifying non-sequiturs – in this case, Brummell’s breeches. While the Beau’s contribution to the development of the modern trouser has already been noted, there is one detail of this garment’s refinement that, although obvious to his peers, has been often overlooked. As I noted above, Crisp writes that Brummell ‘invented stretch-pants’, by which Crisp means that ‘he had his trousers made so they could be strapped under the soles of his feet’ (1988: 10). As Jesse writes: ‘The trowser, which opened at the bottom of the leg, and was closed by buttons and loops, was invented either by Meyer [a famous tailor] or Brummell: the Beau at any rate was the first who wore them, and they immediately became quite the fashion’ (Jesse 1844: 64). The effect of this foot-strap was to tighten the doeskin of the breeches so that they appeared to adhere to the fine musculature of Brummell’s lower body; the straps were hidden invisibly beneath long military boots so that the fabric appeared naturally taut. This hidden detail, in combination with Brummell’s honouring of the military tradition of not wearing underclothing, produced a most striking visual effect – one that many writers have been too coy to expand on. One of the first to paint an explicit picture of what was going on underneath the Beau’s breeches – so to speak – is historian Anne Hollander, who argues that these breeches – composed of a ‘soft, creamy expanse of pale, tight-fitting doeskin’ – produced the ~ 99! ~ absolute effect of ‘riveting the eye on the male crotch in a way not customary… since the prevalence of the sixteenth-century codpiece’ (1988 [1978]: 228). The detail of the hidden foot-strap which constricted fabric around the body thus marks nothing less than what Hollander dubs an ‘insistent male sexuality’ (228).

Kelly clarifies the sartorial situation by adding that: ‘if fashion framed the genital area, it did not lend any support to the occasion – and in polite society, as a result, Brummell’s style of trousers were sometimes referred to as “inexpressibles”’ (2005: 202). Thinly veiled and gently cradled, the natural masculine terrain beneath the fine white fabric could be readily mapped by any curious cartographer. Kelly reports that ‘society hostesses were later said to regret the passing of the fashion because “one could always tell what a young man was thinking”’ (203). In this way the dandy’s inexpressibles became markedly expressive.

For the purpose of exploring this sartorial detail within the context of the surprise of wit, it is important to note that the mechanism by which the hidden detail of the foot- strap produces an arresting masculine effect is predicated on the logic of the non- sequitur which we saw in Brummell’s responses to questions that sought his fashionable opinion. There, the person posing the question could not reasonably expect to receive the mystifying answer given; here, the observer cannot draw a direct correlation between what is seen and how the effect is achieved without a more intimate knowledge of its construction. The surprise here, of course, is the emphatic package on display – although the means of this emphasis remains invisible to the admirer. The foot-strap remains a visual secret, although the signalling function is both explicit and explicitly intended to attract attention. Beau’s breeches thus violates Barthes’ principle that the sartorial detail should be recognisable only to his peers. Furthermore, it brings the detail into an arena quite lacking in Barthes’ account of the dandy – the erotic potential of seduction and sexual fascination16. The witty surprise here is that by the principle of the mystifying non-sequitur, the unknowable quality of what a ‘young man is thinking’ is expressed in an unmistakably frank and forthright manner. The new silhouette of the

16 The sexual aspect of the detail takes us into the rich territory of fetishism; see Steele (1996) for an overview of fashion fetishisms and the details by which they manifest. ~ !100 ~ dandy challenges conventional thought – as Hollander says – by emphasising sensuality and sexuality in an explicit manner not seen since the decline of the codpiece.

3.4.3 Champagne blacking

The final sartorial detail I will explore here is Brummell’s boots: specifically, their highly-polished shine, which remains famous within the annals of men’s fashion history17. Here I will demonstrate how the Beau’s regime for polishing mirrors the idea of the sympathetic magic of fashion as I discussed in the quip about spitting into clay. Black polished military boots were as essential to the Beau’s outfit as his cravat, although the two were doomed never to interact. As Captain Gronow notes ‘it was the fashion to wear a deep, stiff white cravat, which prevented you from seeing your boots while standing’ (Gronow in Hibbert 1991: 74). However, just because the wearer could not see the tips of his own toes did not mean they would not be judged by society. In matters pertaining to footwear, Brummell was already regarded as an original through the trouble he took in blacking the sole of the boot, which produced the effect that the lighter underside would not show when taking a stroll in public (Moers 1960: 35)18. However, this detail in itself was not sufficient to elevate the dandy’s footwear beyond common measure: a further flourish was required. As Gronow recounts: ‘One day a youthful beau approached and said, “Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?” “Ah!” replied Brummell, gazing complacently at his boots, “my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence; it is made with the finest champagne!”’ (Gronow in Hibbert 1991: 74).

While some see this concise remark as an attempt to obfuscate Brummell’s techniques – Breward, for instance, views the comment as ‘deliberately superficial and rather facetious’ (2004: 27) – this example further confirms the Beau’s intention to surprise and delight via a witty sartorial detail. After all, it matters little whether Brummell actually used champagne to produce the brilliant sheen of his boots – the absurdity and charm of the notion has taken root anecdotally, and has even been reported as historical

17 See for example, McDowell (1989: 33) or Sauro (2010: 92).

18 One is reminded of Christian Louboutin’s famously red-painted soles; in her study of fetishism Steele (1996) provides further food for thought about why boots might be a source of fascination for some. ~ !101 ~ fact19. Why has this detail of the Beau’s sartorial regime captured the imagination of commentators? The idea of using champagne to polish one’s boots inverts the principle of the thrifty home remedy – that is, the use of prosaic ingredients such as wax and soot to form a polish – by replacing a hardy and sensible matter with a rarefied and expensive substance appropriate only to the dandy. Champagne possesses qualities of effervescence and a golden, mellow transparency – traits contrasting the tough black leather of a boot. One might say here that, like the Beau’s transcendent sputum, champagne transfers its sparkling virtues to the boot via the principle of the sympathetic magic of fashion. (Like any invocation of magic, there is a cost to the effect: Brummell’s discernment ‘ruins’ him – he uses only the ‘finest’ champagne, after all.) In terms of the detail, what is the surprising insight that the Beau’s rarefied shoe-care regime provides? In this case, a physical object of fashion – the boot – is supplemented by an object outside the proper sartorial domain – champagne.

Figuring the application of champagne as a fashionable technique thus liberates the detail from the limits of the material signifying garment imposed by Barthes in his essay ‘Dandyism and Fashion’. Not only is fashion expressed in the cut of one’s coat; Brummell’s champagne-polished boots suggest that the detail may also surprise through sympathetic magic’s ability to convey an impression of fashion untethered to a physical garment. One might think of this example as an expression of the capital ‘F’ Fashion that Barthes describes in The Fashion System; an imposition on taste untethered to physical limits. According to a principle of sympathetic magic, the idea of ‘Fashion’ cannot be limited to matters strictly material, but can also be granted merely through the approval that the Beau bestows.

3.4.4 Surprise, the epigram and the sartorial detail

In this chapter, the discussion of surprise predicated on the provision of an unexpected insight, via its compact and compressed form, has focussed on the figure of the original and ultimate dandy, Beau Brummell. I have demonstrated that the Beau’s desire to surprise is not only pithy and precise, but is also intermingled with his ability to

19 McDowell, for example, claims that the blacking was made from a mixture of ‘spent champagne and honey’ (1989: 33). ~ !102 ~ challenge the social consensus around him – in other words, to provoke creative new thought. But, as noted at the start of this chapter, while Brummell may be the exemplary witty dandy – at least according to the English tradition of dandyism – he is certainly not the only type of dandy that exists. The legacy of the dandy’s surprising wit lives on.

Earlier in this chapter, I provided three further examples of dandyism in order to support my contention that the notion of dandyism retains the capacity to flourish through its deployment of a concept of wit. These examples featured the dandy as iconoclast (as exemplified by Karl Lagerfeld); the sprouting of dandy subcultures in the twenty-first century (as found in blogs and style manuals); and the dandy as cyborg (as demonstrated by the work of Janelle Monáe). I provided these examples to contest Barthes’ contention that the rise of the fashion system has been ‘fatal’ to the ideal of the dandy. However, one may also view these dandy-examples as expressing the same urge to surprise via the unification of the verbal epigram and sartorial detail as found in the ultimate dandy, Brummell himself.

Lagerfeld’s provocative witticisms are inseparable from his sartorial silhouette – not only in the covers of published editions of his aphorisms, but in the iconography of Lagerfeld-as-dandy that appears in the fashion lines of Fendi and Lagerfeld’s own named labels, such as bags, scarves and cutesy Karl-faced key-charms. The appeal of the Fuck Yeah Menswear blog and book lies as much in their acute recognition of actual style trends as much as it does with the concise and witty text that accompanies each image. Finally, Janelle Monáe herself is the most succinct contemporary example of the dandy’s unification of material fashion inspiration and witty wordplay. Via the verbal and performative medium of her songs and ‘Emotion Picture[s]’, or music videos, she perfectly synthesises the dandy’s textual cleverness and fashionable innovation in a manner reminiscent of Brummell himself. As Monáe sings, echoing O’Brien’s own ‘pink thoughts’, ‘Pynk is the truth you can’t hide… Pynk is my favourite part’ (2018).

3.4.5 Haute couture as a form of female dandyism, and the Gaultier camouflage dress

~ !103 ~ Before moving on to the next chapter, I will here consider the Gaultier dress as a form of female dandyism. Indeed, in general Vinken regards haute couture as the ultimate form of female dandyism. She writes that in haute couture the opposition between masculine and feminine is dissolved. For Vinken, just as ‘The dandy, a curiously inauthentic man, makes other men appear less authentically, less naturally masculine’ (2005: 21), so too does ‘Haute couture derives its refinement and wit from just this rupture... From the beginning of haute couture, fashion has been, in the end, nothing less than a form of cross dressing (21; emphasis added).

In terms of the concerns of this thesis, is it possible that an item of personal and collective fascination such as the Gaultier camouflage couture be regarded in terms of a specific female dandyism? While Vinken finds that the wit of couture derives from a transgressive, transsexual rupture, this simple reversal of gender norms fails to do justice to the ambiguities, technical skill, and indeed quality of inspiring surprise as found in an example such as Gaultier’s couture creation. Rather, this exemplary camo couture provides a beguiling and enticing mix of a number of oppositions – not just the masculine and feminine – but also notions of camouflage/ ostentation and mass production/ couture techniques. This dress cannot be reduced to the singular duality of gender divisions as Vinken suggests. Instead, as per the concerns of this thesis, it can certainly be characterised primarily in terms of a sociology of wit’s ability to surprise – that is, wit’s ability to provide an unexpected creative intellectual inspiration in a singular ‘fashion moment’. I will continue to reflect on the Gaultier dress’ relation to wit in the subsequent chapters of this thesis.

3.5 Wit, surprise and fashion

In terms of the focus of this chapter, Beau Brummell’s reputation as the ultimate dandy survives due to the unique manner in which his verbal and sartorial modes of being are unified through his famous wit. As Hazlitt writes, Brummell ‘made a proper and perfect union of the coxcombical and ingenious… It was found a grand thing to be able to be a consummate fop, and yet have the credit of being something greater; and he was both’ (2007 [1820]: 330). For Brummell, the verbal epigram and sartorial detail are born of the same urge to surprise that is an essential characteristic of wit. In both the Beau’s ~ !104 ~ words and in his wardrobe, this surprise might be defined as the provision of an intellectually creative insight in a compressed form. As I have shown through the operation of the principles of inclusive distinction, the mystifying non-sequitur and the sympathetic magic of fashion, the urge to surprise that informs the dandy’s quips cannot be separated from his material innovations such as the perfect cravat, bulging breeches, and champagne boot blacking.

I have further provided contemporary examples of dandyism which unify the verbal epigram and sartorial innovation that show that this idea of surprise continues up until the present moment. The dandy’s titles as both a renowned wit and the ‘MAN OF FASHION’ should not be regarded as empty honorifics; rather, they point to the close relationship between wit and fashion itself. The dandy continues to appeal today via his surprising capacity to astonish, delight and inspire – just as Gaultier’s dress and O’Brien’s epigram continue to astonish, delight and inspire me. Both these sources of surprise operate on the individual level of personal experience as well as the collective phenomenon of fashion. The surprise found in the wit of fashion may not be universally experienced at an individual level, but its collective import should not be underestimated. What the Duke of Bedford thinks the height of fashion, Brummell has grave reservations about. Call that thing a coat, indeed.

In this chapter I have focussed on the figure of the dandy as an explicit empirical site that links wit’s quality of surprise and fashion. I have provided additional examples of dandyism to show that this urge to surprise lives on in dandy types that flourish today, and provided discussion of the Gaultier dress in the context of a notion of surprise. Nonetheless, of course, wit’s ability to surprise through the provision of an unexpected, pleasurable and compressed insight is not limited to dandyism alone. In the final chapters of this thesis, I will return to this theme of surprise, and provide further empirical examples as to how it operates in different contexts – such as the conspicuous wit of fashion and twenty-first century fashion systems. These examples of wit will include the work of the current design teams of Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga, and high-fashion runway shows such by the house of Viktor & Rolf.

~ !105 ~ I will not anticipate these arguments quite yet. Instead, in the next chapter I will explore another empirical site that connects wit and fashion. I speak here of glamour. Indeed, the figure of the dandy itself suggests a consideration of this topic. Glamour is not an attribute that the dandy’s contemporaries ascribed to this figure in his own time; nonetheless, writers within fashion studies since have not hesitated to retrospectively claim him as an exemplar of this particular quality. Breward, for example, writes that ‘“Glamour” was the key factor which placed stylish young men in early nineteenth century London at the forefront of fashionable life for the first time, establishing the West End, their dressing-box and playground’ (2004: 25). Wilson argues that ‘Glamour… developed into a very specific form of individualism via the dandies of the Regency period, and Byron. With the dandies it took the form of personal charisma’ (2007: 97). Vicki Karaminas explores the recent cultural explosion of vampire masculinities within contemporary popular culture, noting that ‘Dandy-like in their glamorous rebellion, vampires refuse to conform to societal conventions’ (2013: 370). Glamour itself is another quality of fashion that requires investigation from a sociological perspective. More nebulous, perhaps, than the material being of the dandy, it is nonetheless an empirical site of fashion that speaks to a sociology of wit’s essential concept of seduction.

~ !106 ~ Chapter Four

Elements of a Sociology of Wit, Part Two: Seduction and Glamour

What is the difference between a good life and a life of surface glamour and shallow ideals; and how do I attain the latter? (Brush 1984: 21).

Whether Witches can by some Glamour change Men into Beasts (Kramer and Sprenger (1971) [1486]: 61).

4.1 Aim of this chapter

In the Literature Review of the thesis, seduction was defined both as the ability of wit to lead the seduced astray, and the desire to of the seduced to be led astray. Via the work of Baudrillard, this idea of seduction was theorised to possess the ability to challenge assumptions about concepts often taken for granted as natural facts, such as rationality, reality, truth and power. In the previous chapter, I provided empirical examples of the dandy’s witty capacity to surprise through verbal epigrams and sartorial innovations. I chose the site of the dandy as my point of study for the reason that wit and fashion are explicitly connected in this figure. This alignment was important in order to demonstrate the connection between wit and fashion. In moving my research question forward – to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? – this chapter will now demonstrate how the concept of seduction also functions as a form of wit in a fashion context via the non-explicit empirical site of glamour.

I have selected glamour as an empirical site in contrast to the dandy because it is not typically associated with wit. Indeed, as indicated in the Introduction, the typical view of glamour within the study of fashion regards the concept as a primarily visual, distant and unattainable illusion, rather than a form of wit. As Wilson claims, glamour ‘takes itself seriously, is even humourless’ (2007: 100; emphasis added). Are there other ways ~ !107 ~ to conceptualise glamour beyond an unattainable and solipsistic dream? If indeed glamour is closely associated with fashion (Buckley and Gundle 2000; Wilson 2007); and, further, if glamour and fashion are both associated with seduction (Baudrillard (1990) [1979]), and since seduction itself operates as a form of wit (Baudrillard (1990) [1979]), then there must be some point of intersection between seduction, glamour and wit. How might a concept of the seductive wit of glamour contribute to understanding fashion?

The aim of this chapter is to utilise the theoretical conception of seduction elaborated in the Literature Review to consider the empirical site of glamour as a form of wit. I will first review how glamour has been traditionally conceptualised as an unattainable and distant visual phenomenon. I will then explore a non-traditional empirical site where glamour involves the individual and the entire collective – the notorious witch-hunting manual, the Malleus Maleficarum (1971) [1486]. I will next explicate an idea of glamour as a form of seductive wit within this non-traditional site. I will further discuss a recent empirical site, the popular and critically acclaimed TV series Killing Eve (2018- current) to demonstrate how the concept of the seductive wit of glamour can be generalised in theoretical terms from a contemporary perspective. These empirical sites have been selected for differing reasons. The Malleus Maleficarum has been chosen as it provides an historical account of glamour as a powerful and immersive phenomenon explicated via witty evidence. Furthermore, utilising a text usually cited in a judicial or theological context speaks to fashion studies’ own quality of interdisciplinary inclusion, as discussed in the Literature Review (section 2.2). Killing Eve has been selected because it is a popular and critically acclaimed sensation, wherein a game of witty seduction is played out between an international assassin and an MI6 operative via exchanges and expressions of designer fashion. This connection has been well recognised by critics of popular culture, as we shall see (for example Ferrier 2018, Kang 2019, Saraiya 2018, who will provide commentary later in this chapter). Killing Eve also functions as an exemplary site of how a seductive form of wit functions to challenge orthodox thought, as per Baudrillard’s formulation of seduction, as also discussed in the Literature Review (section 2.3.4). Furthermore, the selection of these two quite different empirical sites – which differ significantly in their time of creation and intended audiences – will show the theoretical continuity of the concept of glamour ~ !108 ~ I elucidate in this chapter. This theoretical continuity suggests that the idea of glamour elaborated here can be applied to other empirical sites.

Finally, I will return to a consideration of both the Gaultier dress and the dandy as they relate to the wit of seduction as found in the glamour of fashion itself.

4.2 The idea of glamour as distance within the study of fashion

I begin by providing a brief review of how glamour is usually regarded within the study of fashion. Glamour is most commonly described as a distant and unattainable visual language of desire that manifests in a number of different forms. Glamour has been associated with the rise of the cinematic Hollywood star system in the 1930s, that still maintains an influence today in the fascination with celebrity culture, such as the focus on red-carpet fashion at movie premieres or the Oscars [Figure 4.1] (Gundle and Castelli 2006; Wilson 2007; Gundle 2008; Willis-Tropea 2015). Glamour is also be viewed as a feminine aesthetic of beauty associated with cosmetics and certain types of photographic styling (Harris 2000; Willis-Tropea 2015), such as the ‘glamour shot’1 [Figure 4.2]. A more philosophically abstract view of glamour combines the latter two traditions to suggest that glamour itself can be read as the artificial mask of a performative and constructed idea of femininity

[Figure 4.3] (Baudrillard (1990) [1979]; Martin 1994; Wygant 20072). These expressions of glamour – like the idea of the dandy – are not necessarily constrained by gender. Within the realm of masculinity, glamour is often associated with figures such as ‘glam rock’ musicians like David Bowie (Hebdige 1984 [1979]; Gundle 2008), stylish sport stars such as David Beckham [Figure 4.4] (Gundle 2008), as well as more traditional figures such as the dandy Beau Brummell (Wilson 2007).

1 Like dandyism, the meaning of glamour varies geographically. The Oxford English Dictionary specifies that in the US, a ‘glamour shot’ may refer to a form of commercial photography that is, in vernacular usage, ‘all about big hair and dramatic makeup’; in the UK, ‘glamour photography’ is associated with explicit soft-core eroticism, such as the famed Page Three girls found in tabloid dailies.

2 I would also classify Barthes’ essay on ‘Garbo’ in Mythologies (1986) [1957] as falling into this category, although he does not use the term explicitly. ~ !109 ~ These various strands of glamour – described as visual illusion, Hollywood hagiography, feminine masquerade, and masculine rebel – demonstrate that the term glamour refers to extraordinarily diverse phenomena. Nevertheless, within these wide-ranging conceptualisations of glamour, certain common themes emerge. In the analysis that follows, I will focus on how in each of these accounts glamour is regarded as a primarily visual phenomenon possessing a quality of unattainable distance.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.1. Red carpet glamour – Cate Blanchett in Armani Privé at the 2014 Oscars ceremony. Image via vogue.co.uk, accessed 19 May 2019.

~ ! ~110 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.2. Nicole Kidman 1980s ‘glamour shot’ for Dolly magazine; a far cry from the image we have of Kidman today. Image via nova969.com.au, accessed 19 May 2019.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.3. Glamour as abstract mask. Ernst Blumenfeld’s image of Jean Patchett from the cover of Vogue, January 1950. Here the feminine face is abstracted simply to eye, lips and beauty spot. Image via condenastestore.com, accessed 14 May 2019.

~ !111 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.4. David Beckham – sports star and style icon of masculine glamour. Beckham is now as famed for his interventions into fashion, such as sarongs, suits and cornrows, as he is for the achievements of his soccer career. Image via glamour.com, accessed 15 May 2019.

~ ! ~112 For example, in their discussion of the outré designs of Gianni Versace, Buckley and Gundle provide a definition of glamour as a ‘visual language of the enticing that seduces through the deployment of images of theatricality, luxury, sexuality and notoriety’ (2000: 346-347). Buckley and Gundle note that the word glamour itself was introduced into common parlance through the nineteenth century writings of Sir Walter Scott. Scott adapted the spelling of glamour from the original gramarye of his native Scottish language – itself an alteration of grammar3 – to suggest ‘occult learning, magic, necromancy’ (332). This conveyed a sense of mystical and enticing visual illusion in his novels and poems. For Scott, glamour is the ‘deceptivo visus’, a magical deception which confuses the sense of sight and leads its victims astray in confounding but irresistible ways (1830: 100).

Virginia Postrel agrees with this visual emphasis in her definition of glamour as a form of ‘nonverbal rhetoric, which moves and persuades not through words but through images’ (2013: 6). Indeed, for Postrel, glamour possesses a uniquely powerful capacity to bind ‘image and desire’ (6). For Postrel, glamour’s manipulation of visual appearances through techniques which emphasise its mystery means that glamour ‘distorts’ reality in a ‘deceptive’ manner (11); it even functions – in contemporary Hollywood parlance – as a ‘special effect’ (81). Elizabeth Wilson similarly emphasises glamour’s primary aspect as an ‘appearance, including the supernatural, magical sense of that word – as in apparition’, although she also notes glamour’s sensory aspects in writing that ‘The appearance of glamour resides, though, or is created in combination with dress, hair, scent, and even mise en scène’ (2007: 105). Nevertheless, for Wilson, the visual aspect of glamour remains its most dazzling feature.

Since within the literature on glamour and fashion, glamour is described primarily as a visual or ‘special’ effect, it is not surprising that glamour is regarded as ineluctably aloof, distant and unattainable. As Postrel writes, ‘Every object of glamour is in some way exotic to its audience – displaced in time, space, culture or social milieu’ (2013:

3 For further discussion of the etymological connection between glamour and grammar, see Clark 2010. ~ !113 ~ 110). Postrel thus concludes that ‘glamour [is] most effective at a distance’ (117). Echoing this line of thinking, Wilson describes glamour as possessing an elitism that prohibits the majority of people access to its rarefied sphere. She writes: ‘The elitism of glamour sends a message that we cannot all be glamorous. We can aspire to, but will never reach the stars’ (2007: 100). For Wilson, ‘glamour is untouchable’ (101), a quality exemplified by the actress Greta Garbo’s dramatic declaration ‘I want to be alone’ (106). Gundle agrees that ‘Distance is a necessary factor in the maintenance of glamour. It serves to conceal or disguise the aspects of a person’s being that are not glamorous’ (2008: 14). For Gundle, glamour is inherently incapable of being experienced first-hand. He writes that ‘no-one we know intimately can be glamorous for us. Some form of separation is required to stimulate interest’ (14). Gundle further introduces the notion of a class of the ‘glamorous elite’ or ‘professionally glamorous’ (15), whose primary function is to display the desirable qualities of glamour before a dazzled public audience. Celebrities, movie stars, athletes – such as David Beckham – and the idly fashionable jet-set are all card-carrying members of this untouchable glamour-caste4 .

In these accounts, glamour is framed as existing in a remote setting perpetually divorced from the everyday, as if the world of glamour was itself a foreign province, populated by other people: filmic favourites, vacuous celebrities, sports stars, and other fashionably fascinating elites. This characterises glamour as always at a distance, ultimately unachievable, and – for Gundle at least – so frangible that it would rupture at threshold of personal intimacy. And yet, this description of glamour as a primarily visual, distant and unattainable phenomenon does not speak to the persistence of glamour as a powerful and alluring charm. After all, if glamour really

4 Given these qualities of visual illusion and distance, this does beg the question, what then, is the purpose of glamour? Glamour is nominally connected with commercial imperatives. Gundles argues, for example, that glamour ‘had no prior existence before becoming commodified and commercialised’ (2006: 7). He writes that ‘glamour is best seen as an alluring image that is closely related to consumption’ (Gundle 2008: 5). Postrel, on the other hand, writes that ‘When people think of glamour as “modern”, the rise of bourgeois culture isn’t usually what they have in mind… They picture movies, skyscrapers, red lipstick, ocean liners, airplanes, and shiny evening gowns: Machine Age modernity and old Hollywood glamour’ (2013: 171). Nevertheless, Postrel reinforces the importance of consumption to glamour, affirming that glamour ‘is a powerful form of rhetoric that can sell just about anything. As such, it is a far more common experience and more widely used sales tool than the short list of “glamour industries” – film, music, fashion – suggests’ (14). Wilson also notes that glamour is often connected with consumption, writing that ‘Hollywood certainly made glamour into a mass commodity’ (2007: 100), although she notes that ‘glamour presents itself – disingenuously or not – as divorced from and beyond commerce’ (100). ~ ! ~114 was such a transparent and fragile concept, surely its effects would fade over time. Neither does this description speak to glamour as intimate and irresistibly enticing as found in my own experience, for example, of the seductive attractions exerted by the Gaultier camouflage couture. As I have previously indicated, this stunning creation presents itself to me as a ‘moment of fashion’ that synthesises elements of wit through its surprising combination of high fashion with military motifs, its pithy presentation as as a singular creation, and its intellectual creativity in provoking sustained reflections about fashion. In terms of the concerns of this chapter, the dress further possesses an undeniably seductive glamour. That is, as a twist on the formal ballgown – a style closely associated with the exclusive milieu of glamour – the Gaultier dress synthesises familiar qualities of aesthetic visual beauty, inordinate expensiveness and elite luxury experience usually associated with the rarefied idea of glamour.

These properties of glamour do not satisfactorily encapsulate my own personal experience of the Gaultier couture. For me, this specific dress is not remote, but inviting; instead of remaining at a distance, this unique creation drew me towards it, both across time (the years between the garment’s first appearance on the runway in 2000 and my present moment of reflection) and space (the geographical distance both I and the dress travelled to be united, after a fashion, at the Gaultier exhibition). To express this experience using a more precise term, this dress – with its combination of the futility of haute couture with the utility of an immaculately rendered camouflage motif – presents a quality of seduction indivisible from its glamorous form. Furthermore, this combination strikes me as a form of creative wit. Given the research question of this thesis, how might notions of wit and seductive glamour intersect in the study of fashion?

The potential of this connection has indeed been previously intimated at within the study of fashion. For example, Postrel finds a similarity between humour and glamour as forms of personal communication. She writes that glamour ‘like humour, [is] a form of communication that elicits a distinctive emotional response’ (2013: 8) She writes that ‘Glamour may be as universal as humour’ (18); she further notes that ‘Like an old joke, an image a previous generation found glamorous may fall flat’ (19) and that ‘Glamour is ~ !115 ~ like humour… examine its object too closely and you’re likely to spoil the effect’ (20). However, while acknowledging this intriguing connection, Postrel does not extend her analysis beyond these brief remarks. Further conceptualisation of the link between glamour and humour is thus required in addressing the research question of this thesis.

Given the paucity of material connecting wit to glamour within academic study, I will now turn to a consideration of a non-traditional empirical site to flesh out a concept of the seductive wit of glamour.

4.3 An interdisciplinary approach to the study of glamour

The text I refer to is the medieval witch-hunting textbook, the Malleus Maleficarum (1976) [1486] – famous and infamous in equal measure among medieval historians, theologians, sociologists, and practitioners of law. Originally written in 1486, within its pages is contained a fascinating and systemic account of glamour, one that does not correspond with contemporary assumptions about glamour's qualities of distance and unattainability. Instead, within the system described by the authors of the Malleus, glamour produces an effect of powerful transformation that intimately involves both the individual and the entire social collective – in short, the themes of sociology itself. In the Malleus glamour is described as an enticing, inescapable, an all-encompassing experience that mobilises every sense and produces a shared effect amongst the intoxicated community. Even more intriguingly, this systematic theory of glamour is elaborated in the Malleus explicitly through a concept of wit. The case studies discussed in this tome demonstrate a decidedly humorous approach to whether indeed it is possible, for example, for witches to transform ‘Men into Beasts’, as per the quote that opens this chapter, or even effortlessly exorcise penises from male victims. The Malleus is thus an intriguing empirical site to commence an exploration of the connection between wit and glamour.

Before I begin this discussion, first a point of linguistic order. Given that, as noted in the Introduction, the word ‘glamour’ did not commonly appear in English until the mid- nineteenth century, how is it then that the Malleus is saturated with this terminology? The reason is simple. For most of the twentieth century, the only translation from the ~ !116 ~ original Latin text available was the one produced by the Reverend Montague Summers, published in 1928. Summers’ text is awash with the language of glamour – a usage that more recent translations by P. G. Maxwell-Stuart (2007) and Christopher S. Mackay (2009) do not themselves adopt. Having noted this, there are several authors who emphasise the appropriateness of continuing to use the term ‘glamour’ in discussing the specific form of witchcraft performed in the Malleus. As historian Amy Wygant writes in her reflections on glamour’s cultural influence: ‘for [Montague] Summers, “glamour” suggested itself as a gloss on the original’s “prestigia”’, which was in essence ‘a way of altering the true appearance of things’ (2007: 19). The sense in which the word glamour involves a deception of the visual senses accurately and appropriately approximates the meaning intended by the authors as found in the original Latin. As Kramer and Sprenger describe the term via Summers’ translation, ‘in a glamour there may be an exterior object which is seen, but it seems other than what it is’ (124); they also associate ‘prestige’ and ‘glamour’ (1971 [1486]: 58) as being related types of illusion, as Wygant herself suggests.

Buckley and Gundle (2000) and Postrel (2013) both agree that the specific terminology of ‘glamour’ might be appropriately used to describe a phenomenon of visual illusion that exists prior to Sir Walter Scott’s re-introduction of the term to modern parlance. For example, Buckley and Gundle (2000) trace the origins of glamour to the appetite of the 18th century bourgeoisie for aristocratic trappings, sometime before Scott published his literary works; Postrel considers instances of glamour as far back as the iconic figure of Helen of Troy, arguing that ‘we shouldn’t confuse the word glamour with the phenomenon, since the lack of a word to describe an experience does not mean that the experience does not exist’ (2013: 11). It is notable also that Scott re-introduces the term glamour in his poems and novels from his native Scottish tongue, rather than inventing the term himself (Buckley and Gundle 2000).

In translating Latin text to English, Summers has chosen ‘glamour’ as a contemporary word that captures the gist of the idea driven at by Kramer and Sprenger. Indeed, the linguistic dissemination of glamour was swift, widespread and remains pervasive. As lexicographer Eric Partridge notes in his mid-century book of reference Usage and Abusage: ‘Glamour has paratrooped its way over the stage gossip, film “pars”, and the ~ !117 ~ rest of current journalism. It has even invaded the vocabulary of the most reputable novelists’ (1964 [1947]: 350)5. The term glamour thus powerfully captures what Vinken (2005) would call fashion’s zeitgiest as it has spread throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In this thesis, I align myself with Summers, Buckley and Gundle, Postrel and Scott himself in utilising this terminology of glamour as it pertains to the Malleus.

4.4 Changing men into beasts

I will now provide some introductory remarks and exegesis of the Malleus itself. This is required to establish the framework by which this specific glamour system exists, as well as its boundaries and limitations. The Malleus was written by the Dominican Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, and was first published in Germany in 14866. This text contains a detailed and precise account of glamour that differs from theories found in fashion studies in that it does not emphasise its distant and unattainable qualities; rather, it presents glamour as an immersive, immediate, all- encompassing sensory experience involving both the individual victim of glamour and the entire society to which they are bound. The book – the title of which translates from Latin as the ‘Hammer of Witches’7 – is explicitly concerned with the identification, prosecution and destruction of the practice of glamour as one of the primary heads of maleficent witchcraft. In a striking example, it considers ‘Whether Witches can by some Glamour change Men into Beasts’ (1971) [1486]: 61). Another expression of glamour to be considered is whether in cases of magical penis theft – another preoccupation of this

5 Indeed, two of the late twentieth century’s most acclaimed novelists have even made glamour the subject of their books: Christopher Priest’s The Glamour (1984) and Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama (1998) are both concerned with a male protagonist who must contend with the existence of a shadowy counterpart or double who moves in a parallel yet sinister world.

6 There is continuing debate whether the Malleus was the single work of Kramer (also called ‘Institoris’) or whether it was co-authored; see the introductory remarks of Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters (1976), or twenty-first translators P. G. Maxwell-Stuart (2007) or Christopher S. Mackay (2009), for contrasting perspectives on this issue. As I rely on the 1928 translation by Reverend Summers, which includes both personages, I will continue to refer to both ‘Kramer and Sprenger’ as authors throughout this text (even if, in inquisitorial terms, Institoris itself sounds more glamorous…).

7 Mackay explains that ‘The phrase malleus haereticorum (“hammer of heretics”) was a term of approbation dating back to antiquity to designate those zealots of orthodoxy who were noteworthy for their efforts to “smash” heretics (adherents of Christian doctrines rejected by the Church’ (2009: 7); the Malleus thus borrows from this tradition as the ‘hammer to be used to smash the conspiracy of sorceresses that was thought to be threatening the existence of Christendom’ at this time (7). ~ !118 ~ period – ‘Virile Members’ were actually taken from the body or merely ‘hidden by a glamour from the senses of sight and touch’ (173; emphasis added). The authors of the Malleus are, it would seem, certainly captivated by the concept of glamour.

In comparison with other more traditional empirical sites that link glamour and fashion – such as Hollywood celebrity dressing and red-carpet style – what does the Malleus offer by way of original insights into glamour? The Malleus possesses unique potential for revitalising the concept of glamour through the following means. Firstly, the theory of glamour that Kramer and Sprenger describe is constituted as a self-contained and complete system. Within the specific world of the Malleus, the creation of glamour requires the participation of God, the devil and the witch who casts this glamour on an unfortunate victim. Within this system, God grants the power to the devil, and the devil sees no point in producing glamour without involving a witch whose soul will be damned. Participation is not optional. As prosecutors of witchcraft, and potential victims themselves, the authors of the Malleus recognise that they – and the entire society they claim to represent – are firmly embedded in this specific ‘glamour system’.

The Malleus thus resonates with the research question of this thesis – to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? – as it presents a system that delimits glamour as acting with powerful effects upon all of the participants of the system it describes. Pressing and irresistible forces are exerted both on the individual victim of witchcraft and the social collective in which they are situated. In contrast to the way that the contemporary study of glamour often downplays its power and effectiveness, the Malleus does not dismiss, or disregard the potency of glamour; rather, the Malleus highlights this fascinating phenomenon as a formidable, effective and even inescapable power. Furthermore, a nuanced theory of glamour is conveyed specifically through wit. With the Malleus’ focus on unlikely animal transformations and pervasive penis theft, the Malleus perhaps presents to the contemporary reader a quality of strangeness. As I have indicated, the text may be strange, perhaps, but it is also strangely amusing. Indeed, the question that struck me most immediately upon first reading the text – ‘Whether Witches can by some Glamour change Men into Beasts’ (1971) [1486]: 61) – is somewhat of a double entendre. There is, of course, the literal sense in which a witch’s glamour might change their victim into a base animal for ~ ! ~119 their own nefarious purposes. But there is also the additional sense in which glamour might transform their victims into beasts by arousing wild and uncontrollable desires8. This capacity to mystify reason has traditionally been one of the persistent themes associated with the glamour of the Hollywood star or seductress – the mythic icon who possesses the ability to drive fans crazy with desire, and, in effect, reduce them to so- called beasts9.

The more I read of the Malleus and its context within medieval theological texts, the more apparent it became that the precedent the learned judges relied on in explicating their theory of witchcraft and glamour was specifically based on jokes, anecdotes, and humorous folk tales, often from ancient Greek or Roman sources where ‘beast fables’10 were traditionally designed to convey a moral lesson through humour11. And while one might not assume the Malleus – with its reputation for misogyny and role in the brutal persecution of female witches12 – to function as a repository of comedy, my research shows that this mix of the serious with the deliberately amusing was, in fact, a common

8 As historian Stuart Clark writes, alluding to this very issue within the context of animal transformation: ‘Although it became usual to argue that the transformations were illusory, the concept of metamorphosis itself… suggested that instinct might replace reason and brutishness virtue’ (2002 [1980]: 155).

9 This certainly ties into the Baudrillardian idea of the potent and ambiguous seductress, a theme I will return to later in this chapter.

10 This terminology comes from linguist Christopher Johnson. Beast fables bring ‘into play the real or supposed characteristics of the various animals’ in order to punctuate a moral lesson (1912: 81).

11 The Malleus is also a sophisticated text containing detailed discussions of civil and canon law, one that draws heavily on Greek and Roman myth and folk stories, as well as Christian theological luminaries such as St Thomas of Aquinas and St Augustine. As historians Alan C. Kors and Edward Peters write, ‘It is a tightly-knit book, each argument and dogma carefully drawn from the conclusions of the preceding arguments and dogmas... The force of the Malleus [lies] in its comprehensive character’ (1976: 106). Given the apparent use of this text to justify the persecution of women in the medieval period, the text and its authors are often condemned for their misogyny; however, there are disputes today as to the extent that the persecution of witches actually occurred. While I acknowledge that these debates are ongoing, my interest in the Malleus is not to condemn the authors by judging them against contemporary standards, but to explore how glamour might be conceptualised within this unique text to contribute insights to fashion studies.

12 For an introductory overview of the feminist scholarship in this area, see the essays featured in the ‘Witchcraft and Gender’ section of Darren Oldridge’s The Witchcraft Reader (2002: 267-321). Despite clear issues with the Malleus – I personally find Part One, Chapter Four – ‘Why is it that Women are chiefly addicted to Evil Superstitions?’ (1971 [1486]: 41-47) confronting with its list of fatal feminine flaws, including such basic qualities as speech, memory, voice and so on, there is dispute about the extent to which the authors were personally misogynistic, and what that term even means in a medieval context. For example, Maxwell-Stuart argues, following Walter Stephens, that ‘Institoris [Kramer] was no more misogynistic than any other writer of his period, and that his animus against women was driven by contemporary physiological theory about their insatiable sexual appetite which gave an easy access to Satan and his evil spirits’ (2007: 29). ~ !120 ~ feature of medieval religious texts13. These humorous texts were not limited to an overtly literary tradition14, as perhaps might be expected. These cautionary examples produced puns, relied on unexpected connections for their effect, and often possessed the narrative structure of jokes that presented an apparently straightforward story with a twisty punchline15. In terms of the concerns of this thesis, we could certainly suggest that they functioned as a form of surprising wit.

