Fashion Colloquium 2018 Revisited

Issue #00 June 2019

Searching for the New Luxury? Fashion Colloquium 2018 revisited

Daniëlle Bruggeman /Jeroen van den Eijnde / Ian King /Catelijne de Muijnck /Kim Poldner / Anneke Smelik /José Teunissen (eds.) APRIA #00 Contents 5 Searching for the New Luxury? Fashion Colloquium 2018 revisited Daniëlle Bruggeman 22 State of Fashion: Searching for the New Luxury José Teunissen 28 Osklen and Sustainability an interview with Oskar Metsavaht Marina Sasseron de Oliveira Cabral 29 The Fashion of Relations from the Reign of Visibility to the Realm of Possibilities Luca Marchetti 37 Post Luxury: Normcore as Node and Prism Charlotte Bik Bandlien 46 Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: A Material and Emotional Future of Luxury Nora Veerman 56 Nike Air Pocket: Fashionable Ecology Timotheus Vermeulen 69 Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons David Bollier APRIA #00 Contents 79 Take Back Fashion! Fashion Held in Common Pascale Gatzen 84 Fashioning Tradition: The Tai Lue Project Alison Welsh 90 Crossovers Food & Fashion and the Impact of Science Louise Fresco 93 Aesthetic Sustainability Kristine H. Harper 103 RES MATERIA Sanne Karssenberg 106 Love songs Fashion, Flirting, and Biosocial Growth Otto von Busch 113 Loved Clothes Last Orsola de Castro 114 IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW Stimulating Mindfulness through a Smart Denim Jacket Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint 121 What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized? Roya Aghighi 127 The New Bio-ethics of Luxury Tina Gorjanc APRIA #00 Contents 132 Fashion and Activism an interview with Orsola de Castro & Otto von Busch Hester Brands, Maria Gil Mendoza 133 Reinventing the Commons a conversation with Pascale Gatzen & David Bollier Pascale Gatzen, David Bollier 134 Aesthetic Sustainability an interview with Kristine Harper Julia Ewa Kaleta 135 Hedonistic Sustainability an interview with Timotheus Vermeulen Chinouk Filique de Miranda 136 Podcast Loose Fit: about diversity in fashion Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee 137 Biographies Editorial Board Searching for the New Luxury? 140 Colophon APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman Searching for the New Luxury? Fashion Colloquium 2018 revisited The Fashion Colloquium: Searching for the New Luxury, organized by ArtEZ University of the Arts in collaboration with State of Fashion, took place on 31 May and 1 June, 2018 in Musis Sacrum in Arnhem, the Netherlands. During the two-day Fashion Colloquium, a seam- stress constructed several garments on the stage of the plenary sessions. As the audience, we could hear the rhythmic sounds of her sewing machine, and of her cutting, making, ironing, and finishing the garments. This durational performance piece by Kasia Gorniak in collaboration with Karolina Janulevičiūtė aimed to bring the process of making a garment to the fore. In doing so, they shifted the focus from designers creating fashion collections—which are usually presented on stage as a spectacle—to seamstresses constructing garments, making the audience aware of the actual time and labour that goes into making clothes. As Gorniak explained, one of their inspirations was Richard Sennett’s work on craftsmanship: “we can achieve a more humane material life, if only we better under stand the making of things” Sennett 8. This touched upon one of the central themes of the Fashion Colloquium and is in line with the main research themes of the Fashion Professorship at ArtEZ. As I argued in Dissolving the Ego of Fashion 2018, it is important to explore how to re-engage with fashion’s

5 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman materials and materialities, and to develop a critical fashion discourse that does more justice to fashion’s human dimension and to the processes of making clothes. Starting from the urgency to rethink the role fashion plays in relation to socio-cultural, environmental, and economic challenges in contemporary society, the Fashion Colloquium explored how fashion can serve as a tool for societal transformation. A diversity of creative practices, peer-reviewed papers, and keynote lectures provided the context as well as concrete examples to analyse and critically reflect on the cracks in the system. These contributions also suggested alternative approaches to revalue the practice of making fashion and to redefine the value systems from which we live and work. The Fashion Colloquium hosted more than 40 contributors who presented their academic research, visions, designs, concepts, future scenarios, and new materials. This offered a deeper insight into questions such as: how can we activate the power of fashion—highlighting the role of design, imagination, and aesthetics—to act differently and to move towards resilient futures and equitable societies? How can we envision and create an alternative and more engaged future of fashion that does more justice to fashion’s human dimension? And how can academic research, critical thinking, and creative interventions help to (re)imagine and build another kind of future where ‘fashioned’ human beings and materials have more agency?

6 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman This special first edition of the online journal APRIA offers a continuation of the conversations that we started during the Fashion Colloquium. In a variety of media—film, photography, live record- ings, interviews, and a podcast of a radio show—this edition presents a selection of creative practices, academic articles, and keynote lectures that touch upon central themes that require further research to contribute to realizing our shared visions. This editorial note contains direct links to all the content of this issue.

The current state of fashion: searching for the new luxury? In line with the first edition of the quadrennial event State of Fashion (2018) in Arnhem, the Fashion Colloquium focussed on the main theme ‘Searching for the New Luxury’. As curator José Teunissen explains in her introductory article, the classical luxurious dream of fashion is outdated. In light of the current societal and environmental challenges, Teunissen argues that fashion needs to become relevant again and use its strength, such as its seductive power to create new values and new imaginations, “to redefine what beauty, luxury and seduction entail in the twenty-first century”. In her manifesto for State of Fashion, Teunissen redefined the ‘New Luxury’ in terms of, for instance, care, fairness, no waste, reuse, imagination, and agency. This corresponds with the vision of keynote speaker Oskar Metsavaht, who presented his ideas

7 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman on the ‘New Luxury’, which his Brazilian fashion brand Osklen promotes in the high-end fashion market. In Metsavaht’s view, ethics and aesthetics should stand side by side, and the new luxury is “the association of a design product with impeccable quality, where universal aesthetics is aligned with sustainable socio-environmental practices”. It is indeed a time in which designers, researchers, and, increasingly, representatives from the industry are searching for different ways to transform the fashion system. There is a shared sense of urgency to activate the (imaginative and aesthetic) power of fashion to move towards a more sustainable future society. Yet, in my view, the question is what the ‘new luxury’ actually means and implies, and whether that is indeed what we are searching for. In his article, Luca Marchetti reflects on fashion and luxury in terms of its ‘relational aesthetics’ Bourriaud 2002. He discusses fashion’s nature to establish (physical, spatial, or symbolic) relationships between the body and its living context. Analysing the fashion imaginary, luxury brands, and exhibitions, Marchetti contemplates the relational future of luxury and fashion, aiming to move beyond its ‘reign of visibility’. By referring to the notion of ‘aposematism’ (a visual signal by animals to warn predators) as used by artist and brand strategist Lucas Mascatello, he points out the importance of acknowledging the relationality between the culture of clothing and the biological nature of living organisms, while taking into account the strategy that living organisms

8 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman possess to adapt to their surroundings. This relationality is indeed an interesting redefinition of fashion’s ‘new luxury’. Charlotte Bik Bandlien also aims to redefine the notion of luxury. She does so by analysing, reframing, and unpacking the normcore trend, which she views as an alternative way forward, moving beyond luxury. Speculating on the future of luxury, she states that searching for the new luxury by fetishizing local production and materials is, in fact, a historical reenactment of former forms of luxury. Instead, Bik Bandlien proposes an appropriated version of ‘post luxury’ or the term ‘new new luxury’ to find the new normal. In addition to these reconsiderations and sug- gestions to reframe the discussion, Nora Veerman makes an important point in her article by ex plaining that the notion of the ‘new luxury’ is a controversial term. She refers to sociologist Maxine Berg 2005 who showed that the ‘new luxury’ was used as a term to refer to the new accessibility of luxury products in the time of the Industrial Revolution. As such, this term is necessarily related to increased consumerism and a “growing ethos of disposability”, which is, as Veerman shows, at the heart of the current crisis of fashion Weinstein 2014. In addition, ‘newness’ in itself is central to the way in which the current established fashion system operates by continuously commodifying ‘the new’, which directly relates to overproduction and overconsumption. As Gilles Lipovetsky has argued, in today’s hypermodernity, fashion operates as a social mechanism characterized

9 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman by its taste for novelty 1994; 2005. In my view, this leads to the question of whether the new luxury is indeed what we should be searching for, or if we should think in other terms—moving beyond luxury—and use another vocabulary in doing so. Perhaps we are searching for more wellbeing—psychologically, socially, culturally, environmentally? Perhaps we are searching for healthy ecosystems? Perhaps we are searching for a more conscious and human relationship to material objects? To what extent should that be a (new) luxury? In his essay and thought experiment, Timotheus Vermeulen uses the metaphors of the deteriorating shopping mall—where the air conditioning has created an ‘asthma of the soul’ De Toledo 2008 —and the Nike Air Pocket to develop a deeper understanding of our current state of being in contemporary society and consumer culture. This is a necessary prerequisite in order to have a better sense of how to move forward and where to go. Perhaps we are actually searching how to step outside of the shopping mall that sells ‘informed naivety’, as well as a sustainable future as the new luxury?

Will it ever be enough? One of the key issues during the Fashion Collo quium was the discussion on growth vs. de-growth. Whereas the fashion system is largely focused on economic growth and thus continuously craves more and more, there is a desire in society for ‘de- growth’: a sustainable economy not driven by

10 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman consumption but by other values based on altruism, craftsmanship, economic equality, and ecological responsibility Ruyters 63. This debate tends to focus on two different perspectives: either (1) we need the big players in the industry if we really want to create systemic change on a large scale, and we thus need to start with optimizing the current system, or (2) the big players in the industry caused this problem in the first place and they are now claiming to in- vest their profit into new sustainable initiatives, but they are actually still sustaining an unhealthy and destructive system, so we need to embrace smaller, local initiatives that focus on creating alternative value systems. Consequently, the challenge is how to reconcile the values of de-growth with the desire to create impact on a larger societal scale. During his keynote lecture ‘Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons’, the author and activist David Bollier—director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center—shared the principles of ‘commoning’ as well as eight strategies to help imagine and build an alternative system with “new structural vehicles for human creativity, ethics, and social engagement to flourish”. He explained how contemporary commoners are exploring creative, post-capitalist forms of provisioning, engaging with our ‘common wealth’ as a social practice, to develop alternative social, political, and economic systems— moving beyond the commodification of natural resources. In Bollier’s view, “the real challenge for

11 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman socially minded fashion is to develop a parallel economy that can somehow separate and insulate itself from the hyper-capital-driven marketplace that now prevails”.[1] Starting from a critique of the neoliberal market-driven economy and of the ever-expanding focus on economic growth and consumption, he proposed that “the next big thing will be a lot of small things”, suggesting that many small-scale initiatives can create the change we need. He also emphasized that we do need the ‘con- nective tissue’ and the language to connect these small things to a larger evolving story. Pascale Gatzen, Head of the M.A. programme Fashion Held in Common at ArtEZ, already puts into practice some of these principles of commoning in her creative practice and in her workers’ cooperative ‘friends of light’, which produces handmade woven jackets. In her keynote lecture, Gatzen discussed the role of language in her practice and educational vision. Criticizing neo-liberal fashion education, she explains how most fashion educations prepare students to become star designers, alienating them from their own needs and teaching them to rely on “the narcissistic dimension of the capitalist paradigm” that is based upon one value: financial gain. In her work and educational programme, she starts instead from creativity, connection, joy, and cooperation. She aims to develop alternative social and economic systems, starting from fundamental human values and compassionate communication, in order to contribute to our collective wellbeing. Also in line with

12 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman the principles of the commons, Alison Welsh and Jasper Chadprajong-Smith presented a local, small- scale creative practice: their Tai Lue project. In their visual essay, they present their collaboration with Tai Lue weavers from Thailand to develop sustainable garments from hand-woven traditional cotton textiles and natural dyes. Whereas these initiatives represent small-scale, local, creative, and social practices that privilege human agency, keynote speaker Louise Fresco, President of Wageningen University & Research, focussed on the life cycles of food and clothing on a global scale, in the context of the worldwide transition to the circular economy. In response to the rise of local, small-scale initiatives, she stated that it “is easy to say it all has to be human transactions, face to face, locally sourced” and also pointed out that “very often, the urban poor have no choice or chance not to pollute or not to buy things that are cheaply and poorly made”. In doing so, she draws our attention to the urgent global challenges that we are facing, again shifting the focus to the need for large quantities of clothing and the responsibility of the industry to reach people who live in poverty, while producing in the best possible way. While Louise Fresco argued for a culture and economy of ‘I have enough’, in the panel discussion David Bollier pointed out that “it will never be enough” in a market-driven economy, which is why he argues for the importance of a cultural shift of building long-term relationships instead of cash transactions.

13 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman Taking into account most consumer behaviour, can it ever be enough?

Aesthetic pleasure, emotional wellbeing, and love songs In the report ‘Fashion at the Crossroads’ 2017, Greenpeace criticizes that major fashion brands “fail to recognize that the overconsumption of textiles is the larger problem that must be tackled. In addition, the promotion of the circularity myth that clothes could be ‘infinitely recycled’ may even be increasing guilt-free consumption” 2017: 6. Greenpeace also found that “design for longer life and promoting extended use of clothing are the most important interventions to slow down the material flow”, emphasizing the importance of the emotional durability of clothing Ibid.. This demonstrates the importance of a design-driven approach to create more emotional value and connectivity between wearers and users. In her keynote lecture, Kristine Harper presented her vision on emotional durability and aesthetic sustainability from a design perspective. In her research on “why people dispose of things before their use has expired, while other things are kept and repaired time and time again”, she highlights the human need for aesthetic nourishment. She presented design strategies to store aesthetic— tactile, sensorial—experiences in material objects in order to reduce consumption and prolong the time of being with a product, creating a durable and sustainable bond between subject and object.

14 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman Fashion designer Sanne Karssenberg’s creative contribution can be viewed as an interesting example of an aesthetically sustainable design process as she explores personalization and actively engaging the wearer as a participant. In her artistic research project Res Materia, she presents an alternative strategy to upcycle worn clothes that have special meaning or affective value for the wearer. While many sustainable design strategies are based on producing less new clothes as well as re- ducing and creating durable products, this is far removed from most consumer’s behaviour. In his keynote lecture, Otto von Busch added a refreshing perspective by starting from the question ‘what do we want to sustain and save in fashion?’ and by com- paring our desire for fashion to love songs. Whereas we can fall in love with long-lasting classics and opera, he pointed out how love songs—representatives of the emotional Zeitgeist—trigger our inner desires and bodily passions as they accompany the most intimate moments in our lives. He highlights the embodied and emotional dimension of fashion and states that fashion is, not unlike love songs, “a passion, a sensibility of aesthetic desire, an ephemeral wave of pleasurable anticipation rushing through the body”. Instead of starting from an activist resistance against the system, this is an interesting example of engaging with the system in an affirmative and affective way. Perhaps, then, we should focus both on creating sustainable fashion as love songs (products that flow), while simultaneously

15 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman letting people fall in love with garments that they want to cherish (products that last)? As keynote speaker Orsola de Castro argues, ‘Loved Clothes Last’. She demonstrates how we are addicted to buying and discarding too fast, stating that “waste is a design flaw”, and aims to inspire consumers to buy less and care more to make clothes last longer. [2] And perhaps, additionally, we could buy more ‘pre-loved’ clothes, as Nora Veerman suggests in her article? These contributions demonstrate the importance of taking into account the affective relationship between wearer and object, the aesthetic pleasure and emotional value in the current discussion on sustainable fashion. In this regard, it is interesting to explore how to design clothing that actively contributes to more emotional wellbeing. In their article ‘In Touch with the Now’, Lianne Toussaint and Pauline van Dongen explore how smart fashion can encourage a more mindful relation between the wearer, the garment, and their environment. Drawing upon the postphenomenological notion of ‘material aesthetics’ Verbeek 2005, they explore the role of materiality to enable more ‘mindful’ experiences of the wearer through creating physical sensations. In doing so, they focus on designing intelligent fashion to create a state of ‘embodied awareness’. As Toussaint and van Dongen argue, this embodied design approach can “positively affect the wearers’ state of mind, causing them to feel more mindful, relaxed or comfortable”, as well as having an impact on how

16 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman the wearer behaves and relates to the world around her. This highlights the importance of the embodied, sensorial, and affective dimension of fashion for our emotional wellbeing.

Radical imaginations, and the speculative agency of living matter Whereas designers like Pauline van Dongen are developing intelligent fashion with new technologies, there is also a movement that focusses more and more on new biomaterials and biotechnology. This movement brings together art, design, technology, and science, often from a speculative design approach to develop radical future imaginations. Some of the creative practices—such as the Tai Lue project—featured in this issue go back to natural and common resources, highlighting the social and human dimension of creating hand-made textiles and working with natural dyes, often in collaboration with local craftsmen. Other contributions in this issue express a post-human approach by focussing on growing future materials in a lab by using biotechnology to develop radically alternative systems in collaboration with scientists. In her project ‘Biogarmentry’, Roya Aghighi explores how living organisms can become an essential part of the design process. Through an experimental design research process, she developed the first non-woven, living, and photosynthesizing textile, which feels close to how linen does. In her research, she speculatively addresses questions such

17 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman as: what if living organisms are the new materials of fashion? And how would these ‘living textiles’ affect our relationship to fashion’s materiality and our behaviour? In a similar vein, Tina Gorjanc’s speculative design project, ‘The New Bio-ethics of Luxury’ explores how synthetic biology techniques could help to sustain biodiverse ecosystems. In doing so, she developed a speculative scenario, which invites a radical reconsideration of what it would entail to bring back extinct matter: the phenomenon of ‘de-extinction’. Aiming to reflect critically on “what we categorize as a synthetic and therefore unnatural/unsustainable material”, she points out how distinctions between “natural and synthetic, alive and dead are becoming obsolete as new discoveries in the field of synthetic biology are being made”. In a time when the relations between the human and non-human are shifting, these speculative design research projects raise new questions about the future of living materials, ecosystems, biodiversity, and living systems—and help us to reflect on the importance of moving beyond anthropocentrism and human-centred design processes in order to revalue and give more agency to living matter. This offers a radically different, alternative, and potentially disruptive perspective on future fashion matters.

A diversity of contributions and conversations on dissolving fashion’s ego In addition to the creative practice contributions, visual essays, peer-reviewed articles, and

18 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman key note lectures mentioned above, this issue also includes interviews with the keynote speakers conducted by our students on the ArtEZ M.A. in Fashion Strategy, a live recording of the keynote lecture by Orsola de Castro, as well as a podcast of the online radio show ‘Jajajaneeneenee’ that was recorded during the Fashion Colloquium. This radio show, ‘Loose Fit’, focussed on inclusivity and diversity and a more embodied way of ‘doing’ fashion. The contributions to this special issue of APRIA are closely related to the main research lines of the Fashion Professorship at ArtEZ. Starting from the observation that the fashion system continuously feeds its Ego—with, for example, an excess of consumer products, glamour, money, exclusive luxury, constructed desire, and spectacu- lar fashion shows of star designers—I aim to move beyond fashion as an Ego-system and to contribute to an egoless critical fashion discourse. As some of the contributions to this issue—Veerman’s article, in particular—have shown, the ‘new luxury’ is a con- tested term due to its historical use and meaning. As Mikhail Bakhtin has famously argued, “each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life” 1981, which means that words always carry their historical connotations and traces. Speaking in terms of the ‘new luxury’—even when aiming to redefine it—could thus continue to feed fashion’s Ego. Therefore, I would suggest that we develop an alternative—egoless—vocabulary to express what we envision for the future of fashion.

19 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman In the research projects at ArtEZ, we aim to actively engage in creating alternative value systems, hu- manizing processes of making, and offering more love and care to fashion’s bodies and materials. Over the next couple of years, we will further explore the main themes discussed during the Fashion Colloquium and we are looking forward to contin- uing these conversations with all contributors and like-minded people to expand our practice of dissolving the ego of fashion together.

Bibliography Weinstein, J. Reframe, Reuse, and Bakhtin, M. M. The Dialogic Imagination: Re-Style: (De)Constructing Four Essays. Translated by the Sustainable Second-Hand C. Emerson and M. Holquist, Consumer. 2014. Wesleyan University of Texas Press, 1981. University, PhD dissertation. Berg, M. Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford Footnotes University Press, 2005. [1] See the blogpost that Bollier Bollier, D. “Fashion as an Ecosystem published (13 June, 2018) about of Commons.” 13 June 2018, his contribution to the Fashion http://www.bollier.org/blog/ Colloquium: www.bollier.org/blog/ re-imagining-fashion-ecosystem- re-imagininghttp://www.bollier.org/ commons?fbclid=IwAR347MxlI _L_ blog/re-imagining-fashion-ecosystem- zDSsOnUcQ2mjFGqUuwdLIVcTwg commons?fbclid=IwAR347MxlI_L_zDSsOn HUPNGE9vQadlrz2EJwVgs. UcQ2mjFGqUuwdLIVcTwgHUPNGE9vQad Bourriaud, N. Esthétique relationnelle. lrz2EJwVgs. Les Presses du réel, 2002. Bruggeman, D. Dissolving the Ego [2] Please also see the Fashion of Fashion. ArtEZ Press, 2008. Revolution fanzine, #002, “Fashion at the Crossroads.” Greenpeace, ‘Loved Clothes Last’ (2017): 18 Sept. 2017, https://issuu.com/ http://www.greenpeace.org/ fashionrevolution/docs/fr_zine2_rgb. international/en/publications/ Campaign-reports/Toxics-reports/ Fashion-at-the-Crossroads/. Lipovetsky, G. The Empire of Fashion. Princeton University Press, 1994. Lipovetsky, G. Hypermodern Times. Polity Press, 2005. Ruyters, D. (2017) “Degrowth.” Metropolis M, vol. 38, no. 4, p. 61. Sennett, R. The Craftsman. New Haven / London: Yale University Press, 2008. Toledo, C. de. Coming of Age at the End of History. Soft Skull Press, 2008. Verbeek, P. What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections onTechnology, Agency, and Design. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005.