However, in addition to containing elements that are resonant with the idea of surprise, the Malleus also elaborates its witty tales via an equally effective form of seduction. In the Malleus, not only are the victims of glamour led astray, they also desire to be led astray. This is consistent with the idea of seduction provided in the Literature Review – an idea of seduction that emphasises mutuality, play and challenge. How, then, is glamour specifically conceptualised within the milieu of the Malleus as a form of powerful and effective wit? To answer this question, I will first sketch the framework of glamour as theorised within the Malleus as an inescapable system, and then illustrate how the concept of glamour found within demonstrates the seduction of wit. I will reiterate that my discussion presents but one ‘glamour system’ among many that currently exist or continue to proliferate. Before proceeding further, I should

13 Indeed, in my research I was surprised to find more work that connects medieval writings to humour than that which connects humour to fashion. There is a recent consensus amongst historians that while the early Christian traditions were suspicious of humour, by the thirteenth century laughter was recognised as possessing virtue. In support of the view that early Christendom rejected laughter, for example, historian Peter Jones notes that ‘as so many medieval authors pointed out, none of the four Evangelists ever mentioned Jesus laughing’ (2015: 169). Jones argues that this perspective changed in the 13th century through an alteration of Dominican dogma which increasingly ‘adopted laughter as a tool of spirituality’ (171). Historian Michael W. George agrees that while ‘A common misconception about the Middle Ages is that our medieval forefathers lacked a sense of humour’ (2008: 183), this is far from the case. George notes the importance of bawdy ‘comic tales’ such as the famous French fabliaux (184); he writes that ‘By the late Middle Ages, humour seems to have found a home in most genres of writing’ (2008: 184).

14 For a general overview of this kind of work, see Wilcox (1994) who provides a taxonomy of interesting medieval texts which possess a humorous inclination.

15 George notes that parodies of ceremonial masses conducted by priests themselves were common and included comedic elements, including among others a ‘Mass for an ass’ (2008: 184). George concludes, ‘This mixture of the serious with the comic is not unusual’ in medieval religious life (185). Sebastian Coxon agrees that ‘Surviving late medieval collections of sermons… sometimes feature amusing stories of a more profane nature, and other kinds of medieval religious literature strive quite unashamedly for comic effect’ (2008: 7). Liam Ethan Felsen further describes how, despite the apparent strictness of Benedict’s Rule ‘not to speak useless words and such as provoke laughter’ in monasteries (2008: 70), in fact only immoderate or excessive laughter was condemned. He claims that medieval monks also produced ribald satires of holy texts, and there were even drinkers’ versions of masses and hymns (73). Many of these recent works acknowledge Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque from Rabelais and His World (1984) [1965] as seminal in opening up discussion in this field. ~ !121 ~ acknowledge that my use of the term ‘glamour system’ is a nod to the title of Stephen Gundle and Clino T. Castelli’s work The Glamour System (2006). Upon learning of this text on its initial publication, I was excited by the possibility that it might contain an intriguing systemic account of glamour that would provide a detailed and expansive theory of glamour. Buckley and Gundle’s (2000) earlier essay has certainly been influential in sketching the foundations of a theory of glamour. However, I was ultimately disappointed by The Glamour System. It describes in overly literal terms glamour as simply a ‘language of colours, materials and visual effects’ (2006: 7; emphasis added). The authors provide readings of various signifiers associated with glamour: ‘Clamorous Chroma’, ‘Captivating Metals’, ‘Alluring Plastics’, and so on. In ‘Sensational Gold’, for example, gold is aligned with royalty, sun worship, alchemy, and blondness. These readings are, in the final analysis, simple semiotic descriptions, and the schema of glamour outlined in the book cannot be meaningfully described in any terms as a ‘system’ as it is usually characterised as an integrated and singular set of precepts. Indeed, in its emphasis on descriptive qualities of glamour, the book is more akin to Alison Lurie’s descriptive entries in her infamous The Language of Clothes (1992) [1981] that equate male ties to phallic symbols, for example. The work of this thesis is in some ways a response to these texts by attempting to theorise a more rigorous and compelling ‘glamour system’. I will now proceed to describe the glamour system as it may be found in the Malleus itself.

4.5 The glamour system of the Malleus Maleficarum

Establishing the nature of the system within which glamorous witchcraft exists is the very first task that the authors of the Malleus undertake. Kramer and Sprenger examine ‘the three necessary concomitants of witchcraft, which are the devil, a witch and the permission of almighty God’ (1971 [1486]: 1)16. Kramer and Sprenger ask whether ‘the belief that there are such beings as witches is so essential a part of the Catholic faith that obstinately to maintain the opposite opinion manifestly savours of heresy’ (1). Their

16 The text maintains the Catholic hierarchy of the singular Devil himself as God’s principal antagonist, and lesser ‘devils’ who attend to this greater Devil. Within the text, the two terms are often used interchangeably. Mackay also notes that the idea of God that is dominant at this time is the punitive and demanding deity of the Old Testament, rather than the peaceable and loving God of the New Testament (2009: 24-25). ~ !122 ~ finding is that because God is the Creator of all things, and because witchcraft manifestly exists, it would only be on suspicion of the ‘grave crime of heresy’ (9) that one would deny the truth of the existence of the glamour of witchcraft. In claiming that those who do not acknowledge witchcraft are heretics, Kramer and Sprenger thus broadly establish the boundaries of the system as both total and totalising. That is, whether you believe in witchcraft or not, the system will accommodate you within its boundaries. In establishing the boundaries of this system, Kramer and Sprenger consider how is it possible that devils and witches can exert force over mortals given that God is more powerful than either of these evil presences. The authors sketch a hierarchy of universal power. At the top of the heap sits God Himself, ‘the Creator of all things’ (1971 [1486]: 1). Every act within Creation can only take place, as the authors assert, ‘by the permission and indeed by the power of God’ (8). In their role as God’s fallen angels, devils possess a more restricted power over this domain of Creation, but one that is still substantial. Such devils do ‘have power over the bodies and over the minds of men’ (2) and thus can produce ‘real and extraordinary effects’ (4). In a striking phrase, Kramer and Sprenger state that in performing maleficent deeds, ‘God very often allows devils to act as His ministers and His servants’ (8). It is with the permission of God that evil occurs in the earthly realm; God and devils are thus both complicit in the performance of witchcraft. At the very bottom of this hierarchy sit the witches.

Lacking the direct natural powers of God or devils, in order to ‘bring about some effect of magic’, Kramer and Sprenger note that witches must ‘intimately co-operate’ (1971 [1486]: 12) with devils in order to cause the harms for which they are famous. Kramer and Sprenger ask, given devils’ own greater puissance, why do these demonic creatures bother involving witches in the torment of the human race at all? As Kramer and Sprenger write, ‘the devil makes use of a witch, not because he has need of any such agent, but because he is seeking the perdition of the witch’ (12). It is within this unified system as described by Kramer and Sprenger that glamour is practised and flourishes. Since this system is authored by, and its power guaranteed by, God Himself, one might even say that God grants glamour.

Hence, one might well speak of a ‘glamour system’ in the Malleus comprised of God, the devil, witches, and victims. No person exists outside this glamour system: one either ~ !123 ~ admits the reality of the existence of witches and maleficent magic – in which case they acknowledge that they are part of the system – or one denies that existence, and is branded heretical. Either way, the system will find a way to accommodate you. Why is this idea of a glamour system important in understanding glamour as immediate, present and effective, rather than a distant and unattainable illusion? Within this system, Kramer and Sprenger are able to theorise how glamour operates as an inescapable and immanent power, rather than as something that happens off-stage or elsewhere to other and unknown people. This glamour is immersive, both for the individual and at the level of the social collective. Importantly for my research question, this coherent system of glamour is elucidated specifically through a notion of wit.

4.6 Transforming men into beasts

Having established the boundaries of their specific glamour system Kramer and Sprenger ‘declare the truth as to whether and how witches transform men into beasts’ (1971 [1486]: 61). Historically, the transformation of human beings into animals is indeed a common form of magic, recorded from ancient times in Homer’s account of the goddess Circe’s transformation of men into swine in The Odyssey, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the experience of the narrator in Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and onwards17. For Kramer and Sprenger, glamour is particularly intriguing because it deals with the question of whether witchcraft is merely illusory or can produce real, enduring effects on the world18.

How do Kramer and Sprenger formulate their understanding of glamour? They begin by defining ‘apparitions and glamours’ in general terms as a form of witchcraft ‘by which things seem to be transmuted into other likenesses’ (1971 [1486]: 123). Kramer and

17 These classic texts were familiar to medieval scholars and theologians, and were oft-cited. For example, Carver (2007) describes in detail the influence of Apuleius’ The Golden Ass on various subsequent texts from ancient times through to the late European Renaissance. Augustine’s account of Circe is of particular influence for Kramer and Sprenger; they consider how the ‘sorceress Circe changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts’ and whether this was ‘due to some glamour or illusion…. by altering the fancies of men’ (63).

18 In the Introduction to his 2007 translation of the work, P. G. Maxwell-Stuart neatly captures this tension in writing that the authors’ ‘principal concerns can be expressed in two questions: (i) Is commingling of the material and non-material worlds possible, and does it actually happen? (ii) Are the outcomes (effectus) of acts real or illusory?’ (2007: 12). ~ !124 ~ Sprenger question whether these transformations occur in reality or are merely illusory, and refer to scholarly texts to determine ‘what is glamour, and in how many ways the devil can cause such illusions’ (63). They consider the opinion of Thomas of Aquinas, who asks ‘Wherein lies the existence of the shape of a beast that is seen; in the senses or in reality, or in the surrounding air?’ (63). Concurring with Aquinas, Kramer and Sprenger write that ‘The shape of a beast which is seen does not exist in the air, or in actual fact… but only in the perception of the senses’ (64). Importantly, the effect that is produced by glamour is not simply a ‘visual’ or ‘special’ effect – to borrow phraseology from Gundle and Castelli (2006: 7) and Postrel (2013: 81) – but is capable of mobilising all of the human senses. Kramer and Sprenger quote Augustine, who writes in a darkly evocative phrase: ‘This evil of the devil creeps in through all the sensual approaches; he gives himself to figures, he adapts himself to colours, he abides in sounds, he lurks in smells, he infuses himself into flavours’ (59).

Kramer and Sprenger affirm that although ‘the apparent shape of a beast only exists in the inner perception... through the force of imagination, [the victim] sees it in some way as an exterior object’ (1971 [1486]: 63; emphasis added). They further quote Aquinas, who describes the way in which the forms of animals are transmitted to ‘the organs of the outer senses, such as sight, they appear as if they were present as outer objects, and could actually be touched’ (63; emphasis added). The effect of transformation is not simply present in the inner mind but is perceptible as an external object. This possibility of tactile contact in the description of glamour in the Malleus is clearly counter to the descriptions provided by Wilson (2007), Gundle (2008) and Postrel (2013) that emphasise the visual qualities of glamour. There is a clear tension here between the sense of illusion as we might understand it today – as an ‘unreal visual appearance, an

~ !125 ~ apparition, phantom’ (OED Online 2017c) – and the sensory aspects of glamour foregrounded in the Malleus19.

This description of glamour, while carefully reasoned by Kramer and Sprenger, is perhaps a little abstract. Our authors thus provide a clarifying narrative of magical animal transformation to convey glamour’s powerful effects20. For the purposes of this thesis in foregrounding the connections between wit and glamour, it is striking that the judges rely on several tales with humorous elements to convey glamour’s powerful effects. Not only do they describe this form of wit in terms of surprise as I have previously described it – that is, as operating with a sudden arrival, in a pithy form, with a creative intellectual intent – they also describe it in terms of seduction. In the evidence adduced by the authors of the Malleus, the victim of glamour is not only led astray – they also desire to be led astray. In providing evidence for this argument, I will first present the most detailed case of animal transformation discussed in the Malleus – ‘Whether Witches by some Glamour can Change Men into Beasts’, before turning to the question of glamorous penis-theft. In both cases I will discuss how these examples illustrate the principle of surprise, already well-examined in the previous two chapters, before turning to to the further question of the ability of wit to seduce.

4.6.1 As it happened in the city of Salamis…

19 Maxwell-Stuart further explains this distinction through reference to the concepts of the interior and exterior senses as found in Aquinas, whose philosophy was influential during this period. He writes: ‘The exterior senses are the ones we recognise: sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing. The interior senses... are the common centre from which sensation spreads to the sensory organs’ (2007: 17). Within the framework of the Malleus, Kramer and Sprenger follow Aquinas’ lead in distinguishing between an imaginary vision and glamour itself. In the case of an imaginary vision, there is only a ‘a change in the inner organs of perception, through which the judgment is deceived’ (1971 [1486]: 63-64); in the case of glamour, an apparent transformation is transmitted to the exterior organs and thus involves what the contemporary reader might usually regard as the physical senses. To reiterate the initial description of glamour I gave earlier in the chapter, ‘in a glamour there may be an exterior object which is seen, but it seems other than what it is’ (124). For me, the possibility of glamour as affecting not only vision, but the exterior senses identified by Aquinas – sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing – provide a fascinating counterpoint to how glamour is often currently theorised as a mere ‘visual effect’ within fashion studies. This may be one way to think the immediacy and power of fashion as found, for example, in the compelling allure of the Gaultier dress. I will return to this point in due course.

20 Using an explanatory narrative in this way is consistent with the scholarly methodology of the time, as previously noted, of supporting theoretical arguments through reference to a variety of sources, from ancient myth to theological reasoning. Folklorist Moira Smith explains that, both in general terms and in the context of the Malleus specifically, these stories function as exempla that ‘corroborate and clarify general theoretical points made in the text’ (2002: 104). ~ !126 ~ In discussing glamour, Kramer and Sprenger narrate in detail the fate of a young sailor21. The story goes as follows. One day, a sailor at port in the ancient Grecian city of Salamis, went to the house of a woman ‘standing outside the city on the seashore’ (1971 [1486]: 173). He asked if she could avail him of any eggs. The woman, noticing that he was ‘a strong young man’ (173), and far away from home, surmised he would not be missed if he vanished. She told the sailor: ‘Wait a little, and I will get you all that you want’ (173). The witch deliberately dallied; the young man, becoming anxious that he would miss his ship, called for her to hurry. Emerging, the woman fetched the eggs, after which the sailor returned to port. Arriving before the rest of his crewmates, he decided to sample his newly acquired goods. Upon consuming these delights, the sailor was literally struck dumb: ‘And behold! an hour later he was made dumb as if he had no power of speech; and, as he afterwards said, he wondered what could have happened to him, but was unable to find out’ (173). Upon the arrival of the rest of the crew, the sailor attempted to board the ship, failing to understand that he had in some way been enchanted. His fellows cried out ‘Look what this ass is doing! Curse the beast, you are not coming on board’ (173), and beat him off. Realisation dawned upon the young man: ‘understanding from [the crew’s] words that they thought he was an ass, [he]... began to suspect that he had been bewitched by the woman’ (173). He was ‘compelled to remain and watch the ship sail away’ (174).

The unfortunate glamour did not fade, and the young man began to act like the ass he now was: ‘And so, as he ran here and there, since everybody thought he was an ass, he was necessarily treated as such’ (1971 [1486]: 174). Eventually, under some form of

‘compulsion’ – itself unspecified by Kramer and Sprenger22 – he returned to the witch’s house. There, he ‘served her at her pleasure for three years, doing no work but to bring to the house such necessities as wood and corn, and to carry away what had to be carried away like a beast of burden’ (174). Slave to the witch, the sailor’s sole consolation was that ‘although everyone else took him for an ass, the witches themselves, severally and in company, who frequented the house, recognised him as a

21 This story was recounted by Knights of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in Rhodes (1971 [1486]: 173). Mackay notes that ‘The Hospitallers were a military religious order associated with the crusades. They held Cyprus from 1291 to 1307’ (2009: 432).

22 Mackay retains this language of ‘compulsion’ in his own translation, without providing further additional context (2009: 433). ~ !127 ~ man, and he could talk and behave with them as a man should’ (174). After years of servitude, it was only through luck that he was one day able to escape. One day, while carrying goods into town he ‘passed by a church where Holy Mass was being celebrated, and heard the sacred-bell ring at the elevation of the Host’ (174).

Attracted by this spectacle, ‘he turned towards the church, and, not daring to enter for fear of being driven off with blows, knelt down’ (1971 [1486]: 174). There, in this holy place, he positioned himself ‘by bending the knees of his hind legs, and lifted his forelegs, that is, his hands, joined together over his ass’ head, as it was thought to be, and looked upon the elevation of the Sacrament’ (174). Witnessing this miracle of an ass assuming a classic Christian pose, some perceptive merchants ‘followed the ass in astonishment, discussing this marvel among themselves’ (174). The merchants, suspecting witchcraft, seized her and took her before a local judge. Thereafter, the witch ‘promised to restore the young man to his true shape if she might be allowed to return to her house’ (174). She did as she had promised, and the ‘young man was restored to his former shape’ (174). The witch, having confessed, was arrested once more; the young man meanwhile ‘returned joyfully to his own country’ (175). And so, the narrative concludes with the witch punished, and the young man sent safely home23.

There is much to unpack in this story as it relates to a sociology of wit. I will briefly describe how this narrative unfolds in terms of the surprise of wit, as described in the Literature Review and the chapter on the dandy, before focussing on how this glamour also acts – as per the principal concern of this chapter – as a form of witty seduction. I

23 The Protestant writer and Member of Parliament Reginald Scot, who offered a revised version of this tale a century later in his The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) added some juicy details to the ending: in Scot’s version, the witch was ‘racked’ and they ‘burned hir’ before the young man returned home with his own ‘joifull and merrie hart’ intact (1964 [1584]: 96, 97). I mention Scot at this juncture because he was deeply critical of Catholic doctrine regarding the reality of witchcraft and revisited this story as an opportunity to poke fun at Kramer and Sprenger’s own account. In translating this story from the Latin of the Malleus into English, Scot added several ‘jokes’ and ‘quips’, as theatre historian Kurt A. Schreyer describes them in his study of medieval ass-tropes (2014: 80). Literary historian Gareth Roberts agrees, writing that ‘Scot’s version is a faithful and lively translation of the Malleus, omitting a passage of demonological theory and adding a few ribald asides quite deliberately at the expense of the marvellous in a narrative he wants to appear ludicrous’ (1998: 193). Scot’s accompanying commentary gleefully points out the ludicrous elements of Kramer and Sprenger’s theology; Schreyer writes that ‘The tale is so outrageous for Scot that his commentary derides more than it refutes’ (2014: 80). Scot was particularly sceptical about animal transformations, writing that if accounts of this phenomena were to be believed, it would be the fact that ‘everie asse, woolfe or cat that we see, were a man, woman or child’ (1964 [1584]: 94). In this case, he further pondered whether, if the young man died while in the shape of an ass, how he would appear in the afterlife, that is, ‘whether he should have risen at the date of judgement in an asses bodie and shape’ (99-100). ~ !128 ~ will then relate this idea of witty seduction to fashion itself through the provision of additional empirical fashion sites, and a reconsideration of the Gaultier dress and the dandy.

4.6.2 Glamour as witty surprise – the ass, the mass and the witch

Firstly, it is no accident that in this narrative the young sailor takes the form specifically of an ass. There is a deliberate pun here in the dual meaning of ‘ass’ as a common farmyard animal and its colloquial sense of a person, usually male, characterised by traits of ‘clumsiness, ignorance and stupidity’ (OED Online 2017a). Indeed, there is a rich historical tradition of associating the ass – either as animal or man – with qualities of stubbornness and subnormal intelligence. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that ‘The ass has, since the time of the [ancient] Greeks, figured in fables and proverbs’ (OED Online 2017a)24. Given the clear historical link within Western cultural traditions of the ass and humorous folly, Kramer and Sprenger’s use of this derided creature to explicate the glamour of animal transformation is a choice designed to emphasise the story’s comic effect25. The young sailor in this story lacks the basic

24 The OED notes a boom in ass-related colloquial expressions from the high medieval period of the fifteenth century onwards (‘ass-back’ as a humorous substitute for horseback, ‘ass-ship’ to replace lordship (OED Online 2017a), the ‘jackass’ as a male fool (OED Online 2017a), and so on).

25 One particularly significant primary source that links the comedic qualities of the ass to magical animal transformation is Apuleius’ famous The Golden Ass. This book, written in the second century AD, recounts the picaresque adventures of a man, who by his own foolishness, inadvertently change himself into an ass by improperly copying the ritual of a witch who has herself magically transformed into a bird (Apuleius (2012 [circa 2nd century AD]). The titular ass encounters madcap murderers, abusive children, friendly cooks who teach him tricks, and even at the end of the book beds a curious matron intrigued by his abilities. The Golden Ass is the earliest surviving novel in Latin and, as English Studies specialist Robert H. F. Carver argues in his comprehensive monograph The Protean Ass: The Metamorphoses of Apuleius from Antiquity to the Renaissance, was a continuing critical reference within Western literary and theological traditions, influencing, amongst others, Augustine (who, as we have seen, is an important authority for Kramer and Sprenger), Petrarch, Boccaccio, Spenser, Jonson, and Milton (2007: 2). This reference is still recognisable today; Schreyer demonstrates how medieval mystery plays which feature the ass influenced the inclusion of the doltish ass-headed character, Bottom, in Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer’s Night Dream, first presented in the late sixteenth century (2014: 73-103). In tracing the genealogy of Bottom, Schreyer notes that by the time of Scot’s publication of The Discoverie of Witchcraft in the late sixteenth century, there already existed a rich tradition of figuring the ass as an ‘icon of Protestant mocking the wrongheadedness of the Church of Rome’ (2014: 81). He describes how a pamphlet produced by Philipp Melancthon and Martin Luther featured an engraving of a monstrous ‘Popish Asse’ which represented the corruption and apparent decline of the Catholic Church (81).. The sense in which the ass is still today regarded as a humorously unfortunate creature is reminiscent of G. K. Chesterton’s poem ‘The Donkey’ (1900), where the titular animal is described in the following terms: ‘With monstrous head and sickening cry/And ears like errant wings,/The devil’s walking parody/On all four-footed things’ (Chesterton in Berger 1997: 217). ~ !129 ~ common sense to resist the witch’s obvious tricks. His idiocy in eating food offered by a stranger renders him literally asinine26.

And so we have a doubly surprising pun – not only is the human ass rendered as an animal, but this ass is himself literally struck dumb. An ass in action becomes an ass in fact. But this transformation is not only an individual insult aimed at the aggrieved presumptive idiot; it is a collective joke legible to the whole community. Recall, as Kramer and Sprenger narrate, that ‘since everybody thought he was an ass, he was necessarily treated as such’. In changing the young sailor into an ass, through a sudden and appropriately punishing act, the witch’s glamour operates as an effective form of surprising wit. The witch’s gift for a punning, pithy transformation that also functions as an expression of intellectual creativity thus echoes wit as a form of surprise as we have previously encountered it.

Furthermore, the sudden and surprising transformation of man into beast in this story not only demonstrates how glamour produces an exterior effect, but also clarifies the extent to which the witch’s curse is experienced as a collective phenomenon. Consider how the role of the mass figures in Kramer and Sprenger’s story. The picture presented here almost speaks for itself. On a journey into town, the ass runs ahead of the dilly- dallying witch and stops in sight of the local church. Kneeling down, he raises his forelimbs above his head, and makes the sign of the sacrament. This comical and surprising vision of a dumb animal assuming a holy posture is notable to foreign merchants precisely because it is a ludicrously incongruous image. This ass not only brays, it prays. This startling incongruity is a prompt enough for the witch to be arrested and questioned and, ultimately, a willing confession to be provided by the witch. After all, who could resist identifying themselves as the author of a good joke?

This parody of the mass emphasises that, within the field of glamour, the ass’ sensory experience is not simply an individual experience but a collective phenomenon. Not

26 Alex Scobie’s Apuleius and Folklore: Toward a History of ML3045, AaTh567, 449A, notes that this trope can be related back to Circe’s transformation of Odysseus’ men through offering them food that transformed them into swine (1983: 168). As linguist and literary scholar Helen Adolf notes, the word asinine itself has ‘ever since Plato, has been a condemnation and an insult’ (1950: 51). Adolf quotes the Dialogues of Socrates: ‘Whoever fails in turn, shall go and sit down and be donkey, as the children say when they play ball’ (1950: 56). ~ !130 ~ only does the sailor believe himself to be transmuted into an ass, but he is objectively believed to be an ass by the citizens of the bustling port. As previously noted, his own sea-faring brethren perceive this asininity when he attempts to board ship, and reject him on these grounds. Thus we can see that in order to produce a consistent effect across the community, devils do not solely interfere with the victim’s perception, but power the entire collective’s shared illusion. The ability of these devils to exude glamour for a period of years, not only in the mind of one man, but in the population of an entire city is undoubtedly impressive. One might say that when a man is transformed into an animal, his status as an ass is paraded before the entire community. The whole social group is in on the joke.

The infusion of the wit of surprise in the tale of the ass of Salamis is not incidental to the account of glamour provided in the Malleus, but is in fact crucial in elucidating how this particular ‘glamour system’ operates. The experience of glamour is not limited to the victim, but is shared by the entire collective. Strikingly, this experience is described as an immersive form of glamour. The distinction between glamour as a ‘special’ or ‘visual’ effect – and the supposedly objective reality challenged by proponents of incongruity theory of humour is tenuous and nebulous. Individual experience mediated by a collective phenomenon, mutuality, ambiguity – the very themes of a seductive sociology of wit itself.

Nevertheless, one may well ask if the story of animal transformation as a form of witty ‘glamour system’ is generalisable to other instances. That is, is the operation of glamour through wit in the case of the ass of Salamis a one-off joke, or is it comparable to other accounts of glamour found within the text? And if this is the case, how does the wit found in the Malleus transcend the incongruous idea of surprise to move to an idea of seduction? Before considering the complex conjunctions between wit, glamour, fashion and seduction, I will consider one further example of the operation of glamour within the defined system of the Malleus. I turn now to the case of the mysteriously missing medieval man-parts.

4.7 The phallic glamour of purloined penises

~ !131 ~ In considering further instances of glamour, Kramer and Sprenger investigate the pressing question of ‘Whether Witches may work some Prestidigatory Illusion so that the Male Organ appears to be entirely removed and separate from the Body’ (1971 [1486]: 58). Indeed, the key question faced here is ‘whether witches can with the help of devils really and actually remove the member, or whether they do so only by some glamour or illusion’ (58). That is, are these cases of penis theft a genuine deprivation of flesh in reality, or an ‘illusion or glamour… caused by confusing the organ of vision’ (121). In addressing these questions, Kramer and Sprenger begin by noting, with a flair for innuendo, that ‘There is no doubt that certain witches can do marvellous things with regard to male organs’ (58).

Like animal transformation, penis removal was a regular feature of magical medieval experience. In this common form of glamorous enchantment – one that even occurs today27 – the male victim’s member disappears entirely through the operation of glamour, and in his physical sensations he ‘can see and feel nothing but a smooth body with its surface interrupted by no genital organ’28 (59). Kramer and Sprenger gravely state, perhaps with a mind to their own generative genitals, that this ‘glamour… is no illusion in the opinion of the sufferer’ (58). The authors discuss a troubling case where, in fact, several missing members are bundled together – willy-nilly, so to speak – in the following manner:

And what, then, is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers, as many as twenty or thirty members together, and put them in a bird’s nest, or shut them up in a box, where they move themselves like living members, and eat oats and corn, as has been seen by many and is a matter of common report?… For a certain man tells that, when he had lost his member, he approached a known witch to ask her to restore it to him. She told the afflicted man to climb a certain tree, and that he might take which he liked out of the nest in which there were several members. And when he tried to take a big one, the witch said: You must not take that one; adding, because it belongs to a parish priest (1971 [1486]: 119).

27 Incidents of magical penis theft continue to be reported. Reuters mentions such an outbreak in the Congo: ‘Purported victims… claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure… “It’s real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny,” said 29- year-old Alain Kalala’ (Bavia 2008). Smith traces contemporary instances of penis theft in Japan (known as koro), China (suoyang) and West Africa, suggesting it may be related to a psychological condition of ‘genital retraction syndrome’ (2002: 95).

28 It is unclear what actually disappears in the case of glamour – Summers’ translation mentions the organ in the singular and refers to the male ‘member’, which usually just indicates the penis. Does this mean two orphaned testicles are left dangling? Other questions, such as how the victim urinates, are entirely unaddressed. ~ !132 ~ The connection between phalluses and flying creatures is quite a common one, deriving from the Roman idea of the fascinus, or protective winged phallic charm29; the colloquial connection between avians and male organs also persists today, as one might see in the various meanings of ‘cock’, ‘dicky-bird’ or ‘pecker’ (Smith 2002: 98)30. So it is perhaps to be expected that in Kramer and Sprenger’s story these detached organs are able to swarm about, adorably, like chicks in a nest. However, in terms of the humorous intent of this cautionary tale, it is clearly no accident that the victim attempts to claim the largest prize for himself. Neither can it be coincidence that the one who owns the most impressive organ is the very man who is prohibited, by faith and vocation, from putting it to good use. The witty intent is clearly intentional. As with the ass-tale, the use of humour to exposit glamour is deliberate. As Smith suggests, ‘Even with the passage of five hundred years, this story immediately registers as a bawdy joke’ (102). Historian of religion Darren Oldridge agrees: ‘At one level, this strange anecdote can be read as a testament to male anxieties about the sexual power of women. At another, it is noteworthy because it resembled the content of contemporary jest books, and probably owed more to popular culture than learned theories about the nature of witchcraft’ (2002: 267).

As with the transformation of men into beasts, in this type of glamour there is a shared perception of the members common to the witch and the victim, as both are able to identify the largest and most desirable prize. Amongst many specimens, the witch even recognises it as the rightful property of the local priest, demonstrating a true connoisseurial eye31. And as with glamorous animal transformation, the private and individual experience of penis theft itself takes on a collective dimension; not only does the victim of glamour perceive his own missing member; quite astonishingly, he also sees the members of every other unfortunate in the parish, and is even advised to grasp

29 Maxwell-Stuart writes that ‘Flying penises, a tradition inherited from the ancient Roman world, were commonly represented in these amulets, and Institoris’ fabliau… has a rich tradition of peasant humour behind it’ (2007: 16).

30 The reader is also referred to former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s ‘budgie smugglers’ for a contemporary example of the association of avians and male anatomy.

31 As historian Sebastian Coxon notes in his study of European medieval comic tales, monks in amusing stories often feature ‘outlandishly sized members’ (2008: 139), which, in a variety of comedic scenarios, were either inadvertently or deliberately revealed. ~ !133 ~ amongst them to select a substitute. The case of the missing man-parts thus reiterates the elements of glamour found in animal transformation – that which begins as an individual experience of transformation, involving visual and tactile senses, extends to the entire social collective. Or, as Kramer and Sprenger affirm, this story ‘agrees with what has been seen and heard by many, and with the general account of what has been known concerning that member through the senses of sight and touch’ (1971 [1486]: 58).

In this example, we have all of the familiar themes of surprise found in the sociology of wit – a brief but captivating narrative, the shock twist of the disappearing members, a humorous image of detached male genitals squawking about like baby birds – and, of course – the punchline that reveals that the largest of all of these detached phalli belongs to the most holy of holy men, the parish priest. It is clear that the wit of surprise, as found in the fashionable example of the dandy, functions across a range of glamours, or indeed, glamour systems. And yet, there is a further element to the wit elaborated in this specific ‘glamour system’ that has not yet been sufficiently addressed in terms of a sociological approach inclusive of a theory of wit. In both the story of the ass of Salamis and the penis theft, the victim not only suffers an unfortunate transformation via glamour – this suffering is brought about by that victim seeking the attentions of a witch in the first instance. These hapless fellows were not merely led astray; they desired to be led astray. And so, we now enter the fascinating realm of seduction.

4.8 The seductions of animal transformation and missing male genitals

There is an element found within instances of glamour that the authors of the Malleus do not address directly, but which is an essential part of these amusing narratives. There is a sense in these stories that, through the power of witchcraft, the victims have somehow been led astray. That is, they have deviated from the paths that their lives might otherwise have taken but for the actions of the witch. In the case of the strapping young sailor of Salamis, this sense of being led astray is literal when man is transformed into beast. In cases of men seeking to revoke the manumission of their lost manhoods, impotence impedes their usual bodily functions. Glamour, in the Malleus, is the locus of ~ !134 ~ this derailment. Wit, here, manifests in a comical derangement of what might be assumed to be the true, the proper, and the good. In short, we now enter the realm of seduction.

As discussed in the Literature Review, seduction includes not only the state of being led astray, but also the desire of the seduced to be led astray. This is the meaning suggested by the epigram that opens this chapter: ‘What is the difference between a good life and a life of surface glamour and shallow ideals; and how do I attain the latter?’. In this question – which itself appears as a query submitted to an advice columnist in a satirical self-help book – the tension between the recognition of what one should desire, and what one actually does desire, is neatly encapsulated. The person posing the question recognises that, of course, a ‘good life’ is the ideal one that should be striven for, as opposed to the inadvisable life of ‘surface glamour and shallow ideals’. And yet, it is the latter that one secretly yearns for.

The protagonists of the humorous instances of glamour in the Malleus seek situations in which they might become entrapped, despite their ostensible intentions. Indeed, the so- called victims go out of their way to place themselves in the way of temptation, enticement and beguilement. In the case of the fleeing phalli, males of the species invite this fate upon themselves through their carelessness as adulterers and fornicators seeking some kind of satisfaction from a witch; furthermore, in seeking a cure, these fellows are all too eager to show their ‘smooth, unmembered’ bodies (1971 [1486]: 59) to village priests and other witches, thereby drawing further attention to their negated nether regions. Their status as neutered entities almost seems a source of pride to be shared among the whole community, as if punishment by the witch is proof of their manly vigour.

In the case of the ass of Salamis, it is under some form of ‘compulsion’, never specified – although plausibly sexual – that the young man returns to the witch’s house and is transformed through glamour so that he ‘served her at her pleasure for three years’. Indeed, the sailor acknowledges that the only shining light in his sorry situation is that, in the domestic setting of the witch’s abode, the witch and her friends ‘recognised him as a man, and he could talk and behave with them as a man should’. This language of

~ ! ~135 pleasure linked to a masculine evaluation of what is considered appropriate respect is suggestive in foregrounding the potentially erotic elements of the story. In a text which repeatedly makes reference to the voracious appetites of witches, and also explicitly discusses the copulation of witches with animals and devils, the possibility of mutual intimate encounters between the witch and the ass cannot be discounted32.

The story of Salamis might further function as a masculine consideration of the ambivalent attractions of domestic life. It is, after all, the young man who initially approaches the witchy woman; he feels a ‘compulsion’ to return to her; his fellows mock him as an ass for being struck dumb by her charms – a reference, perhaps to his potential infatuation – but upon returning to the woman he is put to work performing mundane household chores. The fable of the man turned into an ass here presents the tension between a life of freedom on the high seas and a life of domesticity yoked to the marital hearth. Certainly this theme of domestic and sexual disturbance recurs in many other instances of glamour described by Kramer and Sprenger, such as the power of witches to impede procreation or produce impotence. It is revealing that this story is discussed in Kramer and Sprenger’s consideration of remedies to glamour: for all their talk of torture and confession, the simplest and most effective solution the authors prescribe is to ‘come to an amicable agreement with the witch herself’ (1971 [1486]: 173).

4.9 Seduction’s witty challenge to orthodoxy

From the above discussion of animal transformation and fleeing phalli, we might define glamour within the ‘glamour system’ of the Malleus as an immersive transformation of the individual that is also perceptible to the collective. Through its power to change men into beasts, or to remove members, this immersive glamour manifests not simply as a visual image, but is powerfully wrought as an all-encompassing sensory effect within a

32 For example, consider Part 1, Question VI of the Malleus and its account of ‘Witches who Copulate with Devils’ (1971 [1486] 41- 47). The influence of The Golden Ass’ tale of the matron mating with Apuleius’ ass as the comedic climax – literally – of his picaresque adventures is also discernible. The pun on beast itself is suggestive. One might compare the image presented by this union with the phrase ‘making the Beast with two backs’, as found in Shakespeare’s Othello; the English translation derives from Rabelais’ own earlier usage in French: faire la bête à deux dos (OED Online 2017b). The suggested sexual elements here might lend credence to the attacks of critics who demean the Malleus for its misogyny. Yet an alternate interpretation of this story via the ambiguous politics of seduction is equally possible. ~ !136 ~ system comprised of the witch, the devil, the victim, and God Himself. Within this particular ‘glamour system’, it is through wit that glamour is explained, comprehended and rendered effective. That is, wit is not only how one comprehends the operation of glamour, but also the logic by which it comes into being – as a sudden joke, a surprising transformation, or an ingenious intellectual pun. God may grant glamour; but it is only through wit that glamour’s potency is effected as an inescapably seductive charm.

But can the seductions, one might say, inherent in seduction, be laid wholly at the feet of the practice of glamour by the witch? To be misled does not necessarily imply a wholly negative experience, but might well produce a certain pleasure in itself. Glamour can be described as seductive in that not only are its victims led astray, but they actively seek to be led astray. As described in the Literature Review via the work of Baudrillard, seduction also possesses the ability to confound notions of truth and falsity, reality and illusion, the natural and the artificial. It does not matter if the tricks that produce the captivating effect are known, as in the case of the glamour of the Malleus or in Baudelaire’s praise of cosmetics; the pleasure of the illusion is sought out by the victim regardless. Seduction is a challenge to familiar ideas and preconceptions – for example, the moral preference as a ‘good life’ or a ‘life of surface glamour’ as that which one secretly desires. As Baudrillard writes, ‘For religion seduction was a strategy of the devil, whether in the guise of witchcraft or love… Seduction continues to appear to all orthodoxies as malefice and artifice, a black magic for the deviation of all truth, an exaltation of the malicious use of signs’ (1990 [1979]: 1). Baudrillard describes the challenge of seduction as a challenge to ‘orthodoxy’ – for him, the realms of ‘nature’, ‘production' and ‘power’ (1). Yet, in broad terms, seduction presents a challenge to any number of assumptions or commonplaces. Just as the surprise of wit contains an element of intellectual creativity that sparks original insights, so too does seduction possess the ability to open up new domains of thought. The key difference is that one might explicitly seek experiences of surprise with no approbation; in seduction, as the Malleus demonstrates via its discussion of glamour, there are moral undertones attached to seeking to be diverted from one’s path.

4.10 A further empirical site of the seductive wit of glamour in fashion – Killing Eve (2018-current) ~ !137 ~ What might this idea of seduction – a diversion that might produce unexpected and interesting insights – mean in terms of other empirical sites of fashion? While the Malleus has provided an example of one particular ‘glamour system’, how might this idea of the seductive wit of glamour be extended to fashion itself? Furthermore, how might this glamour further inform my understanding of the Gaultier camo couture, for example, or the dandy? In answering these questions, I will now consider in depth an empirical site that connects wit, glamour – as defined as an immersive transformation – and fashion. This site demonstrates how the glamour of fashion functions not only as a form of seduction, but does so through a wit that challenges preconceived notions, or to use Baudrillard’s word, orthodox thought. I will draw on Baudrillard’s discussion of the connections between seduction, wit, glamour and fashion provided in the Literature Review to inform this site. This site is the TV series, Killing Eve (2018-2019).