20 APRIA #00 June 2019 Daniëlle Bruggeman

Daniëlle Bruggeman and fashion as a new materialist Daniëlle Bruggeman is a cultural aesthetics. Her current research theorist specializing in fashion as a interests include exploring more engaged socio-cultural phenomenon. In January approaches, vocabularies and strategies, 2017, she was appointed Professor using fashion as a tool for systemic of Fashion (Lector Mode) at ArtEZ change and societal transformation. University of the Arts. She teaches On April 25, 2018, Daniëlle Bruggeman both the M.A. in Fashion Strategy and gave her inaugural lecture and the M.A. in Fashion Design at ArtEZ and presented the accompanying publication leads the Centre of Expertise Future Dissolving the Ego of Fashion: Makers in collaboration with Professor Engaging with Human Matters (ArtEZ Jeroen van den Eijnde. Bruggeman holds Press, 2018), which outlines her main a PhD in Cultural Studies—‘Dutch research lines for the coming years. Fashion Identity in a Globalised World’ The Fashion Professorship aims to (2010–2014) from Radboud University develop critical theories and practices Nijmegen, funded by the Netherlands in order to explore, better understand, Organisation for Scientific Research— and rethink the cracks in the fashion which was part of the first large-scale system, as well as the role that interdisciplinary research project on fashion plays—and could potentially fashion in the Netherlands. She was a play—in relation to urgent socio- visiting scholar at Parsons, the New cultural, environmental, and political School for Design (NYC), and at the developments in contemporary society. London College of Fashion. She has published on topics like the fluid, For more information, see: performative and embodied dimensions of fashionprofessorship.artez.nl identity, (Dutch) fashion photography, futuremakers.artez.nl

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/issue/searching-for-the- new-luxury-fashion-colloquium-2018-revisited/

21 APRIA #00 June 2019 José Teunissen State of Fashion: Searching for the New Luxury

Introduction operating from a new and engaged vision. In the last few years, it has often been said Aware of social and environmental issues that the current fashion system is outdated, and the failures of the current fashion sys- still operating by a twentieth-century model tem, they are fundamentally rethinking and that celebrates the individualism of the ‘star redefining the fashion system by implement- designer’. In I-D, Sarah Mower[1] recently ing new values and new imaginations using stated that for the last twenty years, fashion an embodied practice as an activistic tool. has been at a cocktail party and has com- Sustainable pioneer Stella McCartney pletely lost any connection with the public recently launched a campaign by Dutch and daily life. On the one hand, designers photographer Viviane Sassen—on show and big brands experience the enormous at State of Fashion[2]—which forms the pressure to produce new collections at an cornerstone of a new visual identity and ever higher pace, leaving less room for re- concept imagined for Stella McCartney’s flection, contemplation, and innovation. work in sustainability.[3] The film conveys On the other hand, there is the continuous the symbiotic nature of humans, nature, and race to produce at even lower costs and im- animals, and explores the idea that to fully plement more rapid life cycles, resulting in protect and care for ourselves, we must also disastrous consequences for society and the nurture the world we live in, as we are one environment. and the same. The words of Maria Barnas’s poem ‘To Nurture, To Nature’—conceived specially for the project—are recited over the film. Sassen’s work spans art and fashion, demonstrating ideas about abstraction and objects in relation to their often incongru- ous surroundings. Through Sassen’s abstract visual language, Stella McCartney finds a new and exciting way to engage in the conversation surrounding sustainability perfectly illustrates this cutting-edge sense and New Imaginations and imagination. Reshaping Aesthetics The classical luxurious dream of fash- There is a definite need for fashion to be- ion—the world of Hollywood glamour, the come relevant and resilient again, and to elegance of La Parisienne and the fashion take itself seriously—not only by producing magazine—are outdated and urgently need clothes in a circular and socially responsible to be replaced by a different visual language way, but also by using its power to envisage that underlines and expresses the values of a better world. Fashion as a discipline should the Millenial generation, who constitute 30% build on its strengths and use its ground- of the current work population worldwide. breaking and seductive power to redefine Their lifestyle—using a bicycle instead of what beauty, luxury, and seduction entail in owning a car, preferring a ‘shared economy’ the twenty-first century. The younger gen- over property and possession, and being en- eration of fashion designers in particular is vironmentally aware—makes them conscious

22 APRIA #00 June 2019 José Teunissen State of Fashion: consumers. Besides, they work remotely, fame with their innovative super luxury re-defining the traditional functions of a materials made from recycled plastic. Whilst home, an office, and a café and making the dressing Michelle Obama, Lady Gaga, and current boundaries between public and Blondie, they primarily focus on the devel- private disappear.[4] These completely fresh opment of a range of sustainable textiles that lifestyles and values are definitely transform- are unique to the market that they use in ing the representation and visual language of their collections. Until now, they have pro- the fashion system, which has for a long time duced and patented 12 unique fabrics. The been recycling the same retro-trends over origins of each fabric has a social programme and over again. What’s more, the straitjacket built around it. For example, areas of river of young, slim, white, and rich, ideal men or ocean in need of clean up from plastic and women is about to be replaced by a more waste are identified, and VIN + OMI initiate open and inclusive aesthetic which celebrates a clean up project to collect the plastic which nature, abstract environments, and new ide- is then turned into rPET fabric. A percent- als of gender and people. age of the textile produced is then turned Newcomers with a non-western back- into fashion clothing or accessories and the ground especially are purposefully breaking proceeds are donated back to the clean up the conventional values and notions of the project or community. Imagination is no dominant Western fashion history and its longer employed only as a materialised fanta- intertwinement with movements such as sy, as a form of escapism, or as a reflection of conceptualism, modernism, or postmodern- another world—instead, it is underpinned by ism. In doing so, they do not so much express a political agenda. the tradition from which they come[5] as Inspired by new technology, the vi- the path they take between that tradition sionary work of Iris van Herpen, Yuima and the various contexts they traverse. They Nakazato, and Threeasfour also performs do this by performing acts of transition.[6] these acts of transitions by exploring won- In particular, brands such as 11.11/eleven derful, novel worlds with poetic images, eleven and Button Masala (both from In- innovative imaginations, groundbreaking dia), Rafael Kouto (Switzerland), and Osklen experiences, and brand new products. They (Brazil) are able to create attractive, different are able to create attractive and original imaginations by shaping new and more re- imaginations shaping new worlds and in- sponsible, socially connected worlds without novative products without referencing the referencing conventional, ephemeral, and conventional glamorous fashion trends. glamourous Western fashion history. For them, imagination represents, in terms of New Business Models Appadurai, an organized field of social prac- There are many more levels to changing the tice, a form of work—in the sense of both multi-faceted fashion system. Digitalization, labour and culturally organized practice.[7] for example, has linked the world in terms Combining Chinese and English back- of communications, but the world has also grounds, award-winning fashion designers become even more ‘horizontal’ in the field VIN + OMI perfectly illustrate the new of production. Uber and Airbnb are two of hybrid and activist designer exploring these the best-known examples of a ‘sharing econ- acts of transition. They see their company omy’ in which an online platform enables a not as a fashion brand but as an ideology. direct relationship between consumer and The illustrious duo from London rose to supplier, making intermediaries redundant

23 APRIA #00 June 2019 José Teunissen State of Fashion: (though their consequences are by no means Internet has made it possible to make all the only positive). In the fashion chain, where layers within the production chain visible. retail is already under considerable pressure, Honest By, created by award-winning design- this kind of platform offers many advantages. er Bruno Pieters in 2010, was, for example, Maven Women, for example, is an online the very first to adopt a 100% transparency clothing company that designs, manufac- policy sharing the entire cost breakdown of tures, and releases new products with the its products. In order to enable the customers help of a worldwide community of mem- to make the most informed choices, Hon- bers. Members co-design and crowdfund est By provides a platform in which shows the designs into existence within a matter design processes and shares information of weeks. This new system helps the fashion related to supplier and production processes. system transform from a push market (40% [12] This allows consumers to consume more is not sold) into a made to measure market— consciously and sustainably, and, in addition, saving up to 30% of the costs.[8] Business it creates a more horizontal relationship be- models like these are going make the fashion tween consumers and producers, bringing chain far more sustainable, since clothes professionals and craftsmanship into focus. will be made strictly according to demand NGOs such as the Fashion Ethical and on a much more locally produced basis. Initiative and Fashion4Freedom bring world- [9] Moreover, every step in the production wide craftsmanship and heritage into focus process—from the drawing board to the end by using economic justice and human dig- product—will soon be linked digitally to nity as part of the conversation on fashion machines and people. 3D scanning allows about fashion: collections to be made exactly to size and At the heart of what we do is a shift- produced locally where the order was made, ing the paradigm from AID vs TRADE which encourages new assembly methods. to a model of AID+TRADE built with [10] All these technologies are slowly radical- design-think proving the results to be more ly transforming the fashion system, which is sustainable, more meaningful, and economi- still operating according to a twentieth-cen- cally driven. This is certainly a heavy subject tury industrial model. Biannual collections, more so than the subject of fashion or cul- big investments, and a compulsory catwalk ture itself; but fashion can sustain culture show will no longer be conditions for a and culture can be easily helped or destroyed successful fashion business. The growing in- by economic progress. Fashion4Freedom [13] terest in sustainability and circular thinking For example, Fashion4Freedom acquired will certainly help the development of a wide precious metal mined from old technolo- range of new business models, such as lease gy—including discarded phones,computers, concepts, upcycling, and a circular approach and tablets (fifty million tonnes of electronic underpinned by new digital manufacturing waste is produced yearly)—to create the Data possibilities.[11] min’d collection with local craftsmans in Vietnam. The Koi fish was chosen as a visu- The Product and the Maker alization of the struggle to swim through a in the Spotlight massive invasion of human ‘stuff’ scattered in Another advantage of a more direct and the environment. This is yet another exam- transparent relationship between consum- ple revealing a shift from the ‘star designer’ to er and product is the decline of the power the value of the garment itself and the crafts of brands as artificial dream sellers. The and professionals behind it.

24 APRIA #00 June 2019 José Teunissen State of Fashion:

Fashion Design Amazon, one of the largest freshwater fish for a Better World in the world. The hides are usually thrown It is also important to open up the scope of away as trash, but Metsavaht started work- fashion by regarding the discipline not only ing with farmers to safely grow the fish, as a field of production or as a market but protect the Amazon, and support the local also using its design capability to fully shape population.[16] socio-cultural contributions. For too long, innovations in fashion have been led pri- New Interdisciplinary Approaches marily by functional and economic driving In order to solve our current extremely forces, whereby the last business innovation— complicated environmental issues and find fast fashion—has made fashion the second solutions for a more resilient, fair, and hos- most polluting industry and detached it from pitable life for the world population, we its socio-cultural role of criticism, condem- need all disciplines—science, social science, nation, protest, and progressivism that it had and design—to work together in building a in the twentieth century.[14] By embracing far more resilient, inclusive, and fair future. a more collaborative, cooperative, and pro- Fashion needs to play its part by shifting its ject-based approach, fashion can actively priorities from a focus on fashion as some- contribute to building social communities thing that is primarily ephemeral towards a and better lives. much more resilient product development Since the Fashion industry is operating that contributes to big societal change and worldwide, its scope and reach offer the in- reflects new values. dustry the opportunity to take responsibility The merger of technical science and and make a significant difference. Design- fashion is a prerequisite for creating a more ers such as Vivienne Westwood and Zegna sustainable future. Material experiments can have already shown how fashion is able to lead to new opportunities, shapes, and func- contribute directly to a better world—not tions for fashion, challenging the status quo. only by producing in a socially responsible New materials made from algae, fruit residue, manner but also by applying its influence to and other celluloses may still seem futuris- directly create better living environments tic, but Orange Fiber and AlgaeFibre, [17] for and communities. Vivienne Westwood is example, show how new scientific tech- one of the Ethical Fashion Initiative’s first nologies are already leading to new design partners. As part of the initiative, she devel- applications. oped her ‘Handmade with Love’ collection It is also essential to redefine the pa- that was produced in the Kibera slum in Nai- rameters of fashion and its scope. With robi using recycled canvas, reused roadside ‘FOOTWEAR BEYOND THE FOOT: banners, unused leather offcuts, and recycled Extensions of Being’ 2017, Katherine Walsh, brass.[15] Instead of training the community for example, redefines the parameters of in the traditional Western craft skills needed footwear while encompassing designs that for bag making, she explored and built on attach to a lower limb—regardless of that the traditional craft skills of this community, limb’s characteristics—and explores what respecting the cultural heritage of country kind of effect such designs have on psycho- where she produces, which is unique. logical well-being. The collection, which For his accessories, Oskar Metsavaht, includes products for amputated lower-limbs founder of the Brazilian luxury label Osklen and the non-amputated foot, aims to create 1989, uses the skin of the Pirarucu from the both new images of the human body and

25 APRIA #00 June 2019 José Teunissen State of Fashion: more empathetic relationships with it. [18] “cultural embedded stories not so much ex- Research into practices of the prosthetics pressing the tradition from which they come, industry and into experiences some ampu- as the path they take between that tradition tees face after amputation led to a focus on and the various contexts they traverse, by designs that encourage interactions relat- performing acts of transition.”[21] By reflecting to clinical research findings, interview ing on these challenges and new values of responses, or medical techniques. The pro- the current timeperiod, fashion as a cultural ject advances our well-being by promoting phenomenon will start to become relevant emotional intelligence and showcases the and meaningful again. potential for design to support a person beyond their physicality. Instead of focusing on Footnotes the next trend and next ephemeral glamor- [1] https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/ bjz3eq/the-fashion-industry- ous dream, the future fashion designer needs needs-to-slow-down-step-back- to take a much more inclusive and personal and-think-about-whats-relevant. approach that engages with real people and [2] https://issuu.com/ stateoffashion/docs/stof_07_2018_ their struggles in life. Finally, these innova- catalogus_interactive_. tions make us question the skills the designer [3] www.stellamccartney.com/ of the future might need. Do we need to experience/en/sustainability/. [4] www.visioncritical.com/ re-think our fashion education system? Will millennial-infographics/. the next ‘star-designer’ be a couturier, a [5] Teunissen, Jose, “On the scientist, a psychologist, a philosopher, or a globalisation of Fashion” in: Brand, Jan, Teunissen, Jose’ smart hybrid? Global Fashion, Local Tradition’ in: Global Fashion Local Tradition. Warnsveld Terra, 2005. Pp 8–23. Conclusion Teunissen, Jose, “Fashion Odyssey. For more than a century, fashion was very The Search for new values and much about the new, where the new meant practices in Fashion” in: Brand, that it was in tune with and demonstrated Jan and Teunissen, Jose (eds) A Fashion Odyssey. Arnhem 2011: the zeitgeist. But now, the fashion system has 157–177), Fukai, Akiko, “Japan sped up the fashion cycle. There is an over- and Fashion”, in : Brand, Jan and load of new products, which has not only Teunissen Jose (ed) The Power of Fashion, Arnhem 2006:288–314). resulted in enormous overproduction and [6] Bourriaud, Nicolas The Radicant, waste but has also leds to trends becoming New York 2009, pp. 51–51. meaningless. [7] Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity at Large, Minneapolis 1996, p.3–5. Therefore, we will have to move to- [8] https://issuu.com/stateoffashion/ wards a new meaningful fashion system in docs/stof_07_2018_catalogus_ which the product is no longer outdated as interactive_ p. 128. [9] Teunissen, van Zijverden. Fashion soon as it has been launched on a catwalk, Data, HNI Rotterdam, 2015. https:// but rather that it gains more value during issuu.com/maschavanzijverden/docs/ its lifecycle. As such, the value of new (as the fashiondata_hetnieuweinstituut_teun. [10] Achim Berg, et al., Digitization: The [19] repetition of the same but different) has Next Stop for the Apparel-Sourcing to be replaced by the value of innovation[20], Caravan, McKinsey, 2017. www. materialised in digitally innovative products, mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our- insights/digitization-the-next-stop- the value of ethics shown in transparent and for-the-apparel-sourcing-caravan. traceable products, and the value of authen- [11] A New Textile Economy, ticity embodied in, according to Bourriaud, Dr. Sven Hermann, Ellen McArthur Foundation, 2017. www.

26 APRIA #00 June 2019 José Teunissen State of Fashion:

ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/ José Teunissen publications/a-new-textiles-economy- José Teunissen is Professor of redesigning-fashions-future. Fashion Theory and Dean of the [12] https://issuu.com/ School of Design and Technology at stateoffashion/docs/stof_07_2018_ London College of Fashion, UAL. She catalogus_interactive_. is the curator of State of Fashion: [13] www.fashion4freedom.com/ Searching for the New Luxury (2018). impactful-supply-chain/#ethical- Teunissen is currently a board member supply-chain-defined. of the Dutch Creative Industries [14] Éloi Laurent, Our Economic Myths. Council and Chair of the network CLICK/ Paris, Les liens qui liberent. 2016 Next Fashion, the Dutch Government [15] https://issuu.com/ innovation network for the creative stateoffashion/docs/stof_07_2018_ industries in the Netherlands. In catalogus_interactive_ 2015, she established the Centre of [16] https://issuu.com/stateoffashion/ Expertise Future Makers at ArtEZ, which docs/stof_07_2018_catalogus_ is dedicated to new production processes interactive_, pp. 102–09. in fashion and design. She holds a [17] https://issuu.com/stateoffashion/ Visiting Professorship in Fashion docs/stof_07_2018_catalogus_ Theory and Research at ArtEZ and works interactive_, pp. 178. as an independent fashion curator. [18] https://kris-walsh.com/ Teunissen has previously worked as a portfolio/projects/ professor, a journalist for several [19] Barthes, Roland, Systeme de la Dutch newspapers and Dutch broadcast Mode. Parijs, 1967. Pp 282–287. television, and was a curator in [20] ‘Innovation’ often refers to an Fashion and Costume at the Centraal invention; however, I am using the Museum in Utrecht (1998–2006). term ‘innovation’ to refer to a In 2002 at ArtEZ, Teunissen was one of set of practical implementations the first professors in the Netherlands and new imaginations reflecting to conduct research and develop theory novel values that have a in the field of fashion. She took meaningful impact on society and various hot items from the fashion on the fashion system market. industry, including the effects of [21] (Bourriaud, 2009 51–51). globalization, sustainability, and technology, and used them as the basis for research projects, publications, and exhibitions in association with ArtEZ Press, which earned her an excellent international reputation. Teunissen has co-edited many books including Fashion and Imagination (2009), The Art of Fashion (2009), Couture Graphique (2013), Fashion Odyssey (2013), The Future of Fashion is Now (2014), and Everything but Clothes (2015). She has also realized many exhibitions, including The Art of Fashion (2009), Couture Graphique (2013), The Future of Fashion is Now (2014), and Everything but Clothes (2015).

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/state-of-fashion/

27 APRIA #00 June 2019 Marina Sasseron de Oliveira Cabral Osklen and Sustainability an interview with Oskar Metsavaht

View video online: http://apria.artez.nl/osklen-and-sustainability/

28 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations from the Reign of Visibility to the Realm of Possibilities

For several years now, academic programmes producing multi-dimensional value De Vries: in Fashion Studies have offered an increas- from the commercial dimension of the ‘prod- ingly diverse variety of teachings on the uct value’, to the individualizing dimension most abstract and conceptual aspects of of personal and collective ‘identity value’, fashion. There are courses that dissect its and not forgetting the dimension of ‘appear- imaginary, analyse its iconography, study ance’ that fashion has transformed into an the psycho-sociology or semiotics of cloth- essential communicational interface in our ing, or explore the emerging practice of highly aestheticized society. fashion curating to explore the controver- Amongst the most inspiring studies sial subject of the cultural and industrial on contemporary fashion, Thinking Through death of fashion itself.As though the mere Fashion by Agnès Rocamora and Anneke materiality of the garment were no longer a Smelik deserves special attention. Beyond concern for fashion intellectuals today, more offering a theoretical reading of the main and more publications in this field appear themes that have nourished fashion culture to reflect this shift, such as the illuminat- over the last 30 years, this book demon- ing Critical Fashion Practice Geczy and Karaminas, strates that most contemporary clothing which analyses the work of the most openly production has the primary effect of con- conceptual fashion designers of recent dec- necting us to experiences that we would ades, or Fashion Tales Mora and Pedroni, which otherwise not have had. According to discusses the potential for fashion to produce Rocamora and Smelik, fashion can be viewed collective cultural narratives. This double as a relational agent that enables us to alter tendency in academia and in publishing oth- our perception of reality and apprehend the er is not that the reflex of radical mutations body, space, and people around us. happened in the fashion imaginary over the Art masters including Louise Bourgeois last two centuries. and Rebecca Horn can be considered pio- Following the birth of modern fashion neers in these experimental speculations with the arrival of the haute couture during through clothing. Nonetheless, it is only the nineteenth century, the garment’s cul- since artists began to analyse pop-culture tural status has become increasingly complex, through an artistic lens (as Andy Warhol shifting from an exceptional artisanal prod- did) that these explorations have acquired uct to a cultural artefact, the identitarian direct relevance for fashion, due to its hybrid significations and social and aesthetic mean- status between art and commerce. ings of which carry greater importance than The artist, performer, clothing design- its physical characteristics. As the Dutch er, and club-kid Leigh Bowery (1961–1994) researcher Femke de Vries (also a contribu- embodied this emerging profile. When de- tor to the conference Searching for the New signing outfits for his performances in art Luxury, where the research at the origin venues or clubs, he aimed to distort sensorial of this paper was presented) has recently perception rather than enhance it. Through argued, in contemporary society, fashion proprioceptive displacement (many of his presents itself as a complex entity capable of outfits were designed to block one or more

29 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations senses, or they constrained parts of the body spatial, socio-cultural, political, and emo- as if flesh could be sculpted) and a radical tional. These aspects are also central to alteration of bodily appearance (through contemporary art speculation regarding the prosthetic dysmorphic body-members, or erratic nature of both identity and aesthetics oversized body parts), he demonstrates the in our ‘altermodern times’, in which the frag- social capacity of fashion to rewrite the mentation of the self and the multiplication codes of our presence in the world. Where of experiential opportunities lead individuals is the boundary between beauty and taboo, to perceive their being as mobile, unstable, between fashion and the self, or between the and in progress as a life-long itinerant jour- human and the unhuman? Through raising ney Abruzzese; Bourriaud Radicant. these unanswerable questions, Bowery’s The echo of Bowery and Chalayan’s work provocatively suggests that there are research is also visible in the work of other no such boundaries. contemporary designers such as Rick Owens. Although he developed his work be- A recurrent theme within his approach to tween some of the most renowned London clothing is our relationship to otherness, art institutions and the unofficiality of the understood as much as that which can be club scene, Bowery was not exactly con- found within ourselves (one’s dark side or sidered a player on the fashion market and the unpredictable aspects of personality) is primarily remembered as an artist. His as that derived from a ‘humanoid’ rather approach to clothing and the body would be than ‘human’ physical appearance. Owens even better framed in terms of the “relational pushed his statement as far as a provocative aesthetics” that Nicolas Bourriaud recently reconfiguration of the relation to the other, theorized Bourriaud Esthétique relationnelle— that whose body was literally used as a fashion is to say, characteristic of artists aiming to accessory on models’ outfits in his 2016 transform individuals’ connection to their spring-summer show. living context rather than producing materi- In addition to the question of identity, al artworks. the number of fashion designers involved There are traces of Bowery’s influence in reviewing the codes of representation in the work of ready-to-wear fashion design- and gender construction today could not be ers attesting to, amongst other phenomena, greater. As one of the least known and most the overlapping problematics between fash- original designers, the Jordanian-Canadian ion and art. Specifically, Hussein Chalayan Rad Hourani, based between Montreal and became known in the 90s for his vision of New York, chooses the axis of ‘neutrality’, fashion as a tool to define the elaboration of which is investigated as an aspect inherent human identity. For example, in his video to the human species, to determine both and installation project Place to Passage (2003), the emergence of our gender traits and our the garment is “metaphorised” by a spa- interpersonal relationships of seduction and tio-temporal vessel likely to accompany the communication Geczy and Karaminas. In Hou- female character during her inner metamor- rani’s vision, neutrality is what all humans phoses as well as in her physical movements have in common. It is a starting point from from Istanbul to London—two important which one can relate to specific experiences cities for the designer, the former symbol- that ultimately determine differences and izing his mother-culture and the latter the appearances which define us as individuals. culture he currently lives in—syncretically Indeed, these are not intrinsic to human na- determining multiple forms of displacement: ture and remain superficial occurrences.

30 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations The gradual extension of fashion discourse to such existential issues is likely the consequence of its social role in collective taste formation. In contemporary culture, every aspect of life seems to fall under the influence of a diffuse aesthetics Mecacci in which every object or human production is ostensibly designed to communicate a certain content and appearance that is anything but superficial. Through his research Exhibition Dysfashional on the shop window and the artistic display, De Stijl artist and theorician Frederick and studied in its material, visual, concep- Kiesler became aware nearly a century ago tual, sensory, and emotional aspects Marchetti. of the pivotal role appearance would soon This is true for both exhibitions in artistic play in modern society as its sole possible contexts and for exhibitions taking place in “essence”.[1] The emerging research field of stores and other commercial spaces. Even everyday aesthetics studies posits that ap- when exhibitions are presented as non-profit pearance can be considered the only possible initiatives, they sketch in situ an aesthetic form of essence left to us Matteucci. Although frame within which products for sale acquire it may seem ephemeral, in contemporary cultural relevance and—finally—monetary urbanized societies, appearance shapes in- value Coccia and Grau 44. dividual self-construction, organises our Due to the semiotic function (of pro- self-perception and psychology, and deter- ducing and organizing meaning) based on mines the roles we can or cannot play in the ostensive mode of communication that social life. In this context, the ‘feeling of be- fashion and the exhibition have in common, ing oneself’ also has a relational nature. The both meet the definition of ‘apparatus’ giv- ‘feeling of being oneself’ is not only elabo- en by Giorgio Agamben after Deleuze and rated through continuous intersubjective Foucault [2]: “anything that has in some way practices (amongst individuals, and between the capacity to capture, orient, determine, individuals and their surrounding artefacts) intercept, model, control, or secure the ges- which are made of deeply socialized gazes tures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of and exchanges; these continuous intersubjec- living beings” Agamben 14; my translation. This tive practices constitute the very condition of point is particularly relevant since, follow- its existence. Out of this relational play the ing this perspective, garments, accessories, bare existence of the contemporary self is or any other fashionable accoutrement hardly imaginable Iannilli. as well as the exhibition itself function The conception of the contemporary as ‘relational machines’. While the former sense of being as diffused and inherently fashion-related aspects condition the rooted in environmental aesthetics also perceptive and affective status of individ- sheds light on the reasons for the significant uals, the exhibition conditions the public’s role fashion exhibitions increasingly play in presence in the spatio-temporal environ- both the culture and the economy of muse- ment defined by their visit, as the art critic ums worldwide. It is only in the exhibition Emanuele Quinz reminds us. The fashion that the aesthetic scope of contemporary exhibition Dysfashional, co-curated by Quinz fashion considered above can be displayed and me from 2007 and 2011,[3] is a clear

31 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations illustration of this principle. Conceived as relational machine, it featured ‘open artworks’—some of which were interactive—the content of which could only be derived from the multiple, perpetually renewed relationships the visitors establish with and between themselves during their visit. Seen as an aesthetic apparatus, the exhibition more generally represents the most accomplished form of embodiment of fashion’s capacity to consolidate the relationships © Iwan Baan / Fondation Louis Vuitton we need to establish to our surrounding environment (be it physical, spatial, or sym- performances, participatory activities, and bolic) on a daily basis. Thus, the appearance original commissions, where the role of the of numerous foundations in the name of traditional exhibition, intended as a curated large luxury houses[4] presenting museum- selection of material artworks, is less rel- like programmes straddling fashion and the evant than the polymorphic relationships arts comes as no surprise. Even when such established between invited artists, the pub- initiatives present programmes that aren’t lic, and the creative genres themselves. directly devoted to fashion, they still qual- An interesting counterpart to this ify the brand’s commercial offer through choice is the Louis Vuitton Foundation of indirect and symbolic relationships with Paris, opened in 2014 in the monumental the brand-specific world vision they project building designed by Frank Gehry in the across art. Bois de Boulogne. Contrary to the exploded Among non-fashion art projects initi- configuration of the Milanese project devel- ated in the field of luxury, the Fondazione oped in total continuity with the texture of Prada in Milan has perhaps most radically the city, the Parisian foundation stands out interpreted the relational nature of a contem- in its environment by a rupture effect, as a porary fashion brand, beginning with the monolithic object placed in the landscape conception of its headquarters. Rather than to be contemplated. Interestingly, the pro- merely creating ‘a building’, the Fondazione gramming of the institution also follows an chose a more fragmented option, consisting objectual logic based on artworks exhibited of a series of micro and marco pre-existing in its interior landscape. structures, sewn to each other by minor With the purpose of understanding interventions such as bridges, tunnels, or the impact of such initiatives on brand inclined ramps. Considering the prism of its identity, we can easily recognize here the programming, the form of the Fondazione same relationship between a non-superficial works like an architectural mirror of its surface and essence previously discussed artistic content which is also meant as ‘re- regarding individual identity. Assuming lational’. While the architect of the project, these brands’ art foundations and commer- Rem Koolhaas, strives to organize a network cial productions are emanations of their of independent locations connected to each brand vision, this hypothesis would lead one other by fitting joints, the artistic direc- to seek the brand-value of Louis Vuitton tors of the project imagined a programme in its prioritization of the product and its based mainly on collaborative projects, appearance, and that of Prada in its focus