Killing Eve was a surprise televisual sleeper hit in 2018. Created by Phoebe Waller- Bridge of Fleabag (2016-2019) and Crashing (2016) fame, the series is based on the popular novellas by Luke Jennings. The plot revolves around ain intricate cat-and- mouse played out game between Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh), a somewhat dowdy and unremarkable MI6 operative, who favours generic Marks and Spencer clothes and unremarkable trenchcoats, and the international assassin and psychopath, codename ‘Villanelle’ (Jodie Comer), a flamboyant and glamorous character who delights in the sartorial thrills offered by high fashion. A series of high-profile murders brings Villanelle to the attention of MI6; as the first to suspect Villanelle is a woman, Eve is brought on board to assist in a specialist operation to hunt down Villanelle. As the investigation continues, Villanelle gradually becomes aware that Eve has a special interest in her. A chance encounter between the two in a hospital bathroom where Villanelle, disguised as a nurse, is just about to kill a witness to one of her crimes, leads to an escalating mutual fascination that has dramatic consequences for both characters and their subsequent futures. As the series progresses, just as Eve has become entranced by the clever wit of Villanelle’s crimes, so does Villanelle become entranced by the woman whose job it is to capture her.

~ !138 ~ What makes Killing Eve unique – apart from its refreshing roster of female protagonists – is that the growing mutual attraction of Eve and Villanelle is expressed through the medium of fashion. Villanelle is no shy spy; a beauty who knows her own appeal, she adores fashion and dresses for each of her kills with a distinct visual aesthetic, wearing designer wares by Balenciaga, Burberry, Dries Van Noten and countless others, as she finds ever more novel ways to take out her targets. As the novellas’ author Jennings noted in an interview after the conclusion of first series, ‘Fashion is used as Villanelle dresses carefully for her kills. It’s important to her, part of the ritual’ (Ferrier 2018). Villanelle’s sense of style is as distinct as her modus operandi of murders, hence the headlines in the popular and fashion pressing lauding the character’s enviable wardrobe. When the first season aired, Vanity Fair declared, for example ‘Why the fashion on Killing Eve is its own delicious subplot’ (Saraiya 2018); The Guardian similarly enthused ‘How fashion, both decadent and drab, became the star of Killing Eve’ (Ferrier 2018). Vogue went so far as to describe Killing Eve as ‘the most fashionable show on TV’ (Yotka 2018).

Crucially, Villanelle’s desire for high fashion is defined as an essential component of her distinctive high-fashion assassin glamour. As Kang writes in an opinion piece for Slate, ‘Villanelle embodies the entitled, otherworldly glamour of both being in her line of work and taking pride in it’ (2019; emphasis added). Villanelle is no traditional femme fatale, defined by revenge or motivated by thwarted love; she is a pure psychopath who just happens to love her job, fashion, and the fact that her career allows her to buy as much expensive designer fashion as she can cram in the wardrobe of her too-chic Parisian apartment. As a designer aficionado, Villanelle cuts an undeniably glamorous figure. In one episode, dressed in an elaborate pink concoction of vintage taffeta skirt and Rosie Assouline blouse in Amsterdram, a street-style type blogger approaches her to ask for a photo; Villanelle responds ‘No. No, of course not. Don’t be pathetic! Get a real life!’ [Figure 4.5]. The costume designer for the first series, Phoebe De Gaye, explicitly frames how Villanelle uses clothes as ‘tools for seduction’ (De Gaye quoted in Ferrier 2018; emphasis added). De Gaye states: ‘Villanelle is aware of the effect she’s having, but makes it impossible for us to pin her down. Like a chameleon’. De Gaye describes how on one level Villanelle’s ostentatious fashion means that, she ‘is hiding in plain sight’ – on another, ‘she blends right in’ (2018). Villanelle’s glamour thus relies – like ~ ! ~139 the power of the witches in the Malleus – on her capacity for inventive transformation. Although unlike the witches, this cost comes at a material one rather than a spiritual one; as her handler Konstantin complains, Villanelle seems to cash in her kill-credit on the glamorous clothes that she clearly adores for both her professional and personal life.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.5. The glamorous Villanelle in vintage taffeta skirt and Rosie Assouline blouse, ruining the ambitions of wannabe Instagram influencers everywhere. Note all subsequent images in this discussion of Killing Eve are screen caps of the episodes themselves.

Furthermore, in tailoring each of her glamorous looks to her kills, Villanelle displays a wicked sense of humour predicated on her style choices. For example, hired by an unhappy wife to kill an unfaithful husband who frequents the red-light district of Amsterdam, Eve uses cosplay as a pig-masked anime-style character to lure her victim before hanging him upside down from his feet and gutting him in full public view [Figure 4.6]. The kill scenario was inspired by a depiction of a gruesome medieval scene of disembowelment Villanelle found in a Dutch museum; porcine poetic justice, indeed. For Villanelle, fashion inspiration comes from unusual places.

~ ! ~140 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.6. Think pink! Villanelle in costume before a particularly gruesome public evisceration. Vintage dirndl; custom mask by Charlotte Mitchell.

In exploring the connections between glamour, fashion, seduction, and wit found in Killing Eve, I will now examine how Villanelle uses her high-fashion knowledge to entrance and entrap not only her victims, but also seduce her supposed enemy, Eve herself. Villanelle is an unusual character in this respect in that she displays know shame in her obsession with clothes; she often brings the subject of fashion explicitly even where the context may seem tenuous. For example, questioned by Konstantin about the mysterious appearance of a bruise on her eye as the result of an unauthorised fight, she responds lightly ‘I wanted it to match my jacket’. Even the products of violence can be recontextualised as a form of glamorous accessory given a distinct fashion viewpoint.

Furthermore, this glamorous fashion functions as a key part of the dance of seduction between Villanelle and Eve that underpins the entire series. Since Eve is initially configured within the framework of the TV series as dowdy, practical and nondescript, her adoption of Villanelle’s style tips as they develop through the series are key moments of her seduction that reflect her own consideration of the possibilities of her own darker nature. In expanding this idea, I will begin by providing an overview of the

~ ! ~141 key iconic fashion looks in Killing Eve, and their witty implications as featured in the narrative of the series as produced to date (two series have been aired at the time of writing in May 2019; a third series has been commissioned). I will then relate this discussion to Baudrillard’s idea of seduction as it relates to the connection between fashion and glamour, In particular, I will focus on Villanelle as the ultimate ‘effigy’ of the seductress who, using techniques of the metaphysics of appearances – ambiguity, mutuality, undefinability – to ensnare Eve in their mutually escalating scale of seduction.

Before examining the iconic glamour looks of Villannelle, I will first discuss the opening scene of the series. This scene is crucial in establishing the essential elements of Villanelle’s personality. The series opens with Villanelle eating ice-cream in an old- fashioned Viennese shop. She observes a small girl watching her; while the girl smiles at the teenage server, she does not so favour Villanelle. Villanelle, observing the friendly interaction between the girl and the server, unconvincingly imitates the server’s smile. When the girl finally responds to Villanelle with a smile of her own, Villanelle wipes a spot of blood from her Omega watch – presumably this beauteous carmine drop is a legacy from her last kill – and is reminded that she has another assignment to undertake. She exits the ice-cream shop, and in doing so, shoves the young girl’s ice-cream sundae into her lap. Villanelle smiles again as she leaves, and this time her delight seems genuine. From the very beginning, Villanelle is established as someone who does not quite understand the rules of social interaction, although with practice she can imitate them; her shameless lack of remorse is also tied to a very personal sense of poetic irony – not to mention an appreciation of luxury goods such as her expensive watch [Figures 4.7-4.14].

~ ! ~142

[Figures have been removed due to copyright restrictions]

~ ! ~143 [Figures have been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 4.7-4.14. Villanelle does Vienna. ~ ! ~144 The first proper kill we see Villanelle undertake takes place in Tuscany, where Villanelle’s target is a philandering politician. Villanelle gatecrashes a family celebration dressed like a fashionable tourist in teal blouse and denim hot-pants. Scoping the territory, she breaks into the house and, sifting through the wardrobe of the wife’s target, steals a full-length lace-detailed dress (in this case, a baby-blue custom- dyed Burberry creation) [Figures 4.15]. Having been lured into the house, the politician clearly expects a sexual encounter. Villanelle seems more distracted by a beautiful bedspread adorning the marital bed. She inquires in Italian: ‘That is such a beautiful throw. Who made it?’. The victim responds, ‘A designer, Liliana Rizzari. She only works with silk’. As the politician reaches out to touch Villanelle’s face, Villanelle drops her Italian accent and reverts to her native Russian, admonishing: ‘You should really ask before you touch a person’. She then withdraws an inches-long hairpin from her tightly- bounded updo and stabs her target straight through the eye. Later, at the conclusion of the episode, we see Villanelle unwrap a package containing her own recently purchased Rizzari throw. As she sinks into it, she examines a postcard from her handler, Konstantin, which holds the details of her next assignment.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.15. Beautiful in blue Burberry.

~ ! ~145 As Eve’s investigation in this series of international assassinations continued to unfold, Villanelle’s handler Konstantin becomes aware that MI6 have discovered a witness to her (unseen) murder in Vienna – presumably the one that left the spatter of blood on our favourite assassin’s Omega. Villanelle is tasked by Konstantin with taking out the witness. She travels to the hospital where the unsuspecting witness is staying, and, disguised as a nurse, bumps into Eve in the bathroom in a chance encounter [Figure 4.16]. In the first of their direct personal interactions, Eve becomes aware that this slightly intense nurse is staring at her hair. ‘Are you all right?’ she enquires. Villanelle responds with an entranced suggestion about Eve’s tresses: ‘Wear it down’ she implores as she exit, moments before she kills the witness (and four other people, just for good measure).

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.16. Villanelle (Jodie Comer) and Eve Pilastri (Sandra Oh) first meet in a hospital bathroom. Villanelle is instantly attracted by Eve’s tangled mane.

Back in Paris, concerned by Villanelle’s ostentatious slaying spree, Konstantin reprimands his wayward employee. ‘It was meant to look like a suicide,’ he admonishes. ‘It didn’t?’ Villanelle asks innocently. ‘So she slit her own throat?’ Konstantin raises an eyebrow. ‘It happens,’ Villanelle responds. ‘And killed four other people?’ ‘Slip of the hand.’ As doubts about Villanelle’s stability emerge – at least from Konstantin’s perspective – he then demands that Villanelle to undertake a psychological assessment before she can complete her next job. Villanelle resists, as she’s already

~ ! ~146 picked a ‘little outfit’ for the next victim, adding that she is disappointed as ‘This one has asthma. You know I like the breathy ones’. However, Konstantin insists. As the appointment arrives, as a sign of defiance Villanelle dresses for the appointment in a striking, floating baby pink Molly Goddard organza creation and black Balenciaga boots – a look so iconic and striking in its juxtaposition of femme and butch elements that, as Ferrier writes, it ‘subsequently broke the internet’ (2018) [Figures 4.17-4.18].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 4.17-4.18. Villanelle dresses for a psychological assessment for her fitness to kill in Molly Goddard and Balenciaga.

Given her resistance to authority figures, it is perhaps unsurprising that Villanelle fails this assessment. However, she is not one to lay low. Feigning concern for Konstantin,

~ ! ~147 she takes matters into her own hands by pretending to hug him while actually stealing the address of the next victim from him. Later, confronting the asthma-suffering target, in true Villanelle style, she kills the unfortunate woman with a deadly spray of suffocating perfume. After returning to her Paris apartment, Konstantin confronts Villanelle, warning her that she is being investigated by MI6. Her next mission is thus to observe Eve who is travelling to Berlin with one of her co-workers, Bill, to investigate another prior Villanelle killing.

Given this task of discreet surveillance, Villanelle firstly steals Eve’s luggage and, upon opening it, grimaces with disgust at the clothes inside – although she does purloin a rather cheap zebra-print scarf as a souvenir, trophy or fetish. (Saraiya notes of Eve’s cheap taste in her Vanity Fair piece, that ‘a similar one can be purchased on amazon.com for $7’, 2018). Since Eve is now forced to buy clothes for the duration of her stay, Villanelle takes the opportunity to stalk Eve while she shops. She voyeuristically gazes at Eve’s boutique browsing in a gender-fluid twist on the kind of scene usually reserved for male protagonists in Pygmalion-genre films such as Pretty Woman (1990), for example, where Richard Gere’s character oversees Julia Roberts designer transmogrification. Of course, Villanelle has her own plans for how she might transform Eve into a worthy opponent/ object of affection. As Saraiya writes, ‘Villanelle is intrigued by Eve, too. At first it’s just the excitement of someone paying attention to her, but gradually it becomes more complex; Villanelle sees a side of Eve that Eve would rather not show the world’ (2018). Villanelle, as always, has a plan how to mould Eve in her image – an image guided by her witty appreciation of glamorous high- fashion.

First however, Villanelle’s whimsical adoption of Eve’s zebra scarf leads almost to her apprehension. In Berlin, Eve’s colleague Bill notices Villanelle watching Eve in the Berlin subway; in particular, the zebra-print accessory is a dead giveaway (so to speak). Sensing Bill’s interest, Villanelle chases him through a bass-heavy Berlin nightclub, and in another defining fashion montage, slashes his throat in a muted-tone Dries van Noten brocade power suit [Figures 4.19-4.20].

~ !148 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 4.19-4.20. Public assassination, Villanelle style.

Returning to London after the death of Bill, Eve finally receives her supposedly lost luggage. Upon opening it, she expects to find her own clothes within. But as indicated, Villanelle has had other ideas in the meantime, providing Eve an opportunity for her own glamorous designer makeover. When Eve opens the suitcase she finds her own shabby garments replaced by a series of beautifully wrapped and be-ribboned designer packages, and a boxed perfume labelled ‘La Villanelle’. An accompanying note reads ‘Sorry Baby’ – which has become somewhat a tagline of the series – although whether this refers to Villanelle stealing Eve’s luggage or murdering her colleague is left unclear. Handing in the suitcase to MI6, Eve seems almost in shock in explaining that the suitcase contains ‘Expensive clothes. Amazing clothes. All my size’. Eve’s interest in fashion has never been foregrounded in the plot before; Villanelle’s seduction through glamour of fashion begins in earnest. As Saraiya (2018) writes, ‘In one of the most erotic moments of the show, Eve opens up her lost suitcase, only to discover that Villanelle has stocked it with decadent designer clothing, all in her exact sizes’.

~ ! ~149 Swigging a glass of wine, and spraying the perfume on her neck, she tries on one of the dresses – a Roland Mouret black-and-ivory number – and is stunned at the femme fatale that is reflected back in the mirror. The transformation effected by the glamour of high fashion is striking as it is immediate. As the show’s first series costume designer Phoebe de Gaye puts it, in this scene Villanelle ‘wants to manipulate Eve into seeing her own beauty’ [Figures 4.21-4.23].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 4.21-4.23. Unexpected designer luggage – the best kind.

~ ! ~150 Moments later, Eve hears a noise downstairs in her house; upon investigating, she comes face to face with Villanelle, who after a violent tussle whereby Eve locks herself in a bathroom and attempts to fend herself off with a wiry toilet brush, Villanelle complains that she has no desire to hurt Eve; ‘I just want to have dinner with you!’. As Eve attempts to defend herself, Villanelle pushes her against a wall and inhales the perfume: ‘Are you wearing it?’. Eve’s only response – presumably still unhappy about the killing of Bill, rather than misappropriated luggage – is to say ‘I’m gonna find the thing you care about and I’m gonna kill it’ [Figure 4.24]. Eve is already beginning to be moulded – seduced, even – by Villanelle’s scheme for her ultimate makeover into a different person.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.24. An intimate dinner date ends at knifepoint.

The cat-and-mouse interactions between Eve and Villanelle continue in a somewhat convoluted fashion with a subplot in Russia that is not strictly relevant for this discussion; suffice to say that by the end of the series, Eve tracks down Villanelle to her chic Parisian apartment. Eve, enraged and perhaps confused by the damage Villanelle has wrought on her life, swigs champagne and trashes Villanelle’s apartment – including her extensive wardrobe. She becomes paralysed when the lock clicks and Villanelle enters brandishing a gun. Surveying the damage, Villanelle wryly asks: ‘Did you have a party or something?’. Eve counters: ‘I have lost two jobs, a husband and a best friend because of you.’ On the other hand, as Villanelle notes,’Yeah, but you got some really ~ ! ~151 nice clothes.’ The choice between human relationships and high-fashion is really an obvious one. Who wouldn’t choose the clothes? As the conversation continues, Villanelle questions Eve as to her motives for coming to Paris. Eve says simply: ‘I think about you all the time. I think about what you’re wearing and what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with. Your eyes, and your mouth, and what you feel like when you kill someone... what you had for breakfast… I just wanna know everything.’ Villanelle’s response is as blunt as it is honest: ‘I think about you too. I mean, I masturbate about you a lot.’

Seeming to surrender to Villanelle’s words, Eve lies back on Villanelle’s bed. ‘Are you going to kill me?’ she asks. Villanelle’s body language suggests a negative; and she too lies down on the bed [Figure 4.25]. Both have their eyes closed; both seem vulnerable. The sexual tension is palpable. Eve’s immediate confession that ‘I’ve never done anything like this before’ only adds to the expectation of erotic consummation. However, in an act of defiant surprise, using a concealed knife, Eve proves that Villanelle has awakened darker desires in her than expected. She rolls towards Villanelle and stabs her in the stomach using a knife she has concealed earlier. Roll series credits!

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.25. Prelude to penetration.

~ ! ~152 The second series, which was on the whole less well critically received than the first, picks up immediately where the first finishes – Villanelle wounded by Eve, and on the run. Much of the first half of the season is concerned with Eve and Villanelle’s respective handlers trying to keep them apart; in the second half of the season, in an unlikely series of events, Eve and Villanelle team up to capture another potential psychopath. After a series of events across a number of glamorous locations, the pair find themselves in Rome. Having despatched the psychopath, and subsequently abandoned by their handlers, it seems as if Eve and Villanelle might end up on the run together. However an argument inspired by the fact that Villanelle goaded Eve into killing one of their pursuers when she was capable of killing him herself leads to an argument in some glorious Roman ruins. ‘I thought you were special,’ Villanelle mourns. ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ Eve responds. As Eve rejects Villanelle, the premise of the first series ending is reversed, and it is now Villanelle who attempts to kill Eve by shooting her [Figure 4.26]. Fade to black once more

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.26. Roman holiday. Villanelle, in a striking scarlet pantsuit, overlooks the fallen body of Eve moments after shooting her.

However, the second series of Killing Eve does feature some notable ‘fashion moments’. I will provide just two additional examples of the glamorous fashion found in the second series before turning to my analysis of how the seductive wit of glamour is expressed in this striking and unique television series. Firstly, in the initial episodes of

~ ! ~153 the series, Villanelle is tasked with killing a businessman. Disguised as a security guard in a natty gold-buttoned double-breasted blazer, she pretends to be interested in the latter’s tie as a present for her father as a pretext to confront him as he enters a lift. Admiring the tie, Villanelle asks in a cheery English accent, ‘This is perfect. Where’s it from?’. Bored, the businessman simply replies, ‘Hermès.’ Villanelle fingers the piece in question. Dropping the assumed accent, she reverts to her natural Russian voice and scorns: ‘No, it’s not. It’s a fake.’ As the elevator doors close, Villanelle seizes the tie, and as the elevator ascends, the victim chokes to death [Figure 4.27].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.27. Fake Hèrmes elevator kill.

As a clue to Eve that Villanelle has been the crime’s author, she takes a discreet opportunity to slip a lipstick in Eve’s pocket. Called ‘Love in an Elevator’ – a clear callback to the crime itself – Eve takes the lipstick home [Figure 4.28].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 4.28. ‘Love in an Elevator’ lipstick.

~ ! ~154 As she applies it, she is surprised to cut her lip. She breaks open the lipstick to find a sharp and nasty blade concealed within. But instead of recoiling, she smears her own blood on her lower lip to complete as if her own blood were the lipstick made manifest. As per Villanelle's intent, it seems that Eve itself is explicitly enjoying her own darker nature [Figures 4.29-4.32].

[Figures have been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 4.29-4.31. Macquillage! ~ ! ~155 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 4.32. Blood-bond via makeup.

The thematics of Killing Eve certainly echo the orientation of sociology as described within thesis. As shown through Villanelle’s experience with Eve, passion is expressed as a form of seduction – a seduction configured as a form of wit. As Baudrillard suggests, ‘what is more seductive than a stroke of wit?’. What indeed, except fashion itself? Through Villanelle’s interventions in Eve’s domestic and sartorial life, a certain seductive ‘mastery over the symbolic universe’ – as Baudrillard presents it – is foregrounded. Villanelle does not wish to merely share her fashion knowledge with her dear, sweet, wild-haired and original Eve; she wants Eve to engage with the economy of lightness of seduction offered by Baudrillard.

In Villanelle’s case, of course, this lightness is as much involved with desirable and glamorous fashion as it is with homicidal mania. But of course, this indifference expressed by fashion is no simple matter. One may characterise Villanelle’s charming disengagement with human life and passion for fashion as a typically Baudrillardian concern with a ‘power of defiance’ and ‘passion for deviation’. In Baudrillardian terms, Villanelle not only ‘weaves and unweaves appearances’, she does so in an amusing and witty fashion. For her, ‘to be taken in by one’s illusion and move in an enchanted world’ is no simple matter – it is her entire raison d’être. Her dealings with Eve – that sly, surprising and seductive set of machinations is no mere accident, but a deliberate (and humorous) attempt to undermine and question the banal parameters of Eve's existing life. The manipulation of dress and fashion is essential to her entire work.

~ ! ~156 Of course, as per the work of Baudrillard, ‘to be seduced is to challenge the other to be seduced in turn’. We can certainly see this in terms not only of Villanelle’s continuing obsession with Eve, but also Eve’s continued down the dark path that Villanelle invites her upon. The glamour of high fashion that Villanelle introduces Eve to is concomitant with an awakening of Eve’s own darker side, as evidenced by her willingness to stab Villanelle at the end of the first series, and her subsequent sanguine blood-smearing of lipstick upon her face. Furthermore, given the research question of this thesis, Villanelle’s seduction of Eve functions primarily via a seductive and glamorous form of wit – one that entices even as it challenges the ideas that one may take for granted.

For example, in choosing outfits specifically designed to match the kills that Villanelle has been engaged in, this fashion assassin demonstrates an acute sensitivity to the vagaries of fashion that even her victims – in their perhaps reduced sense of irony, being murdered as befalls them – would not be aware of. It certainly takes Eve herself some time to become to these attendant possibilities. And yet, once she does, how could anyone resist Villanelle’s fashionable forays into the glamorous wit of fashion itself? Whether wearing a cosplay pig costume, Molly Goddard tulle dress, or inscribing her imprimatur upon an evidential lipstick, Villanelle remains the consummate fashion wit. A wit that is expressed by her undeniable and lingering glamour that not only seduces Eve by inviting her into her world, but also does by challenging the so-called unimportance of fashion itself. Villanelle is no fashion victim; indeed, through her witty reconceptualisation of fashion, she is its very antithesis. Her witty interpretations of the glamour of fashion do not merely reiterate or rehearse the commonplaces of fashion – they reinterpret them in an undeniably seductive manner.

4.11 Glamour as configured in the dandy and the Gaultier dress

At the end of the previous chapter, I indicated that the dandy was connected to glamour by theorists of fashion; I will now return to this connection to explore how seduction might also be ascribed to this fascinating figure. In the dandy chapter, I demonstrated how the perfection of Beau Brummell’s sartorial innovations – the ‘just-so’-ness of his blossoming cravat, the tightness of his ‘trowsers’, and the impeccable blackness of his ~ !157 ~ champagne-polished boots – were motivated by the same urge to provide an unexpected insight as his equally-renowned pithy and original epigrams. I explained how the dandy’s sartorial details and verbal wordplay were both propelled by the witty principles of inclusive distinction, the mystifying non-sequitur and the sympathetic magic of fashion. In short, I argued, that the dandy and fashion itself both share an appealing desire to surprise.

One can equally make the case that the dandy possesses an alluring ability to seduce, in terms that is has been described in this chapter. Brummell – as the original and ultimate dandy – certainly fascinated society both on an individual and collective level, literally drawing people towards him, as we saw in the accounts of the anxious imitators who gathered downstairs at 4 Chesterfield Street to await the unveiling of the perfect cravat, or the young men that passed by White’s hoping to attract comment. Brummell further possessed seductive qualities in his handsomeness and physical presence – as we have seen, Captain Jesse noted admiringly that ‘Nature had indeed been most liberal to him’. The silhouette the Beau created was sculpted from the finest fabrics to adhere to the neoclassical ideal of his frame. The tactile legacy of this tailoring is discernible today in the flattering construction techniques of the construction of modern menswear, with the hidden darts, seams and padding that create appealing V-shaped masculine prodigies from a variety of imperfect bodies. Finally, Brummell also summoned into existence an entire precinct of London dedicated to menswear. The area he patronised in Mayfair and around Savile Row still thrives today as a stronghold of purveyors of fine goods for men and world-renowned bespoke tailoring.

Through Brummell’s invitation to the collective to participate in the individual fashionable transformations he effected in London, the Beau could be said to have seduced society in the terms we have described this idea as a challenge to the orthodox manner of appearance, fashion and custom. Through his inventions, he glamour transformed not only himself, but the physical geography of London’s retail precinct. The legacy of this glamour survives today. One could never say of Brummell that he was the victim of the fashion system, the emergence of which, as we saw in the last chapter, Barthes argued caused the death of the dandy; rather, one might say that Brummell provided the ultimate challenge to the ideas of his time by bringing his own ~ !158 ~ system of the seduction of immersive glamour into being. In short, he invented his own quite specific ‘glamour system’. If seduction, as we have seen, is a form of wit, and the dandy is a site of fashion, then it is clear that within fashion wit both surprises and seduces.

In the case of the glamour of the Gaultier dress, how does seduction function as a form of wit? I will consider this example in slightly different terms to my discussion of the dandy above. The wit of seduction, as we have seen, is the willing ability of the seduced to be led astray in a way that challenges orthodox thought. The Gaultier dress, with its combination of mass-produced military print camouflage with the rarefied and expensive techniques of haute couture certainly led me to ponder what might be considered ‘fashion’ per se. By that I mean that the singular appearance of the Gaultier dress as a considered and creative ‘moment of fashion’ led me to think outside what Vinken calls the ‘hundred year’ model of the singular fashion system, or phenomenon – as described by Wilson – as characterised ‘rapid and continual changing of styles’. The Gaultier dress thus presents a seductive conundrum. It is undeniably an expression of fashion as traditionally understood within the fashion system as a result of numerous factors, including its appearance in the regulated couture schedule, Gaultier’s clever vision and design talent, and the hundreds of hours of technical expertise dedicated to its creation. And yet the Gaultier creation also simultaneously seems outside this conception of fashion. As discussed in the thesis Introduction, rather than being a disposable, one-off garment, its appeal continues to persist in print, exhibitions and in person. The witty glamour of the Gaultier dress thus speaks to an enduring sense of duration. Fashion no longer defined by a temporality of incessant modification; instead, it as an idea of fashion as evergreen and everlasting. A slow duration of fashion. In its seductive allure, the glamour of the Gaultier dress wittily challenges how we might understand fashion itself; an idea I will return to in more substantial detail in the final two chapters of this thesis, as I continue to re-evaluate the powerful effects of this singular creation.

4.12 Reconsidering glamour

~ !159 ~ In this chapter, I have examined how wit might complicate glamour as it is currently theorised within fashion studies as a mere visual effect or properly the domain of an untouchable and distant elite. I turned to the medieval witch-hunting text, the Malleus Maleficarum, for an alternate vision of the potent and effective operation of glamour as a specific system that might provide insight, while recognising that it is but one of a multiplicity of potential ‘glamour systems’. I predicated this argument on fashion studies’ important interdisciplinarity to utilise this text in a provocative way. I then demonstrated how the construction of a system comprised of God, the devil and the witch, conceptualised glamour as immediate and effective for the actors within this defined system, consistent with the mediation of individual experience and collective phenomenon that characterises sociology itself.

Furthermore, as I discussed in considering whether glamour can change ‘Men into Beasts’ or effect penis theft, this glamour functions as a form of seductive wit in the terms that inform this thesis. That is, not only is the victim of witty glamour led astray, they actively seek to be led astray in a way that challenges orthodox notions of the world. Moving on from the Malleus, I then considered how glamour not only contained the ability to lead people astray, so to speak, but examined how this ability might itself be sought after by the alleged victim. That is, in the experience of glamour, one might be led astray, but one also may desire to be led astray. Glamour here figures as a form of seduction. Returning to the theoretical insights of Baudrillard outlined in the Literature Review, I discussed how seduction involves an element of challenge through play, puns and the manipulation of meaning. The form of this challenge provokes new thought and calls into question familiar assumptions. Baudrillard himself connects seduction to wit; since, as I have shown, wit is connected glamour, glamour itself operates as a form of seduction. That is, glamour possesses the phenomenological ability to challenge – and transform – how we perceive the world, in the process opening up creative new domains of thought. Since glamour is also connected to fashion, it can also be said that fashion itself possesses a quality of seduction. Through my additional empirical examples, I finally reconsidered the position of the dandy and the Gaultier camo couture to show that wit not only surprises; it seduces.

~ !160 ~ Furthermore, the wit of seduction as found in glamour might assist us in understanding fashion’s attractive and fascinating allure. This allure helps explain why I – and others – might be drawn, time and again, to Gaultier’s enchanting camouflage couture creation, or even perhaps why O’Brien’s amusing epigram is so hard to dismiss from one’s thoughts. Allure speaks not only to fashion’s instant attraction; it also speaks to its enduring duration. The seductive quality of immersive transformation I found in glamour is alive not only in the pages of the Malleus, but also in alluring ‘moments of fashion’ that continue to beguile. As Vinken reminds us ‘Fashion is defined as the art of the perfect moment, of the sudden, surprising and yet obscurely expected harmonious apparition’ (2005: 42). Recognising this harmonious apparition is just the first step on a journey of pleasurable derailment; after all, if you wish to be seduced, you have to allow yourself to be led astray.

In this chapter and the previous one I have provided empirical connections to sites of wit and fashion via the dandy and glamour, and also shown how these empirical sites – and further examples found within – are connected to a sociology of wit. However, as per the research question of this thesis – to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? – this thesis now moves to a new phase. Given that the connection between wit and fashion has been under-theorised, how best to establish that not only does wit provide genuine insights into the study of fashion, but also that wit might inform our understanding of contemporary fashion phenomena?

In the next chapter, I will build on the work already conducted through a careful consideration of the techniques of humour found in Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus. This text is important as it is widely regarded as one of the foundational texts of what has been described as inaugurating fashion studies (see, for example, Keenan 2001, Carter 2003). Intriguingly, the insights that have been generated by this text – ones that practitioners of fashion studies themselves recognise as valuable – are presented through the lens of humour. I will demonstrate how the elements of a sociology of wit as it pertains to fashion – surprise and seduction – sharpen and clarify the insights to be derived from Carlyle’s text. This analysis will establish the theoretical basis for the final two chapters of the thesis, where I will consider how the insights of Veblen and Barthes

~ !161 ~ can be further extended in contemporary manifestations of fashion, via the ideas of conspicuous wit and the multiplicity of fashion systems.

~ !162 ~ Chapter Five

Wit’s Contribution to Fashion Studies: Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus

5.1 Introduction

The Introduction and Literature Review of this thesis established my theoretical orientation via a sociology of wit; subsequent chapters on the dandy and glamour utilised various empirical sites to demonstrate wit’s qualities of surprise and seduction. These chapters demonstrated that concepts composing a putative sociology of wit could usefully inform an understanding of fashion. The final two chapters of the thesis will focus on how this sociology of wit might further fruitfully inform contemporary fashion studies. As indicated at the end of my discussion on glamour, these chapters will comprise a study of fashion’s contemporary conspicuous wit via a rethinking of Veblen’s work on conspicuous consumption, and of a proliferation of witty fashion systems drawing on the work of Barthes’ characterisation of the fashion system. However, before I commence this task, I will first clarify how an idea of wit has previously functioned to contribute to fashion studies. In this chapter I have selected Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (2000) [1836] to elaborate this argument because it remains an important foundational text for fashion studies itself. As a work of some renown in the literature on fashion, it sets an important precedent for establishing how a notion of humour has been crucial in defining fashion studies from the discipline’s inception. This text is recognised as one of the founding texts for fashion studies, and, as we shall see, demonstrates that an idea of wit possesses a strong precedent in providing original contributions to the study of fashion. As an empirical site, Sartor has been selected because not only does this famed literary satire provide genuine insights into fashion; it provides these insights through a lens of humour that is recognisable in the terms I have previously described it as a form of wit.

I will thus now turn to the ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ elaborated by the strange (and possibly deranged) Professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, as found in Thomas Carlyle’s ~ ! ~163 classic satire, Sartor Resartus (2000) [1836]. This book has been remarked upon in fashion studies by scholars such as William F. K. Keenan (2001) and Michael Carter (2003) for its anticipation of key insights later recognised as genuinely important within fashion studies1. As I discussed in examining O’Brien’s epigram in the Introduction to this thesis, there is an apparent tension between what might usually be regarded as the import of so-called ‘serious’ discourse (for example, the weather, the harvest, global politics) , and supposedly ‘non-serious’ discourse (fashion itself). A recognition that non-serious discourse might produce apparently ‘serious’ insights certainly resonates with the phenomenological approach to wit described by Berger, Davis, Zijderveld, and so forth. This phenomenological approach, as we have seen, suggests that humorous ideas can provide original and startling insights. In reflecting on the power of humour to provide insights previously unforeseen, this chapter will examine the following questions. What are the insights for fashion studies that Sartor Resartus anticipates, and how does a notion of wit comprised of surprise and seduction act to sharpen and clarify these insights? If indeed Sartor Resartus is a founding text for fashion studies, how has the key characteristic of the text – its obvious humour – been overlooked as a methodological approach? Furthermore, how might the value of Sartor Resartus’ humorous approach be extended to contemporary fashion studies?

5.2 Context for Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus

Sartor Resartus – the title translates from the Latin as The Tailor Retailored – was first published in various editions in the 1830s. Serialised in the London periodical Fraser’s Magazine in 1833-1834, it was not until its well-received publication as a book in 1836 in the United States, and subsequent republication in England in 1838, that it garnered Carlyle attention in his home country (For discussion of the publication history of the text, see Engel and Tarr 2000)2. The book recounts the struggle of an unnamed English translator and Editor to make sense of the work of a supposed German academic, Professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, who formulates a grand philosophy that connects

1 While both Keenan (2001) and Carter (2003) prefer the term ‘dress studies’, for simplicity – and for the reasons outlined in my Introduction – I will continue to use the phrase ‘fashion studies’ unless quoting either author directly.

2 For referencing purposes, I will take the date of the book’s 1836 publication as a single volume in the United States as its ‘official’ publication date. ~ !164 ~ man to every other man, to the world, and to God. It just so happens that this philosophy is based on clothes. Clothing for Professor Teufelsdröckh of Weissnichtwo (which translates, as we have seen, as Professor Devil’s-Shit of Knows-Not-Where3) is the

‘vestural Tissue’ that interconnects every member of society (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 4)4.

This unique ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ is contained in Teufelsdröckh’s Die Kleider ihr Werden und Wirken or Clothes, their Origin and Influence, which the Editor excerpts for the reader’s benefit (For the remainder of this chapter, I will refer to this work by the shortened name Die Kleider). The Editor struggles with the difficult task of introducing Teufelsdröckh’s abstruse German transcendentalism to those schooled in the tradition of British empiricism as it pertains to approaches to philosophical modes of thinking. Torn between hero-worship and suspicion, he is unsure whether to praise Teufelsdröckh’s ‘high Platonic Mysticism’ (2000 [1836]: 52) or to condemn him as a ‘speculative radical… of the very darkest tinge’ (50). At times the Editor suspects that the whole project of a Philosophy of Clothes is itself an elaborate, sardonic joke played by the mysterious German Professor. As he writes of the work, ‘An idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too clearly discernible’ (34).

Despite the intriguing potential of the idea of a Philosophy of Clothes – surely of natural interest to theorists with a wide-ranging and interdisciplinary interest in clothing and fashion – Sartor Resartus has perhaps not received the academic examination within fashion studies that it deserves, and neither has it been widely considered within the context of a sociology of fashion. Two significant exceptions that recognise the importance of Sartor Resartus are Keenan’s Introduction to his edited volume Dressed to Impress: Looking the Part (2001) and Carter’s chapter on Carlyle in his Fashion Classics: From Carlyle to Barthes (2003). Both agree that Carlyle is significant in the development of an independent field of fashion studies. For Keenan, Sartor Resartus is the founding text for fashion studies; he celebrates the book for preparing ‘deep and

3 Carter further notes the surname translates as ‘Devil’s Shit’, ‘Devil’s Dirt’ or ‘Devil’s Dust’ (2003: 1), and indicates that the translation is still a subject of discussion for Carlylean scholars (15).

4 Diogenes is, of course, the famously irreverent ancient philosopher. For a brief contextualisation of Diogenes’ importance in the history of humour, see Kuipers (2008: 376). ~ !165 ~ strong foundations for the study of clothes as a creative, challenging and credible realm of cultural enquiry’ (2001: 1). For Carter, Carlyle’s work marks the beginning of a tradition of theoretical ‘Fashion Classics’. As Carter writes, Sartor Resartus is a ‘founding text… one that imaginatively prefigures the discourse on dress that follows’ (2003: 1-2).

As Keenan asks ‘Who today, outside of antiquarian literary circles, reads Sartor Resartus?’, and expresses a lament that Carlyle remains an ‘obscure footnote reference’ in dress scholarship (2001: 13). Carter agrees that ‘Sartor Resartus is, now, seldom cited in dress studies’ (2003: 14). However, I hold reservations about the way these authors – as we shall see – divorce the content of what Keenan calls the ‘Carlylean paradigm’ (2001: 15) for fashion studies from the humorous style which has guaranteed the text’s continuing fame5. Given the research question of this thesis – how can wit contribute to an understanding of the appeal and allure of fashion? – is it not possible that an idea of wit can productively reiterate the importance of this founding text for fashion studies?

The joke at the heart of Sartor Resartus is a jest apparently so obvious to the reader that no critic finds it worth mentioning – the very idea of a ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ is apparently so overtly ridiculous that the possibility of its genuine contribution to the academy is often overlooked. The consequence of the book’s supposedly ridiculous conceit is that its literary contribution has been praised at the expense of the potential importance of its ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ (Thomas and Sabor 1987; Engel and Tarr 2000). It would indeed be a witty surprise for a lone literary satire to anticipate an entire discipline; and yet, this is precisely what one must consider in commencing to answer the questions raised in the opening remarks of this chapter. Indeed, in answering these questions, one must throw oneself, like Teufelsdröckh’s hapless Editor, into the many ‘interminable disquisitions of a mythological, metaphorical, cabilistico-sartorial and quite antediluvian cast’ to be found in Sartor Resartus (Carlyle 1987 [1836]: 29). This will subsequently help clarify in detail the genuine insights to be found within the text.

5 Carter was aware of Keenan’s work at the time of his own publication but unfortunately, as he writes in his own book, it was ‘too late for adequate consideration’ (2003: xi) of Keenan’s arguments. ~ !166 ~ In structural terms, Book One is the most direct in presenting us with the precepts that constitute the ‘Philosophy of Clothes’. Book Two is largely concerned with a Romantic novella of the life and times of a young Teufelsdröckh as provided in documents supplied by one of his colleagues, Herr Heuschrecke; after some consideration, the Editor begins to suspect that these are forgeries, and the satire of the book here is directed more directly at the genre of the bildungsroman than clothing or fashion. Book Three sees the Editor concerned with the religious import of Teufelsdröckh’s work and, his experience of mental and physical decline due to the stresses of making sense of Teufelsdröckh’s work. Consequently, the Editor undergoes his own crisis of faith and almost religious conversion.