32 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations on an broader aesthetic resulting from a was conceived as a hybrid “augmented space” relational bricolage of remarkably diverse Manovich, in which layers of virtual digitalized materials. According to a comparative anal- information are superimposed (thanks to ysis of Louis Vuitton and Prada’s websites, technological tools) on visual (colours, imag- this conception seems rather realistic. Louis es, texts) and material contents (the products Vuitton’s website homepage includes a lex- and the interior design components) within icon addressing manual fabrication (savoir which visitors could experiment in a close faire), latest product collections (les parfums network on relations and playful interac- pour la maison), and the physical sites where tions. The Prada augmented store “no longer these are fabricated (la maison, Asnières), presents the products of the brand, but its focusing on craftsmanship and their ma- fashion [imaginary], broadly speaking, as a terial artisanal heritage. Conversely, by ‘way of relating’ to oneself, to how one feels, stimulating the visitor’s curiosity through to clothing, image, the experiential context contents that are not immediately obvious of the store and—by extension—the world” (Pradamalia, Scopri di più, “special projects”), Marchetti and Segre-Reinach 84–103. Prada introduces itself via the more imagi- Although the relational orientation of native ‘Pradasphere’, [5] in which the notion the fashion imaginary may seem surpris- of the ‘sphere’ refers to complex cultural ing due to its immateriality and somewhat environments such as the ‘biosphere’, the abstract language, this phenomenon seems ‘blogosphere’’, or the ’semiosphere’, in which logical following the interpretation of con- the interconnections amongst the different temporary culture suggested by the New components solely guarantee the cohesion York-based artist and brand strategist Lucas and coherence of the whole. Mascatello.[6] In an article published on A more extended inquiry shows how, the SSENSE editorial platform outside of far from being anecdotic, the relational any academic context, he applies the notion logic proposed by the Fondazione Prada is of ‘aposematism’—the strategy that allows intrinsically inscribed within Prada’s brand living organisms to adapt to their surround- equity. I recently had the opportunity to ings by emitting relational signals for their analyse Marchetti and Segre-Reinach a similar re- peers—to fashion. Fashion, the expression lational approach, which also defined the of individuality par excellence, would then be brand’s flagship store in New York, which used by individuals to put in logical relation was ambitiously announced as the brand’s the overabundance of identitarian stimuli ‘vision manifesto’ following its opening. The conveyed by the environment in which they flagship store includes a number of techno- live to maximize the possibilities of being logical devices created by the design studio understood and to establish relationships Industrial Facility, such as various projection with the context of their lives. In addition screens, plasma screens, intelligent labels and to the author’s analogy between sartorial changing rooms, terminals for getting per- culture and the biological nature of living sonalised product information, and a tactile organisms, the main source of originality interactive ‘Prada atlas’’. These elements were in the article lies in Mascatello’s anti-social explicitly developed to support the “rela- reading of aposematic fashion. In this sense, tionships between the environment and the by inducing multiple deformations of the ap- individuals, the product and the tables, the pearance, it would succeed in de-identifying chairs, the building and even with the sur- individuals rather than forging an identity rounding city” Colin and Hecht 88. The store itself for them. While these assumptions remain

33 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations debatable, as they are yet to be supported by specific research, a rising tension between identitarian phenomena (e.g., the public debate on cultural appropriation) and the claim for a higher degree of privacy—and in some cases of ‘social invisibility’—seems inherent to contemporary culture and the meaning of contemporary fashion (e.g., ‘normcore’ street style or the genderless trend). Regarding the reflection on such ten- Possible tomorrows : interactive clothing with fingerprint recognition sions through fashion design, artist and technology from ying gao on Vimeo. designer Ying Gao presented a project in 2017 named ‘Possible Tomorrows’,[7] which establish in the world may shape the near addresses the issue of identity construction future of the entire fashion universe. not as a fortuitous opportunity but rather Fashion has built its own social language as a threat of exclusion. The piece is made on ostentation, which is defined by the op- of two robotized garments connected to a position between ‘showing’ and ‘hiding’. As fingerprint recognition system, which only mentioned above, this logic is typical of becomes animated by unrecognized finger- the exhibition space, with both the social prints. The garments are not made of fabric exposition of the self and the artistic one but of curved patterns comprised of unwo- of the gallery space. Similar to what occurs ven threads, evoking the visual appearance in the art gallery, fashion offers the public of fingerprints. If these symbolize an indi- specific visual and material elements wo- vidual identity that is not recognized as such, ven into a storytelling, conveying aesthetic the unwoven threads convey the impossi- and identitarian contents. While the image bility of constructing a viable social texture of the gallery may faithfully represent the based on the notions of security and iden- functioning of modern fashion, it does not tity that the installation puts into question. fully illustrate what happens in the contem- ‘Possible Tomorrows’ seemingly confirms porary fashion system. For this purpose, the that neither the security promise nor the image of the ‘playground’ would be a pref- identity claim can guarantee the integration erable analogy since here, the visible and of each into a community. On the contrary, material elements acquire content only once it is from the opening to all ‘possibles’ and they are incorporated into the performative by relating to ‘alterities’ that individuals can acts of the ‘players’. While modern fashion expect to build their tomorrow. has grown in terms of visibility, relational Gao’s project echoes other studies of fashion evolves in the realm of possibility identity within the social body, from Michel and makes sense only through the weaving Foucault to Judith Butler,[8] leaving us with of relationships established within a given the responsibility of deciding between the context.[9] notion of identity as coercion and the idea If design—and, therefore, fashion—is of availability to otherness as a guarantee the skin of the culture, as stated by Derrick of identitarian freedom. This ambivalence de Kerckhove more than two decades ago, extends the focus of this brief analysis to then, in the culture of tomorrow that we the context of culture as a whole, where the are already building, the need to establish relational approach that clothing helps to relationships between the innumerable

34 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations diversities that the globalized world gener- Marchetti, L. and Segre-Reinach, ates appears more as a necessity rather than S. Exhibit! La moda esposta: lo spazio della mostra e lo as an opportunity. Relational fashion will spazio della marca. Milan, play a major role in dressing the future in all Bruno Mondadori, 2017. its possibilities. Matteucci, G. Estetica della moda. Milan, Bruno Mondadori – Pearson, 2018. Mecacci, A. Dopo Warhol. Il pop, Bibliography il postmoderno e l’estetica Abruzzese, A. “Essere moda. Appunti diffusa. Rome, Donzelli, 2017. sui modi di affermarsi nel Mora, E. and Pedroni, M. “New Frontiers mondo ovvero sul mercato delle of the Fashion Imaginary.” Fashion identità.” Communifashion. Della Tales: Feeding the Imaginary, edited moda della comunicazione, edited by Mora, E. and Pedroni, M, Bern, by Barile, N. and Abruzzese, A., Peter Lang, 2017, pp. 13–25. Rome, Sossella, 2001, pp. 7–45. Quinz, E. “Le cercle invisible. Agamben, G. Che cos’è un Presque une synthèse.” Le cercle dispositivo? Rome, Nottetempo, 2006. invisible. Environnements, systèmes, Bourriaud, N. Esthétique relationnelle. dispositifs, Paris, Les presses Dijon, Les presses du réel, 2002. du réel, 2017, pp. 233–262. Bourriaud, N. Radicant : pour une Rocamora, A. and Smelik, A., esthétique de la globalisation. editors. Thinking through Paris, Denoël, 2009. Fashion, I.B. Tauris, 2015. Coccia, E. and Grau, D. Le musée transitoire. Sur 10 Corso Footnotes Como. Paris, Klinsieck, 2018. [1] Quoted and discussed by Colin, K. and Hecht S. Industrial Coccia and Grau (42). Facility: Things that Go Unseen. [2] In the languages used by the London, Industrial Facility, 2003. quoted authors, ‘apparatus’ is De Kerckhove, D. The Skin of Culture. translated as dispositivo (in Somerville House, 1995. Italian), or dispositif (in French). De Vries, F. Fashioning Value – [3] Luxembourg Capitale Européenne Undressing Ornament. Eindhoven, de la Culture 2007; La Rotonde, Onomatopee, 2015. 21 April–27 May 2007; MUDAC, Geczy, A. and Karaminas, Lausanne, 11 March–8 June V. Critical Fashion Practice: 2008; Passage du Désir, Paris, From Westwood to van 29 October–29 November 2009 ; Haus Beirendonck. Bloomsbury, 2017. der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Iannilli, G. L. “La moda come estetica 24 June–18 July 2009; Garage del quotidiano.” Estetica della Centre for Contemporary Culture, moda, edited by G. Matteucci, Moscow, 12 November–5 December 2018, pp. 111–130. 2010; National Gallery of Modern Manovich, L. “The Poetics of Augmented Art, Jakarta, 8–30 May 2011. Space.” Visual Communication, [4] Which haven’t ceased to multiply vol. 5, no. 2, 2006, pp. 219– on the five continents since 40, http://manovich.net/content/04- the creation of the Parisian projects/034-the-poetics-of- Fondation Cartier in 1984 augmented-space/31_article_2002. (www.fondationcartier.com). Accessed 20 November 2018. [5] See https://www.prada.com/it/en.html Marchetti, L. “Fashion curating: [6] “Aposématisme: la stratégie idées, enjeux et pratiques.” La adaptative et antisociale de mode exposée: penser la mode par la mode”, SSENSE, September l’exposition / Fashion Curating: 2018, https://www.ssense.com/ Understanding Fashion through the fr-ca/editorial/mode/aposematism- Exhibition, edited by Marchetti, fashions-antisocial-adaptations?utm_ L., Geneva, HEAD, 2016. source=ssense&utm_medium=email&utm_ campaign=magazine&utm_term=fr_ aposematism_m_18_09_14.

35 APRIA #00 June 2019 Luca Marchetti The Fashion of Relations

[7] The video of which was also visible [9] I had the opportunity to develop in the exhibition Searching for this suggestion more in detail, the New Luxury in Arnhem (cur. basing my hypothesis on the José Teunissen, De Melkfabriek, generative semiotic model applied to Arnhem, 1 June–22 July 2018). fashion spaces such as exhibitions [8] For a concise and fashion- in museums or galleries up to related review of the ideas on fashion stores by Algidras-Julien identity by these two fundamental Greimas. The analysed corpus was thinkers, refer to “Michel read according to the opposition Foucault: Fashioning the Body between spaces of seeing and Politic” by Jane Tynan (Rocamora spaces of happening in which and Smelik 2016, pp.184–199) meaning can only emerge through and “Judith Butler: Fashion and the performative cooperation of Performativity” by Elizabeth playing visitors (“Meaning through Wissinger (ibid., pp. 285–299). Space: A Cross-Reading of Fashion Exhibitions and Stores”, Semiofest 2017 conference, 19–23 July 2017, Gladstone Hotel, Toronto, CA).

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/the-fashion-of-relations/

36 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury: Normcore as Node and Prism

Introduction of anthropology, consumption theory, and This article attempts to frame and unpack critical fashion theory. ‘normcore’ in order to speculate [1] about the This article covers both the normcore future of luxury. At a time where seemingly consumer trend and its conceptual origin in everyone is searching for the ‘new luxury’, the art world—as well as the dialectics be- this article instead proposes finding the ‘new tween the two—and proposes appropriating normal’. It investigates a phenomenon that the term ‘post luxury’ as a suitable term for challenges the very nature of luxury in terms capturing the totality of the phenomenon. of exclusivity in the actual sense of the word; The article also points to a few possible di- being exclusive, i.e. for the few or of restrict- rections for further investigation. ed accessibility [2], in line with Simmel’s classic insight: “we call those objects valuable Normcore as consumer trend that resist our desire to possess them” Simmel 67. Anthropology was an influential contributor Normcore is not the answer, though. to the development of postmodern consump- And it was never intended to be. Normcore tion theory, represented by, for example, is rather about speculation [3], along the lines Appadurai 1986 and Miller 1987, introducing of the field of ‘speculative design’ see Malpass ‘material culture’ perspectives and an inter- for an overview—that is, more about an idea est in universal dimensions of how people of a possible future, a proposal without relate to things cross culturally, complement- consideration for probability rather than a ing sociological dominance in the field see, problem-solving, hands-on approach. for example, Warde, 2002, and informing percep- Normcore was not only the most tions of fashion mechanisms. Googled fashion trend of 2014 but also the Normcore is a cultural response to runner-up for neologism of the year by imploding fashion mechanisms.[4] The prob- Oxford University Press. The phrase gener- lem of upholding distinction value has been ated numerous headlines, such as “Normcore met with different responses over the past Is (or Is It?) a Fashion Trend (or Non-Trend two decades as the conditions shifted. The or Anti-Trend)” in the Los Angeles Times in answer was semiotic excess or ‘stylistic ec- 2015, “How a fake trend forecasting agen- lecticism’ in the 2000s Warde, 2008, and what is cy got us all dressing like Jerry Seinfeld” best characterized as the heritage paradigm in The Sydney Herald in 2016, or “Everyone’s or a ‘reorientation to materiality’ [5] in the Getting Normcore Wrong, Says Its Inventors” 2010s. Much of the interest in so-called new in Dazed in 2014, indicating a multi-faceted luxury is concerned with this latter approach. and intriguing phenomenon. This development, of course, has its theoret- Aiming to successfully tackle such ical equivalent reflected in the post-semiotic a complex empirical phenomenon like material turn. But as we head for the 2020s, normcore requires analytical tools beyond what is next? the scope of any singular discipline, thus Normcore is an anticipation. As a con- making an interdisciplinary approach sumer trend, normcore came to be associated imperative. The theoretical perspectives with a kind of minimalistic attire based combined this article lie at the intersection loosely around how comedian Jerry Seinfeld

37 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury: cultural commentary is thus an intriguing empirical landscape to enter to explore these dynamics.

K-Hole: art and/or trend analysis Normcore was initially a spoof marketing term, coined by the New York-based art collective/trend-forecasting group K-Hole, who have launched a total of five trend reports on their website k-hole.net since their in- (c) Nicolas Coulomb ception [7]—seemingly a paradoxical task if contemporary art’s main agenda is (suppos- looked throughout his TV show—or rath- edly) cultural critique. er, if Jerry Seinfeld and Apple co-founder However, K-Hole belong to a long Steve Jobs had a baby: light blue, loose, lineage of artist collectives piggybacking high-wasted jeans (also known as Mom- commercial channels, [8] with 90s phe jeans), black or white turtle necks, practical nomenon Bernadette Corporation and their wind breakers, and sneakers with heavy imploding strategy for criticism mimick- soles, often in primary colours, with a hint ing the world of advertising Simpson, 2003; of synthetic futurism—a sort of post-heritage Becker, 2014 as a precursor, following the aesthetic merged with a neo-90s swing of appropriation art of the 1970s and 1980s the pendulum. that, inspired by the historical avant-garde, Like most trends, it reaches critical blurred the lines in visual culture, and be- mass at a point where there is nothing but tween art and life Gibb ons, 2005. surface left, without much trace of any This tradition refers to rather opaque ideological origin. Described as “a unisex phenomena, things best described as hav- fashion trend characterized by unpretentious, ing double ontologies, so to speak. K-Hole normal-looking clothing” by Wikipedia, is best understood as being both and, rather normcore was in fact not meant to be a trend than either or, flickering between two modes at all, nor to be used to refer to a particular so that is difficult to identify which aspects code of dress. ‘Post peak normcore’,[6] this ar- define the separation, and their hybrid prac- ticle aims to investigate a phenomenon that tices are blurring the distinctions between surely entailed more than first meets the eye: criticality and accelerationism;[9] practising It enlightens a theoretical issue, namely what is critiqued. the missing link between habitus Bourdieu, 1984 Anthropology has proved to be par- and the world of goods Douglas and Isherwood, 1979 ticularly suitable for enabling identification as problematized by Miller in saying that of phenomena that defy our established Bourdieu’s theory does not actually treat ways of categorizing because its methodol- this gap between the two satisfactory—that ogy of cross-cultural comparison generates is, between dispositions and material cul- reflexivity towards our own cultural con- ture. Miller, therefore, encourages further figurations, and anthropology is currently research in mediating structures such as gaining popularity across disciplines (after marketing. Contemporary art as influencer its last peak in the 90s) because of that. in the form of trend forecasting at the in- K-Hole themselves have described their tersection of fake manipulation and critical trend reports as ‘fan fiction’ rather than

38 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury: satire—a much fuzzier approach at the in- context: ‘Mass Indie’, ‘Acting Basic’, and tersection of mockery and celebration. But ‘Normcore’. it is also about the dissemination of critical The term ‘Mass Indie’, in itself an oxy thinking. The field of trend analysis is char- moron, refers to the social construction of acterized by extremely lightweight cultural value related to the alternative as imagined analysis in fiercely sexy packaging—with vs. the mainstream as imagined Gregson and astonishing impact. K-Hole’s project was to Crewe 2003 that characterized the main trait of employ this superficial format as a Trojan “alternative” consumption from around the horse. Their reports are almost indistin- 90s Frank, 1997; Heath and Potter, 2005. K-Hole de- guishable from the real thing, and it takes clares “we live in Mass-Indie times”: some concentration to actually capture the astonishing accuracy of their descriptions But just because Mass Indie is pro-diversi- of cultural tendencies in the unfolding. ty, doesn’t mean it’s post-scarcity. There’s a limited amount of difference in the Normcore as critique world, and the mainstreaming of its pur- Normcore was originally a rather subver- suit has only made difference all the scarcer. sive concept, anticipating an alternative way The anxiety that there is no new terrain is forward, proposing anti-distinction as the always a catalyst for change. K-Hole, 2013, p. radical new. The K-Hole trend report that 16; emphasis added introduced the term, “Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom”, was originally commissioned The possibility of difference is now what is for the 89Plus Marathon at London’s Serpen- scarce. Crewe et al, 2003. already predicted prob- tine Gallery in October 2013. Co-founded by lems concerning upholding the distinction Simon Castets and curator superstar Hans value as ‘alternative’ 15 years ago. Appadurai Ulrich Obrist, 89Plus is a platform for se- 1986 described a solution strategy to this lected creative talents born in or after 1989, dilemma in the mid-80s related to compli- thus unmistakably situating the origins of cating the criteria of authenticity. However, normcore in the art sphere. as K-Hole points out, there is a limit to how The report in question starts out by complicated the criteria of authenticity can be, analysing the contemporary context of chal- and is thus seeking out the solution elsewhere. lenges facing the possibility of distinction: Another important term stemming from the report is ‘Acting Basic’. This is indeed an It used to be possible to be special—to sustain interesting word play, and conceptually very unique differences through time, relative to clever. ‘Basic’ was already a well-established a certain sense of audience. As long as you expression with its own trail of explanations were different from the people around you, in the online Urban Dictionary, such as “only you were safe. But the Internet and globali- interested in things mainstream, popular, zation fu$%#d that up for everyone. In the and trending”. Acting basic, however, is de- same way that a video goes viral, so does scribed by K-Hole as the natural sociological potentially anything. K-Hole, 2013, p. 4 response to the current Mass Indie situation:

The report introduces several concepts, If the rule is Think Different, being seen three of which are most important in this as normal is the scariest thing. (…) Which

39 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury: paradoxically makes normalcy ripe for strategy of blending in, of accentuating the Mass Indie überelites to adopt as their sameness—a bit similar to the Norwegian own, confirming their status by showing cultural trait of under-communicating dif- how disposable the trappings of uniqueness ference as a framework for social interaction, are. The most different thing to do is to often referred to as “egalitarian individual- reject being different all together. When ism” Gullestad, 1992. Normcore implies the end the fringes get more and more crowded, of distinction as we know it. Mass Indie turns toward the middle. Having mastered difference, the truly cool attempt Normcore as Post Luxury to master sameness. K-Hole, 2013, p. 23; Luxury has obviously been a central issue emph asis added in consumer research, and a rare overview of different scholarly definitions is provided K-Hole proposes non-distinction as the ul- by Csaba 2008, with the intent to translate timate form of distinction here. Blending in discourses of luxury between disciplinary as the new standing out. Acting basic is thus boundaries that are seldom crossed, such acting as if being basic, without really being as those of economics and anthropology— basic. Acting basic is actually the ultimate merging business school approaches and demonstration of symbolic power—by ab- cultural critique.[10] staining from it. One of the definitions gaining territory Normcore, on the other hand, is cross-scholarly is Appadurai’s 1986, which introduced as an approach almost indistin- proposed defining luxury based on the char- guishable from this, save from the fact that acteristics of the consumption, rather than the intention or the motivation or aim lies classifying the material objects in question elsewhere: (in order for it to be universally comparable).

Normcore doesn’t want the freedom to Normcore seeks the freedom that comes with become someone. Normcore wants the non-exclusivity. It finds liberation in being freedom to be with anyone. (…) Normcore nothing special, and realizes that adaptabil- moves away from a coolness that relies on ity leads to belonging. K-Hole, 2013, p. 36 difference to a post-authenticity coolness that opts in to sameness. But instead of ap- In seeking “non-exclusivity”—the antithesis propriating an aestheticized version of the of luxury in most definitions Csaba, 2008— mainstream, it just cops to the situation at normcore is, therefore, often associated hand. K-Hole,2013, p. 28; emphasis added with anti-luxury, but it is substantially different from the ad-busting of the 90s, or The term ‘post-authenticity’ is also worth the brand protesting ‘potlatch strategies’ of noting here. As part of the 2010s heritage approximately ten years ago, popularized paradigm, authenticity became the doxic, by journalist and brand consultant Neil unquestionable value to seek out. K-Hole Boorman’s book Bonfire of the Brands: How speculates about what might be the next I Learnt to Live Without Labels,[11] in which move—and identifies it as the exact opposite. the self-declared recovering brand addict Normcore was thus not meant to be a sought to free himself of the allure of all strategy of “appropriating an aestheticized labelled items. version of the mainstream”. On the contra- People have been searching for the ‘new ry, normcore is ultimately a nomadic social luxury’ outside the realm of alluring labelled

40 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury: items for a long time now, fetishizing local paradox in that the relentless quest for the production and materials. But this is not new is in fact imperative both to the avant- new at all; it is rather a historical re-enact- garde and to capitalism—and that the two are ment of former forms of luxury, reflecting interrelated without the former necessarily economic rather than cultural capital and being neither aware nor willing to acknowl- a societal order of more static social strat- edge this fact [13] Frank, 1993. ification.[12] Within luxury management, Appropriating the term post luxury is ‘post luxury’ refers to “the decline of the also related to its parallel to the term ‘post income-upgrade phenomenon”, according to art’; a term aiming to capture attempts in a Winston Chesterfield at luxurysociety.com, contemporary art to (re-)integrate art and a term reflecting late capitalist consumer life, after more than 200 years of separation. trends that respond to the democratization As the dialectics played out, normcore—both and hence devaluation of traditional luxury its ideological intention and its mass mis- products along the descriptive lines of Dana conception (or success depending on one’s Thomas 2007. outlook)—are symptomatic of such an inte- This article proposes to appropriate the gration of art and life. This further relates to term ‘post luxury’ to capture the essence seeing fashion as an aesthetic metapolitics, of the normcore phenomenon, first and in line with so-called critical fashion theory foremost because it seems much more fit Gaugele, 2014: 11. for capturing normcore’s paradigmatic im- The purpose of proposing post lux- plications than it is for its conventional use. ury in relation to normcore is, however, Thomas Frank, author of the seminal book not merely essentialist, but also discursive. on advertisements’ appropriation of coun- K-Hole stated that after the era of the hip- terculture and the rise of hip consumerism ster, there was a neologism vacuum, and in the 1990s Frank, 1997 and co-founder of the normcore was just what we all needed in cultural-criticism journal The Baffler, wrote order to talk about what was happening. this compelling comment on the normcore Similarly, post luxury opens up the conver phenomenon: sation about the future of luxury, and of what may lie beyond it. When I first heard about ‘normcore,’ the Another plausible term would be trend among the privileged toward anti- ‘new new luxury’, referring to the genre fashion clothes of the kind available at in journalism following new journalism. Wal-Mart, I thought immediately of a ‘New new journalism’ was characterized by passage in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished adding fiction, thus blurring the journalis- novel, ‘The Last Tycoon,’ describing the tic genre even more than new journalism’s plans that various wealthy Hollywood types autobiographical turn. Seeing normcore made back in 1932 to survive the revolution as new new luxury takes on relevant conno- they believed was coming. Frank, 2014 tations related to its fictional or speculative strategies. Despite mixing up the concepts ‘acting basic’ and ‘normcore’ (like most people did), Franks Further investigations thought-provoking essay in Salon from 2014 The topic invites further investigations. One nevertheless sees normcore as indicative of aspect worth covering would be the effect a paradigm shift. This must be understood normcore has had on high fashion and in relation to his previous analysis of the fashion campaigns, not only as consumer

41 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury: trend or as conceptual art. Vetements’ AW17 Bibliography collection was a reflection of the normcore Appadurai, A. “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value.”, (ed.), ideology in that it featured a collection 1986. The Social Life of Things: based on stylistic stereotypes, inspired by Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Exactitudes®, a photo project documenting edited by A. Appadurai, Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 3–63. subcultures meticulously like type specimen Bandlien, C. B. “On the Style since 1994. Helmut Lang’s AW17 campaign Site: Facehunter as Node and mimicked the 3×4 grid of Exactitudes® [14], Prism.” Fashion Capital, edited by J. Berry, Interdisciplinary and for the AW2017 campaign for streetwear Press, 2012, pp. 115–127. brand Palace Skateboards, Exactitudes® co- Becker, I. “Life Which Writes Itself: operated creatively themselves. Retrospecting Art, Fashion, and Photography in Bernadette It is also worth considering analys- Corporation.” Aesthetic Politics ing the term post luxury in relation to in Fashion, edited by E. Gaugele, other contemporary empirical examples Sternberg Press, 2014, pp. 76–95. Boorman, N. The Bonfire of the Brands: where luxury is not necessarily about How I Learned to Live Without the goods anymore, but rather their discursive Labels. Canongate Books, 2006. qualities see, for example, Skjulstad 2018; Crewe et al Bourdieu, P. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of 2003 , as we are moving on from the post-se- Taste. 1979. London: Routledge miotic material turn into a more immaterial & Keegan Paul, 1984. landscape of consumption as discourse. Csaba, F. “Redefining Luxury: A Review Essay.” 2008, CBS Post luxury is also a term with potential Creative Encounters Working in relation to a broader theoretical discussion Papers, http://openarchive.cbs. on value. In line with Appadurai’s cross- dk/bitstream/handle/10398/7765/ Creative%20Encounters%20Working%20 cultural approach to luxury more than 30 Papers%2015.pdf?sequence=1>. years ago,[15] the editor of Texte zur Kunst has Accessed 8 May 2018. argued that a new approach is needed, as the Crewe, L., Gregson, N. and Brooks, K. “The Discursivities of Difference.” animistic, ritual, indigenous perspectives Journal of Consumer Culture, must be integrated in order to fully under- vol. 3, no. 1, 2003, pp. 61–82. stand the value of contemporary art Graw, 2012. Douglas, M. and Isherwood, B. The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption. Summarizing Remarks 1979. Penguin Books, 1996. This article has attempted to frame and Frank, T., 1993. “Art as Lifestyle: Monoculturalism.” The Baffler, unpack normcore in order to speculate vol. 4, no. 4, 1993, https:// about the future of luxury. At a time where thebaffler.com/salvos/art- seemingly everyone is searching for the new as-lifestyle-monoculturalism. Accessed 8 May 2018. luxury, this article instead proposed finding Frank, T. The Conquest of Cool: the new normal. The study of normcore in- Business Culture, Counterculture, vites reaching for new analytical tools, such and the Rise of Hip Consumerism. University of Chicago Press, 1997. as an appropriated version of post luxury or Frank, T. “Hipsters, They’re Just Like the term new new luxury, and functions as Us!” Salon, 27 April 2014, https:// both node of the contemporary conditions www.salon.com/2014/04/27/ hipsters_they%E2%80%99re_just_ and prism into the future—in line with du like_us_normcore_sarah_palin_ jour ambitions for speculative sartorialism.[16] and_the_gops_big_red_state_ lie/. Accessed 8 May 2018.