In this chapter I will thus focus my attention principally on Book One as it is that part of the text that focusses most explicitly on clothing and fashion. Further references to the Philosophy of Clothes in Books Two and Three are rare, except close to the end of Book Three, particularly in the famous chapter on dandies. I am here guided by the explicit task of this thesis, which is to consider the contribution of a sociology of wit to the study of fashion, rather than taking a literary, historical or bibliographic approach to Carlyle’s work. An assessment of the text’s context within and importance to English literature is best left to specialists in this field. Engel and Tarr agree in sketching a schema that divides the text in three parts; Book One being concerned with ‘Clothes’, Book Two with ‘Body’, and Book Three with ‘Spirit’ (2000: xl). Neither is Carlyle’s ostensible authorial intent of strict relevance to a sociology of wit, or a deliberation on the actual targets of his satire, such as the social peccadilloes and hypocrisies of imperial England. In considering how humour might generate insights for the study of fashion, it is the ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ that is presented through the figure of Professor Diogenes Teufelsdröckh that will remain my primary locus of discussion6.

5.3 Teufelsdröckh’s ‘Philosophy of Clothes’: the text, the man, the task

I will now commence my necessary exegesis of the text itself – necessary as it will support the claims of the foundational nature of Sartor Resartus itself for fashion

6 There are many excellent resources that discuss Carlyle’s personal and biographical approach, and the historical context in which the text appears – see particularly Engel and Tarr (2000). ~ !167 ~ studies, and the continuing opportunities it might present for a sociology of fashion itself. The book opens on a note of bewilderment at the neglect of the subject at hand – a study of the social importance of clothes. Teufelsdröckh’s anonymous Editor muses:

Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years… it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, has been written on the subject of Clothes’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 3).

The Editor notes that in an empirical age man possesses all kinds of doctrines, theories, histories and philosophies – indeed, ‘the Creation of a World is little more mysterious than the cooking of a Dumpling’ (2000 [1836]: 3). In such an enlightened clime, how is it then that the ‘grand Tissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have been quite overlooked by Science’ (4)? This ‘vestural Tissue... [is that] which Man’s Soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall; wherein his whole other Tissues are included and screened, his whole Faculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its being?’ (4). Given, then, the clear importance of clothing, its study should be of pressing importance. However, as the Editor notes, wilful ignorance has blinded us to the fact that philosophers have ‘tacitly figured man as a Clothed Animal; whereas he is by nature a Naked Animal’ (4). Since the obvious importance of clothing has been overlooked by learned minds, it is the Editor’s task to introduce a new work that unveils the meaning of these vestural tissues.

Unfortunately, the task is made difficult by the abstract and obtuse nature of the text itself. Indeed, the deliberate complexity of the language of the book is often remarked upon by commentators (Sabor and Thomas 1987; Engel and Tarr 2000; Keenan 2001; Carter 2003). Carlyle’s ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ is not only deliberately verbose, but also demonstrates a callous disregard for order. The Editor of Teufelsdröckh’s text even describes its style as a ‘mixture of insight, inspiration, with dulness, double-vision and even utter blindness’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 22). Through a series of metaphors, the Editor attempts to capture the brilliance and frustrations of the text. The Editor assesses the work as follows:

~ !168 ~ It were a piece of vain flattery to pretend that this Work on Clothes entirely contents us… like the very Sun, which, though the highest published Creation… has nevertheless black spots and troubled nebulosities amid its effulgence [the book has] a mixture of insight, inspiration, with dullness [sic], double-vision, and even utter blindness’ (2000 [1836]: 22).

Moving on from solar symbolism, the Editor shifts metaphors by emphasising that he is impressed that Die Kleider is capable of ‘opening new mine-shafts’ in thought; he immediately qualifies the comparison by noting that like all mineshafts, ‘there is much rubbish’ (2000: 1987 [1836]: 22). The Editor admires the way in which Teufelsdröckh’s arguments possess the precise force of a falling hammer; however, sometimes Teufelsdröckh ‘not only hits the nail on the head, but with rushing force smites it home, and breaks it’ (23).

A further obstacle is the Editor’s deep-felt conviction that an understanding of the Philosophy of Clothes is indivisible from an understanding of Teufelsdröckh himself. Both the Philosophy and its composer are unique enough that the Editor seeks an aid to interpreting the former through grasping the personality of the latter. It is not that the Editor seeks to validate the text through identifying authorial intent, but rather that the two are inextricably linked. As the Editor posits, ‘to state the Philosophy of Clothes without the Philosopher, the ideas of Teufelsdröckh without something of his personality, was it not to insure both of entire misapprehension?’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 9). The Editor describes Teufelsdröckh’s abode as a habitat that is no academic ivory tower, but a decidedly more modest abode. Having been established as a Professor of ‘Things in General’ by his university but with no courses or endowment attached to this position, Teufelsdröckh spends most of his time alone, to ‘think and smoke tobacco’ (13). The books and furnishings of his apartment are ‘united in a common element of dust’, which Teufelsdröckh does not seem to notice. The Editor notes that ‘Glad would [Teufelsdröckh] have been to sit here philosophising for ever, or till the litter, by accumulation, drove him out of the doors’ (19).

Teufelsdröckh himself is a somewhat taciturn figure, possessing ‘long and lank’ locks of hair and wearing ‘loose, ill-brushed, threadbare habiliments’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 13). He communicates with his ancient housekeeper solely through physical gestures and responds to most visitors only with an ‘occasional grunt’ (19). The Editor finds

~ !169 ~ Teufelsdröckh’s manner ‘sly and still’, ‘saturnine’, and not without a ‘satirical edge’ (25). Yet he admits that the Germanic genius cannot be entirely without redemption, and recalls one incident that proves Teufelsdröckh is, indeed, after all human. This saving grace was the Professor’s laughter; the Editor writes that ‘we gladly recall to mind that once we saw him laugh; once only, perhaps it was the first and last time in his life; but then such a peal of laughter, enough to have awakened the Seven Sleepers!’ (25). Alas, the quip is lost to history but the laugh was ‘loud, long-continuing, uncontrollable; a laugh not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head to heel’ (26). The Editor, in the face of such laughter, ‘began to fear all was not right’ but Teufelsdröckh finally composes himself and sinks back into his usual inscrutability, not to be roused again (26). The Editor confides in his audience: ‘Readers who have any tincture of Psychology know… that no man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad... The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils’ (26; emphasis added).

Nevertheless, despite this redeeming capacity for laughter, the Editor still holds reservations about his host and mentor: ‘Up to this hour we have never fully satisfied ourselves whether [Teufelsdröckh possesses the] tone and hum of real Humour, which we reckon among the very highest qualities of genius, or some remote echo of mere Insanity and Inanity’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 24). However, the Editor’s suspicions about Teufelsdröckh’s sardonic humour are never fully resolved, and the lingering idea that the Professor may be enjoying an elaborate joke at the expense of the reader is not dispelled. Teufelsdröckh may have laughed only once, but his is a laughter that resounds throughout Sartor Resartus. Teufelsdröckh’s laughter serves to remind us that nothing is quite black or white, distinct or indistinct – one must always be attendant as to potential reversals and ironies.

It is in the chapter ‘The World in Clothes’ that the Editor finally begins to elucidate Teufelsdröckh’s so-called Philosophy. The Editor notes that just as Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws, so Teufelsdröckh considers the possibility of producing a Spirit of Clothes: ‘For neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere Accident, but the hand is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the mind’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 27). In one of Carlyle’s ‘wonderfully rolling comparison’, as Carter puts it ~ !170 ~ (2003: 10), Teufelsdröckh describes the possible importance of this hypothetical ‘Spirit of Clothes’:

In all his Modes and habilatory endeavours an Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth are the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded mantles, based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amid peaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starched ruffs, buckram stuffings and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into separate sections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four limbs, – will depend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian or Anglo-Dandiacal... In all [of] which… there is an incessant, indubitable, though infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect: every snip of the Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active Influences, which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order are neither invisible nor illegible (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 27).

However, having described the potential of this project, Teufelsdröckh immediately states that he is scornful of the ability of ‘Cause and Effect’ thinking to explain the methods by which these varying styles or ‘Architectural Ideas’ come into being. He writes that ‘For such superior Intelligences a Cause-and-effect Philosophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter-evening entertainment: nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such Philosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 28). This sets up the project of the rest of the book, in that in contrast to rationalist methodology, Teufelsdröckh insists that each object of clothing must be considered in splendid isolation. Teufelsdröckh begins the project of Die Kleider by attempting to map all the forms of clothing that humanity has adopted with a vast taxonomic catalogue of all of the world’s modes of ‘habilatory endeavours’ from Babel to beyond (29). The Editor describes this catalogue as an ‘Orbis Vestitus; or view of the costumes of all mankind, in all countries, in all times’, including (but not limited to):

Sheepskin cloaks and wampum belts; phylacteries, stoles, albs; chlamides, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs... Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales… even the Kilmarnock nightcap is not forgotten’ (2000 [1836]: 29).

Having completed his expansive survey of the ‘habitable and habilable globe’ (2000 [1836]: 29) – which the overworked Editor omits quite justifiably on the grounds of brevity – Teufelsdröckh boldly concludes that ‘The first purpose of Clothes... was not warmth or decency, but ornament’ (2000 [1836]: 29). Having made this pronouncement, ~ !171 ~ Teufelsdröckh evocatively describes the miserable condition of the original ‘Aboriginal savage’:

glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung around him like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell... the pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration’ (2000 [1836]: 29).

All other necessities follow from this initial purpose: ‘Warmth he found in the toils of the chase, or amid dried leaves, in his hollow tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto, but for Decoration he must have Clothes... The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration’ (2000 [1836] 30; emphasis added).

Here we come to the first major insight to arise from the text. This single epigram – ‘The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration’ – is in itself perhaps sufficient in itself to establish Carlyle’s reputation as one of the founders of fashion studies. As Carter writes: ‘In that simple statement can be found perhaps the most seminal clothes idea in the whole of Sartor Resartus… [it] single-handedly establishes the genre of fashion studies in a manner which persisted well into the twentieth century’ (2003: 8; emphasis added). This explanation of clothing is striking as it counters the traditional anthropological view of costume which holds that forms of bodily decoration are adopted only after the so-called primary biological needs of the body have been satisfied (see, for example, Flügel 1930; Rouse 1989; Barnard 1996). Indeed, this phrase is routinely cited by practitioners of fashion studies (see, for example, Wilson 1985: 55, McDowell 1992: 37 or Barnard 1996: 47). For Teufelsdröckh, man is distinguished from other animals not by Laughter or by Cooking, as other philosophers might have it, but in his capacity as a ‘Tool-using Animal’ – and he identifies decoration as the very first tool of man (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 31). As the learned Professor writes: ‘Clothes gave us individuality, distinctions, social polity; Clothes have made Men of us’ (31)7. In this formulation, Teufelsdröckh provides us with his strongest argument yet for the importance of a Philosophy of Clothes.

7 Although he does immediately qualify this by adding that in contemporary society ‘they are threatening to make Clothes-screens of us’ (Carlyle 1987 [1836]: 32). ~ !172 ~ Having upturned the commonplaces of costume history, the Editor pauses for an intellectual aperitif in a brief chapter concerned solely with the nature and meaning of ‘Aprons’. The Editor does find this entire section of Die Kleider ‘unsatisfactory’, noting that here an ‘idle wire-drawing spirit, sometimes even a tone of levity, approaching to conventional satire, is too clearly discernible’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 33). Teufelsdröckh rhapsodises:

Aprons are Defences; against injury to cleanliness, to safety, to modesty, sometimes to roguery. From the thin slip of notched silk (as it were, the Emblem and beatified Ghost of an Apron), which some highest-bred housewife, sitting at Nürnberg Workboxes and Toyboxes, has gracefully fastened on; to the thick-tanned hide, girt round him with thongs, wherein the Builder builds, and at evening sticks his trowel; or to those jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half- naked Vulcans hammer and smelt in their Smelt-furnace, – is there not range enough in the fashion and uses of this Vestment? How much has been concealed, how much has been defended in Aprons! (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 33).

But his sensitivity to the fine distinctions of forms of clothing and his sensory delight in evoking the tactile and visual pleasures of clothing mark him as quite a talent when, as readers, we are witness to the rare, unedited examples of his work. This passage on ‘Aprons’ is particularly evocative. In a few lines, concealment, defence, injury, roguery are invoked; the juxtaposition of high-born housewives in silk with half-naked blacksmiths in leather hide prefigures any number of later texts with its suggestions of sexual fetishism. Faiers notes the direct satirical bent here in writing that ‘Carlyle treats his readers to such vestimentary delights as his account of aprons, episcopal, military and legal and then uses the garment to launch an attack on the authority of journalism’ (2016a: 26).

The Editor finds a subsequent chapter, ‘Miscellaneous-Historical’, more to his satisfaction: ‘Happier is our Professor, and more purely scientific and historic, when he reaches the Middle Ages in Europe; and down to the end of the Seventeenth Century; the true era of extravagance in Costume’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 36). Teufelsdröckh reminds us that what we find charming in fashion is subject to change. Teufelsdröckh writes: ‘Did we behold the German fashionable dress of the Fifteenth Century; we might smile; as perhaps those bygone Germans, were they to rise again, and see our haberdashery, would cross themselves and invoke the Virgin’ (36). Thankfully for Teufelsdröckh, death intercedes to save us the embarrassment of being laughed at by ~ !173 ~ our ancestors: ‘But happily no bygone German, or man, rises again; thus the Present is not needlessly trammelled with the Past; and only grows out of it... in Clothes, as in all other external things whatsoever, no fashion will continue’ (37).

Teufelsdröckh gives examples of the competitive nature of men’s and women’s fashions from this era – the former affecting ‘a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that when a man walks, it is with continual jingling’, the latter preferring enormous trains borne by little boys: ‘Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman!’ (2000 [1836]: 37). Teufelsdröckh concludes of this fashionable display ‘Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the art of Decoration; and as usual the stronger carries it’ (38). (He tactfully declines to indicate which sex is in fact the stronger). In this section, Teufelsdröckh’s statement that ‘no fashion will continue’ might appear obvious. Given the various overviews of fashion provided in the Introduction, what is of interest here is that changes in fashion are related directly to humour, even if it is just in the way humans are able to smile at their predecessors for their alleged lapses of taste. Fashion, perceived from any perspective other than that of the current moment, will invariably provide some kind of humorous response. It is only the temporal divide that separates past from future that temporarily halts this laughter from breaking loose.

In the chapter ‘The World Out of Clothes’ the Professor moves into the ‘Speculative- Philosophical’ dimension of his Clothes-Philosophy. Here, the Editor writes that Teufelsdröckh undertakes nothing less than to explain the ‘moral, political, even religious Influences of Clothes... to make manifest... this grand Proposition, that Man’s earthly interests “are all hooked and buttoned together, and held up, by Clothes”’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 40). Put even more boldly, for Teufelsdröckh ‘Society is founded upon Cloth’ (40). For the Professor: ‘there is something great in the moment when a man first strips himself of adventitious wrappages; and sees indeed that he is naked, and, as Swift has it, “a forked straddling animal with bandy legs”; yet also a Spirit, and unutterable Mystery of Mysteries’ (44). The realisation that something taken for granted as natural, such as the wearing of clothing, is in fact an alien state gives Teufelsdröckh insight into an important barrier that must be overcome if one is to acknowledge the importance of a Philosophy of Clothes: ~ !174 ~ Strange enough how creatures of the human-kind shut their eyes to plainest facts; and by the mere inertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, live at ease in the midst of Wonder and Terrors. But indeed man is, and was always, a blockhead and dullard; much readier to feel and digest, than to think and consider… thus let but a Rising of the Sun, let but a Creation of the World happen twice, and it ceases to be marvellous, to be noteworthy, or noticeable. Perhaps not once in a lifetime does it occur to your ordinary biped, of any country or generation, be he gold-mantled Prince or russet-jerkined Peasant, that his Vestments and his Self are not one and indivisible; that he is naked, without vestments, till he buy or steal such, and by forethought sew and button them (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 44).

Teufelsdröckh may be doubtful about the ability of your ‘ordinary biped’ to overlook the extraordinary, but he is equally alive to the everyday marvels and miracles that surround us. For him, the fact of clothing is as astounding as the rising of the sun or the creation of a world. The appropriate response to clothing is therefore a sense of wonder. Indeed, Keenan agrees that this sense of genuine wonder is crucial to Sartor Resartus, viewing it as an expression of Carlyle’s Romantic and ‘childlike’ sensibility and ‘fundamental dimension of the “innocence” of his vision’ (2001: 19). Approaching the study of clothing with this open-minded attitude is thus a vital component of the Philosophy of Clothes, and is consistent with Teufelsdröckh’s earlier caution that cause- and-effect logic possesses limited insight in explaining this astonishing phenomenon. This idea certainly has resonance for me in O’Brien’s enquiry into how ‘photographs of beautiful women’ might be mysteriously linked to supposedly more practical considerations of ‘the harvest, the weather, and global politics’ in that certain effects may not have a clear causal origin. Recall Teufelsdröckh’s cautions about ‘Cause and Effect’ thinking and its reductive limitations whereby complex phenomenon can be reduced to a ‘comfortable winter-evening entertainment’. Teufelsdröckh’s acknowledgement of the existence of ‘Wonders and Terrors’ thus resonates with my own foregrounding of the pleasure to be found in consideration of fashion, and the importance of personal experience mediated with a collective phenomenon that is essential to sociology itself. For Teufelsdröckh, open-eyed wonder is not an add-on or additional extra – it is an essential component of how the Philosophy of Clothes is constructed. Not only, then does Sartor Resartus initiate fashion studies perhaps; Teufelsdröckh’s insistence that the subject be involved in the world around them show he is an early-adopter of an involved and interpretive approach to the study of clothing.

~ !175 ~ However, Teufelsdröckh’s awareness of humanity’s blindness to the obvious does not mean that he is so naive as to believe that humanity could return to an Edenic harmony by divesting itself of clothes altogether. The Editor dispels the impression that Teufelsdröckh may be an ‘Adamite’ – a person who, like the Biblical first man, would shuck off all clothing and go about his business stark naked (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 45). Indeed, the Professor is sensitive to the power relations generated through the act of wearing clothing, and the way that even subtle changes in appearance can create a gulf between one person and the next. The Editor excerpts the following parable to explore this idea and its consequences:

You see two individuals… one dressed in fine Red, the other in coarse threadbare Blue: Red says to Blue, ‘Be hanged and anatomised’; Blue hears with a shudder... marches sorrowfully to the gallows; is there noosed up, vibrates his hour… How is this; or what make ye of your Nothing can act but where it is?… Red has no physical hold of Blue, no clutch of him, is nowise in contact with him... Nevertheless, as it is spoken, so it is done: the articulated Word sets all hands in Action (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 46-47).

That one man will be sentenced to die and then be executed on the word of another based on the colour of their raiments is proof for the Professor that the wearing of clothes is the means by which an individual is connected to all humanity: ‘Has not your Red, hanging individual, a horsehair wig, squirrel skins, and a plush gown; whereby all mortals know that he is JUDGE? – Society, which the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon Cloth’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 47). In other words, the social fact of clothing – its ubiquity and inescapable power – is not merely a comic turn, but a pressing question of life and death. Here, Die Kleider is revealed to be not just a descriptive, frivolous and frippery-laden taxonomic Orbis Vestitus concerned with the specificities of fardingdales and so forth, but a sophisticated theory of social relations. The arbitrariness of the colours worn by participants in this drama – the Judge wears Red, the hanged man Blue – is also a pointer to the semiotic ease with which social roles can be manipulated via apparently minor changes in clothing.

Teufelsdröckh’s Philosophy thus neatly anticipates fashion studies’ own fascination with semiology in a compact and concise manner. As Malcolm Barnard notes, ‘What Red and Blue are wearing… produces their positions of relative power and authority… this is a completely different claim to the claim that positions of relative power and

~ !176 ~ authority or status are merely reflected by clothing’ (1996: 48; emphases added). And yet, as the Editor states, Teufelsdröckh is no naive Adamite: the alternative to a society founded upon cloth is an even more frightening and forbidding prospect – a dystopia sans clothing where social bonds dissolve and chaos reigns. Teufelsdröckh imagines convocations of high society suddenly defrocked: what if ‘the Clothes fly off the whole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed presence itself, every mother’s son of them, stand straddling there, not a shirt on them’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 47)? Teufelsdröckh ponders the possible result ‘should the buttons all simultaneously start, and the solid wool evaporate… Lives the man that can figure a naked [politician] addressing a naked House of Lords?’ (48). As the clothes melt away, so would the trappings of power: ‘the whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police and Civilised Society, are dissolved, in wails and howls’ (48). Here, once again, a non-serious image – that of the nation’s politicians defrocked and exposed – is used to demonstrate a serious idea – that the sartorial trappings of power are in themselves quite arbitrary, and yet, powerfully effective. This idea echoes the former configuration of the semiotics of clothing as simultaneously trivial, in their individual forms, and yet tremendously potent in producing a collective social effect.

However, despite the se insights, as Book One draws to a close, the Editor remains frustrated by the ambiguities and ambivalences of Teufelsdröckh’s prose: ‘Nothing that he sees… has more than a common meaning, but has two meanings… in the highest Imperial Sceptre… as well as in the poorest… Gipsy-Blanket, he finds Prose, Decay, Contemptibility; there is in each sort Poetry also, and a reverend Worth’ (2000 [1836]: 51). Nevertheless, the Editor remains confident in the ability of the Clothes-Philosophy to open unseen vistas of wisdom, quoting with approval Teufelsdröckh’s maxim that opens this thesis – that ‘The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes’ (51).

5.4 Contribution of Sartor Resartus to contemporary fashion studies

In summary, Teufelsdröckh’s Philosophy establishes clothing as a central and evolving concern of humanity’s existence. It rejects anthropological motives as the grounding explanation for our affinity to clothing. It prioritises wonder and curiosity as the appropriate response to everyday phenomena. It contains an incipient theory of ~ !177 ~ semiotics and recognises the power relations codified by the supposedly arbitrary relations between sign and signifier. While Teufelsdröckh’s Philosophy is presented in a somewhat ramshackle and fragmented manner, nonetheless, the insights that Teufelsdröckh provides have been recognised within fashion studies as being significant in the study of dress and clothing. Indeed, Teufelsdröckh’s musings presage insights that would later be claimed by fashion studies. Given the obvious importance of this text, why has it not proved a more prominent source of inspiration in thinking about fashion? Why hasn’t the ‘Carlylean paradigm’ emerged as a key principle underpinning fashion studies? Furthermore, might it still be possible to derive further insights from the ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ beyond those I have already identified? In considering how an idea of a sociology of wit comprised of surprise and seduction might contribute to answers to these questions, I will first review the overall positioning of the text within the field of contemporary fashion studies.

Keenan and Carter agree that Sartor Resartus is a vital text in the initiation of fashion studies as a discipline. Keenan, for example, describes Sartor Resartus as providing the basis of a ‘Carlylean paradigm’ for the study of dress, one that emphasises certain areas of interest and thematic concerns (2001: 15). For Keenan, the fundamental premise of this paradigm is that ‘dress matters and is significant within human experience, cultures and societies in the everyday and ceremonial lives of individuals and groups’ (15). Indeed, ‘clothes reflect and symbolise traditions, values, ideologies and emotional states and can be understood by both scientific and artistic means’ (15). This paradigm includes an eclectic range of interests such as ‘interdisciplinary work ranging across anthropology, theology, history of civilisations, philosophy and ethics’ – in other words, the interdisciplinary interests that define fashion studies itself (9). Carter’s identification of the ‘Architectural Idea’ or style as a ‘manifesto for the study of dress’ is broadly similar to the description of Keenan’s paradigm. For Carter, not only is Carlyle ‘the first in a line of thinkers that might add up to a tradition’ (2003: xi); Sartor Resartus is the ‘founding text for the emergence of the serious and organised study of clothing’ (14).

And yet, Keenan and Carter, despite their clear intentions to celebrate Carlyle’s work, have failed to spark much further engagement with this masterful text. Both Keenan and Carter possess different perspectives on the specific abilities and limitations of the book ~ !178 ~ – Keenan in particular focuses far more on socially symbolic readings of the importance of clothing than does Carter8. However, they are in broad agreement that the text should excite greater interest amongst practitioners of fashion studies than it currently does. And yet a flurry of work that celebrates Sartor Resartus within fashion studies has, as yet, failed to materialise.

Indeed, despite the cases that Keenan and Carter put forward in promoting the importance of Sartor Resartus, their attempt to reinvigorate fashion studies with a Carlylean twist has not been championed by any successors. For example, in the years since their respective calls to action, a review of citations to Sartor Resartus within the leading journal Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture shows scant signs of a revival of Carlyle. Those references that can be found centre around a review of Carter’s book (Pine 2004), a different paper by Carter (2012) which explores the connections between fashion and nature, and an amusing quick reference by Judith Clark who claims the fashion legend Anna Piaggi as ‘my Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, providing found fragments of stories about stories about fashion’ (2006: 265). Resolving this puzzle requires a closer examination of how Keenan and Carter frame their arguments about the importance of Sartor Resartus.

This peculiarity may be noted insofar as even as editor of a tome dedicated to the ‘Carlylean paradigm’, Keenan admits that none of the other authors in his own volume Dressed to Impress: Looking the Part ‘explicitly’ mention Carlyle at all (2001: 2). Keenan promulgates the disingenuous view that we are influenced by Carlyle whether we know it or not, proclaiming with his own touch of Teufelsdröckhian grandiloquence that as practitioners of fashion studies, in some way ‘we are all “Carlyleans” now’ (14). While the phrase possesses a certain absurdist inevitability – how do you argue that you are not a member of a club that you don’t even know exists? – this is not a persuasive explanation of Carlyle’s persistence on the margins. Rather, it seems to me that Keenan and Carter have failed in their stated task to ignite the enthusiasm of practitioners of fashion studies for Sartor Resartus.

8 For an example of this kind of approach, see for example Keenan’s discussion of the work of Bourdieu in terms of the symbolic power of taste (2001: 32). ~ !179 ~ This lacuna in the literature may be attributed to (at least) three reasons. First of all, Sartor Resartus has been more often aligned with literary studies rather than fashion studies. For this reason, it may be overlooked by such as sociology which possess a different focus. Secondly, the innate – and deliberate – complexity of the text may be a barrier to entry to scholars who prefer clear-cut texts structured around a central thesis. The third reason speaks to the central contention of this thesis – that academic analyses that consider themselves serious are off-put by the deliberately humorous, witty and non-serious tone of Carlyle’s text.

For example, both Keenan and Carter position Sartor Resartus as an historical object rather than a living text which might still contain the possibility of providing original insights into fashion. In identifying Carlyle as the founder of a tradition of ‘fashion classics’, to use Carter’s phrase, Keenan and Carter view the project of Sartor Resartus as in some sense complete. Both authors make a strong case that the book anticipates an interdisciplinary ‘fashion studies’, but only insofar as an already existing knowledge about clothing and fashion is confirmed. That is, they see Sartor Resartus as retrospectively confirming certain agreed truths about fashion studies – for example, the rejection of anthropological motives as the reason for the adoption of clothing – but overlook other aspects of the text which, I will argue shortly, might continue to provide inspiration.

This is clear in Carter’s text, where the project of establishing a tradition of ‘fashion classics’ itself begins chronologically with Sartor Resartus. Carter’s historically linear account of fashion classics has a clear narrative of intellectual progress. He begins with Carlyle, moves on to Spencer, Veblen, Simmel, and finishes with Barthes as the culmination of this story of evolving thought. His language is revealing in this regard: when claiming Carlyle’s ‘Architectural Idea’ as a synonym for style, Carter writes that the text ‘could stand as a manifesto for the study of dress almost up until the present day’ (2003: 9; emphasis added). The implication is clear: at a certain historical moment, the influence of Sartor Resartus ceases. This reading may very well arise as structural limitation of Carter’s project to establish a clear narrative of the development of ideas about clothing and dress. However, it has the effect of positioning Sartor Resartus at the

~ !180 ~ beginning of a tradition that ends in Barthes, rather than one which might be alive today to productively exchange ideas with Barthes (or indeed, with anyone else).

Similarly, Keenan’s repeated insistence that Carlyle is the ‘Founder’ of fashion studies – he uses the phrase ‘founder’, ‘foundation’ or ‘founding text’ no less than seven times in three paragraphs (2001: 2-4) – has the rhetorical effect of locating Sartor Resartus in the distant past. Keenan’s zealous praise of Carlyle is overtly worshipful. He sees it as his mission to ‘rescue a giant from the risk of oblivion’ (5); he writes that fashion studies must ‘pay belated homage to Carlyle as Founder’ (6); and he states that it ‘behoves those who stand on giants’ shoulders to honour ancestral debts’ (8). Although Keenan writes that we should not treat Sartor Resartus as a ‘flawless sacred text beyond criticism’ (30), the religious flavour of his language makes it clear that this is exactly how we should approach the book. His elaborate celebrations of Carlyle thus take on the quality of a eulogy for the dead rather than a manifesto for the living.

In positioning Carlyle’s text as belonging to a now-distant historical moment, Keenan and Carter overlook the ways in which this striking and distinctive text can continue to surprise and excite us. In particular, they ignore the ‘joke’ that I suggested in the Introduction to this chapter underpins the entirety of Sartor Resartus – that something akin to a ‘Philosophy’ can be derived, by Teufelsdröckh, from a study of clothing. Yet to me, this idea suggests not only that satire is intimately bound with the subject matter of clothing in Sartor Resartus, but that humour itself might well provide a rich source of inspiration. It is, after all, the laughter that the book generates that contributes to its living appeal. Indeed, this is the primary lesson indicated by the Editor’s own recognition of Teufelsdröckh’s hearty mirth. Recall the ‘loud, long-continuing, uncontrollable’ laughter of our dear Professor in to a quip lost to history; his laugh was composed ‘not of the face and diaphragm only, but of the whole man from head to heel’ (1987 [1836]: 26). As Teufelsdröckh’s Editor indicates in praising the Professor, ‘no man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad... The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils’.

Teufelsdröckh’s laughter once again reminds us of the importance of humour as a pertinent factor in thinking about the properties of clothing itself. The failure by Keenan ~ !181 ~ and Carter to explicitly engage with the humorous aspects of Sartor Resartus is an oversight that, given my own concerns in this thesis, suggests to me that this is one of the reasons why their readers have failed to take up further Carlylean-inflected work within fashion studies. While Keenan and Carter acknowledge the stylistic complexities of the text – Keenan acknowledges that Carlyle’s manner of address is ‘ironic, playful, metaphysical, humorous and pluralistic’ (2001: 18), and Carter notes that the text is not a regular work of fiction but a ‘drama of ideas’ which adopts ‘oblique approaches such as satire, caricature and irony’ (2003: 2) – their exegesis ultimately demonstrates a train of thought that separates Carlyle’s mode of the delivery of his message via the figure of Teufelsdröckh can be neatly separated from Carlyle’s own authorial intent.

This is particularly evident in their juxtaposition of the text’s ‘serious’ insights against its humorous qualities. Keenan writes that ‘serious writers on dress stray far at their peril from the Carlylean emphases on “individuality”, “distinction” and “social polity”’ (2001: 23), and that ‘wordplay… should not occlude the serious sociological import of his project to comprehend the human condition through dress’ (25). He makes a further distinction between ‘Carlyle’s nineteenth century literary and discursive approach’ with its ‘arcane asides and esoteric excuses’ and the ‘intellectual substance of his work’ (11). Carter is a little more careful in his phrasing, but even so, he writes that ‘It may seem a perverse decision to start these studies with a text where it is not even clear whether the author is serious about what he is saying in regard to clothes’ (2003: 14; emphasis added). While he acknowledges the power of Carlyle’s ‘luxuriant analogy’ (15) as it pertains to reinvigorating a metaphor of clothing, this luxury takes the form of an excess that can be separated from the content it accompanies.

However, for me, the most striking and obvious aspect of the text – its existence as a humorous and playful satire – is the very aspect that might inspire ongoing enthusiasm for the study of clothing. To play the Devil’s advocate, one might say, to Professor Devil’s-Shit, attempts such as those by Keenan and Carter to retrofit Teufelsdröckh’s mad ramblings with ‘serious’ ideas overlook the fact that the text’s humorous quality is essential in generating these insights. The satire of Sartor Resartus gives the text its power, force and appeal through its powerful language, playful tone and desire to amuse. This is not mere ‘wordplay’ as Keenan characterises it, or some kind of verbal ~ ! ~182 luxury, as Carter indicates. How, then, might humour help us generate further insights into fashion studies? Specifically, how might a sociology of wit as composed by the ideas of surprise and seduction assist in understanding this complex and compelling text?

Answering these questions requires a re-examination of some of the novel ideas that Teufelsdröckh produces, refracted specifically through the lens of a sociology of wit. I will provide four examples from Sartor Resartus that not only provide an intellectual creative insight – as is the wont of surprise – but also challenges conventional understandings of how we perceive the world, as per the charms of seduction.

I begin with Teufelsdröckh’s desire to establish clothing as a central concern of human existence. This idea is exemplified in the quotation that opens this thesis, ‘The beginning of all Wisdom is to look fixedly on Clothes’. The claim that all wisdom might be found through staring with single-minded purpose at this prosaic object is, like the idea of a ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ itself, quite a grandiose notion. And yet, in making such a grand claim, Teufelsdröckh adopts a strategy of humorous hyperbole to sharpen his point. Here, his declaration confronts the reader with an idea that, on its face, appears inherently ridiculous. Furthermore, through his claim that cloth is the great ‘vestural Tissue’ that binds us all in one ‘great vital system of Immensity’, Teufelsdröckh presents the reader with an idea that, argued through conventional logic, might instantly be dismissed as outrageous. But by making a deliberately outré declaration, a seed of doubt is planted in the reader’s mind that Teufelsdröckh could be entirely mistaken. Although the boldness of the initial claim may be rejected, the notion that clothing possesses greater importance than previously assumed is nonetheless introduced into the reader’s mind. Your ‘ordinary biped’ is thus confronted with the idea that clothing, like ‘the Creation of a World’ itself, is perhaps more involved than the ‘the cooking of a Dumpling’. Through the strategy of humorous hyperbole, Sartor Resartus contains the potential – like Teufelsdröckh’s grand work itself – to open ‘new mine- shafts’ in thought. In terms of the aim of surprise and seduction, to simultaneously generate creative insights and question the assumptions of the status quo, we can see that Sartor Resartus is deliberately using humour to challenge preconceived ideas about the social importance of clothing and fashion. This is not only a novel idea, it is also ~ !183 ~ prods at conventional thinking that places clothing as unimportant and easily overlooked among under grander philosophic traditions – whether they be British empiricism or Teutonic transcendentalism.

Next, consider how Teufelsdröckh frames his argument that explanations of modesty and adornment are insufficient to explain the primal adoption of clothing. Teufelsdröckh’s claim here is that ‘The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is Decoration’. Once again, this is a notion that appears so prima facie ridiculous that its sheer absurdity might stick in the mind, spurring further thought. But an additional strategy is used to to clarify and sharpen the impact of Teufelsdröckh’s emphatic and unusual epigram. To support Teufelsdröckh’s contention that ‘Decoration’ is the overwhelming human urge, our good Professor considers competing claims about the innate property that distinguishes people from other living creatures. Teufelsdröckh first contemplates the argument that man is separable from other members of the animal kingdom through his status as a ‘Laughing Animal’. Teufelsdröckh rejects this explanation because, as he puts it, ‘the apes also laugh, or attempt to do it’ (1987 [1836]: 32).

Having rejected laughter, Teufelsdröckh next considers humanity’s other supposedly distinctive quality and, in doing so, provides one of the wittiest jokes – at least in this reader’s opinion – in the book. In dismissing the characterisation of man as distinct from other creatures within God’s kingdom as a ‘Cooking Animal’, Teufelsdröckh ponders: ‘Can a Tartar be said to cook, when he only readies his steak by riding on it?’ (32). The pun on the nomadic Eurasian people and the dish of raw steak is rendered vividly through an image of Tartars tenderising their meat through the buttock-bouncing activity of vigorous horse-riding. By making mock of the ideas of laughter and cooking as defining human distinctiveness, Teufelsdröckh himself tenderises the reader – so to speak – to accept the idea that man is, as we have discussed earlier, in fact a ‘Tool- using’ animal; however, that ‘Decoration’ itself might properly be regarded as the very first tool of man.

Again, the ideas of surprise and seduction are paramount here. It is not only an unexpected reversal to place ‘Decoration’ as a spiritual imperative, but also to claim that ~ !184 ~ this is the original quest for mankind. This is certainly a challenge to the traditional positions of anthropology and sociology about the utility of clothing and fashion as a mere lacquer overlaying the ‘reality’ of the human body itself. While of course the direction of sociology has developed in the meantime, particularly in reference to the phenomenological experience of fashion itself – see, for example, Enwhistle (2015), the acknowledged expert on fashion and the body – this is quite a striking claim to be made in 1836. It is a direct questioning of the idea that fashion is ‘futile’ in the terms described by Veblen, an idea that I will elaborate in extended detail in my discussion of variegated forms of conspicuous consumption in the next chapter. Furthermore, this idea of the primacy of decoration is not only surprising, it is seductive. It lingers in the mind as a seed that contains all manner of exciting and provocative possibilities. For example, is the urge for decoration in so-called ‘barbarous’ man merely a synonym for the thirst for fashion, despite the historical narrative that places fashion’s origin in the mid- medieval period? What, indeed, is the line between clothing and fashion if they both arise as phenomena motivated by a decorative impulse? To answer these questions might require the production of individual theses in themselves; here I merely wish to indicate the intriguing possibilities that the surprising and seductive wit that Sartor Resartus generates.

Further consider how humour acts to emphasise Teufelsdröckh’s related insistence that wonder is the correct state of mind to adopt when considering this fascinating phenomenon. Recall the Professor’s dismissal of a Montesquieu-influenced ‘Spirit of Clothes’; Teufelsdröckh rejects the thinking that a persuasive overview of clothing could be settled in a matter of hours. Instead, as we have seen, for Teufelsdröckh intuition and open-mindedness are the correct attitudes to adopt. How does Teufelsdröckh position wonder as a possibly appropriate response to the phenomenon of clothing? The comedic technique at work here is to contrast the paucity of thought given to the matter by armchair philosophers, cosying by their winter firesides, with the dazzling variety, excess and strangeness of Teufelsdröckh’s Orbis Vestitus. Teufelsdröckh’s love of language and obscure terminology is on clear display throughout the text. His sprawling invocation of ‘phylacteries, stoles, albs; chlamides, togas, Chinese silks, Afghaun shawls, trunk hose, leather breeches, Celtic philibegs... Hussar cloaks, Vandyke tippets, ruffs, fardingales… even the Kilmarnock nightcap’ ~ !185 ~ stick in the mind, as does his description of women’s fashion of the fifteenth century, which required small boys to carry elaborate and heavy trains. As he writes, these women are ‘Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman!’.

Within Teufelsdröckh’s Orbis, differences cascade cacophonously. Sheer volume dazzles; peculiar possibilities excite awe. Teufelsdröckh possesses a deft ability to make any one of these an item of wonder. For example, let us return to the passage on ‘Aprons’ that the Editor maligns. Here the Professor elevates the mundane to the marvellous through a few choice phrases. Beyond the boring utility of ‘cleanliness’, ‘safety’ and ‘modesty’, Teufelsdröckh contrasts the lingerie-style ‘thin slip of notched silk’ that ‘some highest-bred housewife’ wears with the blacksmith’s ‘jingling sheet-iron Aprons, wherein your otherwise half-naked Vulcans hammer and smelt’. Frissons of fetishism are palpable in this compact description, emphasised by the sexual and class tensions economically evoked. In erotic terms, of course, aprons cover the chest and genitals while leaving the possibility of the naked body underneath. Teufelsdröckh’s supposedly high-minded question – ‘How much has been concealed, how much has been defended in Aprons?’ – is in fact slyly suggestive.

Here, the apron becomes the locus of unexpected possibilities. Once again, the revelatory aspects of surprise and seduction are foregrounded. The wit found in Teufelsdröckh’s extraordinary Orbis thus reveals clothing as capable of generating endless wondrous surprises and alluring seductions. Who, after all, would consider the mundane and quotidian garment of the apron as anything beyond a garment of practical utility? Yet Teufelsdröckh is able, in a few short sentences, to sketch a compelling taxonomy of supposedly ordinary ‘aprons’ that encompasses female and male sexuality and desire. This characterisation of aprons not only surprises; it seduces through a sensory invocation of sleek, silky lingerie or the pungent musk of the ‘half-naked’ working-class labourer hammering away. Teufelsdröckh has somewhat of an obsession with half-naked males in their ‘natural fell’. For example, he is also intrigued by the uniform of the Bolivar’s Cavalry which is a twelve-foot blanket cut with a hole for the

~ !186 ~ head, under which sits a ‘mother-naked Trooper’ (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 39)9 . Indeed, the language of ‘hammering’ in this example is so explicit to barely even be a pun. Surprise mixed with (here, an overt) form of seduction; the qualities of wit once again intermingled.

Finally, we come to Teufelsdröckh’s identification of the role of semiotic signifiers in generating and maintaining power relations through clothing. Carlyle here deploys the familiar comic image of the incongruous nude. Given the rich tradition of this idea, the description of suddenly defrocked judges and Members of Parliament bereft of their robes of office is clearly intended to amuse. Teufelsdröckh presents a stark (naked) vision of a society where ‘the Clothes fly off the whole dramatic corps; and Dukes, Grandees, Bishops, Generals, Anointed presence itself, every mother’s son of them, stand straddling there, not a shirt on them’. As the clothes melt away, so do the trappings of power; ‘the whole fabric of Government, Legislation, Property, Police and Civilised Society, are dissolved, in wails and howls’. Teufelsdröckh’s question here – ‘Lives the man that can figure a naked [politician] addressing a naked House of Lords?’ – invites us to imagine the anatomical details of these figures of power with a clarity that most, perhaps, would prefer to avoid thinking about. But this comic image also supports Carlyle’s insight that semiotic differences can possess a potent influence over life and death. Without clothes, after all, how is one to tell the difference between the ‘Red, hanging’ judge and the hapless ‘Blue’ prisoner?

In this final example, we can see how the ideas of surprise and seduction characteristic of a sociology of wit once again bring into relief Teufelsdröckh’s larger point about the ways in which signifiers of clothing create and maintain power relations within different stratums of power. The surprise – here to configure the entire British Parliament as naked and exposed – may not seem immediately seductive; but the reminder, once again of the power relations at work in different hierarchies seems designed to challenge the lacquer of natural entitlement that constitutes this naked Parliament. Let us not forget Teufelsdröckh’s innovation of the quote from Swift that the human creature is, when reduced to essentials, ‘a forked straddling animal with bandy legs’.

9 For a discussion of the development of fetishism as a concept in fashion, see Valerie Steele’s Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power (1996). ~ ! ~187 In providing the above examples, I have shown how the insights to be found in Sartor Resartus are presented through the witty strategies of humorous hyperbole, making mock, the extraordinary ‘Orbis’, and the incongruous nude. Furthermore, I have highlighted how the concepts of surprise and seduction found within a sociology of wit are expressed in this discussion. It seems to me that the lack of appreciation of the text that is put to the forefront by Keenan (2001) and Carter (2003) is because of the fact that humour is overlooked in these studies. Not only that, the inability of Keenan and Carter to recognise that humour – or as I have formulated it throughout this thesis, a sociology of wit – has resulted in a crucial text being overlooked in fashion studies. Chapters Six and Seven will address this gap in quite different contexts. Before explaining the rationale of the next two chapters, in my concluding remarks to this chapter, I will finally consider how to move from the Philosophy of Clothes to a consideration of the wit of fashion as it may be found in the contemporary study of fashion.

5.5 Conclusion

As Teufelsdröckh’s Editor reminds us, ‘real Humour… [is one of the] the very highest qualities of genius’. In focussing on the Sartor Resartus’ ‘founding’ status and by disregarding those qualities that make it the unique inspiration for fashion studies that it is – the surprising and seductive aspects of its potent wit – Keenan and Carter overlook the potential for further unexpected insights and profound delights that Sartor Resartus offers. This is perhaps one reason that their project of establishing a ‘Carlylean paradigm’ has failed to inspire a renaissance in fashion studies of a consideration of this text. Just as Teufelsdröckh’s unique personality is indivisible from his startling Philosophy of Clothes, in this bridging chapter I have argued that so too are the insights of Sartor Resartus indivisible from the humour by which they are clarified and sharpened. As a founding text for fashion studies, it is indeed striking that the key characteristic of the text – humour itself – has been overlooked as a methodological approach.

~ !188 ~ Having provided some insight into this issue in this chapter, I now move to the second part of this thesis in explicating, via empirical examples, of how an idea of wit can inform contemporary fashion studies. In doing so, I will rely on certain key classic fashion texts. The next chapter will discuss Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption and recontextualise it as a form of conspicuous wit, as evidenced by the proliferation of humorous designs in the work of Alessandro Michele for Gucci, and Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga. The second chapter in this section will reconfigure Barthes’ singular fashion system via a more thorough idea of wit to show how humorous fashion systems proliferate in the idea of postfashion invoked in the Literature Review. The specific empirical site here will be the work of the house of Viktor & Rolf. I will continue to discuss the iconic Gaultier camouflage couture creation in these contexts; O’Brien’s epigram – ‘Who can say that these photographs of beautiful women don’t mysteriously affect the harvest, the weather, and global politics?’ – will also figure in greater prominence as I move toward the Conclusion of this thesis.

~ ! ~189 Chapter Six

Wit and Contemporary Fashion Studies, Part One: Veblen and the Conspicuous Wit of Gucci, Vetements and Balenciaga

6.1 Introduction

I now move to the second part of this thesis to explicate, via theoretical treatment of key thinkers and empirical examples, the manner by which the sociology of wit might productively inform contemporary fashion studies. As I have indicated, the first of these chapters will consider wit’s contribution in relation to Thorstein Veblen’s influential theory of conspicuous consumption, outlined in his classic text, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1998) [1899]. As discussed in the Introduction and Literature Review of this thesis, Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption is the idea that ostentatious displays of luxury goods serve to mark and reinforce distinctions between social groups. For Veblen, expensive clothing provides a special example of conspicuous consumption due to its unavoidable visibility – it is worn on the body, clearly displayed, and further exhibits the requirement of constant change in styles identified in classic definitions of fashion such as that Elizabeth Wilson’s comment that ‘Fashion is dress in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles. Fashion, in a sense, is change’ (1985: 3).

In this chapter, I will examine Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption as it relates to fashion in clothing in order to support my position that the sociology of wit might insightfully inform contemporary complexions of fashion. I will begin by noting that Veblen’s influential theory retains remarkable prominence today. For example, Wilson notes that not only has the idea of conspicuous consumption ‘continued to dominate discussions of dress by a variety of writers in the fashion history field… [it has] also influenced… supposedly “radical” critics of “consumer culture”’ (1985: 53). Malcolm Barnard writes that Veblen’s account remains helpful in explaining ‘how fashion and clothing may be used to indicate social position’ (1996: 36). Joanne Entwhistle agrees

~ !190 ~ that Veblen’s book, although problematic in parts, is ‘a good example of an early sociological study [of fashion] and one that is still influential today’ (2015: 60).

Furthermore, Veblen’s theory has been adapted and refined by many fashion theorists seeking to extend his analysis. To provide two examples, in On Human Finery (1976, second edition; 1947 first edition) costume historian Quentin Bell adopts Veblen’s framework in order to create a new category of conspicuous consumption – conspicuous outrage. The underlying idea here is that the strategy of conspicuous consumption may be deployed not only for the creation of distinctions in class and wealth, but also as a mark of rebellious anti-conformity that presents ideas of fashion that fly in the face of accepted societal norms. Dick Hebdige’s study of anti-establishment punk fashion in his classic work Subculture: The Meaning of Style [1984] (1979) could certainly be interpreted in these terms as an example of conspicuous outrage.

To provide a second example, Gilles Lipovetsky introduces the idea of inconspicuous consumption in his key work, The Empire of Fashion (1994) [1987]. Inconspicuous consumption refers to the idea that in the era of consummate fashion – defined in the thesis Introduction as an omnipresent logic of constant cultural change – the ascendancy of individualism as a desirable democratic value has led to ‘social and aesthetic’ innovations that ‘transcend class rivalry’ (99). The diffusion of a notion of equality means that fashion camaraderie is found in the subtle differentiations of the adoption of sports- and leisure-wear rather than through inherent markers of class. In inconspicuous consumption, the demonstration of wealth remains important, but the signs of its expression are more discreet, although not necessarily less expensive. Think, for example, of the ranges of the utilitarian designer sportswear ranges promoted by Beyonce under her Blue Ivy label, or Kanye West’s collaborations with Adidas and his own ‘Yeezy’ collections. Inconspicuous consumption may rely on subtle aesthetic variances, but these are now based on pecuniary income rather than class status.

This concept of inconspicuous consumption has been taken up by other theorists, albeit sometimes with differing nomenclature. For example, Jonathan Faiers’ (2016b) discussion of the white cotton T-shirt in the context of critical luxury studies demonstrates that a supposedly simple, unremarkable garment can be repurposed via ~ ! ~191 subtle variations of quality of material, associated designer nomenclature, and elevated price, as a form of ‘stealth luxury’ where only those ‘in the know’ can distinguish the subtle details that mark various constructions of the garment as designer fashion.

Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption is thus remarkably adaptable and can be modified in a number of different contexts. In this chapter I will theorise a further example of conspicuous consumption – conspicuous wit – that may be elaborated via the elements of surprise and seduction that are essential to the sociology of wit. This idea of conspicuous wit speaks directly to the research question of this thesis in exploring the applicability of a concept of wit in conceptualising the appeal and allure of fashion. I will perform this task by considering the empirical sites of two fashion designers who, in recent years, have been influential leaders, both aesthetically and commercially, in global fashion. These designers are often regarded as highly dissimilar given their divergent aesthetic approaches, yet they both work within a framework of the promulgation of conspicuous consumption as a characteristic of luxury fashion – and specifically, conspicuous wit.

I will first consider Alessandro Michele’s outstandingly successful vision for Gucci, a task that he undertook from 2015 onwards. Michele’s reinvention of Gucci is noted for its design ostentation, excess and willingness to play with the traditional signifiers of a luxury house [Figure 6.1], and has been commercially adopted by the broader market as a marker of his prescient approach to fashion in the twenty-first century. For example, Burberry under the direction of Riccardo Tisci (2018-) and Louis Vuitton under Virgil Abloh (2018-) have adopted a consciously exaggerated and colourful approach in incorporating streetwear into their luxury collections. Michele’s flagrant love of colour, retro, slogans, nerd culture and ’90s logomania all celebrate ideas of fun, pleasure and humour often found absent from luxury fashion.

~ !192 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.1. Gucci menswear Autumn-Winter 2016. This look features a velvet 70s style sportswear tracksuit with flared trousers, extravagant floral embroidery, geek chic oversized glasses, ornate rings and jewellery, and references to the traditional Gucci stripe through the red-and-green cuffs on the jacket. Image via businessoffashion.com, accessed 15 August 2019

I will then consider the success of Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga. Gvasalia is primarily known for his anti-fashion reappropriation of ubiquitous items of 90s mass fashion – sneakers, socks, logo T-shirts, Levis jeans, plastic shopping bags, snapback bracelets – now repurposed for a new luxury youth consumer at eye-watering designer prices. Gvasalia grew up in the Eastern bloc in the 1990s, and first came to prominence as chief designer for the design collective Vetements (which translates simply as ‘Clothing’). His minimal modification of the mass-produced items of his

~ ! ~193 childhood informed his vision for Vetements. A breakthrough item first presented in 2015 – a T-shirt printed with the DHL courier company logo – was an instant hit among fashion early adopters [Figure 6.2].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.2. Vetements’ famous DHL T-shirt, presented as part of the Spring- Summer 2015 collection, that season’s fashion must-have. Image via theguardian.com, accessed 15 August 2015.

After the meteoric rise of Vetements, Gvasalia was appointed as head designer of the storied fashion house Balenciaga, which struggled commercially since the departure of Nicolas Ghesqiére in 2012 and the subsequent appointment of Alexander Wang. Gvasalia’s blatant reworking of ’90s mass fashion sit at the opposite aesthetic spectrum from Michele, not only in the examples of garments provided above, but as a philosophy that guides the direction the houses follow. This difference can be instantly

~ ! ~194 gleaned from a comparison of the websites of both Gucci and Balenciaga as they appear at the time of writing (July 2019). Gucci’s colourful and vibrant homepage is a mash- mash of signifiers, with models engaged in laughter, excitement, and travel; versions of the Gucci logo features prominently on clothes and accessories [Figure 6.3]. In contrast, Balenciaga provides a simple black and white grid showing ‘WOMEN’, ‘MEN’ and ‘ALL’ [Figure 6.4]. Indeed, the further down the rabbit hole of Balenciaga’s web design one travels, the further these minimalist grids are replicated [Figure 6.5] – until one digs down to the level of the shopping item itself. In this case, we see a very plain white-and-black $AUD2850 lambskin bag that mirrors both the design aesthetic of the website itself, and furthermore resembles the paper shopping bag that one would typically depart the designer boutique with that contains a differing item of purchase [Figure 6.6].

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.3. Gucci website men’s homepage – a flurry of bold colour, exotic locales, accessories, pets and excess. Screenshot via gucci.com, accessed 7 July 2019.

~ ! ~195 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.4. Balenciaga’s minimalist grid homepage. Screenshot via balenciaga.com, accessed 7 July 2019.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.5. Clicking through Balenciaga’s website reveals more minimal grids. Screenshot via balenciaga.com, accessed 14 July 2019.

~ ! ~196 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.6. Balenciaga’s $AUD2850 ‘shopping bag’, Autumn/ Winter 2019, a lambskin imitation of the typical designer shopping bag. Notably the only splash of colour in the entire series of pages from the Balenciaga website is the bright green ‘Add to shopping bag’ function. Screenshot via balenciaga.com, accessed 14 July 2019.

I have selected the examples of Michele and Gvsalia precisely because these two designers – both critical and commercially successful darlings of the fashion industry at the time of writing – appeal to consumers of contemporary luxury fashion via the deliberate adoption of strategies of conspicuous wit. That is, despite their differing orientations to style, design, and marketing, the commercial and popular success of Michele for Gucci and Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga relies on their deployment of techniques of surprise and seduction essential to the sociology of wit as it has been previously described in this thesis. The examples of Michele and Gvsalia have thus been selected as their work is currently so critically and commercially successful, demonstrating the power of wit in speaking persuasively to a contemporary fashion audience. While of course there are many other examples of critical and commercial success within contemporary fashion which may also speak to wit, none have captured the zeitgeist so successfully as this pair. Indeed, Gucci, Balenciaga and Vetements have maintained places in global lists of hottest brands for several consecutive years (see, for example, Ma 2019). The aim of this chapter is thus to

~ ! ~197 demonstrate how the sociology of wit can inform understandings of these immensely successful and popular flowerings of contemporary fashion.

In performing this task, I will first provide an account of Veblen’s view of conspicuous consumption as it pertains to fashion. Here, I will also examine how Veblen’s theory of change in fashion relies on a tension between the concepts of utility and futility that he defines respectively as the use-value of clothing and the excess or frivolity of fashion. I will then demonstrate how Veblen’s classic idea of conspicuous consumption has been adapted by later theorists of fashion as a demonstration of the continuing applicability and adaptability of this important concept. In support of this argument, I will consider the work of fashion theorists such as Quentin Bell’s concept of conspicuous outrage, and Lipovetsky’s inconspicuous consumption. I will then examine empirical examples within the contemporary expression of designer fashion such as Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga to demonstrate the manner by which a concept of conspicuous wit might provide insight into the appeal and allure of fashion. Finally, I will extend this analysis to the previous examples that have featured in this thesis, such as my experience of the wit of the Gaultier camo couture, to explain why revising the concept of conspicuous consumption as a form of conspicuous wit is important for the forward trajectory of fashion studies.

6.2 Veblen, conspicuous consumption, and fashion

As noted in the Introduction to this thesis, Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class (1998) [1899] remains an influential text within interdisciplinary fashion studies. In this section I will outline Veblen’s ideas about conspicuous consumption in fashion, and their influence on later theorists of fashion, in order to contextualise their continued importance in contemporary fashion studies. While Veblen in The Theory of the Leisure Class discusses the social significance of everything from the characteristics of cats to the conferral of academic degrees in his far-reaching text, his reflections on fashion are the concern of this thesis. Indeed, Veblen is quite emphatic on the point that ‘No explanation at all satisfactory has hitherto been offered of the phenomenon of changing fashions’ (173). For Veblen, fashion is a unique phenomenon as it crosses over all of the different categories of consumption that he identifies as habitual of the leisure class, ~ !198 ~ these being conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure, and conspicuous waste. Katalin Medvedev provides a concise gloss of these concepts, writing that ‘The dress of people in this group indicated that they did not carry out strenuous manual work [conspicuous leisure], that they had enough disposable income to spend on an extensive wardrobe [conspicuous consumption], and that they were able to wear a garment only a few times before deeming it obsolete [conspicuous waste]’ (2010: 646).

While all of these concepts have been influential in the study of fashion, it is for the idea of conspicuous consumption that Veblen remains most renowned. For Veblen, a special affinity exists between fashion and conspicuous consumption. Indeed, he devotes a whole chapter of The Theory of the Leisure Class – ‘Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture’ – to the topic1. As Veblen writes, ‘no line of consumption affords a more apt illustration than expenditure on dress’ (1998 [1899]: 167). Why is this so? For Veblen, dress has a particular advantage over other methods of consumptive display on the basis that ‘our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of our pecuniary standing to all observers at the first glance’ (167). Veblen further notes that people are willing to undergo a great deal of privation in order to satisfy their desire to be fashionable. For example, in an ‘inclement climate’, it is common for ‘people to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed’ (168). That is, they are willing to forego the limitations of comfort and common-sense to adopt the form of dress that is most obviously both expensive and conspicuous. Given this behaviour, Veblen declares – in words that echo Carlyle – that ‘The need of dress is eminently a “higher” or spiritual need’ (168). That is, the desire for personal adornment in dress cannot be solely attributed to the ‘mechanical service’ provided by the function of clothing itself (168). Given this apparently spiritual dimension, what then for Veblen is the engine that drives change in fashion?

Veblen first considers whether it is possible that the aesthetic mutations of fashion might themselves be a form of cultural evolution. As Theodor Adorno (1967), Elizabeth Wilson (1985) and Michael Carter (2003, 2010) have noted, Veblen himself was

1 Veblen’s chapter builds on an earlier essay, ‘The Economic Theory of Women’s Dress’ (1894), that Nils Gilman claims contains the ‘embryonic idea’ that would develop into the general social theory of The Theory of The Leisure Class (1999: 694). See also Veblen’s biographer Joseph Dorfmann (1932: 397-398) for a more general analysis of the influence of this essay on The Theory of the Leisure Class. ~ !199 ~ influenced by the publication of Darwinist theory, and his language often adopts a pseudo-scientific tone. For Veblen, evolution is not a concept that is limited to biology, but is one which can also be applied to culture. For example, in discussing the evolution of aesthetic forms as a possible explanation for fashion’s enduring appeal, Veblen posits that ‘each successive innovation in the fashions is an effort to reach some form of display which shall be more acceptable to our sense of form and colour or of effectiveness, than that which it displaces’ (1998 [1899]: 174). However, Veblen ultimately concludes that if this quest for aesthetic improvement were a genuine evolutionary mechanism, fashion would eventually and inevitably arrive at the ‘artistic perfection’ (174) as found in the apparently static ‘national costumes’ of Japan, China, or the historical raiments of the Greeks and Romans (175). Having achieved an ultimate state of perfection, fashion would effectively stand still.

In his discussion of fashion Veblen notes that this process has not in fact occurred; modifications in fashion continue to proliferate, regardless of their particular aesthetic contributions. How then does Veblen explain the difference between societies where national dress develops and those where the logic of fashion dominates? Veblen suggests that so-called national costumes develop in ‘homogenous, stable, and immobile’ societies that are quite different from ‘large modern civilised cities, whose relatively mobile, wealthy population to-day sets the pace in matters of fashion’ (1998 [1899]: 175-176). Veblen argues that in the latter type of society – where the principle of conspicuous consumption and expensiveness of dress predominates – ‘fashions are least stable and least becoming’ (176). For Veblen, this fact points to an innate ‘antagonism’ between fashion and the evolution of ‘artistic apparel’ (176; emphasis added). Indeed, for Veblen, the very persistence of fashion as a perennial principle or cultural logic demonstrates its incompatibility with any requirement that ‘dress should be beautiful or becoming’ (176).

Having thus rejected aesthetic evolution as justification for the development of fashion, Veblen seeks another explanation for the phenomenon’s curious endurance. He commences this task by considering the specific properties that make fashion unique. Veblen writes that dress is a notable exemplar of the principle of conspicuous consumption not only because of the requirement that fashionable clothing ‘must not ~ !200 ~ only be conspicuously expensive’ but also because ‘it must at the same time be up to date’ (1998 [1899]: 173; emphasis added). Veblen thus identifies fashion’s quality of incessant change as its most pressing attribute. Hence his insistence, previously quoted, that ‘No explanation at all satisfactory has hitherto been offered of the phenomenon of changing fashions’. Veblen argues that while ‘The imperative requirement of dressing in the latest accredited manner, as well as the fact that this accredited fashion constantly changes from season to season, is sufficiently familiar to everyone… the theory of this flux and change has not been worked out’ (173). Veblen sees his task as accounting for this apparently obvious but under-theorised quality of fashion’s ‘restless change’ (176).

How does Veblen explain fluctuations in fashion within the context of his theory of conspicuous consumption? Veblen argues that fashion’s property of incessant change hinges on a tension between the use-value or utility of the practical properties of dress, and the futility of fashion. The use-value of clothing or dress demonstrates a practical beneficence to humanity; the constant novelty-seeking of fashion shows instead a tendency to uselessness and frivolity. Here, Veblen introduces his notion of waste in describing the tension between utility and futility. Veblen writes that while, in economic theory, waste is ‘expenditure [that] does not serve human life or human well-being on the whole’ (1998 [1899]: 97), it is difficult to divorce the term from its deprecatory meaning in the ‘language of every day life’ (98). In Veblen’s opinion, there is a conflict between conspicuous consumption’s requirement that ‘dress should show wasteful expenditure’ and a more general truth that ‘all wastefulness is offensive to native taste’ (176). In Veblen’s view, it is a fact of human existence that ‘all men – and women perhaps even in a higher degree2 – abhor futility, whether of effort or of expenditure, – much as Nature was once said to abhor a vacuum’ (176).

Veblen’s explanation of fashion’s quality of change thus hinges on the crucial difference between utility and futility introduced immediately above. In setting up the tension between these two concepts, Veblen reminds the reader that the principle of waste found in conspicuous consumption ‘requires an obviously futile expenditure’ that is antithetical to usefulness (1998 [1899]: 176). In the case of fashion, this futility means

2 Veblen does not justify this reasoning in any way; it remains unclear from his text why women would be privileged over men in this capacity. ~ !201 ~ that for Veblen ‘the resulting conspicuous expensiveness of dress is therefore intrinsically ugly’ (176). In a key passage, worth quoting in full, Veblen expands on this idea:

Hence we find that in all innovations in dress, each added or altered detail strives to avoid instant condemnation by showing some ostensible purpose, at the same time that the requirement of conspicuous waste prevents the purposefulness of these innovations from becoming anything more than a somewhat transparent pretense [sic]. Even in its freest flights, fashion rarely if ever gets away from a simulation of some ostensible use. The ostensible usefulness of the fashionable details of a dress, however, is always so transparent a make-believe, and their substantial futility presently forces itself so baldly upon our attention as to become unbearable, and then we take refuge in a new style. But the new style must conform to the requirement of reputable wastefulness and futility. Its futility presently becomes as odious as that of its predecessor; and the only remedy which the law of waste allows us is to seek relief in some new construction, equally futile and untenable. Hence the essential ugliness and the unceasing change of fashionable attire (1998 [1899]: 176-177)3 .

This passage invites several intriguing questions. For example, how might one distinguish between a genuine innovation in dress which serves some useful function, and the abhorrent ‘simulation’ of the same in fashion? How is it that the apparent unanimous social consensus to change odious fashions is formed at the exact same temporal moment amongst all members of a particular society? Furthermore, given that Veblen explicitly rejects aesthetics as the principle that drives the engine of change in fashion, by what criteria is he even able to determine that fashion possesses an intrinsic ‘ugliness’? These provocative questions are worthy of further theoretical interrogation in examining the assumptions the underpin Veblen’s text, and certainly provide fruitful avenues for future research. However, in the context of the pressing research question of this thesis – how wit might contribute to understanding the appeal and allure of fashion? – the relevant point to focus attention on for the present moment is the manner in which Veblen describes the characteristic quality of change in fashion as driven by an innate antagonism between the concepts of utility and futility.

As Veblen describes the situation, since so-called ‘innovations’ in fashion are a mere ‘pretense’ or ‘make-believe’, awareness of fashion’s lack of utility soon dawns on

3 In a perhaps somewhat premonitory prediction of the acceleration of the fashion cycle Veblen writes: ‘the farther the community… develop in wealth and mobility… the more imperatively will the law of conspicuous waste assert itself in matters of dress, the more will the sense of beauty tend to fall into abeyance or be overborne by the canon of pecuniary reputability, the more rapidly will fashions shift and change, and the more grotesque and intolerable will be the varying styles that successively come into vogue’ (1998 [1899]: 178). ~ ! ~202 members of the social group, and their resultant disgust at the current fashion’s newly- realised futility demands the invention of a different style. Change in fashion is thus produced through a revulsion that periodically forces people to delude themselves that they can find solace in novelty; however, the relief of this nausea is temporary, and a more desirable iteration of fashion is sought. New fashions are born, worn, and discarded; and so the cycle continues. Veblen’s theory of fashion is thus founded on the notion of a desire for utility in dress and clothing which is pitted against the antithetical, ‘abhorrent’ futility of fashion itself. For Veblen, the constant changes in style characteristic of fashion are inevitably produced by this duelling antagonism between conspicuous consumption’s requirement for futility and humanity’s inherent propensity for satisfying utility.

Veblen’s idea of the tension underpinning the distinction between utility and futility in his discussion of conspicuous consumption has not been without criticism. For example, Wilson and Theodor Adorno connect Veblen’s conceptualisation of utility and futility directly to questions of aesthetics and pleasure. In Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, Wilson emphasises the idea that the tension of utility and futility in Veblen’s work orients the subject against the potential pleasures of fashion. She writes that, for Veblen, ‘the stylistic oddities of fashion were manifestly futile… the motor force of fashion was a wish, forever frustrated, finally to escape the tyranny of irrational change and perpetual ugliness’ (1985: 52). Wilson argues that: ‘In Veblen’s ideal world there was no place for the irrational or the non-utilitarian; it was a wholly rational realm. Logically, pleasure itself must be futile since it is unrelated to scientific progress’ (52-53). Veblen’s privileging of scientific rationality over aesthetics and pleasure explains why, in Wilson’s view, he ‘hated’ apparently irrational phenomena such as organised sport and fashion (53), and was motivated to attack them in The Theory of the Leisure Class. Wilson’s description of Veblen’s impatience with irrational pleasures speaks to a concern also shared by Adorno. In the essay ‘Veblen’s Attack on Culture’ (1967), Adorno takes Veblen to task for his pessimistic views of human activity. Adorno argues that ‘The concepts of the useful and the useless presupposed in [Veblen’s] thinking are not subjected to analysis… [he] glaringly illuminates the unreason of reason [but] fails to grasp the interdependence of the useful and the useless’ (1967: 84). In writing that Veblen illuminates ‘the unreason of reason’, Adorno is ~ !203 ~ suggesting that Veblen’s particular flavour of rationality might itself be regarded, from other perspectives, as itself irrational.

I could add my own list of concerns to the above concerns by Wilson and Adorno. In characterising fashion as driven by an antagonism between utility and futility, Veblen’s theory provokes several questions. Firstly, it naturalises loathing as the appropriate response to fashion. Veblen’s idealised human subject is, from its inception, antithetical to so-called futility. In Veblen’s account, this antipathy persists throughout the historical evolution of different types of culture, up until the present day. Furthermore, within the study of fashion, theories of conspicuous consumption that rely on Veblen’s account reinscribe a binary logic that favours utility over futility. A flow-on effect of this logic is that it treats fashion as in itself conceptually unimportant, a secondary result that does not intersect with more pressing global concerns and politics – a theme discussed in the Introduction to this thesis. For Veblen, fashion seems to exist only as an expression of his theory of conspicuous consumption; aesthetics and pleasure are at best fictions, and at worst delusions. This characterisation of course is antithetical to my commitment to celebrating the positive pleasures and fun to be found in fashion.

In terms of the pressing concern of this thesis to investigate the possibility that a sociology of wit comprised of surprise and seduction might fruitfully contribute to an understanding of the appeal and allure of fashion, Veblen’s definition of fashion as rhythmic changes in clothing styles generated by the principles of utility and futility nonetheless remain an important site of investigation. The possibility that this definition of fashion as it might intersect with the idea of wit as I have defined it opens up several questions. For example, could it be that a theory of the wit of fashion might be arranged along the boundaries of utility and futility that Veblen identifies? What possibilities and limitations might such a theory of wit and fashion provide?

In the discussion that immediately follows, I will first show how Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption has been adopted by other theorists to demonstrate the flexibility of this idea, and its applicability to contemporary fashion. I will then expand the empirical examples of Michele for Gucci and Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga to demonstrate how an idea of conspicuous wit may function in dialogue ~ !204 ~ with Veblen’s own notion of conspicuous consumption in a manner that provides exciting inspiration for further investigations into contemporary fashion.

6.3 Conspicuous consumption and fashion studies – conspicuous outrage and inconspicuous consumption

Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption remains remarkably adaptable in the context of fashion theory. The two examples I will introduce here discuss how Veblen’s ideas continue to influence the study of fashion. These examples are quite different in orientation and temporality. These are Quentin Bell’s adaptation of the idea of conspicuous consumption to his own theory of conspicuous outrage in On Human Finery (second edition, 1976), and Gilles Lipovetsky’s identification of inconspicuous consumption found in The Empire of Fashion (1994) [1987]. In On Human Finery Quentin Bell is concerned with explaining fashion’s aesthetic pervasiveness and societal influence. To Veblen’s schema of conspicuous consumption, conspicuous leisure and conspicuous waste, Bell introduces a ‘fourth category’ which he calls ‘Conspicuous Outrage’ (1976: 29). He writes:

In every generation there are probably a few individuals who ride out ahead of the fashion, gladly offering themselves as targets for censure and bravely defying the censors… But more usually it is left to a few individuals, the ‘forlorn hope’ of the avant-garde, to challenge the proprieties… It is the note of defiance which distinguishes this kind of social attitude, a kind of aggressive non-conformity which may result in a kind of dress which is simply eccentric or… simply carries the fashion to a logical conclusion which most people would find unacceptable’ (1976: 44).

For Bell, conspicuous outrage hinges on the challenge that fashion may be able to issue to the morality of the time – particularly sexual morality. These outrageous fashions may adopt seemingly ‘scandalously permissive’ (1976: 44) forms, such as the exposure of female breasts through low-cut dresses or other types of nudity. This ‘affront upon modesty’ (46) that conspicuous outrage provokes fluctuates in different contexts, as Bell acknowledges. For example, at a certain moment in English society to be hatless was a disturbing omission, although it no longer troubles us now. However, the primary identifying characteristic of conspicuous outrage is that it is deliberately intended to be shocking. As Bell writes, ‘Conspicuous Outrage is the most sophisticated weapon of the fashionable person. It is a defiance of custom which serves to separate the outrageous ~ !205 ~ person from the multitude’ (193). This defiance is no accident. Ultimately for Bell, conspicuous outrage is a form of intellectual elitism, the highest weapon of the fashionable individual’s sartorial repertoire. Bell writes of conspicuous consumption that it operates ‘in the world of ideas [as] the “in joke”, that is to say the reference to a more or less esoteric fund of knowledge’ (193-194).

Conspicuous outrage is thus a strategy by which fashion can be used as an overt and unmissable challenge to social mores; at the other end of the spectrum, albeit in a position reliant on a Veblenesque theoretical framework, is the notion of inconspicuous consumption. As Wilson notes, ‘“Stealth wealth” was another form of “bourgeois bohemian” dressing, “inconspicuous consumption” as Gilles Lipovetsky called it’ (2003: 252). To draw directly on Lipovetsky, in comparison to Veblen’s idea that conspicuous consumption must sit at the highly visible end of the spectrum, inconspicuous consumption arises from the ‘progressive neutralisation of the desire for distinction in dress’ (1994 [1987]: 127). As Lipovetsky writes, inconspicuous consumption is formed by the ‘synergistic constellation of new legitimacies that discredit strident markers of hierarchical superiority’ (99). In this mode, there is a ‘decline of sumptuary fashion’ (99) such as couture expression of ‘new values: individual expression, relaxation, humour and spontaneity’ (100).

For Lipovetsky, as for Veblen, constant change in dress is a ‘fixed law’ of fashion (1994 [1987]: 21). However, the origin of this change is quite different for each of these authors. Whereas Veblen theorises change in fashion as driven by an antagonism towards futility produced by the instinct of workmanship, Lipovetsky argues that the idea of change is in itself of particular significance. That is, Lipovetsky writes that the historical inauguration of the ‘temporal effervescence’ of fashion ‘signifie[s] the deployment of a new social bond and of a new social temporality… inherent in the human social phenomenon’ (23). For Lipovetsky, fashion’s focus on the perpetual present rather than the forgotten past means that the quality of change becomes a virtue to be championed in itself. As he writes, at this moment in time, novelty becomes ‘a source of worldly value [for the subject], a mark of social excellence’ (24). Lipovetsky further traces the increasing importance and further development of these concepts up to the contemporary moment. To summarise his argument in broad terms, he posits that an ~ !206 ~ idea of individualism functions to strengthen Western democracy through constituting subjects that are more tolerant and practiced at making a definitive choice from a wide range of options – in other words, acting according to the logic of the consumption of fashion itself. In arguing that novelty promotes an individualism that enhances social mobility, Lipovetsky distinguishes his theory of fashion’s change from Veblen’s theory of change produced by an antagonism between the utility of clothing and the futility of abhorrent fashion. For Lipovetsky, far from being ‘intrinsically ugly’, fashion is characterised by ‘refinement, elegance, beauty’ (44).

This idea of inconspicuous consumption has assumed significance in the emergent discipline of critical luxury studies. As Armitage and Roberts define this discipline, critical luxury studies is ‘an entirely new field of research’ (2016: 1) that ‘entails recognition that all human beings live in a world that is created by human beings, and in which they find meaning in sumptuous enjoyment’ (2). In this context, luxury may be defined as ‘the habitual use of, or indulgence in, what is choice or costly’ (2). However, this luxury need not be ostentatious or even clearly visible. For example, Jonathan Faiers, founding editor of the journal Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption (2014-), has analysed the differentiation of the basic white T-shirt in terms of ‘stealth luxury’ (2016b: 194). As he writes, the ‘basic plain white T-shirt, ubiquitous, instantly familiar and apparently simple, has provided a fertile vestimentary culture in which luxury’s recent diversification and adaptation can be detected’ (177). He compares examples of a visually similar Fruit of the Loom white T that costs £2.14 with a Maison Martin Margiela version that sells for almost £200. As Faiers notes, both ‘these T-shirts are completely plain, made from white cotton, have no visible logo or printing and are short sleeved with a conventional crew neck’ (180) – and yet one costs almost fifty times more than the other. In this type of inconspicuous consumption, all ‘vestimentary clues as to… superiority and rarity have been excised – no excessive detailing, no elaborate top-stitching, no apparent “styling”’ (194)4. It is only those with an intimate

4 Of course, material differences between the two versions do exist in the type of cotton used and the cut and construction of the garment; high-quality Pima cotton does not feel like other cotton to the skin. Faiers acknowledges the potential tactile difference here, writing that: ‘the privileged knowledge of their cost, provenance and perhaps the touch of these luxury T’s is their greatest asset’ (2016b: 194). ~ !207 ~ and sophisticated familiarity with the Margiela version who would be able to determine its status as a luxury item as compared to the mass market version5 .

The above examples of conspicuous outrage and inconspicuous consumption demonstrate the ways in which Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption continues to be still flexibly adapted within the context of fashion studies. Having indicated the continual relevance of the theory of conspicuous consumption in the study of fashion, I will now elaborate to my own modification of this theory as it pertains to the research question of this thesis – that is, its application of the sociology of wit to contemporary fashion. I will consider the work of Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga to demonstrate that a concept of conspicuous wit can further helpfully inform an understanding of the contemporary appeal and allure of fashion. I will also indicate how this idea of conspicuous wit remains in dialogue with Veblen’s concept of fashion’s changes as driven by an antagonism between utility and futility.

6.4 Conspicuous wit

From the outset, in general terms one could gloss the success of Michele for Gucci and Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga as both having surprised and seduced the classical fashion system, defined in the Introduction as the global behemoth and commercial enterprise of design, sales, marketing and cultural dissemination. Both Michele and Gvasalia have presented unique and distinct aesthetic visions quite different from previously prevailing trends. As Jess Cartner-Morley, fashion commentator for The Guardian, wrote of Gucci in 2017, ‘The slogan T-shirts, Sesame Street colours, stick-on pearls, triangular silhouettes and woodland animals… do not adhere to any previously known rules of stylish dressing – and yet the label gains more fans with every season’ (2017b). Gucci under Michele is identified here as both iconoclastic in its design vision and yet highly successful in conveying this mix of ideas to its consumers in an appealing way. Cochrane (2016) gives credit to Gvasalia bringing

5 The type of stealth luxury identified by Faiers (2016b) aligns with Barthes’ conception of the dandy as being defined by the ability of fashionable peers to appreciate finer details apparently unobserved by others, as discussed in Chapter Three. Faiers discusses this in his own chapter at 2016b: 188. ~ ! ~208 for bringing back two apparently contradictory trends – 1990s logomania, that is the ubiquitous imprint of a brand logo onto clothing and accessories – and also for returning an aesthetic of ‘anti-fashion back to fashion’. In this context, anti-fashion might be defined as adopting the kind of garments that typically exist outside the world of high- fashion innovation – basic items such as sneakers, jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, and hoodies. This aesthetic appeal is matched by commercial success. From 2017 onwards Gucci has maintained the status of most influential brand in the world, maintaining year-on-year double digit growth; Balenciaga and Vetements have hovered not far below in the rankings (businessoffashion.com 2018). The surprising success of these newly emergent and yet opposing aesthetic visions married to the commercial seduction of the market certainly meets the criteria of a certain wit as I have described it. How, specifically, does this wit manifest directly in their design work?