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Gaugele, E., editor. Aesthetic “Everyone’s Getting Normcore Wrong, Politics in Fashion. Berlin: Say its Inventors.” Dazed and Sternberg Press, 2014. Confused, 5 March 2014, http://www. Gibbons, J. Art and Advertising. London dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/ and New York: J. B. Tauris, 2005. article/19118/1/everyones-got- Graw, I. “The Value of the Art normcore-totally-wrong-say-its- Commodity.” Texte Zur Kunst vol. inventors. Accessed 12 May 2018. 88, 2012, pp. 30–59. Exactitudes. https://www.exactitudes. Gregson, N. and Crewe, L. Second-Hand com/. Accessed 12 May 2018. Cultures. Berg Publishers, 2003. “How a Fake Trend Forecasting Agency Gullestad, M. The Art of Social Got Us All Dressed up Like Jerry Relations. Essays on Culture, Seinfeld.” The Sydney Morning Thought and Social Action Herald, 16 March 2016, https:// in Modern Norway. Oslo: www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/ Universitetsforlaget, 1992. how-a-fake-trend-forecasting- Heath, J. and Potter, A. The Rebel agency-got-us-all-dressing-like- Sell: How the Counterculture jerry-seinfeld-20160316-gnk22g. Became Consumer Culture. Capstone html. Accessed 12 May 2018. Publishing Ltd, 2005. K-Hole, Youth Mode: A Report on Malpass, M. Critical Design in Freedom. Report #4 2013, http:// Context: History, Theory, and khole.net/issues/youth- Practices. Bloomsbury, 2017. mode/. Accessed 12 May 2018 Miller, D. Material Culture and Mass “Man Destroys Life for Art.” BBC News, Consumption. Basil Blackwell, 1987. 9 February 2001, http://news.bbc. Simmel, G. The Philosophy of Money. co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1162348. 1907. Routledge, 1978. stm. Accessed 12 May 2018. Simpson, B. “Bernadette “Normcore.” Wikipedia, https:// Corporation.” Corporate Mentality, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normcore. edited by A. Mir, Sternberg Accessed 12 May 2018. Press. 2003, pp. 152–155. “Normcore Is (or Is It?) a Fashion Skjulstad, S. “Vetements, Memes and Trend (or Non-trend or Anti- Connectivity: Fashion Media Trend).” LA Times, 18 May 2014, in the Era of Instagram.” Fashion http://www.latimes.com/style/ Theory. The Journal of Dress, la-ig-normcore-20140518-story. Body & Culture, 2018, Taylor html. Accessed 12 May 2018. & Francis Online, DOI: “Post-Luxury Consumer.” 2017, https:// 10.1080/1362704X.2018.1491191. www.luxurysociety.com/en/ Thomas, D. Deluxe: How Luxury Lost articles/2017/01/post-luxury- its Luster. Penguin Press, 2007. consumer/. Accessed 12 May 2018. Warde, A. “Setting the Scene, PWC. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/ Changing Conceptions of consulting/library/consumer- Consumption.” The Changing intelligence-series/cis-brandscape. Consumer: Markets and Meanings, html. Accessed 8 May 2018. edited by S. Miles, A. Anderson, “Speculation.” Online Etymology and K. Meethan, Routledge, Dictionary, http://www.etymonline. 2002, pp.10–24. com/index.php?allowed_in_ Warde, A. “Dimensions of a Social frame=0&search=speculation. Theory of Taste.” Journal Accessed 12 May 2018. of Cultural Economy, vol. 1, 89 plus. www.89plus.com. no. 3, 2008, pp. 321–336 Accessed 6 May 2018. “Accelerationism.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Accelerationism. Accessed 12 May 2018. “Basic.” Urban Dictionary, https:// www.urbandictionary.com/define. php?term=Basic. Accessed 8 May 2018.

43 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury:

Footnotes the Cuss Group, a South African [1] “Specular (adj.) 1570s, collective, whose latest project “reflective” (like a mirror), is entitled ‘fully automated from Latin specularis, from image influencer’, featured online speculum “a mirror” (see speculum). at DIS’ new platform established Meaning “assisting in vision; in late 2017: http://www.dis.art./ affording a view”. [9] ‘Accelerationism’ is the idea [2] It is worth asking the question that either the prevailing system of whether the very idea of of capitalism, or certain techno- ‘sustainable luxury’ is not in fact social processes that have a contradiction in terms, and that historically characterized it, sustainability should be the new should be expanded, repurposed, or normal rather than the new luxury. accelerated in order to generate [3] Speculation is indeed hot stuff in radical social change (Wikipedia). theory at the moment, spreading [10] A pioneering publication from radical philosophy via at this very intersection contemporary art theory and into combined the perspectives of design theory and general discourse. anthropologist Douglas and [4] Fashion’s sociological function economist Isherwood in 1979. as regulation of social [11] It is worth mentioning that differentiation is under threat. Boorman’s famous stunt of giving [5] Fashion Colloquia in Paris in up all his branded belongings 2012 had materiality as one referencing The Bonfire of of two main themes in its call Vanities was in fact a sort of for papers: “The values linked popularization of the art project to the fabrication of products entitled ‘Break Down’ conducted (...) represent today a growing by Michael Landy in 2001, an interest for international fashion artist associated with the Young and luxury companies. As real British Artists (YBAs). Later, of points of differentiation (...). course, Boorman’s book title became Representations of the handmade, staple ingredient in consumer the workshop, the craftsman reports such as those of PwC. and his tools are flourishing [12] “Modern consumers are the in the products, on labels, on victims of fashion as surely the catwalk, in advertising and as primitive consumers are the even within stores (...).” victims of the stability of [6] Normcore is still very much sumptuary law” Appadurai 32. happening, though, and a fresh [13] Those who are tend to claim affinity Google search offered results, such to the aforementioned idea of as “How to Dress Normcore in 2018” accelerationism: feeding the machine and “How to Dress Normcore Over 40”. in order to generate an explosion. [7] Their work has been shown or [14] Also a nod to the 90s, the involved with contexts, brands, and height of both Helmut Lang and people such as Moma PS1, LA Art Book the idea of ‘urban tribes’—both Fair, 032c, MTV, RISD, Princeton, of which are back in fashion. Stephen Colbert, Karl Lagerfeld [15] A post luxury discussion of and Pharell–to name but a few. value would, of course, be [8] A contemporary sibling would be with a post-distinction, post- DIS magazine (2011–2017 RIP), scarcity approach this time. and their internet platform [16] Call for contributions for the of critical commentary with Artez Fashion Colloquia 2018 asked stock photo aesthetics, later for examples of “fashion’s power to bringing this ambiguity into the create desire and imaginary worlds contemporary art scene as curators in order to transition into a more of the ninth Berlin Biennale. regenerative future society”. Another recent example would be

44 APRIA #00 June 2019 Charlotte Bik Bandlien Post Luxury:

Charlotte Bik Bandlien Charlotte Bik Bandlien is an Oslo- College Art Association, Theaster based anthropologist specializing in Gates’ Arts Incubator in Chicago, the visual and material culture. Via a American Anthropological Association, triangulation between the roles of the Material Culture hub at University researcher, collaborative practitioner, College London, Tate Research and and critic, her interdisciplinary Learning/AAH ++. She has held research revolves around contemporary positions as strategic brand planner conditions for constructing criticality— at Bates Advertising and researcher currently focusing on dialectics at the Norwegian National Institute between contemporary art, advertising, for Consumer Research, and was anthropology, fashion/value mechanisms, contributing editor to the Norwegian and speculative perspectives. Bandlien fashion journal Personae magazine. has presented work at the Museum of Bandlien has been assistant professor Modern Art in Warsaw, Parsons the of theory and methodology at the New School for Design in NYC, Oxford Oslo National Academy of the Arts, University, Design History Society, Department of Design since 2011.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/post-luxury/

45 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: A Material and Emotional Future of Luxury

Introduction For Berg, ‘new luxury’ indicates a profusion As a category of goods, luxury mirrors what of new and accessible luxury products and an is valued in a particular culture at a specific increasing consumerism. In the eighteenth moment in time. In recent decades, luxury century, this ‘product revolution’ was accom- fashion has come to be dominated by a hand- panied by a growing ethos of disposability ful of mammoth brands, whose names and Weinstein. Indeed, the celebration of newness logos are relished more than anything else. characterizes the modern capitalist economy In Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Luster, Dana that has generated the throwaway culture Thomas famously argues that the appeal of which has come to light in recent years and luxury has shifted from the actual product which lies at the heart of the fashion sys- to what it represents 41. Luxury has turned tem’s current crisis. ‘New luxury’, then, is into a spectacle of representations, consumed perhaps a point of departure rather than a and renewed at a dazzling pace in ever more point of arrival. The question is whether frequent fashion shows, product launches, the exploration for other forms of luxury and advertising campaigns Lipovetsky. As the should exclusively probe new luxuries and fashion industry currently faces a crisis of continue to celebrate new designs, new pro- consumerism and material waste, it seems duction methods, and new materials, or, in urgent to reflect critically on what is at the addition, turn the gaze to what is already top of the fashion pyramid and why—and to there: an abundance of pre-owned and pre- explore alternative forms of luxury that are loved clothes. more sustainable and regenerative. The terms ‘pre-owned’ and ‘pre-loved’ The quest for a ‘new luxury’, however, will be employed in this text as alternatives as proposed by the 2018 Fashion Colloquium, to the terms ‘secondhand’ and ‘vintage’, tra- is controversial. Sociologist Maxine Berg ditionally used to define and classify clothes described ‘new luxury’ in 2005 as the form of that are not new. Seen in a contemporary luxury that was an offshoot of the Industrial context, this set of terms seems problematic. Revolution: The word ‘secondhand’ merely underlines a pre-owned garment’s ‘secondary’ rating and All manner of new products appeared in seems to suggest that a garment can only go shop windows; sophisticated mixed-media through two sets of hands before it is out- advertising seduced customers and created lived. By contrast, ‘vintage’, meaning “unique new wants. This unparalleled ’product rev- high-fashion pieces of a specific era (…) olution’ provoked philosophers and pundits [including] garments produced in the peri- to proclaim a ’new luxury’, one that reached od between the 1920s and 1980s, associated out to the middling and trading classes, with aspects of nostalgia”, is said to “offer unlike the old elite and corrupt luxury (…) the consumer luxury value” Ryding, Henniger, in the eighteenth century commerce, luxury, and Blazquez Cano 2; Gerval. Nowadays, the term and new products provided a parallel ‘vintage’ has become widely used in fashion conceptual framework. 5 markets and media as a tool for value creation, causing confusion about its definition

46 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes:

Ryding, Henniger & Blazquez Cano 3; Cervellon, Carey, Luxury (im)material and Harms 958. The term also narrows the scope The work of historian Christopher Berry is of ‘valuable’ secondhand clothing to a matter particularly relevant to understand how the of age and style. Within a sustainable fashion concept of luxury is structured. Berry de- discourse, should terminology not reflect the fines a luxury good as “a widely desired (…) state of stuff, instead of its status? The terms good that is believed to be ‘pleasing’, and the ‘pre-owned’ and ‘pre-loved’ accord with this general desirability of which is explained by idea. Pre-owned clothing encompasses all it being a specific refinement, or qualitative clothing that has been owned and/or worn aspect, of some universal generic need” 41. by a previous consumer. A pre-loved item As for fashion, Berry argues that “the most can be a pre-owned luxury item, but it can promising general explanation of the hu- also be any other pre-owned item that is ma- man need for clothes is [the] link with their terially qualitative and durable and has been symbolic character” 28. He admits that his taken good care of. Its trajectories through general idea that luxury is naturally deter- time and space have imbued it with (material mined to the extent that its material needs traces of) a unique story.[1] to be pleasing to the senses does not exactly As this paper will demonstrate, pre- cut ice for fashion. Indeed, history proves loved clothes have much to offer the that fashions deemed luxurious were not consumer as a future form of luxury, not always necessarily the softest or the most in the least because of their sustainability. comfortable—think, for example, of the cor- However, despite their quality and exclusiv- set. Luxury fashion, then, appears first and ity, not all pre-loved clothes are believed to foremost as cultural and immaterial, based offer consumers the luxury value vintage on representational value. clothes do. Can pre-loved clothes become a This would explain the fluid and seem- luxury, and if so, how? This raises questions ingly ‘malleable’ character of luxury fashion about how luxury fashion comes into being nowadays. It is reigned by monolith brands and about the stakes of human versus mate- ruled by luxury tycoons such as LVMH that, rial agency in processes of the ‘luxurization’ as critical literature in recent years has re- of fashion. This paper takes the case of pre- vealed, carefully and strategically luxurize loved clothing as an incentive to explore their products, capitalizing on the brand’s these processes. As such, it adds another new heritage to authenticate their luxury status dimension to existing research on luxury and to mark them as items of quality and and pre-owned clothing, which up until now craftsmanship. Simultaneously, seasonal of- has predominantly focussed on consumer fer and innovation are vital to these brands motivations for buying pre-owned luxury to keep consumers coming to their enticing or vintage luxury fashion Ryding, Henniger, and boutiques. The brand logo is pivotal to the Blazquez Cano; Turunen and Leipämaa-Leskinen. Whilst luxury brand and to the luxury consumer seeking a hands-on solution for an urgent as a stamp that guarantees heritage, quality, problem, it expands the discourse on fashion exclusivity, and authenticity, but it is also and materiality, which has strongly devel- symbolic of a certain fashion consciousness. oped in recent years Smelik “New Materialism”; Logos are easily readable and universally Smelik Delft Blue to Denim Blue; Smelik and Rocamora; recognized signals of social distinction and Woodward and Fisher; Riello, with an analysis of in recent decades have become icons of con- the materiality and materialization of luxury. sumer desire Thomas; Klein.

47 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: While an aura of authenticity, exclu- owner without adhering to popular rep- sivity, and desirability is upheld as part of a resentational signs, such as the logo. As Efrat brand’s marketing strategy, the quality and Tseëlon noted in her reading of Baudrillard, originality of their merchandise seems to “The current trend for vintage fashion (…) become less and less relevant Thomas; Lipovetsky; shows how repudiation of the stylistic val- Klein. The logo, the brand, and the status ues of representation expresses yearning for that is derived from it form a perilous Ber- these same values” Tseëlon 227. muda triangle in which the actual material The idea that values of representation object seems to magically vanish. Consumer can materialize in a non-industrial form sup- culture critic Jean Baudrillard famously ar- ports the conclusion that the bygone object gued that fashion was becoming a system of is a place where principles of luxury and sus- signs that only refers to each other and are tainability converge. Moreover, the notion devoid of any relation to the real world. In- that the ‘bygoneness’ of the material of these deed, since the 1980s, critique on fashion and objects—as an indicator of craftsmanship or brands as hollow and deceitful systems has other material critique on the stigmata of grown exponentially. industrial production—is apparently more The market for pre-owned cloth- important than universally legible signs ing has become an alternative market for of representation and social distinction. It those who search to escape the monopoly proves that material is, in fact, central to lux- of brands. The last decades have known a ury fashion. This is supported by critiques veritable craze for pre-owned clothing, par- on contemporary luxury fashion. In these ticularly for vintage, which is recognized as critiques, the general disregard for materiali- something luxurious. Early on, Baudrillard ty in luxury fashion is far from ignored. explained the appeal of the bygone object The materiality of clothes is thus es- in the context of the consumer society sential, even to something as seemingly as follows: culturally determined as luxury fashion. What consequences does this assumption In [the bygone object] the stigmata of indus- have for our understanding of how luxury trial production and its primary functions is created? In 2014, Sophie Woodward and are eliminated. (…) The taste for the bygone Tom Fisher explored a material-culture ap- is characterized by the desire to transcend proach to fashion as a whole. Focussing on the dimension of economic success, to conse- the material aspects of fashion, they argue crate a social success or a privileged position that the materiality of things is not “just in a redundant, culturalized, symbolic sign. an ambiguous ‘carrier’ of the meanings of The bygone is, among other things, social fashion” but that “objects are part of the gen- success that seeks a legitimacy, a heredity, eration and actualization of the agency of a ‘noble’ sanction. 43 people, and, through their materiality, can carry or thwart human agency” and “ex- At first sight, this utterance seems a confir- ternalize particular categories of identities” mation of the immateriality of luxury: the Woodward and Fisher 4, 6, 8. bygone object is only desired as cultural Anneke Smelik has contextualized this sign of critical consumption. Interestingly, argument in a discourse of new materialism. however, Baudrillard also predicates that the A new-materialist perspective proposes that allure of the bygone object lies in its ability “‘matter’ is not merely raw and inert stuff to confer a sense of social distinction on its on which humans act, but is itself alive and

48 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: kicking, as it were (…) The role of agency of and nostalgia in advantage. Yet the market nonhuman factors in the field of fashion can for vintage clothing is venerated, whereas thus be highlighted (…) from the textility the market for other pre-loved (and pre- of the garment to the tactility of the human owned) clothing is still perturbed by the body. Such a perspective helps to understand stigmas that originated in modernity, when fashion as materially embedded in a network the new, the industrial, and the disposable of human and non-human actors” Smelik, became markers of status; the pre-owned be- “New Materialism” 34. She cites Prasad Boradkar: came looked upon as ‘scanty’, ‘old-fashioned’, “Human beings and things together possess or even ‘dirty’. The pre-owned clothing agency, and they act in conjunction with market has not yet fully managed to shake each other in making the world” Boradkar qtd. off these negative connotations Weinstein. In in Smelik, “New Materialism” 39. Consequently, one addition, the growing speed, scale, and in- has to conclude that luxury fashion cannot dustrialization of the fashion industry—as simply be ‘created’ by a designer or brand well as the myths and fetishes sustained on without considering this conjunction. the market—have caused alienation among Throughout various works, theorist consumers. This partially manifests itself in Gilles Lipovetsky has argued that contem- a lack of knowledge about the quality of ma- porary luxury is ‘emotional’. It has ceased terials. Whereas in the case of new clothing, to be a mere expression of the desire for this responsibility is transferred to brands, social recognition —social classes, after all, on the pre-owned clothing market, it is are no longer as strictly delineated as they transferred to the seller. This poses a prob- once were—but is becoming a manifesta- lem because pre-owned clothing shops are tion of personal betterment Lipovetsky and often disorganized spaces with poor trans- Roux. Uniqueness, sensual experiences, and action structures. Although this bolsters the emotional values are central to this kind precious ‘alternative’ image of the pre-owned of luxury Lipovetsky. Though the strategy of clothing market for some, it provokes fur- most dominant luxury brands nowadays ther confusion and distrust among many seems to fit the bill in its emphasis on qual- consumers, which causes the market to be ity, craftsmanship, heritage, and exclusivity, subject to bargain hunting and a regime of their approach is nevertheless nearing its carelessness and disposability. This in turn expiration date because these values are only affects the overall sustainability of the pre- materialized in the brand’s communication owned clothing market Weinstein; Le Zotte. media, such as advertisements. These up- However, several initiatives are be- hold myths that products finally not always ginning to transform existing views on live up to. Materiality and knowledge about pre-owned and pre-loved clothing. These materiality may ultimately become more prove that pre-loved clothing could become important than image, especially as personal a form of luxury, one that does perhaps betterment is increasingly defined in terms not comply with the formal standards of of making socially responsible, sustainable scale and price projected by mammoth choices, as is also reflected in the popularity luxury brands, but which is a more dem- of vintage garments Fredriksson; Guiot and Roux. ocratic, experiential, and emotional form Pre-loved clothing chimes with an idea of luxury originating from an alternative of luxury that is emotional, sensual, unique, market. Pre-loved luxury materializes “the and at the same time sustainable—as much metamorphosis of demand, its aspirations so as vintage clothing, which has merely age and motivations, the relations of individuals

49 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: with social standards and with each other the primary locus where the meaning and as well as with consumption and scarcity” value of pre-owned clothes are negotiated Lipovetsky 31–32, not only through images and between seller and consumers—visually, rhe- spaces but also through clothing itself. torically, as well as socially Gregson and Crewe; Weinstein. In addition, this is a space where Luxury materialized: Adornment humans encounter materials in this process. If material—specifically, the material of The pre-owned or pre-loved clothing shop garments—is considered central to luxury is a crucial node in a network of human and fashion, then it follows that the creation non-human, material, and symbolic relations. of luxury is a process of materialization. A relevant example of one such space Following Woodward and Fisher, to under- is the Swedish pre-loved clothing bou- stand how other forms of luxury emerge, it tique Adornment, situated on Stockholm’s is necessary to envisage luxury in terms of Styrmansgatan. Here, shop owner Pauline a process or a transformation that occurs Cappelen sells a selection of pre-loved cloth- in the relationship between clothes and ing. This selection includes several vintage humans. To discuss the luxurization of pre- garments, yet most of her merchandise is of loved garments is to discuss a sustainable and more recent date and not all garments are regenerative alternative to current forms of labelled or can be otherwise traced back to luxury, which also allows us to focus not on a specific brand or era. Cappelen worked in the ‘making’ of luxury in terms of design but high fashion for several years before opening instead on the imparting of meanings on Adornment in 2015 and has, therefore, con- existing material that moves and has moved siderable knowledge of material, durability, through more than one pair of human hands. and craftsmanship. These are her prima- Although semiotics, as Woodward ry criteria for sourcing pre-loved clothes, and Fisher righteously point out, ultimately followed by colour and cut. Adornment is denies the materiality of clothing Woodward particularly compelling because it incor- and Fisher, semiotic concepts can be useful porates an atelier where, together with her when discussing luxurizing processes. As business partner and couturier Elian Yacoub, Anneke Smelik and Agnès Rocamora have Cappelen designs and makes made-to- pointed out in their introduction to Thinking measure clothing from leftover fabrics. I will Through Fashion: “Putting the emphasis on return to that later, but let us first focus on materiality (…) does not preclude an un- the shop as a space where pre-loved clothing derstanding of matter as symbolic; rather, it is luxurized. shows that there is a constant negotiation It could be said that Cappelen sells her between the material and the symbolic” Smelik clothes as luxuries because they generally and Rocamora 13. Semiotics usefully considers cost more than comparable products within the places and spaces, whether physical or the category of pre-owned clothing and are conceptual, where the unstable meanings of still relatively costly when placed within the clothes are mediated. Roland Barthes stated general clothing market at large. Although that “the Fashion sign (…) is situated at the price is only one aspect of identifying a point where a singular conception and col- luxury good, it is cogent of the value of gar- lective image meet, (…) is simultaneously ments as negotiated between the seller and imposed and demanded” 215. Previous litera- the consumer. This mediation takes place in ture on the pre-owned clothing market has the Adornment shop as well as on website identified the pre-owned clothing shop as and Instagram pages, which are nowadays

50 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: a pleasurable shopping experience while passing on knowledge to the consumer. As the materiality of pre-loved clothing itself may seem to refuse fashion, Cappelen styles and photographs the garments in fashionable-looking silhouettes, presenting these on the Adornment website and Instagram page, where she combines the photos with images that seem to confer a lifestyle rather than focus on individual products Fig.2. Indeed, the strategies outlined above are in line with Fig.1 — Adornment, 2018, values of emotional luxury Smelik, Delft Blue to copyright Nora Veerman. Denim Blue 173; Lipovetsky 31–32. Cappelen washes and mends garments whenever possible, although some traces of wear sometimes remain. However, as product descriptions on the Adornment website read: “This pre-loved item has been captured on one of our travels for its unique characteristics and great quality (…) fading, wearing, and other traits display each item’s history and add to its character and charm” (www.adornment.se). Stains or other traces of wear are not considered flaws but rather as elements that display the garment’s history and add to its value. This is also reflected in Cappelen’s use of the term ‘pre-loved’, which, apart from being a useful classification tool in research, has become more commonly used on the pre-owned clothing market in recent years, where it connotes positively previous ownership, countering part of the stigmas that afflict pre-owned clothing. Gregson and Crewe already noted Fig.2 — The Adornment Instagram page, in 2003 that imagining a pre-owned gar- 2018, copyright Pauline Cappelen. ment’s former life is, to some consumers of pre-owned clothing, a positive experience considered integral to the shopping space. Gregson and Crewe. More recent research has In the shop, a small and intimate but lu- suggested that it even adds considerable minous space, Cappelen presents a small value to a pre-owned good: the consumer selection of garments on well-organized is more likely to establish an emotional re- and spacious racks Fig.1, allowing the unique lationship with a pre-loved garment, and details on each individual item to show. instead of acting merely as user, envision Cappelen shares her expertise on materials herself as an “active part[y] in the long and and craftsmanship with customers, creating ongoing lifecyle of a luxury (…) product”

51 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes:

Fig.3A — Pre-loved skirt as Fig.3B — Skirt designed by Adornment, sold by Adornment, 2018, 2018, copyright Pauline Cappelen. copyright Pauline Cappelen. Turunen and Leipämaa-Leskinen 61. This manifests of the fashion system Davis 12. In the case of itself in the incentive to mend or resell the Adornment, the pre-loved items in the shop product instead of disposing of it, further are muses as well as merchandise: they in- extending its duration. These actions are fluence new designs by Cappelen and Yacoub, not only characteristic of a luxury that is particularly in terms of craftsmanship and emotional but also demonstrative of a new cut Fig.3A–3B. The materialization of these perception of the relation between pre- new clothes is often led by the availability owned garments and their owners, where and characteristics of the materials, which agency emerges through material as they are leftovers from Italian fashion brands. As “shift perception and suggest experiments Woodward and Fisher mentioned, “materials with new practices, or make us think again (…) are not just a medium for the realization about or relations with them” Hawkins. As of designer’s ideas, but the very catalyst for these examples show, the seller and con- these ideas and therefore their creativity” sumer, as well as the material itself, have a Woodward and Fisher 14. Through the use of worn major role to play in the luxurization of pre- or leftover material and attention to craft in loved clothes. new fashion design, newness can also foster Ultimately, however, the designer more appreciation for the existent. This way cannot be eliminated from the creation of of thinking about materiality could inspire luxury; changes in the meanings of clothes creative practices elsewhere to a greater ex- need to be ‘consecrated’, too, at this level tent—for example, at fashion academies.

52 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes: of pre-loved clothing. Besides offering a sustainable alternative to current forms of luxury, the case of pre-loved clothing has prompted an exploration into processes of luxurization of material, both theoretically and as they take place in concrete spaces. This investigation has offered a new way of looking at luxury: as something that is material as well as cultural. Moreover, it turns out that material is central to creating luxury: however important its representational val- Fig.4 — Adornment, 2018, ues, the search for personal comfort, sensual copyright Nora Veerman. experiences, uniqueness, and also the new- Finally, the fact that Adornment’s fangled aspiration to make responsible and boutiques and ateliers are conceptually and sustainable choices will eventually lead back spatially integrated is pivotal. Yacoub’s work- to the material of luxury fashion—more spe- ing table stands next to the clothing displays, cifically, to the clothing itself. Lipovetsky’s opposite racks of textile fabrics Fig.4. At discourse of emotional luxury, then, should Adornment, the customer has the possibility perhaps be reviewed to consider the momen- to make personal choices when it comes to tousness of the sustainability debate and the the colour, fabric, and cut of a newly made emphasis on materiality discussed here. garment—moreover, the customer is active- Though pre-loved clothing is not yet ly invited to do so. According to Kristine generally recognized as a luxury good, it is Harper, this possibility constitutes an ele- likely to become so in the future, as both ment of ‘aesthetic sustainability’, a design theoretical probing and the example of strategy which aims to reduce perceived and Adornment have demonstrated. It has to planned obsolescence and overconsumption be emphasized that Adornment is certainly through creating a durable aesthetic expe- not a one-of-a-kind example of luxurizing rience. This experience is both emotional practices, and this paper does not intend to and sensory and results in a lasting bond propose Adornment’s specific strategies as between subject and object Harper. Finally, to ideal or impeccable. The case study serves encounter the garment in an environment merely to exemplify how luxurizing process- that is both its consumption and production es might work inside the clothing market context raises consciousness of, and helps the and to underline the relevance and poten- fashion consumer reconnect with, the prac- tial of merging clothing consumption with tices of clothing production. This amount of education. These strategies may encourage transparency is crucial in order to further the destigmatization of and appreciation for demystify fashion and to arrive at long-term the pre-owned clothing market, rendering solutions for the crisis in the fashion system. it more sustainable and may support the demystification of the fashion system as a Conclusion whole. Emotion and knowledge, luxury and Starting from the idea that luxury need not sustainability, though seemingly opposition- necessarily be new, this paper set out to al terms, are closely knit together in what explore an alternative form of luxury, that might become the future of luxury.

53 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes:

Bibliography Le Zotte, J. From Goodwill to Grunge: Barthes, R. The Fashion System. 1967. A History of Second-Hand Styles Translated by M. Ward and R. and Alternative Economies. North Howard, Vintage Books, 2010. Carolina University Press, 2017. Baudrillard, J. 1972. For a Critique of Lipovetsky, G & Roux, E. Le luxe the Political Economy of the Sign. éternel: De l’âge du sacré au temps Translated by C. Levin, Telos, 1981. des marques. Gallimard., 2003. Berg, Maxine. Luxury & Pleasure Lipovetsky, G. “Modern and Postmodern in Eighteenth Century Luxury.” Fashion and Accessories, Britain. Oxford: Oxford edited by J. Teunissen & J. University Press, 2007. Brand, Terra Lannoo, 2007. Berry, C. J. The Idea of Luxury: O’Reilly, T. & Tennant, M. The Age of A Conceptual and Historical Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Investigation. Cambridge Culture. Counterpoint Press, 2010. University Press, 1994. Riello, G. “The Object of Fashion: Boradkar, P. Designing Things: A Methodological Approaches to the Critical Introduction to the Culture History of Fashion.” Journal of Objects. Berg Publishers, 2010. of Aesthetics & Culture vol. Cervellon, M., Carey, L. and Harms, 3, no. 1, 2011, pp. 1–9. T. “Something Old, Something Used: Ryding, D., Henniger, C. E. & Blazquez Determinants of Women’s Purchase Cano, M., editors. Vintage Luxury of Vintage Fashion vs Second-hand Fashion: Exploring the Rise of Fashion.” International Journal the Secondhand Clothing Trade. of Retail & Distribution Management, Palgrave MacMillan, 2018. vol. 40, no. 12, 2012, pp. 956–97. Safire, W. On Language. Times Davis, F. Fashion, Culture, and Books, 1980. Identity. University of Smelik, A. Delft Blue to Denim Chicago Press, 1992. Blue: Contemporary Dutch Fredriksson, C. “Second-Hand Values Fashion. I.B. Tauris, 2017. and the Making of a Green Fashion Smelik, A. “New materialism: A Eco-Market.” Making Sense of theoretical framework for fashion Consumption: Selections from the in the age of technological 2nd Nordic Conference on Consumer innovation.” International Research, edited by L. Hansson, Journal of Fashion Studies, vol. U. Holmberg & H. Brembeck, Centre 5, no. 1, 2018, pp. 33–54. for Consumer Science, University Smelik, A. & Rocamora, A. of Gothenburg 2012, pp. 197–212. “Thinking Through Fashion: An Gerval, O. Fashion: Concept to Introduction.” Thinking through Catwalk. Bloomsbury, 2008. Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, Gregson, N. & Crewe, L. Second-hand edited by A. Rocamora & A. Smelik, Cultures. Berg Publishers, 2003. I.B. Tauris, 2016, pp. 1–27. Guiot, D. and Roux, D. “A Second- Tseëlon, E. “Jean Baudrillard: Post- Hand Shoppers’ Motivation Scale: modern Fashion as the End of Antecedents, Consequences, and Meaning.” Thinking through Fashion: Implications for Retailers.” Journal A Guide to Key Theorists, edited of Retailing vol. 86, by A. Rocamora & A. Smelik, I.B. no. 4, 2010, 355–71. Tauris, 2016, pp. 215–132. Harper, K. Aesthetic Sustainability: Thomas, D. Deluxe: How Luxury Lost its Product Design and Sustainable Luster. Penguin Press, 2007. Usage. Routledge, 2018. Turunen, L. L. M. and Leipämaa-Leskinen, Hawkins, G. “More-than-Human H. “Pre-Loved Luxury: Identifying Politics: The Case of Plastic the Meanings of Second-Hand Bags.” Australian Humanities Luxury Possessions.” Journal of Review vol. 46, 2009, pp. 43–55. Product & Brand Management vol. 24, Klein, N. No Logo: Taking Aim at the no. 1, 2015, pp. 57–65. Brand Bullies. Flamingo, 2000.

54 APRIA #00 June 2019 Nora Veerman Luxurizing Pre-loved Clothes:

Weinstein, J. Reframe, Reuse, and Footnotes Re-Style: (De)Constructing [1] Some have argued that ‘pre-loved’ the Sustainable Second-Hand is a hollow marketing euphemism Consumer. 2014. Wesleyan for ‘second-hand’. In 1979, New University, PhD Dissertation. York Times Magazine columnist Woodward, S. and Fisher, T. “Fashioning William Safire included the word through Materials: Material in his satirical column on the rise Culture, Materiality and Processes of marketing euphemisms: “(...) of Materialization. Critical the 1979 Language Prettification Studies in Fashion & Beauty vol. and Avoidance of Ugly Reality 5, no. 1, 2014, pp. 3–23. Awards (...) Runner-up is the Philadelphia secondhand dealer who advertised ‘pre-loved’ Oriental carpets” (Safire 213). Nowadays, several authors (e.g., O’Reilly and Tennant 168) and dictionaries such as the Cambridge Dictionary or Wiktionary still refer to this euphemistic function. However, ‘pre-loved’ is nowadays often used more neutrally to refer to well- kept, restored objects or to pre- owned luxury items, in the media as well as academic research (Turunen and Leipämaa-Leskinen; Ryding, Henniger, and Blazquez Cano).

Nora Veerman Nora Veerman (1994) is a master’s student in Fashion Studies at the University of Stockholm. Her current research projects revolve around the materiality and affectivity of fashion in relation to issues of social and environmental sustainability.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/luxurizing-pre-loved-clothes/

55 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: Fashionable Ecology

Introduction so as to fly into virtual—or, in any case, vir- In this essay, I contemplate the recent con- tualised—obstacles. My argument is that cern with ecologically conscious luxury what the editors of this issue call the ‘new in fashion alongside similar developments luxury’, a movement in fashion that values elsewhere—such as the ‘cli-fi’ blockbuster in the environment as much as it does indul- film or ‘hedonistic sustainability’ in archi- gence—or that, as the architect Bjarke Ingels tecture—in the context of and, indeed, as an 2011 once put it in a TED talk, is as “sustain expression of a distinct yet increasingly prev- able” as it is “hedonistic”—may well resemble alent and pervasive cultural dynamic, a shift this: the performance of the effect of the in our collective mood or what more popu- environment, its sentiment as an abstraction. larly tends to be called zeitgeist: the passage from postmodernism to metamodernism. I A Feeling for Metaphors consider this, the movement to the mood, to By way of introduction, I would like to the passage, by recourse to two metaphors contextualize my argument by explicating that I have long been thinking and writing two not altogether unproblematic implicit about which both, metonymically, pertain to assumptions. First, by thinking of distinct fashion and have been the subject of much cultural developments by recourse to gen- debate in studies of the post- and post-post- eral metaphors, I assume that the latter may modern: briefly, the metaphor of the shoe help us make sense of the former. As those and, especially, at some length, that of familiar with critical theory and continental shopping mall. Indeed, this essay considers philosophy will know, this assumption is contemporary fashion by way of the likes of not at all uncommon, though it too rarely the Adidas x Parleys and the Nike Flyleather, receives the critical reflection it deserves. the All Bird shoes made from eucalyptus tree Just think of the frequent, often short-lived fibres, and the locally sourced Veja sneakers invocation in recent times of metaphors that are increasingly visible in our shop win- like the ‘archipelago’, the ‘desert’, the ‘pla- dows today. teau’, the ‘virus’, and the ‘swarm’ to describe The titular phrase ‘Nike Air Pocket’ current phenomena and processes. Indeed, links the brand Nike Air with the notion of if we were to take stock of the last fifty the ‘air pocket’. Nike Air, as I imagine the years of cultural theory, we’d find a waste- reader knows, is a sneaker whose sole is ad- land, a scrapheap, of exhausted metaphors. vertised to be so soft that it feels like you are By returning to two such exhausted meta- walking on air, floating above the ground, phors—the shoe and especially the shopping unperturbed by the realities of that ground— mall—I am interested in tracing their gravel, rocks, tree roots, etc. An ‘air pocket’ afterlife: what do they tell us about the con- is a misnomer for a sudden shift in airflow, tinuities and discontinuities of experiencing in updrafts and downdrafts, that makes air the ‘present’ over an extended stretch of time. passengers feel as if they are dropping from I think it is important to clarify here the sky whilst in actuality the plane merely that it is by no means my intention to re- changes ‘wind lanes’—turbulence, in other duce complex phenomena and multifaceted words. The Nike Air Pocket is a shoe whose processes to word play—not intentionally, sole lifts us from the realities of the ground in any case, since, as Nelson Goodman 1978

56 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: has suggested, we often use metaphorical of the here and now: the reterritorialization designations literally that have been used of postmodern simulation to metamodern for so long we have forgotten they are meta- speculation. Specifically, I draw on these phors. An experience such as love, especially metaphors so as to shed light on the manners an individual person’s love for another (say, in which designers, artists, and architects John’s for Mike, or Cindy’s for Omar), obvi- respond to environmental developments that ously exceeds any and every long song ever they know, in an abstract sense, to be real written, just as a war film does not exhaust but that are of such magnitude or dynamism the experience it sets out to communicate to that many of us cannot envisage or perhaps its audience. I further agree with the likes of even comprehend them—the sublime, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson 1980 that or what Timothy Morton 2013 calls hyper the use of metaphors to describe processes is objects, I guess. inherently and problematically political. For Second, I follow a long line of thinkers one, metaphors fictionalize—that is, they who argue that there are, in any culture or treat one thing in terms of another that it is society, feelings that are shared so widely not. They also focalize. They frame. In the so as to be called collective, or, in Raymond process, metaphors select, exclude and sup- Williams’s apt terminology, structural: plement, foreground, obscure and transfigure “structures of feeling” 1977. This is not to say the phenomenon they set out to communi- that these structures are universal or ex- cate. Love can be a journey and paradise and clusive, that they are the only conceivable heroin and a whale singing and a picture responses to the socio-political or material window and a closed door and whatever. conditions at hand, the sole available feelings Each metaphor reterritorializes its reality at a particular moment in time or a place. along different procedures and affords and Nor does this mean that they are necessar- limits different thought processes and affec- ily expressed in a single fashion. Indeed, as tive engagements. Whether you discuss war Williams points out, they allow for a range in terms of sports or a slaughterhouse will of expressive languages. What the notion impact what you can and cannot say about it. of the structure of feeling suggests is that At the same time, of course, metaphors culture is an affective register as much as, open up an alternative perspective onto say, a semiotic one or material one; that the an experience that is otherwise difficult culture of the Enlightenment and the culture to frame, in its entirety but even in part. It of German Romanticism, or the soixante- steps in, you might say, where empiricism huitards and the Reagan era, feel differently and logic take off. This is why people still about the state of the world as well as think write popular songs about love and filmmak- differently about it. Or rather, each culture ers return again and again to the subject of feels differently about the state of the world war: there is always more to be said about and correlationally thinks differently about it. these experiences. Worryingly, I imagine A structure of feeling is not just a this is also why politicians and opinion feeling that is structural; it is a feeling that makers can scrupulously use metaphors in structures. A mood, if you will. As Noel opposition to facts so as to persuade elector- Carrol writes, discussing the relationship ates of one argument or another. In this essay, between art and mood, “when I am irrita- I turn to the shoe and the shopping mall to ble, in an irritable mood, there is no one in disclose a novel point of view onto a com- particular who irritates me. Everyone and plex metamorphizing experiential register everything that falls into my pathway is

57 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: likely to become the locus of my foul mood” whatever the reasons, there was consensus 526. If you are in a foul mood or an optimis- that the modern momentum had stalled, had tic one, if you feel depressed or elated, this perhaps even come to a standstill. As Fredric will influence how you think and can think Jameson put it in the early 90s: about things—not to mention how you act. The last few years have been marked In this essay, I draw on the notion of the by an inverted millenarianism, in which structure of feeling to discuss postmodern- premonitions of the future, catastrophic or ism and metamodernism, understanding redemptive, have been replaced by senses of postmodernism, per Fredric Jameson, as the end of this or that (the end of ideology, art, “senses of an end of this or that” 1, often but or social class; the ‘crisis’ of Leninism, social not always an ironic disposition, whilst argu- democracy, or the welfare state, etc., etc.) 1. ing that we should think of metamodernism, The label most often attached to this as I will explain shortly, as an “informed “inverted millenarianism”, to these “senses of naivety”. This essay, thus, considers the phe- an end”, is postmodernism, though of course nomenon of ecologically conscious luxury the label covers significantly more conceptu- metaphorically—so as to contemplate it at al territory than that single notion—indeed, all—as an expression of a collective senti- depending on the context, postmodernism ment characterized by informed naivety. can refer to amongst others a philosophical regime and a sociological liberation, an Postmodernism – the Shopping Mall emancipatory programme and a cultural cri- as Simulation of the Environment tique, an analytical tool and a distinct style, I want to recount here in some detail a meta- each of these suggesting that if postmod- phor I developed a while back in an essay on ernism designates an end, it also, certainly, art and cultural change: the metaphor of the signals many, many beginnings—whilst the shopping mall to think both the postmodern phenomenon in turn is not the exclusive structure of feeling and the metamodern one property of the postmodern.[1] Jameson (Vermeulen and van den Akker, “Thoughts categorizes postmodernism along three on the Space of Contemporary Sculpture”). lines, which in many respects demarcate Towards the close of the twentieth centu- our cognitive map of the current moment as ry, there was a sense, shared by many in well. The first of these is ahistoricity. What the West, though of course not by all and is meant by this is the impossibility of co- not necessarily elsewhere, that most of the hesively thinking our current conditions universalist utopian projects propelling beyond the immediate parameters of the that century—in philosophy, in art, in poli- present—which have expanded to include tics—had come to an end. For a progressive the entirety of the past and future—which thinker like Jean-Francois Lyotard, grand are defined by neoliberalism. As Mark Fisher narratives such as the Enlightenment and has so aptly put it: it is “easier to imagine communism had failed to deliver on their the end of the world than it is to imagine the promise; indeed, they had turned decidedly end of capitalism” 2. As examples, Jameson dystopian and should be abandoned. The mentions eclecticism and pastiche: history conservative Francis Fukuyama 1992 sug- as gesture, as style, history as gimmick. gested, on the contrary, that it was precisely But one could also think here of scenario because of a grand narrative’s success—more planning—or, in terms of fashion, trend specifically, that of liberal democracy— forecasting: the colonization of the future that the search could be relinquished. But for market purposes.

58 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: The second category is depthlessness, century, as most writing on postmodern- the implosion of depth-models such as dia- ism is published, “malling”, spending time lectical schemas of appearance and essence, in the shopping mall, is the “chief cultural semiotic codes distinguishing between sig- activity in America” Kowinsky 24. Woodward nified and signifier, and psychoanalysis with points out that the reason is rather that most its interest in the latent and the repressed. accounts of postmodernism could just as Depthlessness precludes the possibility of well be descriptions of the sociology of the the hermeneutic gesture: there is no one or mall. Postmodernism treats life as if it were nothing behind or beneath the surface to a shopping mall. Certainly, as architectural which to reach out. Here, one of Jameson’s historians and geographers like Margaret examples is the simulacrum. I will return Crawford 1992 and Rob Shields 1991 have to depthlessness in more detail later, when demonstrated, and as many novels, photo- discussing shoes. Thirdly, Jameson observes graphs, films, and series from the era attest, the “waning of affect”, the desubjectivisation a mall is a heterotopia of the present substi- of our affective registers. This doesn’t mean, tuting for a utopia of the future, suspended to be sure, that we no longer feel anything, from the world at large so as to simulate a as is sometimes suggested. What it means world in miniature, eclectically copy-past- is that without firm footing in history or ing styles and tastes from everywhere and depth, our emotions are found wandering all nowhere regardless of their original con- over the place, are everywhere and nowhere text and compatibility, mimicking life by all at once, up in the air, if you will, rather prescribing the range of people’s behaviour, than our body. scenario planning our routes according to A metaphor that is frequently used to financial models, encouraging us to take a describe this theory of postmodernism is left here, at the chain sneaker store and a the shopping mall, particularly megamalls right there, at the franchise jeans seller, hur- like the West Edmonton Mall or the Mall ry towards the McDonald’s and pause at the of America. The end of history was not an- Starbucks. It is “a sugar-coated dream world”, nounced, as Hegel suspected, by Napoleon writes the architectural historian Peter on his horse at Jena. Nor was it laboured, Hemenway, “where we can shop, play, and as Karl Marx prophesied, by the force of a experience danger and delight without once united proletariat. At the close of the twen- stepping outside” qtd. in Backes 6. tieth century, what comes to signify the end, The shopping mall blurs the bounda- not just of “Utopian hope … but of history ries between the public and the private, the itself” is the shopping mall Alexander 55. The outdoors and the indoors, indeed, reterri- shopping mall, Ian Woodward writes, is torialising place, as the architectural critic the “exemplar of postmodernism” 48. “To Mark Pimlott 2007 has observed, into one, walk in the contemporary place of pleasure, single “public interior”. It similarly abandons the shopping mall,” Richard Keller Simon the separation between the civic discourse remarks, “is to walk through the avenues of the street and the commercial ideology of the postmodern mentality” 248. As Anne of the shop and between subject and object, Friedberg puts it: the postmodern subjects turning every encounter into a commercial are “flâneurs du mal(l)”. one, every gaze and every glance into a com- The reason for the recourse to the modity fetish, an undifferentiated euphoria metaphor of the shopping mall is not just of self-realization through and as objects. that towards the close of the twentieth The shopping mall further shares with the

59 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: postmodern sensibility a proliferation of sur- closed circuit, a Möbius strip looping from faces, of facades and shop windows, screens front to back. There is no way out. There and mirrors. Appearances, indeed, which, are mirrors everywhere but no windows. too, are commodified, telling the customers There are doors, but not exits. The exits are ‘buy this’, ‘buy me’, ‘buy you’. Indeed, what locked, from the inside, mind you, allegedly Jameson talks about in his account of post- to protect us from the ideological Chernobyl modernism is this: a momentary suspension outside, a historical disaster zone unfit for in and of time and space, a “holiday from life anytime soon; but no one is sure, exactly, history” Krauthammer for those with the availa- who has the keys. (There is evidence to sug- ble cash flow. gest they were once passed on by Margaret Unsurprisingly, one of the buzzwords Thatcher to Tony Blair. He, however, alleges in accounts of the postmodern is simulation. to have inadvertently misplaced them during The shopping mall is a simulated eco-system, a visit to his friend Rupert Murdoch.) If we a nonplace Auge. There are storefronts simulat- think, therefore, of postmodern practices ing history—or perhaps time, duration—and that resist the status quo, we think of the food courts simulating locality. There are critique of the inside—because the inside is carefully designed parks and planters of var- all there is, because everyone and everything ious sizes, some with real trees and bushes is on the inside: the writing of Michel and flowers, others with fake ones; there Foucault, questioning our assumptions about may even be grottos and water falls. Street what is natural and unnatural, normal and planning simulates our behavioural patterns, abnormal; or of grunge, criticizing consum- our rhythms and, indeed, our spontaneity. er society; or of the photographs of Cindy Corporate security simulates law and order, Sherman, decrying patriarchy; or the nov- just as the credit card simulates the bill of hu- els of Efriede Jelinek, lamenting the loss of man rights. Temperature can be simulated. In (moral) compass; or, indeed, the installations the shopping mall, of course, even the air is of Wim Delvoye, whose Cloaca, a machine simulated. The name for this is air condition- that mimics the human bowel system so ing: a process that feigns ventilation—that is, as to produce poop, was a critique of late a relationship between the inside and the out- twentieth-century’s culture fetishization of side—by blowing out the very air they suck in. every interaction, person, or object as a com- Hal Foster has distinguished between modity, including excrement, as well as an a postmodernism of reaction and a post acceptance of its inevitability, since as far as modernism of resistance. The former is I am aware, the individual excreta were sold critical of modernism, but affirms the on the art market. present. The latter both deconstructs modernism and resists the status quo. Both agree Metamodernism: the Shopping Mall that the modern project has, for whatever and the Speculative Environment reason, been abandoned; but whereas the In times of oil shortages and desurbanisa- former celebrates our point of arrival, the tion, of server parks and distribution centres, latter laments it. However, because the scholars have all but abandoned the meta- latter assumes the utopian drive is exhaust- phor of the shopping mall. Yet surely we still ed, its lamentation can take no other form find ourselves in the shopping mall, so to than critique. speak, in an eclectic, hybrid, infinite interior As Friedman suggests in her study of ecosystem ruled by the logic of the market. It the “flâneur du mal(l)”, postmodernism is a is just that the conditions have deteriorated