Both Michele and Gvasalia have been explicitly recognised for incorporating strategies of humour into their work. Gucci has been praised for its lack of seriousness, both within its playful designs and also in its promotional campaigns via traditional advertising and emergent social media. For example, promotion for the Autumn/ Winter 2017 collection placed the clothes and accessories in the setting of a retro 1960s/1970s sci-fi short film, a cinematic endeavour replete with movie and TV references including the famous Star Wars rolling credits, the Star Trek transporter, characters from Lost in Space, and the monster from The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The film, directed by Glen Luchford – accompanied by the dramatic score to the cult classic UK TV series Space: 1999 – features stop motion animation in the style of Ray Harryhausen and green-screen giant monster kittens, as well as sparkly-skinned aliens and silver-painted androids. It just so happens that in this vision of the future, this diverse cast are all dressed in Michele’s design aesthetic of ‘geek chic’ via oversized glasses, glittering robes, and lovingly embroidered unisex tunics [Figures 6.7-6.12].

~ !209 ~ [Figures have been removed due to copyright restrictions]

~ ! ~210 [Figures have been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 6.7-6.12. Selection of images from Gucci’s sci-fi advertising campaign for Autumn/ Winter 2017. Images via gucci.com, accessed 7 July 2019.

~ ! ~211 Of this campaign, Christopher Morency (2017) wrote for the Business of Fashion: ‘In a world in which fashion advertising is increasingly made for Instagram – not glossy print magazines – Gucci's latest campaign seems well calibrated to generate online conversation (and no shortage of likes) with its quirky and humorous approach’ (emphasis added). Jonathan Jones (2017) noted that Gucci ‘has exploded time into absurdist scenarios of rollicking good humour… Gucci gets it right, avoiding miserabilist pretension yet capturing the escapism of an age when people genuinely have something to escape from. Who knows, perhaps aliens will save us’ (emphases added).

Gucci’s strategy has extended further into the digital realm via its engagement with influential internet meme-makers. Gucci had commissioned digital artists to provide memes that combined Gucci’s timepieces with the existing meme ‘That Feeling When’, which highlights the inadvertently amusing aspects of being involved in a usually unfortunate mishap or disappointing situation [Figures 6.13-6.14]. As the website emphases ‘That Feeling When Gucci is about the moment of putting on one of the watches, when the world suddenly becomes different and time slows down a little bit’ (gucci.com 2019). These hashtag #TFWGucci collaborations have been widely recognised for their deliberate humour (designtaxi.com 2017; fashionista.com 2017).

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.13. #TFWGucci commissioned memes, demonstrating puns (‘watch’ + ‘dog = ‘watchdog’), and humorous cartoons Images via gucci.com, accessed 2 August 2019.

~ ! ~212 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.14. #TFWGucci memes with a touch of glamour. One contrasts the priorities of the ‘good life’ – buy milk, call mom, wash car – with the life of Gucciesque glamour one really desires – ‘new watch’. The second contrasts a typically futile fashion gesture – who really cycles in elaborate hair, makeup, platforms and designer fashion? – with the mundanity of exercise and spin class. Images via gucci.com, accessed 2 August 2019.

Vetements under Gvasalia has also been identified for its humour and ‘visual gags’ which, as critic Lauren Cochrane suggests, sees ‘humour’ as a ‘relatively new concept to fashion’ (2016). The humour in Vetements derives from an irony that is aimed at the fashion system. Vetements has been both praised and criticised for its strategic design interventions in the fashion system. Some have seen its position of ironic critique and humour in adopting everyday mass-market garments, slightly modifying them, and selling them at eye-watering markup as a joke on the fashion system itself – similar perhaps, as Faiers notes, of the stealth transformation of the basic T-shirt into expensive designer must-have. Others view Gvaslia’s design strategies for Vetements and Balenciaga – the oversized, ‘ugly’ silhouettes and retro designs here function as a witty critique of the supposedly distinctive characteristics of high fashion – beauty, uniqueness of design, and expense and quality of materials and creation. As Cochrane notes: ‘a grinning Gvasalia has also said: “It’s ugly, that’s why we like it’ (Cochrane 2016). Malcolm Barnard comments that there are ‘many layers of so-called postmodern irony at play here… Vetements may be both mocking the obsession with designer names… and encouraging a more critical take on consumption at the same time’ (Barnard quoted in Sharkey 2016). At the same time, Barnard notes ‘The elevation

~ ! ~213 of distinctly unglamorous, “anti-fashion” logos to ironically expensive fashion items is not new. Nothing in fashion ever is… [T]he spending of money is not ironic in a capitalist economy’ (2017). This is perhaps a somewhat simplistic take. For example, Gvasalia’s infamous version of the Balenciaga version of the IKEA blue shopper tote – produced ‘because of a fond memory of using the $US0.99 shopping tote when he was a fashion student at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp’ (WWD.com, 2019) [Figure 6.15] – seems both ironic and a genuine homage.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.15. Balenciaga lambskin version of IKEA’s classic plastic shopping bag. Image via vogue.com.au, accessed 3 August 2019.

While Michele’s use of humour for Gucci may be more overt, Gvsalia’s capacity for self-reflection shows his ongoing engagement with the conversation about the role of humour in fashion. A slogan T-shirt released for Autumn/ Winter 2019 by Gvasalia for Vetements – new at the time of writing – is a knowing wink to recent critiques of the brand for being overly expensive for the product that one gets. The slogan reads: ‘It’s

~ ! ~214 my birthday, and all I got was this overpriced T-shirt from Vetements’ (current retail, $AUD590) [Figure 6.16]. It would be possible to buy and wear this T-shirt in a number of amusing ways: as an ironic awareness of the actual cost of over-priced luxury goods; as an insider recognition of the cultural importance of Gvasalia’s work at this particular moment; as a critical and ironic participation in the ongoing discussion about the value of this type of work to fashion at a certain moment in the twenty-first century; or even perhaps as an overt criticism of the cult of Gvasalia himself – after all, the garment not only admits its innate lack of value, but also its destructive emotional capacity. The celebration of a birthday – typically a joyful occasion – is diminished by this ill-advised gift.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.16. Vetements birthday T-Shirt. Accessed via matchesfashion.com, 3 August 2019.

~ ! ~215 It is clear from this cultural and critical discussion that techniques of humour found in Michele and Gvasalia’s work is integral to their work. Intriguingly, both designers also reflect on their inspirations in terms of members of the academy. The show notes given to journalists and buyers that Michele produces for each collection to contextualise the theme or atmosphere are replete with references to intellectual luminaries such as Heidegger, Camus, Nabokov, Bakhunin, Debord, Deleuze, Caillois and Canetti, among many others. Imogen Fox (2015), for The Guardian, writes of this name-dropping that it is ‘High-minded stuff, as far removed from luxury share prices as it is possible to get’. Or as Cartner-Morley puts a different spin on this level of citation, ‘what makes the brand compelling is the way it scrambles together being clever with being pretty’ (2017b). Similarly, reviews of Gvasalia make mention of his fondness for sociology, supposedly his ‘favourite subject’ (Blanks 2017); in his early collections for Vetements, Gvasalia engaged a sociologist friend to interview people on the street about the context and ostensible meaning of their apparel that informed his collections. (Socha 2015). Indeed, one of his more striking collections for Vetements called ‘Stereotypes’ produced a parade of Parisian social types, from ‘punk to pensioners, football hooligan to homeless man, rich bitch to bride’ (Blanks 2017a).

Without direct access to the show notes provided with each show, it is impossible in this research project to sufficiently analyse how these influences are intended to function in each collection; indeed, this is not quite the orientation of this project. However, the explicit referencing of academic sources demonstrates that both Michele and Gvasalia are both influenced by and reflect on their designs with careful thought and consideration. Their commitment to a world of ideas that is apparently a world away from commercial imperatives such as luxury share prices – as Fox reminds us – seems to suggest that the use of humour in their work is also a calculated decision.

Having established the inclusion of humour as a recognisable strategy of Michele and Gvasalia, the remainder of this chapter will explore how humour is deployed in their work – given the research question of this thesis – as a form of wit. Showing evidence of wit in their work in terms of strategies of surprise and seduction – albeit strategies that manifest in very different forms – I will next consider whether an overtly humorous ~ !216 ~ approach to fashion spells the end of the dominance of the concept of conspicuous consumption as described by Veblen. Lipovetsky for one seems to think this may be the case, writing that ‘The end of conspicuous consumption in clothing and the introduction of humour and irreverence go hand in hand… they mark the supreme stage in the democratisation of fashion, the moment when fashion makes fun of itself, when elegance indulges in self-mockery’ (1994 [1987]: 101). I will consider whether it is possible instead to claim that humour and irreverence do not mark an ‘end’ to conspicuous consumption; rather, they might mark a new mutation in the logic of fashion. I will explore whether the deliberate deployment of humour marks – to borrow Veblen’s evolutionary language, and to follow the precedent of fashion theorists such as Bell and Lipovetsky himself – a further ‘adaptation’ of the idea of conspicuous consumption. Might it be that the work of Michele and Gvasalia – identified as a thoughtful invocation surprise and seduction – marks the commencement of a new phase of what might be called conspicuous wit?

6.4.1 Alessandro Michele for Gucci – conspicuous wit as a form of hypervisible opulence

Fashion critics have struggled to clearly delineate a definitive description of Michele’s aesthetic vision for Gucci. Critic Tim Blanks describes Michele as ‘ensnaring Gucci in a web of perverse enchantment’ (2017c). The Business of Fashion refers to Michele’s ‘magpie maximalist signature’ (2017). Cartner-Morley describes the proliferation of ‘frenzied fashion’ under Michele as ‘like an explosion in a fairytale’ (2016). One aspect that unites all these critics is a sense of excess prevalent in Michele’s collections. It is perhaps Cartner-Morley who best sums up the ‘elements of the Gucci aesthetic’, describing a synthesis of ‘slick 1970s sportswear, drugstore barrettes, shrunken trousersuits, rainbow stripes, geek-chic glasses obtuse slogans, backless shoes, a certain old-ladyish silhouette of a fur coat over a long dress, Disney references, pearls’ (2017a). Blanks further points to the paradoxical oppositions at play in Michele’s work, writing that it is ‘a gorgeous chaos of old and young, old and new, done and unfinished, shiny and dull, prim and louche, magical and terrifying’. Blanks ultimately characterises the world of Gucci as ‘absolute madness… shored up by the most extraordinary optimism’ (2015). ~ !217 ~ How to encapsulate this disparate mix of extreme signifiers and the paradoxical unification of apparent opposites? And how to interpret in terms of the sociological theory of wit that underpins this thesis? One challenge in answering both these questions is that, as Fox notes, ‘The Gucci language is easy to distinguish but it is almost impossible to decipher the meaning within’ (2016). Nonetheless, I will attempt the task using the framework of wit I have established in this thesis as characterised by the concepts of surprise and seduction. Fashion theorist Patrizia Calefato provides some additional definitional guidance in her book Luxury: Fashion, Lifestyle and Excess (2014). She writes that ‘Today luxury is an aesthetic, economic, and cultural model that seeks to repair the gaps in a Western rationality that lacks the words to explain and justify degrees of possession, forms of consumption, and features of taste. Thus luxury turns to spheres of exceptionality, uniqueness, rarity and hypervisible opulence’ (4; emphasis added). Hypervisible opulence as defined by Calefato might be read as the expression of Veblen’s conspicuous consumption taken to extremes – in this conceptualisation, not only are clothes expensive, but they are overtly and unavoidably replete with signifiers of costly excess. Michele’s reinvention of Gucci produces a fervent and febrile combination of pearls and costly precious stones (real diamonds and fake diamantés), a bewildering blend of sumptuous fabrics (silks, velvet, fur6), and overly elaborate designs that belie an item’s usual utility (for example, couture- embroidered sportswear such as the example of the tracksuit shown earlier in this chapter). In the remainder of this section, I will examine empirical examples of Michele’s work for Gucci to demonstrate the ways in which his strategies exemplify the necessary elements of wit comprising surprise – that is, the provision of an unexpected insight – and seduction – or, in other words, the pleasurable detour of being led astray, but also the desire to be led astray.

I will first consider the operation of the concept of surprise in the current clime of Gucci’s spectacular success. Despite the apparent disparity of references, eras and locales, the synthesis inherent in Guccification somehow all works. As Cartner Morley

6 I would note here that Michele’s early collections featured real fur; however, Gucci – like many other designer houses – has made a commitment to phasing animal fur out of its collections. Whether the trend will stick long-term remains a matter of history. ~ !218 ~ (2016) writes, ‘What makes Michele’s commercial revival of Gucci all the more extraordinary is that, in contrast to the straightforwardly glamorous clothes of the Tom Ford era, the aesthetic is a long way from the mainstream’. Alison and McCarthy write – rather more succinctly, but just as accurately – that this transformation of Gucci under that Michele, is wholly and simply ‘unexpected’ (2016: 79) given the design tradition of the house. This reference to the unexpected nature of Michele’s designs clearly echoes the language of surprise characterised by the provision of a novel creative insight that I have previously identified as essential to a concept of wit. In this nouveau world of Gucci presented by Michele, this surprise is comprised by what the house itself explicitly defines as a process of transformative GUCCIFICATION. As we shall shortly see, this term appears in catwalk collections, press releases, marketing and social media. In its linguistic formation, GUCCIFICATION indicates an ongoing process, a continuing journey by which all and any objects can be incorporated into the vision of this storied house. It refers to a logic of ongoing and inclusive addition, incorporating – as we have seen – references spanning Debord to Disney, but that unite nonetheless to produce an amusing vision of hypervisible opulence that is distinctively Gucci. This vision of Gucci is, as we have seen, one that appeals to consumers and critics alike.

GUCCIFICATION presents a counterpoint to the traditional value of the house name or logo. In this new context, no longer is Gucci’s name and brand identity to be ruthlessly protected; rather it is wittily reinvented. The first official indication of this term as desirable rather than illicit was introduced by Gucci to become part of its vernacular in a cruise show in Florence 2017, where items of clothing where sent down the catwalk printed with apparently corrupted slogans such as ‘GUCCY’, ‘GUCCY YOURSELF’ and ‘GUCCIFICATION’ [Figure 6.17-6.18]. These printed slogan/ logos – one might entertain the portmanteau ‘slogos’? – were presented as an invitation to the audience to consider the multiple meanings of Gucci in the twenty-first century. As Marriott notes in discussing previous usage of the term,‘“Guccification” is a term that had been used for decades, often as a bit of a diss, meaning too much bling or too much Gucci… Clearly, Michele is reclaiming it’ (2017). Reliable pop culture barometer Urban Dictionary defines ‘Guccify’ as ‘To bling out; to add high-end qualities to a product or service (or outfit); to make something overly impressive, expensive, or elaborate (urbandictionary.com 2019). ~ ! ~219 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.17. Guccify Yourself. Image via Marriott 2017, theguardian.com, accessed 5 August 2019.

~ ! ~220 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.18. Guccification. Image via Marriott (2017) theguardian.com, accessed 5 August 2019.

Further strands and strategies of GUCCIFICATION can be identified in the proliferation of modifying sub-themes that connect Michele’s work. The identity of Gucci no longer exists simply as a brand identity that stands on its own, but is increasingly connected to a multiplying network of modifying themes endorsed by the house. For example, GUCCI GARDEN celebrates an Edenic paradise by connecting the logo of the house with intricate floral details and a succession of animals, some real, some imaginary – snakes, butterflies, tigers, and even human-animal hybrids [Figure 6.19].

~ ! ~221 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.19. Gucci Garden shawl, featuring many emblems of the garden, including the iconic kingsnake, butterflies, roses, love hears and the slogan often used by the house, ‘Blind for Love’. Image via farfetch.com, accessed 12 August 2019.

GUCCI GHOST presents a twist on the look of the usual double-G Gucci by adding an extra eye and lip on each interlocking letter to produce a spectral resemblance [Figure 6.20]. GUCCI HALLUCINATION presents a surrealist take on famous artworks, such as inserting Gucci clothes into well-known pieces by Hieronymous Bosch and the famous portrayal by John Everett Millais’ Ophelia [Figures 6.21-6.22].

~ ! ~222 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.20. Gucci Ghost charm with distinctive eyes composited from the Gucci double ‘G’ logo. Image from gucci.com, accessed 5 August 2019.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

! Figure 6.21. Gucci Hallucination presents a re-worked vision of Bosch’s hell as a hyper-opulent paradise – the familiar emblems of the house are here, including snakes, two-headed animals, cartoons and over-the-top sunglasses . Image from facebook.com, accessed 5 August 2019.

~ ! ~223 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.22. Ophelia, Gucci style – smiling, not drowning. Image from gucci.com, accessed 5 August 2019.

This process of GUCCIFICATION invites the individual consumer into the realm of Michele’s playful and witty humour – both in the physical object of the fashion and in the digital realm itself. On Gucci’s website and in-store, consumers are able to customise garments, accessories and shoes by adding personal initials or even creating their own handbags by selecting a variety of embroidered patches to sew onto them. Gucci’s website and app provide even more immersion into the Guccified world by providing digital means of personalising one’s image. One can modify any photo by adding a number of official Gucci emojis that speak to Michele’s sense of the absurd – two-headed cats, laser-eyed Cupids, golden wreaths [Figure 6.23] – modify your selfies, save, and upload to your favourite social media app. These adorable and smile- inducing mini-icons can be added to texts messages, selfies or even ordinary photographs, showing that the whole world is subject to a succinct and accessible process of GUCCIFICATION.

~ ! ~224 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.23. Animated Gucci emojis, featuring two-headed cats, ‘Guccy’ branding. Butterflies and bandaids. Personal iPhone screenshot, taken 28 March 2018.

Under Michele’s reign, there is no singular identity of ‘Gucci’ as a fashion house or brand, but a multiplicity of potential Guccifications. The witty surprise – the intellectual idea that dazzles with its unexpected insight – is that, in this moment in the history of fashion, the house of Gucci is not a fixed beast but a moveable feast. This opens up the house identity to all manner of conversations and collaborations with its own history and present, others within the fashion system and consumers themselves. Indeed, critics have identified inclusion and diversity as key to the success of the new Gucci. Cartner- Morley writes that ‘The core Gucci theme is a celebration of diversity. Gender is fluid; the established binaries of sexual predator and prey are brushed aside’ (2017b). Blanks ~ ! ~225 describes Michele’s for as an ‘ungendered, desexed crazy quilt of fleeting delights’ (2017). He writes of Michele’s work that is often ‘more of the same, but that was precisely the point. More! Michele’s aesthetic is about addition, not subtraction. All forms of human life are there’ (2016; emphasis added). One might add, the non-human life is included as well – animals, plants, and yes, even the aliens.

As we have seen, seduction involves not only the process of being led astray, but an active desire and participation in the process of seduction itself. One might well speak of the seduction of Gucci as the invitation to an inclusive utopia marked by hypervisible opulence visually unavoidable – and unavoidably tempting. A paradisiacal and paradoxical synthesis of wildly clashing ideas, themes, looks, fashion and even epigrams. GUCCI GARDEN, GUCCI GHOST, GUCCI HALLUCINATION, GUCCI MANIFESTO… and many others, still yet to come into being. There is no end to the proliferations of potential GUCCIFICATIONS, each with their own witty twists on the history of the house itself. GUCCIFY YOURSELF is not merely an empty slogan, but a genuine invitation to participate in an amusing and sumptuous process of GUCCIFICATION.

Alessandro Michele for Gucci’s mode of hypervisible opulence deliberately uses humour to surprise and seduce. In the terms it has been described in this thesis, hypervisible opulence here functions as a form of conspicuous wit. It both surprises through the provision of unexpected insights, and also seduces by leading one down paths one did not expect. Why is this conspicuous wit important for fashion studies? How might it engage in dialogue with the traditional sociological terms by which fashion has been defined, for example, as found in the work of Veblen? Michele’s vision presents quite a radical challenge to Veblen’s definition of fashion as characterised by constant and inevitable change. After all, Michele’s strategy is not one of replacement and obsolescence, or radically overhauling his aesthetic vision every six months. Rather, as Cartner-Morley and Blanks correctly note, Gucci under the current regime is defined by inclusivity and a logic of addition.

Cartner-Morley elaborates that ‘Gucci’s success is built on an identity that remains largely stable from season to season. Its fans will pay elevated prices because by ~ !226 ~ rejecting the trend cycle, Michele sells pieces with a longer shelf life, remaining recognisably Gucci for more than one season’ (2017a). Blanks writes that ‘Michele’s signal achievement has been to slow the race to the point where people have been given a chance to catch up with fashion… By not surrendering to fashion’s doctrine of ever- changing novelty, he has allowed an ever-growing audience to savour his strangeness over time’ (2017b). This is a remarkable recasting of a Veblenesque notion of fashion that insists on constant destruction and novel recreation. To question the idea that under the ‘100 years’ of fashion (as defined in the Introduction) each fashion house must radically overhaul their vision and presentations every six months (or even more, in the current fast- or instant-fashion cycles) in order to maintain and generate interest undermines the assumptions that underpin the fashion system itself. As the Business of Fashion (2017) editorialises, Gucci’s dramatic ascendancy under Michele signals the development of a ‘new parallel [fashion] system that’s more about immediacy, social media and direct-to-consumer sales’. Gucci’s embrace of wit under Alessandro Michele has undoubtedly contributed to commercial and critical success in promulgating this new kind of fashion system.

The surprise and seduction found in Michele’s hypervisible, opulent and amusing utopia of GUCCIFICATION thus contains the capacity to challenge how fashion may be thought about in the twenty-first century. Its nouveau slow dance of product stability, its denial of obsolescence, and its logic of addition rather than replacement point, perhaps, to a frustration with the idea that fashion is subject to ever accelerating rhythms that is often ascribed to as being subject (such as fast- or instant-fashion). Or as the official website quite pithily puts it, the ‘Gucci Garden continues to grow’ (gucci.com 2019).

6.4.2 Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga – the futility of utility as a form of conspicuous wit

I now turn to a consideration of Gvasalia’s work for Vetements and Balenciaga as it pertains to wit. In contrast to Michele, who operates via an unavoidable hypervisible opulence, Gvasalia creates designs at the other end of the spectrum. His work is largely characterised by repurposing influential mass-market garments from his childhood growing up in Eastern Europe, often in collaboration with the original brands ~ !227 ~ themselves. The latter is especially true of his work for Vetements; since joining Balenciaga in 2015 his work there is less directly collaborative, presumably due to Balenciaga’s own status as a storied fashion house and pertinent contractual issues.

In the case of Gucci, I showed how Michele’s strategy of hypervisible opulence functions, via wit, to challenge the idea of change predominant in Veblen’s definition of fashion. Having performed that work, in my discussion of Gvasalia I will now focus directly on how his designs question the second component of Veblen’s theory of fashion. That is, the distinction that Veblen makes between utility and futility as a driving tension that produces change in fashion. As previously discussed, Veblen is of the view that change in fashion is brought about by the competing tensions between the desire to be up-to-date (that is, the conspicuous consumption of fashionable novelties), and an innate human preference for use-value that eventually produces a loathing for fashionable dress. And so for Veblen the fashion cycle continues.

As we have seen, under Michele for Gucci, the intention to provide wit and amusement is explicit; Gvasalia’s work is perhaps more ambiguous and less literal. He does not announce his intention to amuse; he lets the clothes do the talking. He is also sometimes characterised as an ironist, rather than a wit (see, for example, Rabkin 2018 or Ross 2018). However, in this section I will show how his work relies on strategies of surprise and seduction that are essential to a sociological formulation of wit.

Gvasalia is important because his work explores the apparent distinction between utility and futility found in Veblen’s influential framing of fashion. Importantly, it does so through a method of wit. Indeed, it is precisely an investigation into the divide between utility and futility that makes Gvasalia intriguing. Gvasalia’s designs ostensibly remove aesthetic considerations from fashion by invoking the grim, utilitarian vision of his upbringing in Georgia, where hoodies, trackpants, T shirts, and other items of streetwear formed the vocabulary of fashion. On the face of it, Gvasalia himself seems to remove the element of aesthetic perfection from fashion mentioned by Veblen in favour of promulgating the potential utility of fashion. Or, as Cochrane (2016) puts it in describing Gvasalia’s success, ‘that’s sort of the point: in a next-level normcore way, the ordinary – rather than unattainable glamour – is in fashion’. However, I will maintain ~ !228 ~ that Gvasalia’s work actually reveals the concept of utility itself as ultimately futile by transforming these items of utility into luxurious items of designer fashion. Gvasalia’s work does not hide the absurdity of a distinction between utility and futility; rather, he pointedly draws attention to the inability to maintain a clear binary distinction between the terms. And of course, given the question of this thesis, he does so by the deployment of humorous strategies of wit characterised by the techniques of surprise and seduction.

In the following discussion, I will make reference to the three principal strategies by which Gvaslia questions the utility/ futility binary beloved of Veblen. I will do so through reference to the concepts of surprise and seduction that have guided this thesis so far. These three strategies are as follows: taking an item of mass fashion and transforming it into luxury fashion through minimal design intervention; making luxury fashion resemble mass fashion by mimicking the visual language of utility found in these tips of garments; and finally, transforming apparently useful objects into useless ones by introducing excessive signifiers of utility into his design aesthetic.

The first strategy I will discuss is the way in which Gvasalia takes items of cheap, accessible mass clothing and turns them into items of hard-to-find desirable items through collaborations with different designers. We have already seen an example of this in the DHL T-shirt, which is only able to be differentiated from its less expensive version via the addition of a subtle stripe on the back – another example of inconspicuous consumption, or Faiers’ stealth luxury. In his work for Vetements, Gvasalia has made a particular career for working with other brands and subtly rebranding them to sell at many times the original price. These collaborations include brands such as Reebok, Champion and Levi’s, as well as more high-end brands as Brioni. The addition of the signature or name Vetements alone to these garments is enough to elevate a product one could find in a local chain supermarket to high-fashion heaven. Perhaps the most accessible version of this luxury-by-association is Gvasalia’s pioneer movement in the space of luxury socks. Vetements has produced multiple versions of the basic cotton sock that are tagged with the brand’s logo [Figure 6.24]. These are highly marked up but still quite affordable in comparison to a designer bag or trenchcoat. The mere mark of the designer brand here functions in an opposite way to the witty GUCCIFICATION undertaken under Michele. Michele sought to deconstruct ~ !229 ~ the significance of the brand by deliberately producing in-house illicit versions such as GUCCY; here Gvasalia surprises his audience by suddenly reintroducing the importance of the brand name. The seduction seems a certainty – as evidenced by the fact that other brands have since produced expensive designer socks into their collections (for example, Bally’s collaboration with DJ Shok-1 resulted in the promotion of $AUD60 white sports socks). In this instance, Gvasalia takes an item of apparently undeniable utility – the simple sock – and transmutes it wholly into an item of futile fashion. This futility is barely concealed by the ostensible usefulness of the sock itself. As fashion editor Courtney Blackman writes, ‘In times of austerity, you still need socks, right? If you treat yourself to a pair of designer socks, it’s not as guilt-ridden as a larger, high- ticket item’ (quoted in Myers 2017).

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.24. Vetements x Reebok sports sock, GBP85. Image from matchesfashion.com, accessed 12 August 2019.

The next strategy Gvasalia deploys is a pertinent counterpart to the previous example: here Gvasalia produces luxury items which directly mimic the aesthetic of their mass counterparts. The clearest example of this is the previously mentioned Balenciaga blue shopping bag. Gvasalia himself said that he was inspired by a cheap everyday item used to haul around sketches for his fashion training and making it conform with the new

~ ! ~230 Balenciaga identity (wwd.com 2019)7 ; a further detail is provided here [Figure 6.25]. One has to admire the cheekiness in transforming Balenciaga’s highly sought after designer leathergood accessories into a sham plastic imitation. Hilariously, IKEA itself responded by producing a guide to determining how one would distinguish the ‘real’ IKEA item from the Balenciaga imitation – an inspired and ironic reversal of the usual status quo when it comes to identifying counterfeit luxury goods [Figure 6.26]. Here, not only has Gvasalia produced his own spin of a design icon; he has also enabled further witty commentary by the imitated. And one might be hard pressed to determine the ultimate victor here; who, after all, walks away with more prestige – the owner of the IKEA original or the Balenciaga derivative? Through the application of his wit, Gvasalia’s repurposing makes everyone a winner – his reputation escalates, Balenciaga’s sales increase, IKEA gets in on the joke – and every consumer, whichever version they can afford, also is able to participate in the ironic to-and-fro of statement and counter-statement.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.25. IKEA vs Balenciaga. Image from elle.com, accessed 11 August 2019.

7 One does imagine Cristóbal Balenciaga, master of volume and silhouette, shaking in his grave, despite attempts by the fashion press to draw comparisons between Balenciaga and Gvasalia. For example, WWD draws a comparison between Gvasalia’s influences and Balenciaga’s own inspiration from garments in Spanish fishing villages (wwd.com 2019). See also Amed (2017) for his piece on ‘The Hidden Links Between Cristóbal Balenciaga and Demna Gvasalia’. ~ ! ~231 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

!

Figure 6.26. IKEA’s guide to identifying a ‘real’ version of their famous bag. Social media post from their Twitter account. Image via adweek.com accessed 11 August 2019.

The final strategy that I will discuss is how Gvasalia seemingly takes delight into transforming already supposedly useful objects of clothing, and via processes of embellishment, duplication, and excessive detailing, makes them functionally useless. Three examples spring to mind here: Balenciaga’s famous double-shirt for men [Figure 6.27], Vetements’ ‘patchwork Frankenjeans’ (Cartner-Morley 2018) [Figure 6.28], and Balenciaga’s high-fashion version of the much-loathed Croc shoe [Figure 6.29]. These examples almost speak for themselves. How could one possibly think that doubly stitching one plain and boring business shirt over another almost indistinguishable version could be in any way practical? And how does that justify a price tag over $US1290? Furthermore, why would repurposing Levi’s famous work jeans with an excessive multitude of zips across crotch, legs, genitals and even perineal area possibly ever be used in practice? The idea is amusing ludicrous, moving beyond decorative embellishment into the realm of surrealism. Finally, consider the famous Croc – a shoe either universally loved for its comfort and practicality or loathed for its hideousness,

~ ! ~232 depending on who you ask8 . It takes a certain impish spirit to adorn it with cutesy logo designsm platforms and even high heels – perhaps Gvasalia’s own nod to a concept of hypervisible opulence itself.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.27. A shirt with a shirt stitched on top. Does it make this one shirt, two shirts, or even three? Image via balenciaga.com, accessed 12 August 2019.

8 Villanelle from Killing Eve would not approve of these monstrosities; one of the delights of the first episode of the second series is her look of disdain when she has to pull on a pair of Crocs as part of a disguise as a nurse. ~ ! ~233 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.28. Easy access? Or too much hard work? Balenciaga’s collaboration with Levi's for 2017. Image accessed footwearnews.com, 12 August 2019.

[Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 6.29. Balenciaga platform Crocs, later designed with a high heel. According to W Magazine, these sold out from preorders even before released in stores. Image accessed via wmagazine.com, 12 August 2019.

~ ! ~234 From this discussion, we can see that Gvasalia’s questioning of the divide between utility and futility as conceptually meaningful can be explicitly interpreted by a concept of wit. Gvasalia’s designs serve both to surprise, through his unexpected transformations of the useless into the useful, and vice versa; he also seduces – like Michele for Gucci – through his rapid fashion ascendancy and commercial success. Or, as Gvasalia himself insists, ‘We’re just talking about fashion, and at the end of the day, it doesn’t have to be all so gloomy’ (wwd.com, 2019). Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga directly questions the viability of Veblen’s position in maintaining a meaningful divide between the categories of utility and futility. Indeed, in the end it seems impossible to maintain that such a distinction exists. Like Michele for Gucci, Gvasalia’s engagement with the concept of conspicuous consumption – via an equally visionary conspicuous wit – deserves to be considered within twenty-first fashion studies. The undeniable cultural and commercial success of these designers, despite their differing aesthetic approaches, is proof that a consideration of conspicuous wit must be included when we consider the ongoing evolution of the fashion system itself. Indeed, this very idea will be the focus of the final chapter of this thesis, which looks more closely at the idea of the fashion system itself. In my concluding remarks, however, I will return to the object of inspiration fo this entire project – the Gaultier dress.

6.5 Reconsidering the Gaultier dress

As I indicated in my Introduction to this thesis, the camouflage Gaultier ballgown possesses for me an exciting appeal and also exerts a powerful allure. I have suggested that these qualities might be bound up in the garment’s existence as an exemplar of haute couture – the rarefied, one-of-a-kind creation that represents a designer’s spectacular vision. Haute couture is the apparent pinnacle of expression in the fashion system, both in concept and execution. As a piece of design work, a couture garment is regarded for its uniqueness rather than its capacity for mass production. The clientele of couture comprises a select group of wealthy women who are able to afford both the money and time required to have a garment stitched to their precise contours. Given these qualities, the Gaultier dress’ status as an item of couture thus suggests it might conform with Veblen’s concept of conspicuous consumption. ~ !235 ~ Certainly, as discussed throughout this chapter Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption as it relates to fashion is based on a tension between change derived from the ongoing tension between utility and futility. For example, it is possible to characterise the Gaultier dress using this framework. In this singular garment the pattern of camouflage – a military invention designed to mimic nature’s own strategies of concealment – is combined with the meticulous craft of couture. In this spectacular piece, the pattering of camouflage itself gestures towards a practical military function that is commingled with the decorous expensiveness of the craft of couture. Here, utility, one might say, meets futility. John Gallliano – who himself utilised camouflage in his celebrated work for Dior – captures this combination when he writes that ‘The camouflage print lends itself so perfectly to the notion of mixing something brute with something elegant – think hard-line militia in soft, flowing, chiffon ruffles. It’s that streetwear vocabulary of surplus with a chic take on it’ (Galliano, quoted in Blechman and Newman 2004: 452).

And yet, as the discussion in this chapter has indicated, a concept of conspicuous consumption of fashion defined by change wrought by the tension between utility and futility may not necessarily be the most appropriate theoretical framework to explain the appeal and allure of the Gaultier dress. Instead, the idea of conspicuous wit that I have delineated may provide a nuanced framework for theoretical consideration of garments such as the Gaultier camo couture.

In this chapter I have shown how this conspicuous wit may manifest in wildly different iterations – for example, Gucci’s strategy of hypervisible opulence under Alessandro Michele, and the amusing ironies found in the work of Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga that break down the distinction between utility and futility. In the case of the Gaultier dress, the hammer at first seems to fall squarely on the side of the conspicuous wit of hypervisible opulence favoured by Michele. This is a creation that unabashedly announces its presence in striking visual terms. Its dazzling audacity is evident in its conceptual cleverness – the mix of a utilitarian camouflage motif with the flowing silhouette of a ballgown, all rendered with expensive and impeccable couture craft. It is indeed a surprising and seductive singular ‘fashion moment’. And yet, there is ~ !236 ~ something in this singular unification of camo and couture that also speaks to Gvasalia’s blending of the useful with the futile. How, in this dress, can function be clearly separated from frivolity? How might the practice of apparently natural camouflage itself be recontextualised as couture? (The first camofleurs were of course artists rather than scientists.) Does the success of the Gaultier dress point to the idea that not only does futility have its own utility, but that utility itself possess a certain aesthetics? These provocations are precisely the kind of questions that the surprising and seductive concept of wit itself invites.

6.6 Conclusion

In this chapter I have provided an account of Veblen’s view of conspicuous consumption as it pertains to fashion. I have also examined Veblen’s theory of change in fashion as reliant on the interplay between between the concepts of utility and futility. I have shown how Veblen’s classic idea of conspicuous consumption has been adapted by subsequent theorists of fashion to demonstrate the continuing applicability and adaptability of this concept through a consideration of Bell’s idea of conspicuous outrage and Lipovetsky’s inconspicuous consumption. I then examined empirical examples of contemporary designer via Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Demna Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga to demonstrate how a novel concept of conspicuous wit provides insight into the appeal and allure of contemporary fashion. Finally, I extended this analysis to the example that provided the inspiration for this thesis, the Gaultier camo couture.

Having established in this chapter that concepts within the sociology of wit can provide insight into the contemporary of fashion, the final chapter of this thesis will narrow focus to concentrate on the idea of the fashion system itself. It will discuss how Barthes’ influential idea of the fashion system might be productively be extended to incorporate the idea of wit essential to this thesis. I will focus here on two ideas – a description of the fashion system as it is usually described, and how it might be expanded via a concept of wit into multiple fashion systems. In supporting this claim, I will discuss the work of the Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf whose work is celebrated for its unique and remarkable wit. ~ !237 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 7.1. ‘DON’T $TOP THE FA$HION $Y$TEM’. Moschino advertisement, Autumn/ Winter 1999. Reproduced from Dutch magazine, No 23, Art View: Paris, 36.

~ ! ~238 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 7.2. ‘LONG LIVE CATWALK$ PHOTOGRAPHER$ CA$TING$ AND THE PRE$$’. Moschino advertisement, Autumn/Winter 1999. Reproduced from Dutch magazine, No 23, Art View: Paris, 37.

~ ! ~239 Chapter Seven

Wit and Contemporary Fashion Studies, Part Two: A Proliferation of Fashion Systems

7.1 Introduction

This chapter begins with two images from Italian fashion house Moschino from their advertising campaign of Autumn/ Winter 1999. In the first, a model stands contrapposto, one long leg turned outward to reveal an inviting stretch of flesh from tip- toe to upper thigh; as the dress she wears travels upwards, it transforms from flowing frock to fitted jacket, ending in a severe little socialist neck collar, reminiscent of the styles favoured by Mao or Nehru [Figure 7.1]. Buttons mushroom over the fabric of the dress, emphasising the military mood. The model’s gaze is forthright, her makeup minimal, a threaded cross on her forehead suggests some kind of abstract emblem. But the model’s calm facade is belied by her clenched knuckles, as she thrusts forth a sign proclaiming ‘DON’T $TOP THE FA$HION $Y$TEM’. Although the model adopts the stance and form of a protestor, the slogan appears to subvert expectations by apparently promoting rather than critiquing the idea of the ‘fashion system’. This traditional concept of the fashion system, as described in the Literature Review of this thesis, is the apparatus of design, production, sales and promotion which forms the principal model of how fashion is understood as a social and economic phenomenon. Another advertisement from Moschino from the same 1999 series identifies the supporting players within this industry: ‘LONG LIVE CATWALK$ PHOTOGRAPHER$ MODEL$ CA$TING$ AND THE PRE$$’ [Figure 7.2]1.