60 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: considerably. Shops are boarded up. Mid- so-called ‘PIIGS’ and the rise of the ‘BRICS’ dle-class mallers unexpectedly find their as much as by new proxy wars, power is credit cards declined. There are cracks in the decentralized, dislocated from its former floorboards. The air conditioning splutters. concentration in the West to the east and Toilets are clogged. People feel ill. The mall- the south, turning countries such Russia and ers fight over who and what is to blame—the China in particular to hubs of negotiation, system, the shop owners, the shop employ- but also the likes of India, Brazil, and Saudi ees, the shop window decorators, the mall Arabia. Nationally, of course, I am think- technicians, the mall security team, the con- ing here of the decline of liberal democracy sumers who buy in all stores, the consumers and the rise of populism, or ‘illiberal de- who buy in only one store, the people who mocracy’, disintegrating the political centre, buy nowhere, the architecture, the screens, abandoning compromise, a balancing out of the food, the air. It is no surprise that there everyone’s demands, for exchange, a market have been so many films and series recently place of demands, where demands are traded where the shopping mall is home to zombies. as currency not content. Civilization and its There are four manifestations of discontents once again make way for Eros decay, specifically. The first is a political- and Thanatos. economic crisis, boarding up the shops and In his brilliant essay “Coming of Age bankrupting the costumers; the second is at the End of History”—in many a sense the a generational fatigue, a general feeling of inspiration for the thought-experiment you unwellness; the third is the technological are reading presently—Camille de Toledo revolution initiated by social and locative describes the generational fatigue with post- media; and the fourth is pending ecological modernism as an “asthma of the soul” 7. All doom, or, the unexpected return of the out- of us who came of age at the end of histo- side. This essay considers the response of the ry, he writes, suffer the same condition, a mall’s dwellers to the last one, specifically; respiratory disease of the spirit, a claustro- but in order to understand this response, we phobia of the chest resulting from an acute need to take into account how it relates to awareness we are unable to see beyond the the other three changes as well. “transparent walls” that surround us “on If I speak about a political-economic all sides” 4. “This world, the world we live crisis, I am talking in part, of course, about in now, is all there is. There’s nothing left the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 outside it and there’s no other world possi- and its aftershocks in the global econo- ble” 2. It is tempting to trace the origins of my. Though this widespread crisis initially this “asthma of the soul” to the dust clouds appeared to set in motion a radical restruc- resulting from the collapse of Lehman, but as turing of our financial system, it ultimately de Toledo notes and as anyone who has ever deepened its foundations, in the process read the essays of David Foster Wallace or widening even further the rift between other writers associated with ‘New Sincerity’ the wealthy jet set and the global dispos- can attest, this illness precedes this event by sessed. Indeed, as the abyss of neoliberalism some years. It is not dust we are choking on; expanded, it was those in the middle who it’s the draft of the closed circuit: the floating disappeared. However, by political-economic signification—systemic, arbitrary, relative— crisis, I also mean the corollary changes in of air conditioning. politics, both on global and national levels. If the political-economic changes Globally, as symbolized by the decline of the necessitate an alternate state of mind and

61 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: the generational fatigue suggests a will there—could it be? Or is what we are hear- for another sensibility, the development of ing the reverberations of the end of the social media has provided some means for world, after all? The name that they, that we, achieving it. Platforms such as Facebook and give to this uncertain phenomenon that is Twitter and Snapchat and whichever corpo- ubiquitous yet invisible and, even more, in- rate algorithm hits the investment jackpot comprehensible, is climate change. tomorrow allow each and every single one What I and others talk about when we of us, for better but more and more often, I talk about metamodernism is the lived ex- guess, for worse, to contribute to the mall’s perience of this hermetic hyperreality by all privatized public sphere, its “public interior”. accounts and appearances coming apart at They have radically different implications, its seams cf. Vermeulen and van den Akker, 2010, 2014, in any case, than zapping did in in the 1990s, 2017. Necessitated by the political-economic or buying a ticket to a concert in the 1950s. crises, delirious because of the thinning air, We can publicly question the mall’s archi- and desperate to confront the knocks on the tects. We can enter a debate with others walls, a new generation of mallers halluci- about the whereabouts of the keys. Indeed, nates that they discern images of elsewheres we can form ad hoc communities, interest on the walls, like a desert dweller believing groups. But more than anything, I am always in spite of better judgment in the oasis in the surprised to find, we can confuse structures far distance. They are indeed hallucinating; and individuals, mistake the latter for the it is a false consciousness. Many of them, former, and either threaten, abuse, or shame though not all, realize as much—the term them for their inability to share our point of van den Akker and I have previously used to view. All of this is to say: in the midst of the describe this awareness is “informed naivety”. mall’s deterioration, we can find momentary They are hallucinating because they cannot common grounds affording and limiting in actuality see the outside nor can they with particular types of action to counteract, ac- their exclusive knowledge of the inside vir- celerate, and/or escape its possible collapse. tually imagine what that outside may look What frames each of these develop- like. But once they’ve seen these images, they ments, these crises of capital, communion, cannot unsee them. The outside is suddenly and consciousness, like a soundtrack in a once again a possibility—even if it is an en- film, is a faint but increasingly present drum. tirely fictional one. In other words, in this Padam. Padam. Padampadam. As the mallers scenario, simulation is what necessitates but become aware of the drum, they gradually also what affords speculation, a speculation, realize it comes from the walls, from outside in turn, which is at once restricted to the their scripted but spinning life. It is—yes, terms of the simulation but not its debate, they are certain—a knocking. nor its ‘reality’. People can imagine, that is For a while, there is some dissensus reassemble, the parameters constituting their about its cause. Is it a technical glitch? An experiential register into an as of yet inexpe- issue with the lighting, maybe? A prob- rienced or even impossible modality—indeed, lem with ventilation? Yet as the sounds into just about whatever they feel like, and increase in tempo and volume, amping up generally without responsibility or in any the suspense like in a horror flick, most case accountability, since the outside is still people begin to wonder: is there life out unregulated territory.

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Depthiness and Shoes That other countries or bilateral agreements, Straddle Two Realities at Once alternate legal loopholes, and so forth. Without Ever Inhabiting One A second way artists and writers, It seems to me that over the past years, cul- especially, appear to have responded to these ture has responded to the return of this circumstances is what I have elsewhere hallucinatory horizon—or, as a student at the described as the “new depthiness” (“The New University of Art and Design Linz whose Depthiness” and “Periodising the 2000s”). name I unfortunately do not recall aptly put Here what happens is that a hallucination, i.e. it a few years back in a discussion about this, a virtuality, is painted, that is to say, actu- ‘horizhome’—in three ways. The first is to alized, on the inside of the walls as if it was stick, foolhardily, to the laws of the inside, an accurate or possible or conceivable inti- either disavowing the boarded-up shops mation of what may or may not exist behind and cracks in the floor and, especially, these them, of an outside—so as to be able to ima knocks on the walls, pretending to take them gine the outside at all. The flat surface—in into account, or recontextualizing them so other words, the surface whose formal qual- that they conform to your beliefs. This is ities or texture reveals no depth—is treated the route, I suppose, that Third Way poli- as if it nonetheless hides depth. Depth here is ticians such as Angela Merkel and Emanuel less an ontological quality than a performa- Macron, Hilary Clinton and Justin Trudeau tive one; or indeed, a reality whose ontology take. I also think that this is what a cultural depends entirely and exclusively on its per- scaremonger such as Jordan Peterson and, formance. The term depthiness is a reference seemingly paradoxically, a number of activ- both to Jameson’s notion of the new depth- ists concerned with identity politics propose. lessness and to comedian Stephen Colbert’s The single difference between these is that joke about truthiness: a statement of truth the former would like business to continue whose truthfulness cannot be empirically as usual, whilst the latter prefer it to contin- verified—or indeed, which is proven to be ue as usual but under the explicit auspices false—but is felt to be true in the gut. of (white) men or, alternatively, the inclusion In Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of a range of distinct and/or not mutually of Late Capitalism, Jameson distinguishes exclusive minorities. postmodernism from modernism by way In fashion, I would presume, this of an analysis of two artistic renderings of disavowal is that of the multinational cor- shoes: Andy Warhol’s ‘Diamond Dust Shoes’ porations whose practices haven’t changed, and Vincent van Gogh’s ‘A Pair of Shoes’. haven’t been altered, really, in response to The former is a glossy, monochromatic pho- the knocks of geopolitical developments, tograph of a variety of individual women’s generational concerns, or the environment. shoes cropped closely and against a uniform Here, unfair labour practices aren’t so much background, making it difficult for the view- reconsidered in light of economic redistri- er to reach beyond the picture—to either the butions or political regulations, but moved artist’s state of mind or a particular localiza- about, inscribed elsewhere, in other systems. ble or historical objective reality. The picture Similarly, environmental policies—in terms might just as well refer, Jameson writes, to of sourcing materials, chemical processes, a shop window or the aftermath of a dance waste, or carbon footprints—aren’t so much hall fire or, indeed, the remainders of a con- tightened as they are broadened to include centration camp. This is to say: it floats, is

63 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket:

Nike Zoom Kobe V Pocket. It is a shoe that has the simulated ‘A Pair of Shoes’ by Vincent van comfort of the Air Max and its relatives, but Gogh (c)Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) performs the reality of the sandal: the bumps, the wind, the rain. If Van Gogh excavated everywhere, and nowhere all at once; it isn’t depth from the surface and Warhol flattened anchored anywhere. depth by means of the surface, then the Nike Van Gogh’s ‘A Pair of Shoes’, in contrast, Air Pocket applies depth onto the surface. is painted in thick, textural brush strokes, vi- Examples of shoes like these are, I guess, the brant in colour, figuration, and composition, five-finger shoe and, more recently, the free the shoes worn out and dirty, not just allow- runner shoe: each use techniques of simu- ing the viewer to peek beyond the painting lation similar to those modelling the Nike but indeed giving the viewer little other Air Max, but they employ them precisely to opportunity than to see into the artist’s state allow our feet to be closer to the ground, to of mind or observe the lived reality that the the sentiment of the ground; they allow us, shoes suffered—the hard, unforgiving labour allegedly, not to float above it, but to expe- of the peasant. These shoes, in other words, rience the ground more intentionally. We are very much grounded in—and grounded don’t often think of these shoes in political by—a particular, localizable, historical reality. let alone environmental terms, but I would Warhol’s shoes, it seems to me, are argue that in their engagement with the comparable to the Nike Air Max—or similar environment, they are very much shoes of Adidas or Asics types—of the late 1980s and our particular moment: hallucinations of the 1990s. Their purpose is precisely to float, to outside without even the slightest chance of be obstructed by the particular qualities of realization, idealizations of our register of the ground as little as possible. The shoes reality that can exist exclusively by the abne- Clinton and Macron wear—indeed, there are gation of the logical terms of that reality. pictures online to prove this—are updated Depending on your situation, you may versions of the Air Max: the Nike Zoom, or consider this model—and, indeed, this model the Adidas Ultraboost. Van Gogh’s peasant may well be—either liberating or prohibitive. shoes are sandals: if you walk around in You might think it liberating because though them, you register every bump in the road, not a condition of change itself, it is the in- every gush of wind, every raindrop. dex of the possibility of change, the sign that What I am talking about when I talk suggests that change is still feasible, even if about the new depthiness is the Nike Air just in theory. But it is also prohibitive. After

64 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: all, as Jodi Dean has argued so convincing- ly, it constitutes the dissolve of limiting but stable symbolic laws—first amongst them truth—into unattainable liquid imaginary controls—where, indeed, everything could be true, depending on the scenario. Here the subject isn’t interpellated by social strata but by “creative potential” Dean 66 and individual fulfillment—often masquerading as community needs: I must be better, it should be Adidas x UltraBoost Parley in Deep Ocean Blue like this, we must make it like we imagine it to be, and only like this. It is the inverse of in its entirety. These shoes echo, in slightly that phrase by Dostoyevski: here nothing is different manners, the reverberations scien- true and because of that everything is true; tists have measured in the environment: the nothing is possible anymore and, as a conse- plastic islands polluting the ocean, changing quence, everything is possible. in concrete ways the oceanscape, affecting The third way, finally, that I think the diets of fish, manipulating migratory culture integrates these knocks on the wall streams, even turning water in to land; the into the mall’s ecosystem is what we might needless slaughter of animals; systems of call the ‘seismographic method’, or the para waste disposal; carbon footprints; and so on. ble of Plato’s mall. This is, I think, another Indeed, what they echo, I would be inclined method people in fashion studies and design to say, are generalized feelings about dia- often think of when they talk about the ‘new grams and datasets, about statistics; in other luxury’ or ‘sustainable hedonism’. If the new words: sentimental abstractions. The wear- depthiness responds to the historical silence er of the shoe experiences environmental on the inside and the knocks it imagines change in the same manner that the player coming from the outside poetically, the seis- of that Pokémon game experiences their sur- mographic method is more of a pragmatic roundings: by an epistemic, abstracted detour, approach—though not, it is important to an encounter with a reality that they never note, empirical; its modality, too, is entirely actually encounter. and exclusively performative. The seismo- I don’t intend this to sound as cynical graphic method, as the name suggests, listens as I imagine it may do—though I am very carefully to the reverberations coming sceptical of this development. What I want through the wall so as to echo their effects to highlight here is that these shoes, too, are inside. The knocks are taken as guiding still very much products of the mall, prop- principles for the rhythm and organization erty of the inside. They listen to the knocks, of the inside. move with them, dance to them, but they The shoes I am thinking of here are don’t return the call. Importantly, I think we the shoes I mentioned in passing at the be- should therefore ask ourselves whether these ginning of my essay: the Adidas x Parley, shoes are made for the inside as well, or rath- Ultraboost shoes made in part from upcy- er, I guess, whether they could ever be worn cled plastic recollected from the ocean, or ‘outside’, whether they would sustain whatev- the Nike Flyleather, produced in part from er it is the outside holds. reclaimed leather fibre, or indeed the Veja What I have attempted to think collection, organically and locally sourced through in the above is a distinct

65 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket: relationship between a number of in- on a Theme Park: The New American creasingly widespread phenomena and City and the End of Public Space, edited by Michael Sorkin, Hill their cultural context: the shoe and the and Wang, 1992, pp. 3–30. deteriorating mall, the Adidas x Parley and Dean, Jodi. Democracy and Other environmental change. In many senses, my Neoliberal Fantasies: Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics. thought experiment has been both indirect Duke University Press, 2009. and inappropriate, a generalizing, entirely Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: metaphorical account of a very specific, Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, 2009. very real problem. But what I hope to have Foster, Hal. “Postmodernism: achieved is a frame, or, I guess, in Jameson’s A Preface.” The Anti-Aesthetic: words, a cognitive map, in which to consider Essays on Postmodern Culture, edited by Hal Foster, Bay this problem cohesively and coherently. In a Press, 1983, pp. ix-xvii. time where so much happens all the time, we Friedberg, Anne. “Les Flâneurs du tend to lose track not just of what happens Mal(l): Cinema and the Postmodern Condition.” PMLA, vol. 106, but also of where we find ourselves. By dis- no. 3, 1991, pp. 419–431. cussing in a single vernacular or genre some Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History of these occurrences, I hope to establish and the Last Man. Penguin, 1992. Goodman, Nelson. Ways of some sense of clarity. For understanding but Worldmaking. Hackett, 1978. also for action. Because if we don’t under- Ingels, Bjarke. “Hedonistic stand where we are, we certainly would find Sustainability.” TED, 2011, www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_ it difficult to know where to go—outside hedonistic_sustainability. of the mall. Accessed 26 February 2019. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic Bibliography of Late Capitalism. Duke Akker, Robin van den and Timotheus University Press, 1991. Vermeulen. “Periodising the Keller Simon, Richard. “The Formal 2000s, or, the Emergence of Garden in the Age of Consumer Metamodernism.” Metamodernism: Culture: A Reading of the Historicity, Affect, and Twentieth-Century Shopping Depth after Postmodernism, Mall.” Mapping American Culture, edited by Robin van den Akker, edited by Wayne Franklin and Alison Gibbons, and Timotheus Michael Steiner, University of Vermeulen, Rowman & Littlefield Iowa Press, 1992, pp. 231–250. International, 2017, pp. 1–19. Krauthammer, Charles. “Holiday Alexander, Jeffrey C. Fin De Siecle from History.” Washington Social Theory: Relativism, Post, 14 Feb. 2003, https:// Reduction and the Problem www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ of Reason. Verso, 1995. opinions/2003/02/14/holiday-from- Auge, Marc. Non-Places: An Introduction history/05dd0d16-b653-47bd-baab- to Supermodernity. 1992. London 06794e7291ec/?noredirect=on&utm_ and New York, Verso, 2009. term=.1bcd251679b6. Accessed Backes, Nancy. “Reading the 26 February 2019. Shopping Mall City.” Journal Kowinsky, William Severini. of Popular Culture, vol. 31, The Malling of America: An Inside no. 3, 1997, pp. 1–17. Look at the Great Consumer Carroll, Noel. “Art and Mood.” Paradise. W. Morrow, 1985. The Monist, vol. 86 no. 4, Lakoff, George and Mark 2003, pp. 521–555. Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Crawford, Margaret. “The World in Chicago and London, University a Shopping Mall.” Variations of Chicago Press, 1980.

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Lyotard, Jean-Francois. Footnotes The Postmodern Condition: [1] It is difficult to overstate the A Report on Knowledge. 1979. importance of understanding both Minneapolis: University of that ‘postmodernism’ can describe Minnesota Press, 1984. a variety of experiences, objective Morton, Timothy. Hyperobjects: realities, and indeed theoretical Philosophy and Ecology After models; and that each of these is the End of the World. University more nuanced and indeed complex of Minnesota Press, 2013. than they are often assumed to Pimlott, Mark. Without and Within: be these days. This is important Essays on Territory and the especially in the context of Interior. Episode Publishers, 2007. the recent wholesale dismissals Shields, Rob. Places on the Margin: of postmodernism as a ‘cultural Alternative Geographies Marxism’, responsible for, well of Modernity. London and whatever those dismissing it— New York, Routledge, 1991. who are, it seems to me, mostly Toledo, Camille de. Coming of frightened and frustrated Age at the End of History. reactionary white men—need it Soft Skull Press, 2008. to be responsible for at any Vermeulen, Timotheus. “Thoughts on the moment in time. I am reminded Space of Contemporary Sculpture, here, ironically, of Hal Foster’s or: Stringing Along.” Sculpture critical analysis of postmodernism’s Unlimited II: Materiality in critiques of modernism: Times of Immateriality, edited by Jorg Heiser and Eva Grubinger, In cultural politics today, a Sternberg Press, 2015, pp. 29–34. basic opposition exists between Vermeulen, Timotheus. “The New a postmodernism which seeks ‘Depthiness’”. e-flux journal, to deconstruct modernism and vol. 61, 2015, www.e-flux.com/ resist the status quo and a journal/the-new-depthiness/. postmodernism which repudiates Accessed 26 February 2019. the former to celebrate the Vermeulen, Timotheus and Robin latter: a postmodernism of van den Akker. “Notes on resistance and a postmodernism Metamodernism.” Journal of reaction. ...The postmodernism of Aesthetics and Culture, of reaction...is singular in its vol. 2, 2010, pp. 1–14, www. repudiation of modernism. This aestheticsandculture.net/index. repudiation, voiced most shrilly php/jac/article/view/5677/6304. perhaps by neoconservatives but Accessed 27 February 2019. echoed everywhere, is strategic: Vermeulen, Timotheus and Robin van den as Habermas cogently argues, Akker. “Utopia, Sort Of: A Case the neoconservatives sever the Study in Metamodernism.” Studia cultural from the social, then Neophiliogica, vol. 18, blame the practices of the supp. 1, 2014, pp. 55–67. one (modernism) for the ills Williams, Raymond. Marxism of the other (modernization). and Literature. Oxford With cause and effect thus University Press, 1977. confounded, ‘adversary’ culture Woodward, Ian. “The Shopping Mall, is denounced even as the economic Postmodern Space and Architectural and political status quo is Practice: Theorising the affirmed—indeed, a new ‘affirmative’ Postmodern Spatial Turn through culture is proposed. (xi-xii) the Planning Discourse of Mall Architects.” Architectural Theory Review, vol. 3, no. 2, 1998, pp. 45–56.

67 APRIA #00 June 2019 Timotheus Vermeulen Nike Air Pocket:

Timotheus Vermeulen was translated and published in Timotheus Vermeulen is a scholar and book form in Germany as Anmerkungen critic. He is associate professor zur Metamoderne (Textem, 2016). in Media, Culture and Society at Vermeulen publishes in academic and the University of Oslo, Norway and popular contexts alike, writing for Director of the PhD Programme in amongst others The Journal of Aesthetics Media Studies. His research interests and Culture, Screen, Monu, The American include cultural theory, aesthetics, Book Review, E-Flux, Texte Zur Kunst, and close textual analysis of film, Tank, Metropolis M, and De Groene television and contemporary art. Amsterdammer, as well as various Vermeulen is the author of reference works, collections and the monograph Scenes from the catalogues. From 2009 to 2016 Vermeulen Suburbs (EUP, 2014) and joint editor helped maintain the now defunct arts and with Martin Dines of New Suburban culture platform Notes on Metamodernism. Stories (Bloomsbury, 2013). Together He is a regular contributor to Frieze. with Alison Gibbons and Robin van den Vermeulen has served on numerous Akker he further edited Metamodernism: committees and juries for art prizes, Historicity, Affect and Depth after most recently the Nam Jun Paik Postmodernism (Rowman & Littlefield, Award, the Bonner Kunstpreis and 2017). ‘Notes on Metamodernism‘, an Coast Contemporary. He also advises essay he co-wrote with van den Akker, and consults on exhibitions.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/nike-air-pocket/

68 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons

Re-imagining Fashion as an the resources. The commons is an integrat- Ecosystem of Commons[1] ed social system for provisioning and peer Many players in the global fashion world are governance—one that focuses on inclusive- increasingly concerned about problematic ness, fairness, basic needs, and stewardship industry norms and practices—from energy- of shared wealth. intensive supply chains and abusive labour If you mention ‘the commons’ to practices to transgressive marketing and someone today, the first idea that usually elitist sensibilities. Is it possible to imagine comes to mind is ‘the tragedy of the com- a more humane and eco-responsible fashion mons’. That idea was launched by biologist system? This paper describes how diverse Garrett Hardin in the journal Science in a commoners around the world are pioneering now-famous essay published in 1968. Hardin creative, post-capitalist forms of provision- asked readers to imagine a pasture in which ing, peer governance, and social practice. no individual farmer has a rational incen- The principles of commoning—autonomous tive to hold back his use of it. He declared ‘world-making’ of provisioning and peer that each individual farmer would put as governance from within market/state pol- many sheep on the pasture as possible be- ities—may hold some answers in helping to cause no individual has a rational incentive imagine a new ecosystem of commons for to hold back. By this logic, Hardin declared, fashion design, provisioning, and distribution. the pasture will inevitably be destroyed through over-exploitation: the tragedy of the The Commons as a Social System, commons. Over the past two generations, Not Unowned Resources economists and conservative ideologues One general way to understand the com- embraced the ‘tragedy parable’ as a powerful mons is as everything that we inherit or way to denigrate the collective management create together, which we must pass on, of resources, especially by government. Har- undiminished, to future generations. Our din’s narrative also proved useful as a way to common wealth consists of countless re- champion private property rights, so-called sources that we share such as public lands, free markets, and deregulation. state-funded research, the atmosphere, the Even though the term ‘the commons’ oceans, the airwaves used by broadcasters. became widely associated with the idea of Historically, the state has been the self-styled the word ‘tragedy’, the irony is that Hardin trustee of such resources—a task it has not was not really describing a commons. He performed very conscientiously or faithfully. was describing an open-access regime in which In truth, the commons is not simply there are no rules for managing a resource, a collection of shared resources. It must be no boundaries around it, and, indeed, no understood as a social and political system community. The scenario he was describ- for managing that shared wealth, with an ing—in which free riders can appropriate emphasis on self-governance, fairness, and or damage resources at will—is more accu- sustainability. The commons consists of re- rately a description of unfettered markets sources plus the social system for managing in which everyone does whatever s/he them plus the specific rules, social practices, wants. You might say Hardin was describing institutions, and traditions used to manage the tragedy of the market.