These images from Moschino’s advertising campaign are striking examples of the brand’s reputation for subversive humour. Among many other designs, Franco Moschino sent the following down the runway: a parody of a Chanel suit made with the

1 The 1999 slogan ‘DON’T $TOP THE FA$HION $Y$TEM’ is a play on Moschino’s earlier campaign from 1990 to ‘STOP THE FASHION SYSTEM!’ (See, for example, Dazed Digital 2017). ~ !240 ~ words ‘This is a Waist of Money’ where the traditional Chanel gold chain belt would usually sit; a dinner suit festooned with real cutlery; surrealist hats made either of teddy bears, a light bulb or a life preserver; and a man’s shirt with overly long sleeves that wrapped around the body like a straitjacket, with the words ‘For Fashion Victims Only’ emblazoned on the back (Schiro 1994). While the company’s fortunes faded after the untimely death of Moschino himself in 1994, the appointment of Jeremy Scott as head designer in 2013 – showing Barbie- and burger-themed ready-to-wear – saw a critical and commercial resurgence. In a 2015 profile of Scott for the New York Times, the president of the conglomerate that now owns Moschino emphasised both the critical and commercial reinvigoration of the brand, saying that ‘Jeremy has a tongue-in-cheek approach to pop culture and his ear to the ground unlike anyone else’s… We’re also doing 10 times what we did before the hire in terms of sales’ (Trebay 2015). It would seem that despite the apparent protest implied in the earlier Moschino advertisements, the commercial imperatives of the FA$HION $Y$TEM have triumphed after all.

And yet, ambiguity remains in these particular advertisement. These images do not depict a straightforward celebration of the ‘fashion system’, as one might expect from a design house with a vested interest in this system’s continued existence, given its own desire for survival. Here, in a surprising twist, the typographical letter ‘S’ has been replaced by symbolic dollar signs. In Moschino’s ads, the commercial imperative of money has inserted itself into every aspect of the so-called system – CATWALK$ PHOTOGRAPHER$ MODEL$ CA$TING$ AND THE PRE$$. Thus while these advertisements ostensibly acknowledge the power of the ‘fashion system’, Moschino here and draws attention to this system’s intimate imbrication with various modes of capital. By highlighting the commercial imperatives of the so-called FA$HION $Y$TEM, Moschino’s advertisements invite us to examine the basis on which this supposed system is founded. What might be at stake in considering these advertisements as general statements about the fashion system? What role might a sociology of wit play in thinking about this fashion system more generally?

What I find striking about these advertisements is that their power relies on the intended audience’s implicit understanding of the phrase ‘the fashion system’ as a singular and identifiable concept. These advertisements appeared in printed fashion magazines aimed ~ !241 ~ at general consumers, thereby suggesting that the idea of the fashion system is sufficiently recognisable to members of the public, as it is to academics within fashion studies who might appreciate the theoretical underpinning of the term. The notion that a fashion system exists, and that Moschino is able to participate in this system even as it seeks to draw attention to its very existence, demonstrates how ingrained this way of conceptualising fashion is in contemporary culture. The term the ‘fashion system’ often crops up as a concept that requires no further scrutiny in academic literature; it is invoked as a matter of settled fact within journals and books, and has spawned a genre of monographs that elaborate or extend the system in various ways.

Indeed, references to ‘the fashion system’ within contemporary fashion studies are too numerous to enumerate; it is a phrase that repeatedly occurs as a natural fact – as obvious as the colour of the sky, or the wetness of water – such as when Evans offhandedly mentions the ‘emerging fashion system in the second half of the nineteenth century’ (2011: 67). Individual book chapters within anthologies seek to flesh out the economic characteristics of the system as per Leopold’s essay ‘The Manufacture of the Fashion System’ (1992). As Leopold writes, ‘Loosely defined as the inter-relationship between highly fragmented forms of production and often volatile patterns of demand, the fashion system… incorporates dual concepts of fashion: as a cultural phenomenon, and as an aspect of manufacturing’ (1992: 101). A search within journals in the date range of the 2000-2010s reveals numerous articles that invoke the phrase, such as those by Black (2009), Fletcher (2010), Engholm and Hansen-Hansen (2014), McLendon (2014) and Mora and Volonte (2014). Furthermore, there is a particular consensus around the idea of an ‘Italian fashion system’ which celebrates the country’s notable success positioning itself as a manufacturer of luxury goods post the second World War (Gundle 1996, Mora and Volonte 2014). Academic treatises such as Barbara Vinken’s Fashion Zeitgeist: Trends and Cycles in the Fashion System (2005) and Ingrid Loschek’s When Clothes Become Fashion: Design and Innovation Systems (2009) directly reference the idea in their titles.

In recent years, there has been a flurry of interest about a supposed crisis in fashion that will culminate in the so-called ‘end of fashion’. As noted in the Literature Review, this has been sparked by the work of Li Edelkoort, a trend forecaster whose Anti-Fashion ~ !242 ~ manifesto – subtitled ‘Ten reasons why the fashion system is obsolete’ (2015) – has sparked considerable debate. As previously mentioned in the Literature Review to this thesis, the editor of the Business of Fashion, Imran Amed, also suggested in 2016 that the ‘fashion system [is] seemingly at a breaking point’ with ‘economies… teetering, markets crashing and oil prices plummeting’. At the same moment, he also offered a vision of redemption and growth. Amed writes that ‘We need to destroy what we have, in order to reset, refocus and rebuild’ (2016: 3).

As Vicki Karaminas and Adam Geczy write in the Introduction to their collection The End of Fashion, Clothing and Dress in the Age of Globalisation: ‘Culturally speaking, to consign something to death is to open a door to an afterlife, which can be as cliché or reinvention. The “end of fashion” is the result of a number of forces caused by the redistributed networks of communication and of global economies’ (2018: 1). Karaminas and Geczy posit that ‘The “end of fashion” is therefore not to be taken literally but rather in terms of the way fashion and the fashion system, as we have understood it to be in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have radically changed’ (2). In the same collection of essays, Valerie Steele notes that Edelkoort’s Anti-Fashion Manifesto is simultaneously a ‘warning, statement, and call to action. Fashion is simultaneously described as dying, dead, and about to be resurrected’ (2018: 7). Steele writes that these kinds of declarations echo the sentiments of other statements such as ‘The King is dead! Long live the King!’ (2018: 7) through the ritual form of announcing the end of one era simultaneously with the dawn of a new age. Steele here wryly observes that ‘Announcements of [the demise of art or religion] have proved to be premature, and the same may be true of fashion’ (5).

Yet despite all of these authors’ concerns about the so-called ‘end of fashion’, their arguments still rely on a presupposed notion of the ‘fashion system’ as capturing an existing natural state of self-evident affairs. That is, despite their clear interest in the future of fashion, these authors do not take the time to interrogate the assumptions underpinning the idea of the ‘fashion system’ itself. And yet, if there really is truly a crisis in fashion, surely an examination of the assumptions underpinning this idea of the fashion system would be an obvious starting point for investigation. This concept of the fashion system conceptualises fashion as regular, rhythmic changes in forms of novelty. ~ !243 ~ The logic of the system is one of cyclical replacement, moving constantly from one fashion moment to the next, from one season to another. This idea of fashion as a constant modification in forms of novelty is consistent with Veblen’s theory of change driven by the futility of fashion, or Wilson’s formulation of fashion as characterised by cyclical change. One might describe the principal characteristics of this system as a singular, integrated and commercially-oriented phenomenon. Singular in the sense that it is consistently described as a dominant fashion system rather than a potential set of fashion systems; integrated in that the aspects foregrounded in the Moschino advertisements (CATWALK$ PHOTOGRAPHER$ CA$TING$ AND THE PRE$$) unite to form this singular system; commercially oriented in that, as indicated by the $ signs in Moschino’s advertisements, this singular integrated system is ultimately in the business of designing, manufacturing, marketing and selling fashionable clothes for profit.

Given the interest of this thesis in the operation of wit as a potential theoretical concept to open up new areas of thought in contemporary fashion studies, the aim of this chapter will be to interrogate the model of the fashion system. With this aim in mind, the questions that guide this chapter are as follows. How has the dominant assumption of the existence of a singular, integrated, commercially-oriented fashion system come into being? What might be the implications of this assumption for contemporary fashion studies? How might a theory of wit characterised by surprise and seduction engage with this idea of a singular fashion system? In addressing these questions, I will utilise the method deployed in the previous chapter. There, I demonstrated how an idea of wit inspired engagement within commonplaces of fashion studies, such as Veblen’s description of fashion’s quality of change driven by a tension between utility and futility. In this chapter, I will examine how Roland Barthes’ potent and powerfully compelling idea of a singular, integrated and commercially oriented fashion system can be placed in a fruitful dialogue with a sociology of wit. I will examine empirical evidence, via the work of the talented Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf, to determine if the surprise and seduction of wit can engage with this concept of a fashion system. For example, might it not be possible to speak of a proliferation of ‘fashion systems’, rather than a singular ‘fashion system’? The work of Viktor & Rolf – as well as the examples of the Moschino advertisements that open this chapter – have been selected as empirical ~ !244 ~ sites for considering this question for the reason that they are contemporary expressions of fashion that comment explicitly on the fashion system, while also being intimately involved in it as creators of fashion. Like the dandy, the sites of Viktor & Rolf and Moschino are examples where fashion and wit are in close alignment, enabling the connections between the two concepts to be readily discerned. Finally in this chapter, I will relate discussion of potentially proliferating fashion systems to my previous examples of the Gaultier dress, the dandy, Teufelsdröckh’s ‘Philosophy of Clothes’, O’Brien’s epigram, and glamour.

7.2 Barthes’ fashion system as a sign itself

In examining the origin of the idea of the fashion system – rather than the precise mechanics of the operation of the system itself – Barthes’ seminal text The Fashion System (1983) [1967] is a crucial starting point. It is here, as historian Linzy Brekke writes that ‘Roland Barthes coined the term “the fashion system” and lays out its framework’ (2005: 12). Indeed, as part of his description of a tradition of ‘fashion classics’, Michael Carter describes this specific text as introducing ‘intellectual changes that would eventually amount to a “paradigm change” in the study of clothes and fashion’ (2003: 143). As Carter suggests in positioning Barthes as the most recent major thinker to fundamentally alter our understanding of fashion, Barthes’ text constitutes fashion at a certain historical moment as an indelibly important element of mass culture. Barthes not only delineates the Fashion system’s points of distinction from sociology and linguistics; he also elaborates fashion within a detailed semiological framework. Barthes’ innovation, as Carter notes, is to describe fashion as representing a paradigm change that establishes a distinct point of difference from the model of costume history that dominated theories of dress up to this point.

Barthes explicates an original semiological system which explains the operation of fashion writing in reference to the French women’s fashion magazines Elle and Les Jardins des Modes, from June 1958 to June 1959. The project, initially conceived as a doctoral dissertation, was begun in 1957 and finished in 1963 (Jobling 1999: 69; Carter 2003: 144). The book was eventually published in 1967 in French and translated into English in 1983. This text purports to denaturalise the magazines’ ‘rare and poor’ ~ !245 ~ rhetoric that Barthes claims naturalises the fact of fashion as a self-evident law (1983 [1967]: 236). Barthes documents the method by which apparently endless permutations of signifiers within the fashion system are carefully modulated toward a singular, ultimate meaning – that of ‘Fashion’ itself. The capital ‘F’ of ‘Fashion’ that Barthes uses throughout indicates the force of fashion as an imperative law that defies questioning. It simply exists. In producing his study, Barthes explicitly adopts the methodology of Saussurean linguistics, extracting suitably evocative copy from fashion magazines as his object of study. These fragments consist of phrases like ‘A little braid gives elegance’ or ‘A leather belt, with a rose stick in it... on a soft shetland dress’ (1983 [1967]: 27, 3). Barthes’ analysis of these apparently innocuous textual precepts ultimately articulates how these maxims produce Fashion’s imperative tone.

The influence of The Fashion System is almost paradoxical given that it is a text of which only a few commentators have provided a detailed semiological explication of the text – which is, after all, ostensibly the purpose of the book (see, for example, Jobling 1999, Scott 1999 or Moeran 2004). The Fashion System, is, frankly, a difficult text to read. As Nicole Pellegrin writes in the entry on Barthes in The Berg Companion to Fashion, the book ‘is a fashionable reference within a bibliography, but it has not really been assimilated’ (2010: 54). This difficulty arises primarily because of Barthes’ desire to delineate a science of structuralism down to the very minutest detail. To delight in a few tongue-in-cheek references – given Barthes’ usually impeccable reputation as a stylist – the reception of the book’s dense writing has been not simply damning with faint praise, but outright condemnation. Critics have called it ‘the most boring book on fashion ever written’ (Moeran 2004: 36); ‘structuralism’s Moby Dick’ (Carter 2003: 144); ‘a semiological disaster… more of a nightmare than a dream’ (Barnard 1996: 92); ‘impenetrable and rather obsessive’ (Pine 2004: 356); ‘an austere and baroque book… in which a linguistic theory… develops, flourishes, and self-destructs’ (Pellegrin 2010: 54). It has been claimed that it is the ‘least read’ of Barthes’ texts (Blau 1999: 15), and that the author was misled by an ‘euphoric dream of

~ !246 ~ scientificity’ (Barnard 1996: 92)2. Jobling himself calls Barthes’ analysis ‘notorious and opaque’ (1999: 66).

Critiques of The Fashion System are not limited to academic commentators other than the author. Barthes himself acknowledges the book’s limitations. In a 1967 Foreword written four years after the text was finalised, and produced at the time of its initial publication, Barthes confesses: ‘This venture, it must be admitted, is already dated… what is proposed here is already a certain history of semiology’ forming a ‘slightly naive window’ on the semiological method (1983 [1967]: ix). Furthermore, although Barthes provides a clear program of how he anticipates The Fashion System might be extended in the early chapters of his work, few commentators in the intervening decades have taken up the purported scientific method of project, including Barthes himself3. For an ostensible ‘book of method’ (ix), it is striking that the work of The Fashion System proposes a methodological approach that has almost never been repeated within fashion studies4.

The Fashion System is usually regarded as being more successful in its second, non- semiological half – a much briefer section that describes with Barthes’ usual insightful flair the specific rhetorical strategies by which his idea of capital ‘F’ Fashion insinuates itself into everyday life. This section includes ruminations on the manner in which

2 Somewhat amusingly, there is a tendency for critics to outdo themselves with hyperbolic takedowns of The Fashion System; they appear to exhibit delight in seeing such a great man hoist by his own theoretical petard. Many of the citations quoted are of doubtful or unclear provenance, although this does not stop others picking them up and running with them. For example, Carter claims that Barthes’ text is referred to as ‘structuralism’s Moby Dick’ but provides no reference (Carter 2003: 144); this is followed without question by Black, who quotes Carter but again fails to reference the quotation (2009: 502). Stafford modifies Moeran’s quote that The Fashion System is the most boring book on fashion ever written (Stafford: 2006: 119); Moeran’s direct quote makes clear that these are not his words, but he also declines to provide a reference for this exact phrase (2004: 36). There is also an empirical cloud over some of these claims; how does one prove, as Blau asserts, that a certain text is the ‘least read’ amongst a collection? (1999: 15).

3 Alison Lurie’s Language of Clothes (1992) [1981] is an early exception even though it has been much derided for its over-literal equation of garments with other phenomena, e.g., neckties with penises, or city clothes as camouflage; for criticism of Lurie, see, for example, Finkelstein (1996: 104, 108). For more nuanced elaborations of Barthes’ methodology in contemporary fashion magazines, see Moeran’s analysis of Japanese magazines (2004) and Konig’s (2006) study on fashion writing in Vogue. What is perhaps most remarkable is that Barthes himself did not return to further refine the project or to address the proposed program of work suggested by the text. After the publication of The Fashion System, he preferred to write shorter essays on the subject; see a comprehensive collection of his other writings in The Language of Fashion (2006).

4 Moeran (2014) provides an analysis of fashion magazine that adheres most closely to Barthes’ method. ~ !247 ~ fashion magazines transmit certain ideas of culture, travel, femininity, leisure, and so on – what Barthes in general calls the poetics of Fashion. This part of the book is more akin to Barthes’ musings in the succinct essays of Mythologies (1986) [1957], and has attracted many more citations than the semiological overload found in the first half of the book. Barthes’ writerly gift for providing a plentiful resource from which one can pluck out a juicy quote – or indeed, an epigram – has also provided rich inspiration for many more commentators of fashion than his structuralist semiology as it is found in this specific book. Of course, as previously noted, some authors do consider the semiological detail of the first part of the book, but as it stands, the semiological explication of the text remains an intimidating object rather than engaging reference.

And it is in this sense of Barthes’ The Fashion System as a potential ‘object’ of fashion studies itself that I wish to explore. Given the ubiquity of the term ‘the fashion system’ – as we have seen it recur in academia and popular culture such as the Moschino advertisements – it may be revealing to think of The Fashion System not only as a description of the signifying system of Fashion, but itself as a ‘sign’ that functions within contemporary descriptions of fashion. What would it mean to examine the idea of the fashion system not as a natural given, but as the sign of a certain concept itself? How does the sign of ‘the fashion system’ function within contemporary fashion studies? How might we even describe it? Jobling provides some guidance in his own essay on Barthes, writing that ‘The principal dialectic of semiology maintains that every sign is constituted of two elements: a signifier, that is the sensory or material substance from which something is made... and a signified, something conventional or cultural that is inaugurated by or associated with the material signifier’ (2016: 135). If we consider the idea of ‘the fashion system’ itself as a functioning sign, the signifier of Barthes’ powerfully influential concept is the phrase the ‘fashion system’ itself; its signified is the complex web of interrelated phenomena that constitute the singular, integrated, commercially oriented system as a natural and unquestionable fact.

This reconceptualisation of The Fashion System as a sign itself is a further novel contribution of this thesis to fashion studies. Indeed, those who have studied Barthes’ work provide strict semiological analyses of the text, such Jobling (1999), Scott (1999) or Moeran (20014) have not considered this idea. These authors assume the existence of ~ ! ~248 the fashion system itself as an unproblematic description of the state of play. The idea that the sign of Barthes’ ‘fashion system’ itself might function as a specific model of Fashion, or whether this model is in fact the most appropriate method of considering this capital ‘F’ Fashion, has not been addressed. Even thinkers who re-examine the conceptual history of contemporary fashion, such as Lipovetsky (1994) [1989] or Vinken (2005) do not interrogate the term. Rather, they build on the assumption of its existence to produce their own models of consummate fashion or postfashion. The following questions then arise: what is the import and influence of the sign of the ‘fashion system’ as an object of analysis itself? In terms of the interests that guide this thesis, how might a concept of wit provide a framework for expanding this analysis of the fashion system?

In addressing these questions, I will first discuss how Barthes constructs his sign of the fashion system as singular, integrated, and with an economic orientation. I will show how Barthes deploys his choice of the object of his analysis, his method, and the strategic insertion of a Foreword written in 1967 – at the time of the book’s initial publication, and inserted four years after the original text was finalised – to produce a compelling sign of the ‘fashion system’.

First, consider how Barthes’ selects the choice of material for his study. Barthes begins by noting his focus on written descriptions of clothing as found in magazines – what he deems the Fashion ‘utterance’ (1983 [1967]: 10). He justifies this choice by discussing the ease of studying written clothing as compared to fashion photography or physical items of clothing. For example, whereas real clothing must be considered in terms of practical considerations – the traditional anthropological explanation of clothing that highlights the motives of protection and modesty – these qualities disappear from written clothing. As Barthes notes, written clothing has ‘no practical or aesthetic function… if the magazine describes a certain article of clothing verbally, it does so solely to convey a message whose content is: Fashion’ (8). For Barthes, written clothing thus possesses no direct correspondence to the real, physical object it purports to describe. For this reason, he further argues that a sociology of fashion itself is inappropriate for his project since – at least at the time he was writing – sociology was primarily concerned with ‘social conditions, standards of living, and roles’ (9). ~ !249 ~ Similarly, Barthes argues, a purely linguistic approach is inadequate, since, although Fashion utterances produced by magazines share the same substance as language itself – that is, words – their meanings do not coincide completely. If they did, changing a term in that language would also alter the meaning of the Fashion utterance. Barthes argues that this is simply not the case. For example, a magazine might declare ‘Wear shantung in summer’ just as easily as ‘Shantung goes with summer’ (1983 [1967]: 4). Although the language in each utterance is different, for Barthes this difference does not fundamentally affect the message transmitted to the reader: namely, the message that shantung is in Fashion this season. For the above reasons, Barthes argues that a study of the Fashion utterances of magazines is best performed not through sociology or linguistics, but through the science of semiology.

There are a few pertinent points to be made here. Firstly, that while Barthes’ dismisses the sociology of fashion and deems it inappropriate for his study, he defines sociology quite strictly as concerned with ‘social conditions, standards of living, and roles’. While certain strands of sociology at the time he was writing may have focussed on quantitative rather than qualitative concerns, this is by no means true of sociology as a broad, multidisciplinary field of enquiry. Furthermore, Barthes’ justification elides the fact that his own work is engaged with the social question of fashion he seeks to understand. That is, in considering the fashion system, despite his abstract approach, Barthes’ work is also connected to a wider social context – here, at the very least, the magazines he wishes to describe. Finally, the tension between linguistics and the language of Fashion magazines Barthes invokes is perhaps specious. The difference between the utterances ‘Wear shantung in summer’ and ‘Shantung goes with summer’ is, in fact, quite obviously noticeable. The former takes the imperative tone, with no necessary connection between shantung and summer; in the latter, the suggestion here is that there is some specific quality of shantung – perhaps lightness, touch, texture etc – that is peculiarly appropriate to the season. Barthes suggests here that the meaning is the same – ie, shantung is in Fashion this summer – but this is only true if one presupposes that the only purpose of Fashion utterances is to utter an idea of Fashion as a law unto itself.

~ !250 ~ This is, indeed, the argument that Barthes makes throughout The Fashion System. For example, he writes, ‘Fashion presents itself immediately as Law’ (1983 [1967]: 269) or ‘a pure and simple fact’ (270). Barthes notes that it is Fashion’s special temporality – its never-ending present tense – that produces a compelling paradox. The nature of this paradox is as such: ‘Fashion is recorded at the very moment it is announced… such is the trajectory Fashion follows in order to transform into fact at once its cause, its law, and its signs’ (272). Barthes writes that each year Fashion ‘at a single stroke collapses into the nothingness of the past: reason or nature no longer supervising the signs, everything is granted to the system, beginning with the declared murder of the past’ (289). As Jobling (1999) has indicated, Barthes himself modified or paraphrased the text of the utterances discussed in The Fashion System in order to better serve his point, although without explicitly flagging this for the reader. If Barthes was truly sure these phrases were equivalent, surely the elision of these paraphrases in the text would not be necessary? His own tweaking of the exact wording of his corpus – as he describes it – demonstrates a willingness to adjust the text to best illustrate his argument to persuade his audience. The effect of the above strategies in combination indicates that perhaps Barthes is working backward from his conclusion: having already decided that the purpose of Fashion is to transmit Fashion-as-law, by excluding sociology and linguistics he makes it easier to establish his central thesis that Fashion has no purpose but to replicate itself. Thus, we can see that Barthes’ choice of written material for his study works to produce a singular meaning of Fashion as law produced by the singular fashion system itself.

Following on from this point, Barthes discusses his methodological approach in studying the corpus to which he has restricted himself. Barthes draws his model of how signifying systems operate in Fashion from the work of semiologist Louis Hjelmslev. Barthes adopts Hjelmslev’s argument that signifying systems stack, like layers of strata, so that an individual sign, taken as a whole on one level, itself becomes the signifier of an entirely new semantic system that sits atop the original layer (Barthes 1983 [1967]: 27). This new layer possesses a distinct signified; and when the new layer’s signifier and signified are considered as a unified sign, this sign can again be read as the signifier of an additional layer, thus forming a new system which sits atop the old, and so on and

~ !251 ~ so forth. Following this model, Barthes elaborates all the possible systems that can be studied from the utterances he has selected.

For example, in his corpus Barthes identifies four connected Hjelsmlevian systems – the real vestimentary code, written vestimentary code, connotation of Fashion and rhetorical system. Barthes reduces these down to the written vestimentary code and the rhetorical system as being of further interest. (As discussed above, the real vestimentary code is not of interest as it refers to a pre-existing ‘reality’ rather than the utterances of the magazines, and the connotation of Fashion is not relevant as it is always implicit in the utterances of the Fashion magazine as the final signified). Barthes states that his task will be to uncover the existence of the written vestimentary code where the signifier (written clothing) stands in for a ‘class of signifieds’ (Fashion, or a more general notion of ‘the world’ in which Fashion operates) and the rhetorical system. Barthes is interested in the written vestimentary code, because by ‘interposing worldly signifieds between the garment and Fashion… the arbitrariness of Fashion becomes surreptitious and the general system presents itself as natural’ (1983 [1967]: 39). In contrast to direct correlations between clothing and an idea of Fashion (at its most simple, an utterance of the kind ‘This dress is in Fashion’), the semiological method is of use in decoding this surreptitious process.

Barthes then examines the apparent autonomy of the rhetorical system. Barthes uses the example of the utterance ‘A little braid gives elegance’ to demonstrate the operation of this rhetorical system. Barthes argues that stripped of its rhetorical signifiers – the metaphorical verb gives, and an ‘ethical’ sense of little as ‘humble, modest, appealing’ – a recognisable utterance can still be extracted – ‘A braid is a sign of elegance’ – even in a reduced, denoted form (1983 [1967]: 40). In this case, the element of the braid can be isolated to produce the effect of elegance indicated by the utterance itself. Barthes thus concludes that a study of the rhetorical system is merited due to the independent meaning that can be derived from this utterance. Having delineated the two principal systems of interest, the remainder of The Fashion System is – in effect – a precise and detailed semiological explication of how these systems unify to produce the meaning of Fashion found within the system. The description of the system is in fact quite simple and concise; however the text quickly becomes very complex because not only do these ~ !252 ~ two systems sit within the fashion system, but they are comprised of further Hjelmslevian subsystems, which are themselves comprised of other subsystems, and so on. In an attempt to clarify his scientific instinct, Barthes invents various technical terms that unfortunately obfuscate rather than facilitate our understanding of the first half of the text (which was noted previously explicates the semiological approach that is regarded as quite difficult to navigate5).

The principal point of my discussion here is not to critique Barthes’ semiological method per se; indeed his work is careful, logical and thoroughly considered. Rather, it is to consider how thinking about the sign of ‘the fashion system’ enables us to examine how Barthes’ usage of an interlocking strata of Hjelmslevian systems and subsystems – all of which ultimately integrate to form the ‘fashion system’ itself – conveys a powerfully persuasive quality of systemic singularity. The sign of Barthes’ fashion system thus itself works to reduce its own potential polysemy – in effect, to become a signifier of ‘what fashion means’ – through this carefully integrated singularity.

I will now examine how Barthes’ orients the reader to accepting that the purpose of Fashion is solely in service of an economically oriented agenda. This agenda comes at the expense of other meanings of fashion that one could parse – Barthes’ exclusion of sociology and linguistics to name just two. In the original 1963 version of the text, prior to publication, Barthes makes no direct reference to the economic focus of Fashion, and only obliquely indicates its alignment with a certain ideology – associated with Fashion magazine editors, whose job it is to disseminate the message of Fashion each season6. However, in the 1967 Foreword, written four short years earlier – and coinciding with the publication of the text as a book – Barthes holds no such reservations. This Foreword is key as it orients the reader to approach the pages that follow in crucial

5 For example, in one instance of an especially dense thicket of terminology, Barthes introduces the following words in a scant few pages: AUT, VEL, ET relations (following an unexplained system recognisable in the first instance only to students of Latin grammar), semantemes, arch-semantemes, functives and functions (1983 [1967]: 198-206).

6 For Barthes, Fashion writing in magazines could be described as a ‘collective vision’ composed by a ‘group made up of editors’ (1983 [1967]: 228). Barthes writes that because this writing is not individual and psychological, but rather ‘conventional and regulated’, it cannot truly constitute an original ‘literature’ (228). It can only ‘parade’ it by copying its tone (228). Barthes identifies the general signified of this Fashion writing as the ideology of Fashion (230). He does not here define the term ‘ideology’, but in his text it might be broadly characterised as the set of ideas that (consciously or unconsciously) underpins the Fashion system and those imbricated in it, such as Fashion editors. ~ !253 ~ ways. As we have seen, it describes the semiological project as ‘naïve’, ‘dated’, ‘already a history’; in other words, it orients the reader towards a scepticism of the project they are on the verge of encountering7.

Furthermore, the 1967 Foreword provides Fashion with a raison d’être not readily discernible in Barthes’ original study. Barthes’ strategic intervention against his earlier self – made at the point where the reader will first encounter the text that follows – makes clear the underlying assumptions of the original work. Alerting the reader to be cautious of the text that follows may simply be the modesty of a critic who has identified certain theoretical flaws in his own work; nonetheless, it also emphasises that the authorial Barthes who speaks later possesses a more experienced perspective and greater authority that the reader should acknowledge. How does this play out in the text? In the new Foreword Barthes observes ‘The unavoidable presence of human speech is clearly not an innocent one. Why does Fashion utter clothing so abundantly? Why does it interpose, between object and its user, such a luxury of words?’ (1983 [1967]: ix). Barthes writes that ‘The reason is, of course, an economic one. Calculating, industrial society is obliged to form consumers who don’t calculate; if clothing's producers and consumers had the same consciousness clothing would be bought (and produced) only at the very slow rate of its dilapidation’ (xi). The purpose of the Fashion system is thus: ‘In order to blunt the buyer’s calculating consciousness, a veil must be drawn around the object – a veil of images, of reasons, of meanings… a simulacrum of the real object must be created, substituting for the slow time of wear a sovereign time free to destroy itself by an act of annual potlach’ (xi). Barthes concludes, ‘Thus, the commercial origin of our collective image-system… cannot be a mystery to anyone’ (xii). The Barthes of the Foreword thus foregrounds ideology’s ‘certain vision of the world’ in a way that is not pursued in the original pages of the text to come.

The reason that ‘of course’ Fashion ‘cannot be a mystery to anyone’ is perhaps disingenuous given that Barthes spends the next three hundred pages attempting to

7 A further complication here is that the published Foreword is actually a second Foreword, replacing an earlier, imprecisely dated version ‘[An Early Preface to] The Fashion System’ reproduced in The Language of Fashion (2006 [1963?]: 70-85). This version possesses a more technical language, although its broad points of emphasis are similar. I place the date with a question mark here as per Stafford and Carter’s own note from The Language of Fashion. ~ !254 ~ sketch an explanation of how this system works. However, without the crucial paraphrasing provided in the Foreword, this ideology of Fashion would continue to remain, in Barthes; terms, a ‘mystery’. Further, Barthes’ choice of language to describe the way that Fashion operates to ‘blunt’ the buyer’s ‘calculating’ consciousness seems excessively violent. It presupposes a certain victimhood, if not innocence, on the part of consumers of Fashion. In an interview with Le Monde at the time of the book's publication in French, Barthes reiterates: ‘For me fashion is indeed a system. Contrary to the myth of improvisation, of caprice, of fantasy… fashion is strongly coded. It is ruled by combination in which there is a finite reserve of elements… If fashion appears to us to be unpredictable this is because we are using only a small human memory’ (2006 [1967]: 101). And so it is that in the Foreword to The Fashion System, Barthes reduces Fashion to a ‘luxury of words’ that masks the economically oriented system that dominates deluded consumers.

In the preceding examples, one can already discern Barthes' ambivalence to Fashion. His observations on the consumers of Fashion – particularly his comments on women in The Fashion System8, and his remarks on narcissistic ‘homosexuals’ in the essay Dandyism in Fashion – do not deserve a free pass, no matter how towering Barthes’ intellectual reputation. These are certainly fascinating topics for consideration, given Barthes’ ongoing interest in fashion over the course of his career. However, it is not the purpose of this chapter to discuss these specific issues. Rather, as I have stated, it is to focus specifically on how Barthes constructs the idea of the fashion system as singular, integrated and economically oriented, and the flow-on effects this may have in considering the construction of the sign of ‘the fashion system’.

8 Barthes notes that a specific idea of culture is invoked through such utterances as ‘the dress Manet would have loved to paint’, ‘this poison-pink would have charmed Toulouse Lautrec’, and so on (1983 [1967]: 240). Here, as Barthes writes, ‘it is the very idea of culture which is intended to signify’ (240). But Barthes immediately qualifies this idea of culture as narrow and denuded. He writes that it is limited to ‘the divisions of a high-school girl’s learning; the models Fashion proposes pell-mell are borrowed from the intellectual baggage of a young girl’ (240). Indeed, for Barthes, the ‘model reader’ of the Fashion magazine can be determined precisely: ‘it is a young girl who goes to high school but still plays with dolls at home, even if these dolls are merely knickknacks on her bookshelves…. the child is excessively childish at home and excessively serious at school’ (242). Quite how Barthes logically interpolates this notion given his commitment to strict scientificity is, to me, unclear. Positioning the magazine’s typical consumer as possessing the mental acuity of a high school student is either a grave insult or a manifestation of supreme irony ~ !255 ~ The influence of Barthes’ The Fashion System in a broader academic context as a sign itself might be summarised as follows. Firstly, it indicates a focus on fashion as a singular phenomenon, that reinforces the idea of a cohesive and coherent movement as described in the Literature Review of the thesis. Secondly, despite the semiological complexity of the work undertaken, Barthes’ interlocution into his own text via the Foreword written in 1967 explicitly reduces the functioning of this system to one based on the operation of commerce. Fashion possesses no creativity or independent merit; instead, it is purely a means to push the sales of goods. Finally, it reduces Fashion to a self-replicating logic that promotes only the idea of itself. That is, not only does Fashion seek to ‘blunt’ consumer consciousness, it is an overwhelmingly empty form. For Barthes ‘Fashion’ signifies only ‘Fashion’; since Fashion is its own reason; one cannot question it, one can merely consume it.

What, then, does Barthes fashion system signify today? Barthes’ idea of the singular, integrated and economically oriented fashion system – like Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption – retains significant traction in popular and academic accounts. This succinct phrase forms a powerful shorthand for the complexion of contemporary fashion as an exemplary artefact of capitalism. The influence of this thinking is enormous: such is the power of the system that it is difficult to discuss fashion without invoking its shadow in some way. And yet, can this sign of the fashion system really present the full picture as it pertains to fashion? Are there not perhaps other ways of perceiving this system, such as those that might be suggested – for example – by a concept of wit?

For example, let us return to Moschino’s own FA$HION $Y$TEM. What is it about this $Y$TEM that sets it apart from Barthes’ model? After all, both seem to acknowledge the importance of economic concerns as present in fashion. Both also seem to recognise the power of written text – Barthes by his corpus and the Moschino advertisements via slogans. And yet, as I noted at the beginning of this chapter, Moschino possesses a reputation for making amusing interventions in the existing fashion system. Moschino’s designs are famed for their irreverence, for example, through satirising other designers, using surreal objects in its accessories and declaring its own customers as ‘fashion victims’. In thinking about how we might extend our idea of the fashion system, ~ !256 ~ perhaps the power of Moschino’s advertising campaign is that it suggests that fashion cannot, after all, be circumscribed solely by the requisites of commerce. Perhaps the intent of the ‘protest’ in Moschino’s advertisement ‘DON’T $TOP THE FA$HION $Y$TEM’ is not really an exhortation to $TOP or DON’T $TOP anything, but a method of drawing attention to a broader tendency to conflate fashion with the dollar-obsessed $Y$TEM.

The appearance of the Moschino advertisements at a certain moment is no accident. These advertisements speak to Lipovetsky’s description of the ‘humour’ of fashion appearing in the era of consummate fashion as a loosening of the strictures of the laws of fashion, and an emphasis on pleasure and leisure, as described in the previous chapter. Barthes himself does touch on the idea of humour in The Fashion System, not in the main text but in a final brief Appendix. However, the idea of humour that he describes is quite circumscribed and specific in deeming one of the genres of the fashion photograph as ‘mockery’. He writes that in certain kinds of photographs:

the woman is caught in an amusing attitude, or better still, a comic one; her pose, her expression are excessive, caricatural; she spreads her legs exaggeratedly, miming astonishment to the point of childishness, plays with outmoded accessories… hoisting herself up onto a pedestal like a statue, six hats stacked on her head, etc: in short, she makes herself unreal by dint of mockery; this is the “mad”, the “outrageous” (1983 [1967]: 302)

This is an aesthetic consideration of humour in fashion photography rather than a substantive investigation. For, as Jobling notes, ‘Barthes regards the photograph as a supplement that can be overlooked. It functions usually as nothing more than a decorative element’ (1999: 90). Instead of relying solely on the textual element of the fashion system, Jobling argues, ‘we need to decode both words and images in tandem’ (1999: 91). Scott agrees that Barthes’ extraction of the singular ‘fashion statement' places a restriction on how we understand fashion. He writes that the ‘fashion statement… takes place in the worlds of edicts and absolutes’ – as per Barthes’ system – ‘and to which women, photographs and all else must submit’ (1999: 142).

It is clear that the model in the photograph of Moschino’s advertisements – with her striking contrapposto pose, brazenly wielding a protest sign – is not about to submit readily to anyone, let alone to the all-encompassing fashion system. Neither is she a figure of mockery. Rather, she is defiance personified – albeit with an amusing and ~ !257 ~ novel method of conveying her apparent protest against the system she finds herself in. The surprise of replacing the letter S with $ signs is matched only by the seductive attractions of her fashionable attire. And yet, the Moschino advertisements are just one example of a critique of the fashion system guided by wit. Is the wit on display here as a form of critique generalisable to other designers within the fashion system? If so, what original insights and alluring seductions might they provide? In answering these questions, in the next section of this chapter I will consider the empirical evidence provided by another fashion house that has staged explicit interventions in the fashion system through the use of witty humour – the house of Viktor & Rolf.

7.3 An empirical example of a contemporary fashion system of wit – Viktor & Rolf

As fashion commentator Hywel Davies writes, ‘Since their couture debut, Viktor & Rolf have stunned the fashion industry with their witty creativity’ (Davies 2008: 171). Indeed, Viktor & Rolf have delighted and entranced – or, indeed, surprised and seduced – followers of fashion since their initial appearance in Paris in the mid 1990s. Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren graduated from the fashion department of the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design in the Netherlands in 1992, moving to Paris to launch their fashion careers. Although they obtained internships under Maison Martin Margiela and Jean Colonna, they found it difficult to enter the world of fashion under their own names. However, the award of a prize for fashion at the Hyéres Interntional Festival of the Arts and Fashion in southern France in 1993 encouraged them to continue to collaborate. In 1995 they rented space in a Parisian gallery to exhibit their first official collection, L’Apparence du Vide, which featured gold lamé garments suspended by wires from the ceiling, matched by black garments of silk organza which shadowed them on the floor of the gallery below. Frustrated by a lack of attention to this show, Viktor & Rolf went on a self-proclaimed ‘strike’ during 1996 Paris fashion week. In this instant, they did not produce any clothes at all; instead they postered the French capital with protest signs somewhat akin to the Moschino advertisements – although in this case, the signs were blank [Figure 7.3]. Still they received little media attention. As the designers themselves say of this period, ‘We loved fashion and we were intrigued by it, but we did not know how to enter this world. It was an enigma to us’ (Loriot 2016: 4)

~ ! ~258 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 7.3. ‘Viktor & Rolf on strike’, Autumn/ Winter 1996-1997. Image accessed via Central Museum Utrecht, 31 August 2019 (centraalmuseum.nl 2019).

Happily, their next exhibition/ fashion show, Launch, staged at the Torch Gallery in Amsterdam in 1996, put them on the fashion radar. As Caroline Evans describes the scene, ‘Having no money for a catwalk show, they created a microcosm of a fashion launch, with all the paraphernalia required to set up a fashion house but without the investment: a miniature catwalk, boutique, photo studio, atelier and a campaign for a fictional Viktor & Rolf perfume’ (2008: 12). The perfume itself had no scent; it instead comprised a display ‘set of life-size perfume bottles… each sealed shut; a photograph, and a press release’ (12). A series of small-scaled fashion shows followed this exhibition. A turning point was their Autumn/Winter 1999-2000 show ‘Russian Doll’, in which a single model was layered, piece by piece, with various garments like a matryoshka doll, finally ending up with over 70kg of couture covering her slender frame [Figure 7.4].