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The late Professor Elinor Ostrom of self-provisioning that takes place outside Indiana University powerfully rebutted of conventional circles of money and mar- the whole ‘tragedy of the commons’ fable ket exchange. in her landmark 1990 book, Governing the Ostrom’s great achievement was in Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for demonstrating how much value and sta- Collective Action . This book and hundreds ble management actually occurs through of case studies by Ostrom and her col- commons. She won the Nobel Prize in Eco- leagues showed that it is entirely possible for nomics in 2009—the first woman to win communities to manage forests, fisheries, the award—by documenting and theorizing farmland, irrigation water, wild game, and about cooperation, sharing, trust, and other other natural resources as commons, with- nonmarket behaviours that most conven- out over-exploiting them. Her research and tional economists neglect as ‘exogenous that of many scholars that she assembled into variables’. Its epistemological model quite the International Association for the Study literally can’t make sense of such social be- of Commons[2] demonstrated this through haviours because, by the terms of the model, hundreds of empirical studies. they are ‘irrational’. For economists, market One might ask, how, then, is the transactions are the main event, and any- over-exploitation of resources avoided? The thing that cannot be priced is not taken very short answer is, people talk to each other. seriously. No wonder the commons and its They negotiate rules for working out their social behaviours are culturally invisible! differences. People who live near each other or work together have strong incentives Market Enclosure as to cooperate. They are entirely capable of a Scourge of our Time self-organizing systems that can identify One of the reasons that the commons dis- and punish free riders, develop a shared course is being resurrected today is to make community ethic and norms, and in other the commons more visible—but also to ways protect their shared wealth. This is highlight the idea of ‘enclosure’. Enclosure not always easy and it is certainly not auto- consists of the privatization and commod- matic, but it is an historic tradition in the ification of shared wealth by corporations, human species. An estimated two billion often in collusion with governments. It can people around the world depend on natural be seen in countless attempts by market play- resources managed as commons for their ers to appropriate for themselves such shared everyday survival. resources as land, water, seeds, genetic infor- Most economists ignore this reali- mation, cultural works, information, public ty, however, because their very language spaces, and much else. and terms of analysis privilege the market Across the world, timber companies economy—the world of exchange-value, not are seizing great swaths of forests and wil- use-value. Adam Smith’s writings about derness that belong to the people, many of markets are most notable for providing whom have tended the forests for gener- a moral justification for market activity, ations. Big Pharma is privately patenting sanitizing the vices of greed and envy as valuable drug research for which taxpayers ‘self-interest’ that ultimately benefits the pub- have paid billions of dollars. Enclosure can lic good via the Invisible Hand. He redefined be seen in corporate ‘partnerships’ with uni- the very idea of ‘the economy’ by ignoring versities that privatize research funded by

70 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons the public. Most recently, we have seen fierce are understandably wary of the enormous attempts by telecom and cable companies to efficiencies and creativity that digital com- seize control over access to the Internet in mons offer. The Internet is really a massive order to convert that great commons into a hosting platform for commons, a lightweight closed marketplace. infrastructure for cooperation that is fan- Enclosures amount to a massive theft tastically generative because it doesn’t have and dispossession of common wealth for the huge overhead costs of markets (physical private gain. It is typically portrayed as ‘pro- infrastructure, lawyers, marketing, etc.) and gress’—the idea that private investment and because it elicits and distributes creativity far marketization will improve societies. But more efficiently than conventional markets. in fact, the relentless expansion of market By the early 2000s, the power of open activity is often a profound dispossession of networks had given rise to something that people’s shared wealth. It is not just a taking economists are still trying to understand— of resources but the destruction of commu- commons-based peer production. This is nity identities and cultures based on sharing. a growing sector of production that takes It is an erasure from memory that certain many forms. Among them: free and open traditions and ways of life are possible. source software, which dominate the soft- People who have been victimized by ware world; the great Wikipedia project in investors, corporations, and market growth dozens of languages and hundreds of wiki are increasingly fighting back, howev- offshoots; the estimated 1 billion documents er. They seek to reclaim what is theirs and and creative works using Creative Commons re-establish the communities of commoning licenses; and the more than 10,000 open- that once flourished. For example, indig- access scholarly journals that bypass the enous peoples are trying to preserve their exploitations of commercial publishers. The ethnobotanical knowledge from the biopira- explosion of creativity in this sector cannot cy of big pharmaceutical and ag-biotech simply be explained by economic models that companies. Subsistence farmers are trying regard human beings as selfish, rational, util- to protect their right to share seeds. Fishers ity maximizing materialists. This creativity are trying to protect their livelihoods from is the work of peer-organized commons. industrial harvesting. Many Latin Ameri- Over the past fifteen years, the idea cans are fighting the neo-extractivist agenda of commoners having agency and power of multinational companies who are plun- to build their own provisioning systems as dering oil, minerals, and genetic knowledge. alternatives to predatory, anti-social market Internet users are trying to preserve their systems has gained ground. We can now see right to share their research, creative works the rise of an eclectic international move- and data outside of the control of strict ment based on the principles of commoning. intellectual property rights (copyright, trade- It consists of food activists trying to rebuild marks, patents). local agriculture and software programmers The emergence of the World Wide building free software and open source Web in the early 1990s demonstrated that software as well as open source design, hard- the commons is arguably more generative ware, and global production. We can see the than conventional intellectual property in- commons at work among artists devoted to dustries. But the latter, of course, have huge collaborative digital arts; in scientific com- investments that they wish to protect. They munities that share their research and data

71 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons

They are all asserting a different universe of value. They all share a basic commitment to production for use, not market exchange. They are asserting the right of communities to participate in making the rules that govern themselves. They are demonstrating the feasibility of fair rules and transparency in peer governance. As commoners, they step up to serve as long-term stewards of resources. Bangla-Pesa from The Christian The commons not only embodies a dif- Science Monitor (c) Jason Patinkin ferent system of power and value-generation than the market and state but also expresses on open platforms; and among rice farmers a distinct worldview and ethic. It emphasizes who use the Internet to share agronomy cooperation and sharing for common benefit techniques to improve their yields, in a kind and eschews the individualistic competition, of open-source agriculture. We can also see rational calculation, and materialism that the commons rising among activists in cit- economists regard as the defining traits ies like Amsterdam, Barcelona, Seoul, and of humanity. Because commons deliberate- Bologna who demand that urban spaces and ly seek to protect their practices and ethos resources be used to benefit all citizens, not against market enclosures, they are more just developers and the affluent. able to thwart the usual types of co-optation Some commoners are developing alter- and dilution that normally occur. In other native currencies, such as the Bangla-Pesa in words, commons have the potential to carve Kenya, which has made it possible for poor out protected zones of social sovereignty people in slum neighbourhoods to exchange that cannot be readily traduced by the value with each other. Many engineers and market/state. designers are engaged with global commu- Of course, mainstream political and nities in which design is globally developed corporate players still regard the commons and shared without patents, but manufactur- as archaic relics from history. They are half- ing is done at the local level in ways in the right: commoning is as old as the human style of open-source software: free, accessible race. But it is hardly irrelevant or obsolete. to anyone, locally sourceable with modular In light of the cascading crises of climate components. This movement of ‘cosmo-local change, wealth inequality, and the implosion production’ has produced the Wikispeed of the neoliberal market/state (among many car that gets 100 miles per gallon of fuel, the others), it is reassuring to know that the Farm Hack community that has produced commons is the one of the most enduring, designs for affordable farm equipment, and resilient forms of social organization in his- specialized open-source prosthetic limbs that tory. Its rediscovery is opening up all kinds major medical suppliers don’t have the crea- of new conversations and projects seeking tivity or profit incentive to make. to imagine, and then build, new types of What unites these highly diverse post-capitalist institutions. communities? The fledgling movements are not arid intellectual pipedreams; they are vigorous

72 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons exploratory projects to build an alternative needs resources, it is increasingly being held economy. They seek to develop a new theory captive and despoiled by money and the and practice of value beyond market price. market economy. As social institutions based on use-value, di- Interestingly, software programmers verse commons focus on the intrinsic value once faced a similar challenge when Micro- of nature, the importance of care work and soft held a virtual monopoly over personal affective labour (often disproportionately computer software in the late 1990s. The done by women), socially created collective response that emerged, and then grew and wealth, and the intergenerational steward- grew, was free and open-source software— ship of biowealth. programs that were built by open networks So how might these insights into the of programmers and legally designed to be commons help us imagine a new vision re-used, modified, and shared for free. In for the fashion industry? In the remainder other words, collaboration was the key to of this essay, I would like to reflect on the reclaiming the commons of software design. significance of the commons framework, I think there is a deep kinship between discourse, and ethos for the world of fashion fashion design and open-source software design, production, and distribution (to use principles. One might say that fashion design the conventional economic categories). has always been an open-source enterprise, as I once explored through a 2005 conference Reimagining Fashion as that I co-organized, ‘Ready to Share: Fashion an Ecosystem of Commons and the Ownership of Creativity’.[3] Even Our first challenge is to ‘jump the tracks’ of though capital and corporations typically try standard economic analysis. Its thought-cat- to own creativity through patents or copy- egories and language virtually dictate the rights, in fashion, creative design has always types of human behaviour and institutions been treated as shareable. You can’t own the that are seen as ‘realistic’. Economics pre- herringbone suit or peasant dress. You can sumes that capital, large-scale markets, and only own your trademarked name and logo. private property—as well as the designated Everything else is free to use and re-purpose roles of investor, business executive, em- and share without permission or payment. ployee, consumer, etc.—are the only ways to There have been attempts by people organize provisioning and distribution. It like Diane von Fürstenberg and big fashion somehow seems utopian to try to imagine houses to expand the net of copyright con- feasible alternatives notwithstanding the trol over fashion design. But such attempts to documented, chronic damage that the exist- own creativity are ill-fated and silly. As Coco ing system wrecks. Chanel famously said, “Fashion is not some- Let us dare to imagine how we might thing that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in devise the rudiments of a different sort of the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with fashion design and garment production sys- ideas, the way we live, what is happening”. tem. Among socially minded designers and Attempting to own fashion design is doomed enterprises, this is a welcome idea. Creative to failure and is itself destructive of very artists tend to understand the real power of ecology of fashion. imagination and the collaborations that fuel To me, this naturally raises the idea of it. They realize that while artistry obviously fashion itself as an ecosystem of commons.

73 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons

Unlike a market, in which wealthy business- worldwide between 2000 and 2014, accord- es attempt to govern and control the system ingly to the group Fashion Revolution. Some through money, fashion as a commons 40% of purchased clothes are rarely or never points to a very different social system. A worn—the average garment is worn only commons allows the various elements of the four times on average over its lifetime—and ecosystem to find their own sovereignty and about one-third of retail clothing is never niches, and to develop their own symbiotic sold, and is, therefore, burned or destroyed. relationships with others. A commons is a The industry produces some 400 billion world of negotiated relationality and social square meters of fabric waste each year.[4] practice that arises from the bottom up. It is One could easily augment this critique not a world animated by narrow, top-down with many other industry practices that are mandates by those with property rights profoundly harmful to the environment, and money (even if commoners must de- workers’ health and well-being, cultural velop their own working rapprochement norms, and consumers. But I am interested with both). here in imagining new ways that the fashion Serious fashion designers and produc- industry might reconfigure itself. As the ers who wish to engage with contemporary Fashion Colloquium in Arnhem, the Nether- life are understandably attracted to the idea lands, in May 2018, put it: “Fashion is in dire of the commons. They realize that feelings need of more value-based critical thinking as and aesthetics are primary forces in fashion well as design-driven research to thoroughly design. They also see that the global market explore, disrupt, redefine and transform the apparatus and fashion business models are system”. Its organizers believe that we need becoming more and more hostile to gen- to “collectively investigate how to move to- uine creativity. Global markets traffic in wards a fashion reality that addresses ethics, garments-as-commodities and only second inclusivity and responsible consumerism in arily in garments-as-cultural expression a more engaged way”. or use-value. If a designer is serious about Toward that end, I wish to propose eight engaging with the world through their work, strategies by which committed players in they will know that aesthetics is not just the fashion world might begin to imagine a about looks but about social ethics, aliveness, new type of system. These strategies should and human presence. Corporate fashion at- not be taken as a blueprint, but rather as a tempts to simulate and capture these things, set of general guideposts for building the but the structural imperatives of global mar- elements of an alternative system. As the first kets (at least for mass fashion) cannot honour half of this essay has shown, the commons such human values and intangibles. can help guide our imaginations and critical Many fashion designers and fashion thought, and help us develop new structural houses are rightly appalled by a global pro- vehicles for human creativity, ethics, and duction/distribution system that depends on social engagement to flourish. It provides underpaid, abused labour, sprawling trans- affordances that are simply unavailable under port chains that use vast amounts of carbon the socio-legal structures of the market/state. fuels, prodigious amounts of fabric waste, Aesthetics, ethics, creativity, and culture can and odious marketing strategies. The ‘fast actually provide powerful energies for re- fashion’ segment of the industry has contrib- defining ‘the economy’ of fashion. This will uted to the doubling of garment production necessarily require novel types of institutions

74 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons and infrastructures that are likely to be seen as we put it. Participants contribute freely as alien or repugnant to conventional banks, to their collective goals, practising a gentle investors, and industry players. reciprocity and never a selfish calculation. They pursue challenges collaboratively and 1. Develop ways to resist enclosure realize that their work is entangled with One of the first imperatives of an effective natural systems. commons is to protect itself from enclosure— Peer Governance seeks to bring the the private appropriation of shared wealth, diversity of participants into shared pur- usually for market purposes. This means pose, and to ensure that relationships are that the web of relationships needed to de- transparent and that knowledge is shared sign and produce garments must be strong generously—all within a sphere of trust. The and committed, and not based on mere busi- third major dimension of the commons, Pro- ness relationships. Any alternative fashion visioning, consists of systems that enable network must nurture a shared purpose and people to make and use things together, and values that unify the community. It must to share risks and benefits. Provisioning engender trust and the generous sharing of should rely on ‘convivial tools’ that are open knowledge. In medieval commons, one of ended and user friendly, not closed and pro- the means by which communities achieved prietary. It must also decide how to allocate these goals was to stage an annual party the fruits of commoning fairly. in which they ‘beat the bounds’. This was a formal walking of the perimeter of their 3. Build new types commons in order to identify and destroy of collaborative institutions any hedges or walls that enclosed the land As the Triad of Commoning suggests, new for private purposes. That is an apt metaphor types of institutions are needed to help sus- for what contemporary commons must do— tain collaboration. These can take many identify capitalist appropriations of shared forms: cooperatives, commons-based peer wealth, such as intellectual property grabs production in digital contexts, collaborative on designs or the use of market power to networks, and trusts, among others. The marginalize commons-based provisioning. point is to develop social practices and norms that support commoning at appropriate scales. 2. Focus on the Triad of Commoning Larger-scale collaborations need not be In a forthcoming book, my co-author Silke achieved by ‘scaling’ an enterprise into a large, Helfrich and I propose a new conceptualiza- unified organization. The preferred approach tion of the commons that we call the ‘Triad is to emulate other projects at smaller scales of Commoning’.[5] It consists of the ‘Social and then federate themselves as a loose net- Life’ of participants, their systems in ‘Peer work. This helps diverse commons align Governance’, and systems of self-managed to pursue larger cooperative strategies (via ‘Provisioning’. Each of these dimensions are ‘inter-commoning’). They can extend their intertwined, but it helps to focus on each one reach without falling prey to the ‘big is better’ as a way to see how and why commons are dynamic that market enterprises typically so productive and satisfying. follow. (Scaling tends to re-introduce the The Social Life of a commons is based inefficiencies, costs, ecological harm, and on people seeing themselves as intercon- dehumanization that progressive fashion nected and interdependent—as ‘Nested-I’s’, people are trying to escape!)

75 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons

Relationality is a key aspect of a can be mutualized more readily, revenue commons, so any growth in the reach of requirements are reduced, and working rela- commons must find ways to preserve the tionships are more stable and committed. shared mission, values, and relationships. Because commercial dealings tend to erode 5. Reinvent infrastructures & deeper relationships—the ethic of ‘it’s noth- finance for the commons ing personal, just business’—commons strive If the goal is to build a new parallel pro- to keep commons and commerce distinct. To visioning economy that decommodifies be sure, a commons can interact with mar- production and distribution and empowers kets, but it must do so in careful ways so that distributed commoning, then new sorts of market imperatives (growth, profit, capital- infrastructures and finance will be needed. ization) do not become ends in themselves Conventional investors and lenders virtual- and take over the life of the commons. ly require that fashion enterprises become hooked on debt, growth, and a fealty to price 4. Lead with practical as the measure of value. A commons regime experimentation, not ideology could instead look to new systems of mutu- While the commons has a lot to say about al credit and cooperative finance to spread modern capitalism and the nation state, it is risks and minimize costs and even the need not an ideology or political agenda. It is bet- for debt. In addition, the sharing of design in ter seen as a series of practical experiments translocal ways could help develop a coher- for meeting human needs in fair, liberating ent network of like-minded fashion players ways. It is primarily about social practices and reduce transport costs. Developing more and cultural shifts that can flourish in new personal, social relationships with ‘suppliers’ types of institutional spaces. It helps to see and ‘consumers’ (re-imagined as supporters that the commons is not so much a noun as and collaborators) could help wean people a verb—the habit and activity of engaging in away from market-driven consumerism and commoning. As historian Peter Linebaugh fast fashion. has said, “There is no commons without Some of these ideas are already being commoning”. Ideological approaches tend to developed in small-scale networks of probe rigid and brittle. Commoning is flexible, ducers of raw materials and artisans, for creative, and adaptive. example. But with the infrastructure and The fashion world has already em- finance to help these efforts grow into a larg- barked upon many fascinating experiments er ecosystem, new sorts of supply networks in social and ecological innovation, such as could evolve into producer cooperatives, for weaving cooperatives, natural and non-toxic instance, or become Internet-based guilds colour dyes, local sourcing of renewable for certain types of garments or styles. By materials, recycling and upcycling of fabric maintaining control over infrastructure and waste, novel revenue models to support hu- finance and practicing a ‘gentle reciprocity’, mane working conditions, and so on. This the many participants could develop their sort of experimentation is more likely to own parallel ‘economy’, less vulnerable to the flourish and endure through commons- power of large corporations. This approach based systems because that can help them is needed to improve security and stability of escape the profit imperatives and market individual ventures. competition of conventional fashion. Risks

76 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons

A major part of the challenge of moving to a commons-based ecosystem for fashion (or another other provisioning) is shed- ding the almost fundamentalist language of contemporary market capitalism. The vast, diversified world of the commons shows that other social forms of organization and provisioning are entirely possible, beyond those sanctioned by standard economics. But it can WIKISPEED car be difficult to entertain such ideas when the 6. Explore cosmo-local production vocabularies for describing the alternatives Thanks to the Internet and new forms of are so limited or non-existent. digital networking, it is now possible to It is helpful, therefore, to shed some of share design and production knowledge the market vocabularies that invisibly pre- globally while producing locally. First sume that people respond only to market pioneered in open-source software, this ap- ‘incentives’; that existing law and policy in proach has now evolved into the production effect define the limits of the possible; and of physical products such as automobiles that business structures are the only vi (Wikispeed car), electronic circuit boards able option. The world of the commons has (Arduino), agricultural equipment (Open developed words such as the ‘Nested-I’ to Source Ecology; Farm Hack), and 3D print- suggest that individual agency is not the only ing (Fab Labs, makerspaces). Cosmo-local source of change because all individuals are production amounts to an alternative form ‘nested’ within communities that affect their of ‘globalization’ that allows greater local very identities and aspirations. Similarly, self-determination and autonomy while the idea of homo economicus and calculative reaping the benefits of distributed inno- rationality used in standard economics vation on a global scale. The dynamics of need not be controlling; we have seen how cosmo-local production are likely to expand most people welcome the opportunity to as derivative uses of blockchain technology show ‘Ubuntu Rationality’, in which their (the software breakthrough used by Bitcoin) individual well-being is wrapped up in the transform conventional forms of production well-being of others (‘Ubuntu’ roughly trans- and commerce, and social life. lates as ‘I am because we are’.) It helps to see Alternative fashion players should ex- that ‘resources’ are not just commodities de- plore the possibilities of developing their fined by their price; they often take the form own cosmo-local production federations, ‘care wealth’, which suggests that ‘objects’ are with commons-style governance and brand- cared for and partake in all sorts of social ing identities. Provisioning of garments meanings and relationships. could be local in ways relying on open source principles: modular, locally respon- 8. Emulate & Federate sible, customizable, nonproprietary, and Finally, as mentioned earlier, we should not bottom-up driven. obsess about how to make a new system ‘scale’. Scale—in the sense of a large, unified 7. Shed archaic vocabularies system that eclipses human needs—is part of and learn a commons-friendly language the problem. The more appropriate way to

77 APRIA #00 June 2019 David Bollier Re-imagining Fashion as an Ecosystem of Commons have a larger impact is to emulate and feder- Footnotes ate. As a Dutch designer has put it, “The next [1] This essay is derived from remarks made by David Bollier, big thing will be a lot of small things”. The Director of the Reinventing the life of the Internet has shown that small- Commons Project, at Schumacher er-scale projects can still have a large impact, Center for a New Economics, to the Fashion Colloquium: Searching and that voluntary federations and swarms for the New Luxury, a conference can achieve things that large, centralized held in Arnhem, Netherlands, systems (bureaucracies, corporations) canon 31 May and 1 June 2018. [2] Originally, the International not. The future will emerge from the edge. It Association for the Study won’t be imposed from the centre. of Common Property. [3] David Bollier and Laurie Racine, Ready to Share: Fashion and Conclusion the Ownership of Creativity (Los Re-imagining Fashion as Angeles, California: Norman Lear Center, 2005), at https:// an Ecosystem of Commons learcenter.org/wp-content/ Trying to imagine fashion as an ecosystem of uploads/2003/02/RTStranscript.pdf. commons may seem a bit farfetched or utopi- [4] Orsola de Castro, Fashion an. But in truth, all sorts of commons-based Revolution, presentation at the Fashion Colloquium: Searching for experiments are already underway. What the New Luxury conference, ArtEZ is missing is the mutual self-awareness that University of the Arts and State another system is possible. Missing, too, is a of Fashion, Arnhem, 31 May, 2018. [5] David Bollier and Silke richer vocabulary to collectively make sense Helfrich, Free, Fair and Alive: of what is occurring and what is possible. The Insurgent Power of the Those who aspire to develop new forms and Commons, forthcoming in spring 2019. practices of commoning need to develop David Bollier deeper relationships with each other, and David Bollier is an American reconnoitre the creative frontier of what activist, scholar, and blogger who is focused on the commons as could be done. a new paradigm for re-imagining The examples of other parts of the economics, politics, and culture. He Commonsverse (agriculture, software, cities, pursues this work as Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the currencies) show that it is possible to shift Schumacher Center for a New Economics from a world defined by market identities [www.centerforneweconomics.org] and property-defined roles to a world of re- (Massachusetts, US), and as Cofounder of the Commons Strategies lationality and social practice. Commoning Group, [www.commonsstrategies.org] is tremendously generative and value-cre- an international advocacy project. ating in humane, eco-minded ways, but its Bollier is the author of many books, including Think Like a achievements and folkways have been deni- Commoner [www.thinklikeacommoner.com] grated by the dominant market/state system (2014); Patterns of Commoning (2015) as a ‘tragedy’. That needs to change. As a [www.patternsofcommoningorg] and The Wealth of the Commons (2012), creative field that thrives by engaging with [www.wealthofthecommons.org] both contemporary culture, fashion should seize with co-editor Silke Helfrich; and the rich, possibilities of this moment. the forthcoming Free, Fair and Alive: The Insurgent Power of the Commons, co-authored with Helfrich. Bollier lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/re-imagining-fashion-as-an-ecosystem-of-commons/

78 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pascale Gatzen Take Back Fashion! Fashion Held in Common

The new curriculum of the M.A. Fashion Her needs were to care for and to contribute Design at ArtEZ is called ‘Fashion Held in to our well-being, her strategy was that of Common’. In this essay, Pascale Gatzen, head domination and control. If we didn’t comply of the programme, shares her vision on fash- with how she thought we should or should ion, language, and commoning based on her not behave, she would love us a little less. personal experiences, and she explains how From an early age on, I learned that love was this is integrated into the new curriculum. conditional. God evaluates everybody: if we are Life-Alienating Communication good, we get rewarded and we go to heaven; From an early age, most of us in Western if we are bad, we get punished and we go to countries have been educated to speak and hell. In our Western culture, the people who think in judgements. We learned to use were considered closer to God were regarded language to compare and classify people as superior to the people beneath them. They and their actions, including ourselves and dictated what was thought of as good or bad our own. Our attention became focussed on behaviour. We have superiors who have the analysing and determining levels of wrong- right to control the people beneath them ness. The use of moralistic judgements is at all levels of our society. We have parents life-alienating communication. It traps us in who think they are superior in the realm of a world of ideas about rightness and wrong- the family. In schools we have been educated ness; it is a language that dichotomizes and that our whole life was dependent on how creates separation. other people judged us. Blame, praise, criti- This is the use of language that has cism, punishment, and reward—this is how been promoted in our society and that we we have been systematically educated for have internalized; it frames the perspective thousands of years. through which we view the world, others, The use of language as a way to control and ourselves. and dominate is also the language through I remember very well that I didn’t dare which neo-liberal thinking has been able to to come home when I had a bad grade in advance its agenda. As Foucault points out, school—disappointing my mother was the with the rise of neo-liberal thought in the thing that I dreaded most. A bad grade meant West, the concept of governmentality has that I had not been studying hard enough. transformed radically: the idea that socie- Her disappointment in me was insurmount- ty should be left to regulate itself naturally able, and I was left feeling insufficient and means that the freedom of the individual unable. She would also praise me in front and the regulation of the population have of her friends when I had done very well in become subtly intertwined. Separated and school. I was praised for being in the top of divided by competition, we are challenged to my class. It made her feel accomplished as a be the entrepreneurs of our own lives. mother; it affirmed her idea of being a good mother, and it negated her fear of not being Neo-Liberal Fashion Education one. I know that my mother wanted us to Fashion education has become a tool to po- do well and the only way she knew how was sition ourselves favourably in a market that to make sure we received a good education. is emerging as increasingly homogeneous.