~ ! ~259 [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 7.4. ‘Russian Doll’, Viktor & Rolf, Autumn/ Winter 1999-2000, synthesising all nine layered garments, or as the designers call them, ‘Preparations’, in s single photograph. The bottom left right image shows the first piece of couture to be layered; a simple jute toile. The largest image shows all of the successively applied garments placed on model Maggie Rizer, who almost appears strangled by a giant couture rose. Photograph by Bardo Fabiani, originally from Vogue Italia September 1999, reproduced in Evans and Frankel 2008: 96.

In 2000 Viktor & Rolf became the first Dutch designers to receive an invitation to show on the prestigious official Chambre Syndicale de la Couture calendar. And yet at this point, Viktor & Rolf were still more renowned for their spectacular and confounding conceptual runway shows as much as for their clothes. As Arnold writes, ‘in their early career, Viktor and Rolf decided just to stage fashion shows rather than produce any saleable clothes… their designs became one-offs, rare pieces that existed only as comments on the role of the show within the fashion system, rather than wearable ~ ! ~260 garments’ (2009: 32). The initial limited availability of their clothes was followed by a period of expansion where Viktor & Rolf launched ready-to-wear lines for women and men, and licensed their own perfumes: ‘Flowerbomb’ for women, and ‘Spicebomb’ for men. (These perfumes even possess a distinctive scent, in a novel twist on the original parfum.) Today, Viktor & Rolf continue to exhibit in galleries and museums across the world – from the Barbican in London (2008) to the National Gallery of Victoria (2016), highlighting their continued importance in the contemporary fashion scene. However, since 2015 they have retired from ready-to-wear and now focus solely on producing couture collections.

Why is it that Viktor & Rolf are an exemplary example by which to examine the proliferation of contemporary fashion systems via an idea of wit? While Viktor & Rolf are often characterised in terms of art practice (Evans and Frankel 2008; Arnold 2009; Loriot 2016), this overlooks their vibrant and potent sense of humour. An example of the attitude that characterises them primarily as artists can be found in the Introduction to the catalogue for the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition presented in Melbourne at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2015. Director Tony Ellwood writes that ‘It was the art world that first embraced Viktor & Rolf’s designs early in their career and now… their work is more than ever at home in the contemporary museum’ (2006: vii). And yet, Viktor & Rolf themselves insist that their orientation toward museums and galleries in the milieu of the art world was born of necessity rather than design. In their own words: ‘At the start of our career, the art world showed a lot more interest in our work than the fashion world did. It was not necessarily an ambition to make art or present fashion in museums; we were simply making what we imagined on our minds and the response came from the art world’ (Loriot 2016: 8). In the following discussion, I will argue that a concept of wit characterised by surprise and seduction gives us an important and illuminating framework from which to view the work of Viktor & Rolf.

Furthermore, this sense of wit is often oriented explicitly towards an examination of the fashion system itself. Of course, other designers have used wit to to comment on this fashion system. Before Viktor & Rolf, before Moschino, perhaps the most notable example of wit is Elsa Schiaparelli. Her surrealist designs and non-serious attitude ~ !261 ~ caused a stir from the 1920s onwards. Creating hats designed to look like shoes in collaboration with Dali, newspaper print fabric, lobster-painted dresses, and a bottle for her signature fragrance modelled on notable Hollywood actor and serial saucy quipper Mae West (Martin 1988; Schiaparelli 2018 [1954]), it is not for nothing that Schiaparelli herself described herself as ‘Shocking’9. (The idea of a ‘shock’ contains the element of sudden insight I have previously associated with the concept of witty surprise.) And as discussed in the previous chapter, Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Gvasalia for Vetements and Balenciaga have also produced their own witty interventions into fashion; the former by disrupting the rhythm of change apparently necessary in fashion, the latter by calling into question the distinction between the useful and the futile nature of clothing and fashion.

However, the work of Viktor & Rolf is of special interest given the thematics of this thesis because, as indicated even by the brief discussion above, they are explicitly fascinated by the fashion system itself. Viktor & Rolf’s early career aspirations and later work are oriented around the characteristics, genre, limitations and benefits of the fashion system. Their career trajectory reflects this fascination. Initially, they were outsiders looking in; now they are insiders looking out. The clear sense of humour that shines through their work, collection after collection, makes them a favourable empirical site to explore the impact that wit has on understanding the so-called fashion system, or the further proliferation of further contemporary fashion systems.

In discussing their work, I will examine select examples from their design oeuvre. I will first turn to the strategy of surprise that Viktor & Rolf provide in their work through their commentary on the fashion system. As we have seen, the idea of surprise is characterised through the provision of an unexpected, pithy and creative insight. The examples of surprise I will discuss here encompass Viktor & Rolf’s early career to their more established phase, and demonstrates their ongoing fascination with the properties and mechanisms of the fashion system. I will begin by noting, as discussed above, that after graduation Viktor & Rolf seemed to be outsiders looking into a fashion system that they had not yet successfully accessed. This is demonstrated by the previously

9 Schiaparelli’s signature colour was of course ‘Shocking Pink’ – another ‘Pink Thought’ to add to Glenn O’Brien’s collection described in the Introduction to this thesis. ~ !262 ~ mentioned ‘Launch’ exhibition of 1996 which created a microcosm of the elements that a fashion house apparently required within the contemporary fashion system – catwalk show, boutique, photo studio and spin-off perfume – captured in miniature. The only thing missing was, of course, the clothes themselves. Furthermore, the creation of a promotional campaign for a perfume where in fact, there was no perfume at all [Figures 7.5-7.6], possesses a certain flair of the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ about it. This perhaps an apposite observation, given Viktor & Rolf's continued interest in fairy tales. They have not only written and published their own compendium of fashion-related tales, Fairy Tales (2011), but the closing image of their 2015 exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria read: ‘We want our clothes to look like they’ve been made by the birds, in Cinderella’ [Figure 7.7].

It is indeed a stroke of wit to include the idea of a parfum that has no scent in the purported ‘Launch’ of their brand. In doing so, Viktor & Rolf thus highlight that striking a licensing deal with another company to distribute scents across department stores the world over is largely seen as a lucrative sign of success in the fashion industry. (Most fashion companies license the production of their signature scents to third party companies such as L’Oréal). While the fashion system may dominate as a powerfully persuasive concept – as per the idea proposed by Barthes – the witty twist here consist in drawing attention to the actual absence of their range is what put them on the path to success within the system. The attention attracted through their ‘virtual’ collections, as described by Didier Grumbach, President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, provided a direct entry into the system of couture itself. As noted fashion theorist Caroline Evans writes, ‘it was enough to produce immaterial meaning so long as it became material in the media’ (2008: 13).

~ !263 ~ Figure 7.5. Viktor & Rolf ‘Le Parfum’, 1996. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

~ !264 ~ Figure 7.6. Viktor & Rolf ‘Le Parfum’, 1996. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

Figure 7.7. Text by Viktor & Rolf. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

~ ! ~265 Viktor & Rolf’s attempt to enter the fashion system did not end with ‘Launch’. For Autumn/ Winter 1996-1997 they postered the streets of Paris with their ‘On Strike’ campaign – a series of protests which again did not feature any material garments. This campaign was brought about, once again, by Viktor & Rolf’s frustrated attempts to enter the fashion system proper. As Evans remarks of this campaign: ‘Being “on strike” as fashion designers and producing no clothes is to make a joke about production, arguably at the expense of the industry… Viktor & Rolf managed simultaneously to critique the fashion industry and its spectacle yet to be part of them in a knowing and ironic way’ (2003: 83). Even when Viktor & Rolf did enter the mainstream calendar of Paris fashion shows, their struggle with the fast-paced turnaround of collections and creative pressure itself fuelled inspiration. In ‘NO’, Autumn/ Winter 2008-2009, their frustration with the fashion system led them to create drab grey-flecked tweed coats punctuated with boxy, sculptural textual cut-outs that expressed their gloomy mood [Figure 7.8]. Viktor & Rolf themselves state of this phase: ‘We just did not feel like doing a collection. We were busy sketching a new collection and feeling that no, we do not want this; no we don’t want to do that. The word “no” was popping up in all our sketches. Then while drawing coats we thought, why resist it? It was like therapy. Afterwards we felt liberated’ (2016: 104). The surprising insight here is that even resistance and antipathy to the fashion system can act as a source of inspiration, producing beautiful, immaculately-made garments that become desirable items within the terms of the system itself.

Finally, consider ‘The Fashion Show’ of Autumn/ Winter 2007-2008. In this show, models were sent down the catwalk wearing not only couture-style garments, but also all the physical accoutrements associated with runway shows within the fashion system. These included oversized metal hangers and lighting rigs, with the proportions of the clothes stretched to match [Figure 7.9]. The models wore clogs, and the balanced metallic frames were designed to resemble a yoke with milk-pails, in direct reference to Viktor & Rolf’s Dutch heritage (Evans and Frankel 2008: 196). In Viktor & Rolf’s own words: ‘We wanted every girl to be her own performance – her own universe, her own fashion show. We explored how we could use the elements of a runway presentation itself to create a new “show”’ (Loriot 2016: 12). Despite the cumbersome and ungainly nature of the garments – impractical as wearable, everyday pieces, despite being shown ~ !266 ~ as ready-to-wear – the intellectual creative and surprising insight of wit is here rendered explicit. By making each model carry the accoutrements of her own fashion system, this presentation drew attention to the fact that, while there may be certain elements in common in the singular, integrated fashion system, in fact each person is capable of generating a unique fashion system in their own right. There is no singular fashion system; each individual can produce their own. The striking originality of this catwalk show was sufficient to attract a parody by The Simpsons TV series (1989-current) [Figure 7.10].

Figure 7.8. Viktor & Rolf ‘NO’ coat. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

~ ! ~267 Figure 7.9. Viktor & Rolf ‘The Fashion Show’. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

~ !268 ~ [Figure has been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figure 7.10. Viktor & Rolf’s ‘The Fashion Show’ interpreted by The Simpsons (harpersbazaar.com, accessed 1 September 2019).

~ ! ~269 The theme of the individuality of personal fashion systems created by wit is once again present in ‘One Woman Show’, Autumn/ Winter 2003-2004. Here, the actor Tilda Swinton served as the inspiration for the entire collection. On the runway, Swinton presented the first look; each subsequent model came out with dyed red hair and bleached eyebrows to imitate Swinton herself – hence the ‘One Woman’ theme of the presentation. And yet, as Swinton herself noted, ‘the strange and great thing is that, dress up a bunch of people to look “the same” and they each end up looking very clearly like nothing but themselves!’ (quoted in Loriot 2016: 110). Even attempts to replicate the uniformity of the so-called fashion system only highlight the strands of individuality that arise – a far cry from the supposed ‘blunting’ of consciousness described by Barthes. As Loriot writes of Viktor & Rolf’s various approaches to runway shows, ‘These are all ideas about what a fashion show can be, and how it can be different’ (2016: 12).

Viktor & Rolf’s witty commentary on, and intersections with the fashion system suggest that this system’s singular and integrated nature should not be taken for granted. Furthermore, it is clear that Viktor & Rolf themselves have entered the fashion system with more complicated motives rather than simple lucre. Rather, they aim to surprise and delight not only themselves, but followers of fashion the world over. Having considered the aspect of wit informed by the idea of surprise, I will now turn to the strategy of seduction that Viktor & Rolf employ in their designs and runway presentations. Indeed, Viktor & Rolf themselves are aware of the potency and transformative potential of seduction, particularly as it relates to glamour (which was treated earlier in the thesis). As Viktor & Rolf write, ‘Glamour is what got us into fashion in the first place and it still seduces us. When you are raised in a small village, the glamorous aspects of the fashion world are very seductive. This is why at the start of our career we did this miniature installation of our “dream” fashion brand – it was all dreams about our future’ (Loriot 2016: 15). As we have seen, seduction is characterised not only by the subject being led astray, but by the desire to be led astray. Seduction may also involve an immersive experience of transformation, shared by both the individual and collective. In the following discussion, I will focus the spectacle of ~ !270 ~ Viktor & Rolf’s runway presentations to illustrate their seduction of the fashion audience. As Davies writes, ‘Viktor & Rolf’s fashion shows set out to challenge traditional methods of fashion communication. Their shows are akin to theatre performances with the associated trappings of actors, music and dancing. As pure fantasy their presentations became as infamous as the clothes they designed’ (2008: 173).

The innovations of Viktor & Rolf’s runway presentations are almost too numerous to count. Since their inception, they have strived to place a witty twist on the format and stylistic rules of the runway show. For Viktor & Rolf, all elements of the traditional catwalk presentation are able to be playfully manipulated in order to produce a seductive fashion effect. These techniques include the traditional staples of the fashion show – lighting, sound and visuals – albeit presented in novel ways. For example, in the ‘Black Light’ collection of Spring/ Summer 1999, the clothes themselves were comprised only of black and white detailing [Figure 7.11]. They were first presented under black-light conditions, revealing only the spectral, blanched traces of skeletal figures, haunted maids, and voluminous, floating tuxedoes. The second time these creations were sent down the catwalk – in the same show – the black lighting was removed, revealing a collection of distinctive and wearable immaculately tailored garments. Here, Viktor & Rolf pleasurably led the audience astray from the usual format of a fashion runway show providing two versions of the same experience, with entirely different results.

Viktor & Rolf’s innovation also extends to the sphere of audio. In the ‘Bells’ collection of Autumn/ Winter 2000-2001, each garment was detailed with hundreds of individually stitched-on bells, so the effect of fashion was created aurally rather than visually. An intimate tintinnabulation that announced the arrival of each creation. As Loriot writes, ‘you first heard the models before seeing them come through the fog’ (2016: 12). And again, for ‘Blue Screen: Long Live the Immaterial!’, Autumn/ Winter 2002-2003, strategic portions of the clothes were coloured blue. Using green-screen technology to replace this single colour with video footage, a cinema screen behind the models showed a shadowy mix of human flesh mingled with pre-recorded landscape of space, urban landscapes, and natural surrounds. Given the heady sensory mix of these different ~ !271 ~ types of experiences, one is reminded of the darkly evocative phrase thoughts of St. Augustine in speaking of the Devil: ‘he gives himself to figures, he adapts himself to colours, he abides in sounds, he lurks in smells, he infuses himself into flavours’ (1971 [1486]: 59). Here, of course, seducing the audience through leading them astray through a delightful experience is deliberately sought.

Figure 7.11 Doll miniature of Viktor & Rolf dress for ‘Black Light’. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

One of Viktor & Rolf's recent couture collections, ‘Wearable Art’ Autumn/ Winter 2015-2016, is a particular highlight as it pertains to the wit of seduction. When I first saw this collection at the exhibition Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists in February 2017, it

~ ! ~272 resonated with me almost as powerfully as my experience of the Gaultier dress through its cleverness, audacity, humour and sublime execution. Upon entering the exhibition space, one was presented with the spectacle of a number of tastefully-hued navy, white and gold dresses, which upon closer inspection, appear to be dismembered and reassembled pieces of classical portraiture. Canvases seemed ripped; gold-painted frames brutally chopped; some pieces hung on the wall, others were scattered around the exhibition space. Upon closer examination, one was presented with an incredible scene of transformation. The apparently distorted pieces of art hanging from the walls actually could be rearranged to form beautiful pieces of couture. A further video installation demonstrated how Viktor & Rolf, during the original staging of this show, removed these art/ fashion assemblages from the models and hung them on the walls of the runway venue, producing an impromptu gallery exhibition. The models were left wearing simple navy denim shift dresses, decorated with simple embroidery – a stark contrast to the elaborate, glinting and excessive dresses they originally displayed on the catwalk [Figures 7.12-7.14]10.

The presentation of ‘Wearable Art’ exemplifies the principle of seduction in several ways. Firstly, it emphasises how an individual experience – here, the model’s wearing of the garment itself – can be transformed into a collective experience via the recontextualisation of this garment into a created ‘gallery’ context. Next, it utilises strategies of ambiguity and play by concealing the final appearance of the gown; what appears on the model on the catwalk may not necessarily resemble the final piece that Viktor & Rolf create. Finally, this evocative display demonstrates the potential wit inherent in every runway presentation. Previously where Viktor & Rolf deployed sound, visual effects, and technology to create their own spectacular fashion systems; in ‘Wearable Art’, they transgress the boundaries of the singular, integrated and commercially oriented fashion system through unmistakable displays of beautiful creativity. Thus the viewer – or perhaps voyeur – of these shows commences on a special journey when they enter the seductive world of Viktor & Rolf.

10 A video of the original presentation is well worth viewing in full. See, dor example, see https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=61NzBYJ5Dro ~ !273 ~ [Figures have been removed due to copyright restrictions]

Figures 7.12-7.13. ‘Wearable Art’ by Viktor & Rolf, Autumn/ Winter 2015-2016. Photographs reproduced from Loriot (2016), pages 157-158.

~ ! ~274 Figure 7.14. Viktor & Rolf ‘Wearable Art’. Photograph by Dita Svelte from the Viktor & Rolf: Fashion Artists exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 10 February 2017.

As I have noted, the work of Viktor & Rolf is often regarded as a form of art practice rather than studied for its humour. Viktor & Rolf's own engagement with the art world perhaps invites this reading, although, as Ward writes: ‘The designers themselves resist such distinctions; while they often critique the stereotypes and excesses of the fashion system, they remain unabashedly enthusiastic about fashion and its possibilities’ (2006: 187). However, an over-emphasis on Viktor & Rolf’s undoubted artistic engagements risks undervaluing the role that surprise and seduction – that is, the essential elements ~ ! ~275 that comprise of wit – play in their work. Their surprising interventions into the fashion system, and their seductive redeployment of the expectations of the fashion runway show, are evidence that wit is as important to their work as is art itself.

Given my earlier discussion of Barthes’ fashion system, what lessons might then be drawn from the work of Viktor & Rolf? Firstly, the idea of a fashion system produced by apparent outsiders that utilises the genre and form of traditional elements of the fashion system – advertising, media, runway shows – is demonstrated to be contingent and variable. It is not fixed or inevitable; after all, Viktor & Rolf officially entered the couture schedules through a manipulation of media techniques rather than material garments. As the President of the Chambre, Didier Grumbach, has admitted ‘They were not admitted straight away for the simple reason that… no one knew their collections as they were still “virtual”. Their multimedia [i.e. press and PR] success instantly changed that situation’ (Grumbach quoted in Evans and Frankel 2008: 13]. In general terms, Viktor & Rolf’s work challenges the singularity of Barthes’ powerful sign of the fashion system. In terms of the concern of this chapter, this suggests that it is perhaps more appropriate to speak of proliferating fashion systems than to speak of the fashion system as a singular, integrated commercially oriented sign which represents the entirety of fashion itself.

~ !276 ~ 7.4 The Gaultier dress and the dandy; Carlyle and O’Brien’s epigram; a return to Moschino

Having provided a discussion of Viktor & Rolf’s unique contribution to a witty critique of the current fashion system, I now return to the empirical examples threaded throughout this thesis to analyse how the proliferation of fashion systems might further be interpreted via a concept of wit. I begin this discussion with a consideration of the object of interest that inspires this thesis – Gaultier’s camouflage couture dress [Figure 7.15].

Given the preceding discussion, this spectacular creation points to the existence of at least one other system in operation. As we have seen, the traditional fashion system encompasses haute couture; the witty synthesis of this rarefied craft with the military motif suggests not only an examination of couture as a fashion system, but also of camouflage itself. Indeed, the history of the development of camouflage shows distinct overlap with the aesthetics and fashion from its inception. The first camofleurs were artists (Newark 2007), and the earliest style of camouflage produced for military application on 1900s battleships – geometric, abstract dazzle camouflage in bright colours – resembled Cubist art. Picasso is said to have remarked on seeing a dazzle cannon in a Parisian street: ‘It is we who created that!’ (Newark 2007: 72). After World War I, fashionable bathing suits featuring the dazzle pattern were produced (Newark 2007: 89). The development of camouflage patterns within a purely military context has also followed trends and cycles which seemingly have more to do with the rhythms of fashion than pure utility in terms of their design, dissemination and even popularity with soldiers, as Blechman and Newman (2004) have argued in their definitive study of camouflage. One could make the case that the research and design that military organisations have invested in camouflage specifically, and military clothing more generally, resemble the investment in the ‘laboratory of ideas’ that haute couture creations are often said to represent (for the discussion of the idea of this laboratory of ideas represented by haute couture see Tungate 2012: 126). The final provocation of the witty Gaultier dress is thus to suggest fashion’s own imbrication with the techniques of

~ !277 ~ military dress. This idea leads to further questions that might be the subject of future research. For example, how might the military fashion system, as we might call it, function as a form of wit? This is a question yet to be explored. In beginning to think about these ideas, one might consider Brummell’s elaborate uniform as part of the 10th Hussars, or the spectacular displays of historical military dress more generally.

Figure 7.15. Jean-Paul Gaultier ballgown. Photograph by Dita Svelte from The Fashion World of Jean-Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk exhibition held at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 17 February 2015.

In thinking further about Brummell, recall how this ‘ultimate dandy’ established not only his own unique sense of fashion, but also a precinct of men’s style that still exists in London today. As I have previously discussed, Brummell’s patronage established the

~ !278 ~ boundaries of London’s hallowed West End menswear mecca. As previously noted, this area is enclosed by ‘Savile Row with its tailors, Bond Street with its purveyors of hosiery, perfumes and fine accessories and St James’s Street with its provision stores for connoisseur’s wine and tobacco, its social clubs and its celebrated hatter’ (Breward 2004: 30). John Lobb shoes and the Berry Bros wine merchants exist today, as does the Beau’s favoured club White’s. Here, an individual fashion system guided by the Brummell's wit births an entirely new system of lingering influence. Indeed, walking tours of Brummell's inner London sojourns – such as that provided, perhaps appropriately in Louis Vuitton’s luxury city guide (2014) – enable one to retrace not only Brummell's steps, but the boundaries of this important men's fashion system itself.

A consideration of Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus follows this unique ‘MAN OF FASHION’. Sartor Resartus itself resonates with Barthes’ The Fashion System in intriguing ways. Firstly, both possess a prominent reputation and equally prominent status as an unread text within fashion studies. As Keenan rhetorically laments, ‘Who today, outside of antiquarian literary circles, reads Sartor Resartus?’ (2001: 13). Beyond this comparison, one could further compare Teufelsdröckh’s ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ with Barthes’ own system. On first glance, it would seem that this Philosophy is an inversion of The Fashion System – in contrast to the perfection and calm logical progression of Barthes’ system, Teufelsdröckh’s ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ is not only deliberately obtuse, but also demonstrates a callous disregard for order. Carlyle himself describes its ‘piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of writing’ (1987 [1836]: 221). Thus the Philosophy apparently sits in clear contrast to Barthes’ own pursuit of scientific terminology in The Fashion System. Nevertheless, the ostensible aim of Teufelsdröckh's ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ – that is, to explain the importance of clothing in a holistic and consistent manner – is undeniably similar to Barthes’ own project. Teufelsdröckh offers up clothing as a subject worthy of more than a ‘comfortable winter-evening entertainment’; Barthes provides the student of fashion a meticulously documented example of extrapolating a persuasive system from a limited corpus. Both provide fascinating and unique visions of disparate fashion systems. Given, as we have seen, that the latter is deliberately humorous, a future research project might read Teufelsdröckh and Barthes together to investigate the manner by which a systematic ‘Philosophy of Clothes’ might function. ~ !279 ~ Next, to return to one of the opening inspirations of this thesis, consider O’Brien’s witty epigram: ‘Who can say that these photographs of beautiful women don’t mysteriously affect the harvest, the weather, and global politics?’ (1991: 78). As I indicated in my Introduction, there is something more to this formulation than just a glib quip at fashion’s expense. The domains of fashion photographs featuring beautiful women, and the fruits of the harvest, the vagaries of the weather and the unpredictability of politics are apparently disparate. And yet, as I flagged in the Introduction, what if one were to investigate with rigour the intersections between fashion and global politics? What insights might arise? This idea is not without precedent. As Walter Benjamin writes:

Each season brings, in its newest creations, various secret signals of things to come. Whoever understands how to read these semaphores would know in advance not only about new currents in the arts but also about new legal codes, wars and revolutions. – Here, surely, lies the greatest charm of fashion, but also the difficult of making the charming fruitful’ (1999: 64).

What might the lens of wit reveal in studying these relations? For example, how might wit factor into the global expansion, as mentioned in the previous chapter, of Gucci, Vetements and Balenciaga?

Finally, consider glamour once again. In my chapter on this subject, I emphasised its qualities of immersive, transformative seduction and pleasurable derailment. I also discussed the possibility of a potential ‘glamour system’, although I noted then as now that more work would need to be done to further elaborate this idea that would draw on my own chapter’s initial suggestions as to the import and effect of this system in terms of contemporary fashion. Clearly this glamour system with its playfulness and ambiguity does not map directly onto Barthes’ own sign of the singular, integrated, economically oriented fashion system. Yet it may be revealing to ask in what ways they might engage with each other. Looking at the Moschino advertisements, how might we consider advertisements not in terms of a singular, integrated economically oriented fashion system, but as a form of glamour system? What elements of transformation and seduction, what strategies of play and ambiguity would we need to consider to further understand a putative system of glamour itself? This would be the subject of further research.

~ !280 ~ The proliferation of fashion systems informed by wit in dialogue with the empirical examples discussed throughout this thesis demonstrates the potential of these intriguing questions for further research into the intersection of fashion and the sociology of wit.

7.5 Conclusion

While Barthes’ idea of the fashion system was carefully and precisely formulated within the framework of written fashion of a certain time and place, and using a certain methodology of scientific structuralist semiology, the effect of his work has been to firmly embed the idea of a singular, integrated and economically oriented fashion system into the discourse of both academia and popular culture (the latter attested to by the Moschino advertisements). Barthes himself, as we have seen, later disavowed the strictness of this ‘scientific’ approach. However, in the closing part of The Fashion System, Barthes provides an open invitation for others to build on and adapt his method. In his concluding paragraphs, Barthes describes the role of the analyst and their attachment to the metalanguage they create in producing a schema such as the fashion system. He writes that it would be ‘something akin to bad faith to consider the analyst as alien to this universe… the semiological project provides the analyst with the formal means to incorporate himself into the system he reconstitutes; more important, it forces him to do so’ (1983 [1967]: 292; emphasis added). As he writes:

for if it happens that someone (someone else or himself later on) undertakes the analysis of his writing and attempts to reveal its content, that someone will have to resort to a new metalanguage, which will signal him in its turn… the semiologist is a man who expresses his future death in the very terms in which he has named and understood the world (1983 [1967]: 294)11 .

For Barthes, semiological criticism therefore creates an ongoing ‘infinite science’ that ostensibly never ends (1983 [1967]: 294). An analysis of the current metalanguage creates a new metalanguage sitting atop the existing stratum, and so on, ad infinitum. How does this passage relate to my own consideration of wit’s capacity to inform contemporary fashion studies? The point is simple, but bears repeating. The infinite

11 This presages the idea of ‘the death of the author’ from Barthes’ famous essay, written four years after the completion of System de la Mode but contemporaneous with its publication in French – see Barthes (1998) [1967]. ~ ! ~281 creation of metalanguages by the critic suggests that as theorists of fashion, we must be mindful of the assumptions that underpin our work. Not only that, we must be aware that in describing fashion, we are in fact also creating it to an extent. As we have seen from Barthes’ powerful description of the ‘fashion system’, even a theoretical model of fashion can become a ‘fashion object’ or sign of fashion itself. Just as Barthes’ 1967 Foreword creates a new gloss on the text of 1963 by crystallising the ideology of Fashion, as theorists of fashion we should be mindful of how our research produces the very thing it seeks to describe.

To return to the subject of glamour one final time, I previously emphasised that this concept cannot be relegated by commentators within fashion studies as somehow ‘over there’, distant, unattainable or irrelevant to everyday life. To theorise glamour is itself to participate in an immersive, transformative process of seduction. As commentators on fashion, we must be mindful to acknowledge the powerful surprises and seductions that our own texts as potential ‘fashion objects’ initiate. Whether it be the dandy’s display, the adaptation of conspicuous consumption in contemporary manifestations of luxury, or the spectacular creations of Viktor & Rolf, like Barthes we should strive to provide open invitations for others to participate in and build on our work. Wit itself – that surprising and seductive concept – provides one avenue that allows us to view fashion anew.

~ !282 ~ Chapter Eight

Conclusion: The Sociological Wit of Fashion – Surprise and

Seduction

How much lies in laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man? (Carlyle 2000 [1836]: 26).

You live but once; might as well be amusing (Chanel, nd).

8.1 Fashion and a sociological concept of wit

In 2010, Valerie Steele edited the encyclopaedic The Berg Companion to Fashion, printed by the then definitive publisher of fashion studies (Berg has since been absorbed by Bloomsbury). This hefty tome, over 750 pages long, features the contributions of dozens of commentators who provide expertise on a plethora of issues and debates from the obvious to the obscure. The Companion begins – perhaps appropriately, although in marked contrast to Veblen’s view on the importance of higher degrees – with a consideration of ‘Academic Dress’ and finishes with an evaluation of the subversive ‘Zoot Suit’. As well as entries on prominent material objects of fashion, the Companion contains discussions of designers, styles and movements, as well as summaries of the work of influential academics and theories of fashion. And yet, given the nature of the research question that has guided this thesis project – to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? – there is one glaring omission from this weighty tome. This is, of course, an entry on the contribution to the study of fashion of a sociological concept of wit itself. In explaining why I see this omission on an entry on wit from the The Berg Companion to Fashion as a lacuna in need of redress, in this Conclusion I will provide a summation of the thesis, along with the contributions it makes to academic knowledge, and possible avenues for further research.

8.2 Summation of the thesis

~ !283 ~ In answering the research question of the thesis, I undertook the following steps. Firstly, I investigated the literature of the sociology of humour to theorise a putative sociology of wit. Next, I determined whether this sociology of wit was supported by further empirical examples. Finally, I examined further empirical examples to investigate whether this sociology of wit could productively inform contemporary fashion studies.

I completed the first step in my Literature Review, which examined the three major sociological theories of humour – superiority theory, relief theory, and incongruity theory – to determine which aligned most closely with my experience of the wit of fashion, as found in my experience of the Gaultier dress as a ‘fashion moment’. I identified incongruity theory as the most appropriate theory to structure my analysis of wit in fashion. The defining quality of wit as it is found in incongruity theory is the notion of surprise – the provision of a creative insight in a compressed or pithy form. The surprise of wit provides a spur to generating unexpected insight into how we might think about the world. Furthermore, given wit’s ability to challenge conventional thinking in unexpected ways, I further considered wit in terms of the concept of seduction. Indeed, to be seduced is to be led astray in intriguing ways. In theoretical terms, seduction – like surprise – also possesses the ability to inspire new thinking and challenge existing perceptions. As Baudrillard argues, seduction also functions as a form of wit through its ambiguity, play, and delight in confounding orthodoxies we might otherwise take for granted.

Having identified a suitable theoretical sociological framework for my analysis of wit in fashion via these concepts of surprise and seduction, I then moved to the second phase of my thesis. This phase was to determine whether this framework of the sociology of wit was supported by empirical examples from within the field of fashion itself. I selected two different examples to test this idea for contrasting reasons. I firstly chose the example of the dandy, because it is in the personage of the dandy that wit and fashion are explicitly conflated. A study of the dandy thus seemed an obvious starting point as here the connections between wit and fashion are most clearly aligned, and their relationship thus most easily discernible. In my study of the dandy, I identified the verbal epigram and the sartorial detail as sharing this common desire to surprise through the strategies of inclusive distinction, the mystifying non-sequitur and the sympathetic ~ 284! ~ magic of fashion. I demonstrated that both the dandy’s pithy quips and sartorial innovations in fashion were motivated by the desire to surprise found in a theoretical formulation of wit.

I next considered another empirical site where wit and fashion were not obviously connected in the literature, despite a visible connection in popular culture. This site was glamour. Here, I showed that while this concept has been usually theorised as a distant, unattainable and elite phenomenon, it might be viewed through the lens of wit to demonstrate the quality of seduction found in wit. In adopting fashion studies’ inclusive and interdisciplinary approach, I utilised two texts to show how glamour functions as a form of seduction. I chose the notorious witch-hunting bible, the Malleus Maleficarum (1971) [1486] to show how an historical theory of powerful and immersive glamour was explicated via witty stories; I then demonstrated how this theory of glamour operated in a contemporary site – the popular and critically acclaimed TV series, Killing Eve (2018-current). In Killing Eve, a game of witty seduction is played out between an international assassin and an MI6 operative via expressions and exchanges of designer fashion.

Having established wit as an extant presence in fashion, the next step in my journey was to consider whether the elements of surprise and seduction found in a sociology of wit could provide further insight into contemporary fashion studies. I examined Thomas Carlyle’s famous Sartor Resartus (2000) [1836], to provide a bridge to this second half of the thesis. This text, recognised as one of the founding texts for fashion studies, is important as it demonstrates that an idea of wit has a strong precedent in providing original contributions to the study of fashion. These include insights into the importance of decoration as a primary motive for wearing clothing, prioritising wonder and open- mindedness in studying clothing, and incipient examples of semiology in constructing power relations. As I demonstrated in this chapter, these insights are sharpened and clarified in Sartor by strategies of wit such as humorous hyperbole, making mock, and the incongruous nude.

My final two chapters elaborated the theoretical contributions of Veblen and Barthes to show how an idea of wit might engage with these preeminent theorists to provide fresh ~ !285 ~ insight into the study of fashion in the twenty-first century. In discussing Veblen’s famous theory of conspicuous consumption outlined in Theory of the Leisure Class (1998) [1899], I demonstrated how in the context of contemporary luxury studies, an idea of conspicuous wit functions in the work of the highly successful contemporary fashion designers Alessandro Michele for Gucci and Demna Gvsalia for Vetements and Balenciaga. Despite having very different aesthetic approaches – one characterised by what I call hypervisible opulence, the other by the futility of utility – both Michele and Gvsalia use strategies of surprise and seduction in their work. The examples of Michele and Gvsalia were chosen precisely because their work is currently so critically and commercially renowned, demonstrating the power of wit in speaking to a contemporary fashion audience.

In my final chapter, I examined Barthes’ famous idea of the singular, integrated, economically focussed fashion system found in The Fashion System (1983) [1967]. Through an examination of a set of Moschino advertisements that make fun of the idea of this system, and the spectacular and humorous work of the Dutch designers Viktor & Rolf, I demonstrated the possibility of wit for opening up space for a variety of concurrent and parallel fashion systems predicated on ideas such as wit, rather than a single fashion system founded on an economic basis. These empirical sites were selected precisely because they are contemporary expressions of work in fashion that comment explicitly on the fashion system, both in commenting on this system via humour while also being creatively involved in it.

Through this thesis argument outlined above, I thus answered the question – to what extent can a sociology of wit contribute to understanding fashion? – by identifying surprise and seduction as the elements of wit; demonstrating how these concepts could be found in empirical sites such as the dandy and glamour; and finally showing how elements of a sociology of wit could be further applied to contemporary fashion via the ideas of conspicuous wit and plural fashion systems.

8.3 Theoretical contributions of the thesis

~ 286! ~ Indicates several original theoretical contributions. These may be separated into two categories – firstly, contributions to the sociology of fashion; secondly, contributions the sociology of wit.

In contributing to the sociology of fashion, this thesis provides the following. Firstly, it provides an original theoretical framework for analysing how wit operates in fashion. The connection between fashion and wit has often been acknowledged in popular culture, as discussed in the Introduction, but has not been previously theoretically elaborated. Secondly, the thesis explicates a notion of wit characterised specifically by the ideas of surprise and seduction that can usefully be applied to a range of empirical sites, such as the dandy, glamour, or literary and theoretical texts that address fashion, such as Sartor or the work of Veblen and Barthes. Thirdly, in addressing how wit functions in examples of contemporary fashion, such as in the designs of Michele for Gucci, Gvsalia for Vetements and Balenciaga, and the runway spectacles of Viktor & Rolf, the thesis contributes to the sociology of fashion by providing novel perspectives on familiar concepts within the study of fashion, such as conspicuous consumption and the fashion system. In showing how wit can contribute to understanding fashion in the twenty-first century, this thesis thus opens up potential new horizons within contemporary fashion studies.

While this thesis focusses principally on the sociology of fashion, its contribution to the sociology of wit itself is also significant. While the idea of surprise found in incongruity theory as discussed in the Literature Review remains vitally important, my work shows that surprise itself does not provide a complete theoretical account of wit. My examination of Baudrillard’s Seduction (1990) [1979] demonstrates another side of wit: the playful, ambiguous, allusive realm of seduction. One implication of broadening the definition of wit to incorporate a concept of seduction is that theorists within the sociology of humour may also wish to consider this important concept as relevant to their own analyses of instances of wit.

8.4 Avenues for further research

~ !287 ~ Given, as noted above, this thesis provides an original and novel framework for analysing fashion via the sociology of wit, the scope of future research is extremely broad. There are several avenues that could possibly be pursued. Firstly, one could interpret further empirical sites of fashion, past, present, and prospective to provide further evidence of the operation of wit in fashion. The selection of texts is only limited by imagination. This type of research would act to reinforce the foundations of the framework for analysing the wit of fashion established here. Secondly, from a theoretical perspective, there is also scope to further refine or even add to the categories of surprise and seduction discussed in detail in this thesis. If the surprise of wit can be supplemented by an idea of seduction, what other pleasing possibilities might come into play? A further range of empirical sites of wit in fashion would need to be explored in examining these possibilities. Finally, the description of wit provided herein could be applied to a range of number of cultural objects and texts beyond those found in fashion itself. Wit is indeed a window which may open up productive insight into many other sites of cultural analysis. I envisage my own program of future research as further illuminating the intertwining of wit and fashion by continuing to theoretically analyse empirical sites – or indeed ‘fashion moments’ – that inspire, provoke and excite.

8.5 The wit of fashion

Given the summary of work undertaken in this thesis provided above, I thus propose that any future edition of Berg’s Companion to Fashion – a text that aims to be definitive – must include an entry on the contribution of wit to fashion. This new entry on ‘Wit’ would sit at home amongst other fascinating features, such as those on ‘Aprons’ and ‘Armani’, ‘Heroin Chic’ and ‘High Heels’, ‘Penis Sheaths’ and ‘Poiret’. In this putative entry, it would be acknowledged that wit is an important approach for understanding fashion, one that should be celebrated for both its pleasure and intellectually exciting possibilities. As Rocamora and Smelik remind us, ‘it can be exhilarating to think through fashion... ultimately, fashion is not only fun, but it matters’ (2016: 14-15).

And yet, as noted above, my proposed entry on ‘Wit’ for the Companion could in no way be the final word on the matter. The theoretical framework of surprise and ~ 288! ~ seduction I have described as essential to a sociology of wit are merely the first steps on a journey entailing further research into the connections between wit and fashion. More work is required. An idea of the wit of fashion is just the beginning of multiple conversation within fashion studies, an exciting provocation that should invite a certain smiling delight. Indeed, as per the discussion of Barthes in the previous chapter, it is vital that the very idea of the wit of fashion should itself surprise and seduce theorists of fashion themselves. As Carlyle reminds us, laughter is the ‘cipher-key’ by which humanity can be judged. And to paraphrase Coco Chanel for one final epigram: since life is short… why shouldn’t it be amusing?

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