79 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pascale Gatzen Take Back Fashion! Growing up in social and educational sys- I didn’t have a personal life; all my time was tems of oppression, we have learned to invested in meeting intangible expectations prioritize uniformity and discipline over which I had internalized and solidified as a curiosity, playfulness, and spontaneity. real but not true reality. Modelled after industry and Spectacle What if the way we have learned to use notions of success, most fashion educations language is preventing us from creating a still prepare students to become star design- more beautiful world that our hearts know ers. Being educated alienated from their own is possible? What if our use of language is needs and true potential, students develop as structuring our thoughts in such a way that dependent and fearful human beings. Reliant we inevitably perceive the world in dualities on external affirmation, they perpetuate the and categories? What if our dualistic mind narcissistic dimension of the capitalist para- continues to create stories of separation and digm that governs our society. opposition? What if it persists in grasping Even though Fashion as appropriated by and solidifying an ever-changing reality into capitalism promotes and prides itself on the fixed concepts and ideas about ourselves, notion of the ‘new’, nothing ‘new’ can ever others, and the world? occur in a capitalist paradigm. In a capitalist paradigm, there is only one perspective; Compassionate Communication the ‘new’ is always already structured Can we imagine a consciousness, a language relative to and contingent upon one value— that is life-affirming? Can we imagine a use financial gain. of language that emerges as a process always Up until this day, I am unable to colin connection with that which is alive in laborate with my best friend and fashion ourselves and others? designer, Saskia van Drimmelen. In the late Compassionate communication is one 80s early 90s, we were both educated in the of the core practices in the ‘Fashion Held in B.A. Fashion Design programme at ArtEZ. Common’ curriculum. Compassionate com- At the time, there was only one value that munication begins by assuming that we are was truly supported and communicated: we all compassionate by nature and that we have were all competing to become the next big an intrinsic need to give and contribute to fashion designer. Whenever Saskia and I the well-being of others. It assumes that we collaborate, old habits of being in competi- all share the same, basic human needs, and tion are triggered and we have to contend that each of our actions forms a strategy to with them. meet one or more of these needs. These ba- In the 90s when I was working as a fashion sic human needs or values, such as our need designer in the Fashion System, I believed for love, connection, companionship, being that the only way to be seen and to be loved heard, and being seen are never in conflict. was when I was successful in that system. I Rather, conflict arises when strategies for did not know another reality; I didn’t rec- meeting these needs clash. We only resort ognize any other type of success. If I wasn’t to violent strategies that harm ourselves successful and didn’t find recognition within and others when we do not recognize more the system, my life had no meaning and I effective strategies for meeting our needs. would not be loved. This might sound dra- Marshall Rosenberg calls judgements tragic matic and extreme, but this was the fear that expressions of unmet needs. Under every was propelling me to alienate myself more judgement we pass lies a beautiful need that and more from my life energy and my needs. wants to be expressed.

80 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pascale Gatzen Take Back Fashion! One of the main practices of compas- Krishnamurti considers the ability to ob- sionate communication is emphatic listening. serve without evaluating the highest form By listening emphatically, we connect with of intelligence. When people first start prac- what’s alive in the other person. It’s not an ticing compassionate communication, the understanding of the head in which we only recognition of having needs often translates understand mentally what another person itself into the negative judgement of ‘being says. Empathic connection is an understand- needy’. We hold many negative judgements ing of the heart in which we see the beauty about ourselves which obscure and block our in the other person and the life that’s alive in capacity for self-empathy and, consequently, them. Empathy involves emptying the mind empathy for others. and listening with our whole being. When we listen to ourselves and to others with our Fashion Held in Common whole being, we focus on listening for the At ‘Fashion Held in Common’, we seek to underlying feelings, needs, and requests. support participants in creating their prac- Once we understand and connect to the tices from what is alive in them, instead of underlying needs in ourselves and in others, having them answer to internalized and we can create strategies for meeting these external expectations. In the first semes- needs in ways that create connection, joy, ter, self-connection and an understanding and well-being for everyone. If we intend of the values and needs that are very much to hold everyone’s needs equally, we will alive in them connects them to their au- discover life-affirming strategies to meet thentic and vital life energy. Once we learn them. Harmony and learning for future co- to practice from what is alive in us, we can operation is developed when people identify also more easily connect to what is alive shared needs and collaborate to form effec- in others. Most of our basic human needs— tive strategies to meet them. such as love, connection, community, and The process of compassionate com- friendship—are relational. We support par- munication is a creative process. Once we ticipants in organizing their practice in such become more familiar with the conscious- a way that it makes life more wonderful, ness of compassionate communication, we both for them and the people they choose discover that there are a thousand strategies to work and connect with. To hold some- for meeting each one of our needs. In an- thing or each other in common means that swering the question ‘How can we make life we are in a relationship of mutuality and more wonderful?’, we develop an inspired interdependence, no longer in a relationship and generative approach towards all aspects of domination and control. Silvia Federici of our life. points out that no common is possible Although the principles of compas- unless we refuse to base our life, our repro- sionate communication seem simple and duction on the suffering of others, unless logical, the practice of compassionate com- we refuse to see ourselves as separate from munication is counterhabitual. Our minds them. Indeed, if ‘commoning’ has any mean- are wired to categorize and pass judgement. ing, it must be the production of ourselves It takes substantial and repeated practice to as a common subject. Marshal Rosenberg come to clear, specific, and measurable ob- underlines that our survival as a species servations about what is happening and to depends on our ability to recognize that our connect to the feelings and beautiful needs well-being and the well-being of others are, that are alive in ourselves and in others. in fact, one and the same.

81 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pascale Gatzen Take Back Fashion! Practicing from a framework of shared with each other; more for me means less for human needs and values helps us to move you. Can we transition to a new story, a story beyond a world in which the only reality is of interconnectedness in which more for me the logic of the market—a world in which means more for you? A story in which we our activities are always being valued as be- see the beauty in the other person and the ing economic or uneconomic and in which life that’s alive in them. When people can our strategies need to meet market and or see each other’s needs, we see our oneness; Spectacle notions of success. When we fo- we then understand that we get more joy cus on needs, our creativity flourishes and contributing to each other’s well-being than solutions arise that were previously blocked trying to dominate or compete. Every time from our awareness. Underlying all human we act from the new story we disrupt the actions are needs that people are seeking psychic substructure of the old story and we to meet. Understanding and connecting to offer an alternative. these needs creates a common ground for connection, cooperation, and more harmo- ‘I want to make, move, learn, teach, exchange, nious relationships on both a personal and I want to dance and feel light, I want to global level. share this feeling. I want to fall in love with the world again.’ – Alya Hessy, 2018, ‘Never walk when you can dance’ participant in the M.A. Fashion Design, – Marshall Rosenberg ‘Fashion Held in Common’ at ArtEZ That which is alive in us—our feelings and our needs—is in constant flux. Compassion- ate communication doesn’t assume a past or a future; it expresses and connects us to what is alive in us, right here and right now. Com- passionate communication is an embodied practice, it is a language of life, a language that emerges from listening with our whole being. When we are intimately connected to what is alive in us and others, perspectives of rightness and wrongness, goodness and badness, that have kept us hostage for such a long time slowly dissolve in favour of a language and a consciousness that assists us in connecting to a life filled with creativity, connection, and joy—a life in which our natural giving thrives and contributes to the Bibliography well-being of others and ourselves. Just like Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. University of Chicago Press, 1998. me, every person has a unique gift to give to Dass, Ram. “Just Like Me Meditation.” the world and just like me they will not feel 2014, https://www.ramdass.org/ happy and fulfilled unless they are giving wp-content/uploads/2014/.../ Just-Like-Me-Meditation.docx their gift. Debord, Guy. Society of the We still live in a myth of separation, a Spectacle. Rebel Press, 2005. myth in which everybody is in it for them- Eisenstein, Charles. The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. selves and where we are always competing North Atlantic Books, 2013.

82 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pascale Gatzen Take Back Fashion!

Federici, Sylvia. Revolution at Point Pascale Gatzen Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Prof. Pascale Gatzen is the head of the Feminist Struggle. PM Press, 2012. Fashion Design Master’s programme at Foucault, Michel. The Birth of ArtEZ and also an artist, educator and Biopolitics: Lectures at the fashion designer based in New York and Collège de France, 1978–1979. Arnhem, The Netherlands. Within her art Translated by Graham Burchel, and design practice, Gatzen produces and Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. facilitates large collaborative projects Krishnamurti, Jiddu. The Book of using clothing as her main medium. Life. HarperCollins, 1995. Embracing fashion as a mode of human Rosbenberg, Marshall. Nonviolent togetherness, the focus of both her Communication: A Language of artistic practice and her teaching is on Life. PuddleDancer Press, 2003. the relational and empowering aspects of fashion, advancing cooperative models of production and exchange. As an Associate Professor at Parsons of Design in New York she developed and implemented an alternative fashion curriculum with an emphasis on community, self- expression and love. She is a founding member of ‘friends of light’ a worker cooperative for textile production in the Hudson Valley, New York. She is the new Head of the MA Fashion Design program, at ArtEZ, University of the Arts, Arnhem, The Netherlands where she is creating and implementing a radically new curriculum named Fashion held in Common. Her work has been shown and published internationally.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/take-back-fashion/

83 APRIA #00 June 2019 Alison Welsh Fashioning Tradition: The Tai Lue Project

Fig.1 — Ban Sala (village), fabric Fig.2 — Ban Sala (village), fabric design. design. Alison Welsh, garment Jasper Chadprajong-Smith, garment design. Buachan Barikut, garment design and construction. Ban Sala Indigo construction. Ban Sala Indigo Dress, Jacket, 2017. Photograph, image courtesy 2017. Photograph, image courtesy of Korn Creative Agency Co. Ltd. of Korn Creative Agency Co. Ltd.

As part of the British Council’s Crafting to produce. These designs have passed from Futures programme, the Tai Lue Project is one generation to the next; they have not working with women weavers at a micro been written down or recorded, and are level in craft villages in Northern Thailand regarded as family heirlooms. The previous [1]. Fig.1–2 generation of weavers would have dyed the Fashion designers Alison Welsh and yarns using local vegetable dyes, but the use Jasper Chadprajong-Smith are working of natural dyes has been gradually declining. hand-in-hand with Tai Lue weavers from This project is exploring a return to the use the Silalang community in Nan province, a of natural dyes to support sustainable and mountainous agricultural region of north- eco-friendly garment production. Fig.6–7 east Thailand. Together they are developing Before the start of the project, the new garments using traditional hand-woven weavers identified their practical needs, cotton textiles. The project aims to explore which were to produce new product designs methods of equipping local artisans with and to understand “how to choose colour to knowledge in design thinking and the abil- beautifully create products”. These needs ity to integrate their cultural identity into were identified in an initial Research Frame- their cloth in an authentic and thoughtful work Report,[2] which, combined with the way. Fig.3–5 British Council’s terms of reference, under- The communities still create hand- pins this work. Fig.8–11 loomed cotton fabrics and the designs can Methods of co-creation are being tested be very sophisticated and time consuming through practice-based design initiatives.

84 APRIA #00 June 2019 Alison Welsh Fashioning Tradition:

Fig.6 — Weaving loom. Made from Fig.3 — Ban Donchai (village), 2017. locally grown wood, 2017. Photograph, Alison Welsh. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

Fig.7 — Ban Sala (village). Natural Fig.4 — Ban Hea (village). Yarns Dye Yarns and Fabrics, 2017. drying naturally outside, 2018. Photograph, Alison Welsh. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

Fig.5 — Wat Phumin Temple, Nan. Wall Fig.8 — Ban Hea (village). Annato seed mural (detail), Nineteenth Century. pods harvested for use in dying, Photograph, Alison Welsh. 2017. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

85 APRIA #00 June 2019 Alison Welsh Fashioning Tradition:

Fig.9 — Ban Hea (village). Naturally coloured and naturally dyed cotton yarns, 2017. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

Fig.12 — Ban Donchai (village), fabric design and garment construction. Alison Welsh, garment design. Ban Don Chai Pha Lab dress, 2017. Photograph, image courtesy of Korn Creative Agency Co. Ltd.

Fig.10 — Ban Donchai (village). Hand- carved shuttle, family heirloom, 2018. Photograph, Alison Welsh

Fig.13 — Ban Hea (village), fabric design. Jasper Chadprajong-Smith, garment design and construction. Ban Hea Fig.11 — Ban Donchai (village). shirt, 2017. Photograph, image courtesy Weft brush, family heirloom, 2018. of Korn Creative Agency Co. Ltd. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

86 APRIA #00 June 2019 Alison Welsh Fashioning Tradition:

Fig.14 — Ban Sala (village), fabric design. Julie Williams, first phase of construction. Alison Welsh, garment design. Ban Sala Ikat Dress, Phase 1, 2017. Photograph, image courtesy of Korn Creative Agency Co. Ltd.

Hybrid garments are created with mutual re- Fig.15 — Ban Sala (village) and Ban spect for each other’s skills. The relationship Donchai (village), fabric design. is normally an equal balance of fabric design/ Alison Welsh, second phase of making and garment design/pattern cutting, garment design and construction. Ban Sala Ikat Dress, Phase 2, 2018. with an overlap of shared responsibilities in Photograph, Nathan Cutler. the middle. Fig.12–13 The creative process can be likened to co-creation method creates a hybrid garment a game of consequences, where the responsi- designed by a number of people. Fig. 14–15 bility for creative decision making is passed The weavers became active co-research- from one person to another. Once a fabric ers through multiple meetings, trying-on has been designed, the fashion designer and sessions, and long discussions focusing on the textile weaver will run through new their needs and ambitions over three inten- possibilities for the weave together—a new sive field trips. Central to the development weight, a change in colour, or a change of of shared learning were workshops that fo- scale might be discussed. Then a garment de- cused on natural dyeing and pattern cutting, sign is created in response to the new fabric weaving and colour. Fig.16–18 design. The next step is for one of the team An interim outcome of the project was to make up the garment, then after discus- a collection of 20 fashion garments that sion and feedback in a trying-on session, the celebrate the intricacies of Tai Lue weaving. garment will be re-worked by the fashion However, it is not the garments themselves designer. In turn, it will be taken back to the that are the outcome here but the knowl- village for more analysis, alterations, and edge and cross-cultural understanding that possibly embellishment. This ‘consequences’ have taken place throughout this journey.

87 APRIA #00 June 2019 Alison Welsh Fashioning Tradition:

Fig.17 — Ban Sala (village). A dye workshop with the weavers, yarn being dyed using mango leaves from their gardens and local mud as a mordant. Fig.16 — Ban Donchai (village). 2017. Photograph, Alison Welsh. A trying-on and feedback session, 2018. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

Fig.18 — Ban Sala (village), fabric design. Alison Welsh, garment design. Ban Sala Bell Sleeve Dress, 2017. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

88 APRIA #00 June 2019 Alison Welsh Fashioning Tradition:

Fig.20 — ArtEZ University, Arnhem. The finished garments at the Searching Fig.19 — Ban Donchai (village). for a New Luxury conference, 2018. Exhibition at the Community Centre, Photograph, Alison Welsh. 2018. Photograph, Alison Welsh.

The joint aims of this project are equipping Footnotes artisans with design thinking and the inte- [1] https://design.britishcouncil. org/projects/crafting-futures/. gration of their cultural identity into new [2] This information is based on the products, and a significant technical and outcomes within Part 3 of a report conceptual design exchange between the prepared for the project by Chain Mai University, The Research participants has taken place. The learning Framework of Tai Lue Textile from has benefitted all parties, and these new col- Silalang, in section ‘The Needs laborative methods are drawing attention to of Weaver and Textile Crafting Business Entrepreneurs Concerning the community’s traditional fabrics, helping Product Development’. them to find their place in the new realms of luxury fashion. Fig.19–20 Alison Welsh Alison Welsh is Head of Fashion Acknowledgments Research at Manchester Metropolitan This collaborative research would University and is based within the not have been possible without the Manchester Fashion Institute. valued contributions of the Tai Lue Welsh is a fashion designer and weavers and entrepreneurs at Ban educator with four years of departmental Hea, Ban Sala, and Ban Donchai in Nan leadership experience. She works with Province, Thailand. Thanks are due to communities and museums, advocating the Tai Lue Project team, particularly fashion and textiles as instruments for Jasper Chadprajong-Smith, technical social change. Her research focuses on staff from the Manchester Fashion developing models of sustainable craft Institute, Sasiwimon Wongjarin and and design collaboration, to stimulate Patcharawee Tunprawat from the British regeneration of rural craft practices Council, and Professor Stephen Dixon and their dependent communities through at Manchester Metropolitan University, design initiatives with commercial who have all supported this research. outcomes. She has been collaborating with craftsmen and women in Gujarat, India for approximately 10 years. She is currently participating in a project run by the British Council, Focusing on Design Thinking and Cultural Identities.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/fashioning-tradition/

89 APRIA #00 June 2019 Louise Fresco Crossovers Food & Fashion and the Impact of Science

This text is based on Louise Fresco’s con- sustainability is never an easy 100%. It is tribution to a panel discussion led by always a trade-off between different types Farid Tabarki on 31 May 2018, the first of goals. If you say we don’t want to have day of the Fashion Colloquium. Other cotton grown on fields any more, we only contributors to the panel were keynote want recycled cotton. Let’s assume that that speakers David Bollier, Oskar Metsavaht, is possible. That sounds good from an en- and Pascale Gatzen. vironmental perspective. But we take away a livelihood from a small farmer in India, FT: Louise, you bring to this debate two which also has a negative social cost. angles: science and food. How can science Remember the famous dimensions: and research be helpful in developing our people, profit, planet. It’s very important to systems? And what can we learn from the understand that there is hardly ever some- perspective of the system of food? thing like an absolute form of sustainability. LF: Basically, food and clothing have on the But there is an issue of effects locally, or deepest level many things in common. Both at a longer distance, or effects now, or in are biological products—this is products the future. from nature. Both are the most intimate We should do life-cycle analyses. If we avenues in the way we communicate with want to go for alternatives, let’s really go and nature. In the case of food, even more so; calculate what we want do. Using and reusing we digest it. Both are produced from nat- fibres is an excellent idea. But we should ural fibres or natural chemicals through also ask, how much water does it ask—how an ecological process. We as humans use much energy—is involved when we clean knowledge, science, to get the best possible up things. What kinds of dyes are we using? products. We want food that does not go to For Wageningen University, it is interesting waste immediately, that has the best content to look at food waste as a source for fibres. of vitamins, etc. We want fibres that don’t Food waste in Europe represents 60% of use themselves up within a few days. Even Europe’s CO₂ emissions. the most artificial fibres that come from the petrochemical industries are still fossil, natu- FT: What does it mean for designers? How ral fibres. So everything you wear is natural. can they act more responsible to this life There are some lessons to be learned cycle notion? for fashion from food. Both are very emo- LF: One of the problems we have is that we tional. Food and fashion are identity. Tell try to optimize little fragments of the whole me what you eat or wear, and I will tell you production chain. What we really need is who you are. It is difficult to talk about them to look at the whole cycle. That starts be- in general. Your taste may not be mine, but fore productions. What kind of inputs do there are some basic principles that are im- you need? And how does this go all the way portant. The devil is in the details. It is the down to the consumer? Technology will details of how we produce that determine if help us with this. We have now sensors something is sustainable or not. In my view, and ways to weave in materials that help

90 APRIA #00 June 2019 Louise Fresco Crossovers to trace from the source all the way to the probably proves true even stronger for food consumer. That he/she has the security, that than for fashion. We have a strong need to what he/she buys has this authenticity. That want to have things. That is such a funda- will give a far greater comfort to consum- mental driver. It is very hard for people to ers. This applies to food and fashion and stop. There are experiments that show that textiles, but also to the wood of our floor in people do not stop eating if you feed them your house. This is about a paradigm shift. in a particular way. Although we know in We go from a linear economy to a circular the brain that our saturation point has been economy. Everything is a (re)source for new reached, we will not stop. That’s because the production. That’s what ecology is all about. drive to feed or cloth or protect ourselves is very strong. It is very difficult for people to FT: Do you agree with that we lost that change that. We have to move to a culture feeling of being part of a community? and economy that has this quality of ‘I have LF: I think everybody wants to and must enough’. Good habits in terms of sustaina- belong or connect to a community. One noble behaviour, of caring for each other, and tion of caution here. It is easy to say it all has human connectedness come at an early age to be human transactions, face to face, locally in childhood. That’s what we are lacking. In sourced. The reality is that two thirds of order to get us into a different type of driver the world population lives in urban centres. (not the more I have), we also have to look We have already 35 cities of more than 10 at the generations that go now to the cheap million inhabitants. There are many parts fast fashion places and throw clothes away where this connectedness and poverty is a after two or three months when they are not real issue. Very often the urban poor have no in fashion any more. The whole concept of choice or chance not to pollute or buy things what is in fashion is very sensitive. That also that are cheaply and poorly made. I would applies to food. Food also has fashions. We look to a solution to finding a local scale but should discuss that. That awareness about also a value chain that gives the best possi- changing our relation to our natural world ble sustainable values to those who are not and what we take from it—that is a real chal- able to go for the real fashion. I think it’s the lenge. It does not come easy. That’s why I responsibility of the industry to make sure still think we need solutions. If we have to that through designing and the invention wait for a world population of 10 billion to and reinvention of the value chain, we also become a world society of having enough, reach those who are hard to reach. Poverty we will have to wait a long time. is a very strong factor in our societies. We should take responsibility for that. FT: How can science and education have an impact in developing this narrative? FT: A critical notion on circular economy is LF: The main task of education and science that it does not change our mind-set because in developing this narrative has two basic it is still about consuming. The idea that dimensions. The cultural one, which is a consuming and even consuming more is matter of sensitizing people, of creating fine but because we do it in a circular way awareness, of organizing alternative mar- it is fine. Can you respond to that? kets or supply chains, etc. The other one is LF: If we wait for a paradigm shift or a understanding very well how the capitalist cultural change, in the meantime we bet- system works. Otherwise, you would be very ter produce in the best possible way. This naïve. That has to be part of your education.

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The matter is in the details again. I would Louise Fresco look for students who are able to analyse the Professor Louise O. Fresco has been appointed as President of the Executive different ways of producing things, and of Board of Wageningen University & how satisfaction comes about. There is good Research with effect from 1 July research that shows that when people do 2014. From 2006 to July 1, 2014 she was University Professor at the University something that is perceived as a good, objec- of Amsterdam (UvA) specialized in the tive, altruistic deed, the same type of neural foundations of sustainable development systems in the brain that are activated as, for in an international context. Since 2000, she has served as Assistant example, by eating organic food. So under- Director-General of the UN Food and standing the neurological basis of satisfaction Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. would be important, but also understanding the chemistry of how fibres can be used and reused and what design does. There is satisfaction in having things that last and play a role in your own life and in learning how to attach positive images to the objects that we have. But in our field, you must also have a real quantitative understanding of what the differences are between, for example, wearing organic or recycled cotton, between eating an organic or an ordinary apple. Liter- ature and art are beautiful, but you also have to learn how to calculate.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/crossovers/

92 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability

When I initially became engaged in sustain- Aesthetic Nourishment ability research, I was quickly captivated by In sustainability debates, the three R’s the aspects of sustainability connected to (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) are often human behaviour—particularly our lack of underlined as a sustainable rule of thumb. connection to the majority of the items we However, in my approach to sustainability, surround ourselves with, and our tendency I mainly emphasize the importance of re- to discard them without further thought. ducing. This is not done to underestimate Furthermore, I was fascinated by the fact that, the value or importance of the other two contrariwise, some objects are important to R’s. But no matter how good we are at re- us—we find pleasure in using them, we take cycling waste materials into new materials care of them, and we even mend them. It and objects, it still requires large amounts seems that there is a difference between sig- of natural resources to do so. And no matter nificant and insignificant objects. Therefore, how efficiently we reuse discarded objects by I outlined this initial research question: implementing take-back systems, it doesn’t eliminate the fact that there are too many Why do we dispose of some things before unwanted things in the world. I recently their use has expired, while others are kept had a concrete experience of this when, af- and repaired time and time again, despite ter cleaning out my wardrobe, I went to a their wear and tear? second-hand shop in Copenhagen that focuses on supporting low-income families. My hypothesis is that the answer to this I brought a large bag of used clothes that I question is connected to aesthetics. Lon- wanted to donate. The women that run the gevity is more than wear resistance. Unless shop were thankful but were also sorry to the objects that we use, and wear, meet our tell me that they receive far too many dis- aesthetic needs, we are disinclined to keep carded clothes, and that they simply aren’t and sustain them. Unless our furniture and able to sort through and re-sell them all. garments contain aesthetic longevity, we Their back room was overflowing with dis- tend to replace them. Hence, in order for carded garments—discarded garments that, an object to be truly sustainable, it must be mind you, were still usable and wearable but attractive enough for users to want to keep that were nevertheless unwanted by their repairing and reusing it, and it must meet previous owners because they somehow the human need for aesthetic nourishment. didn’t ‘work’ for them anymore. They were Consequently, the most sustainable object is ‘wrong’ in some way or the other. Like the an aesthetically sustainable object. An object garments in my bag, they were unimportant that nourishes our senses and is made to be and obsolete since they didn’t provide their used. An object that gets better or more at- owners with aesthetic nourishment. tractive when worn and used. An object that Aesthetic nourishment is related to the decays in an aesthetic way. experience of beauty. When we feel aes- In the following sections, I will out- thetically nourished, we are stimulated by line various aspects of my theory, as well as beauty in the context of new or familiar sur- the aesthetic strategy that I have developed roundings or objects. Aesthetic experiences in Aesthetic Sustainability, Product Design and are ‘stored up’ in our bodies and minds and Sustainable Usage. can hence be described as nourishing. They

93 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability ‘build’ us up, and they linger. Designers can help rouse their recipients’ senses and minds and nourish them aesthetically by creating products that are sensorially stimulating and durable—they have the potential of being experienced, continually, as thought provoking, beautiful, challenging, or comfortable. Aesthetically sustainable products are precisely characterized by offering the recipient aesthetic nourishment time and time again. The nourishing and durable aesthetic experience of an artefact is both visual and tactile. The Greek word aisthetikos, the origin of ‘aesthetics’, means sensation. This meaning is rarely conveyed by the word ‘aesthetics’ today, as it is typically used to connote a visual aesthetic experience. But Fig.1 — Susanne Guldager, Process photo, 2018 an aesthetic experience is a sensorial experience, which isn’t solely visually appealing (or existence, and the time of being. In my usage beautiful or picturesque); it is also tactile. I of Ørskov’s concepts of time Harper Chapter 4, use the term ‘texturesque’ as a counterpart to they can be applied as guiding principles in picturesque in order to point to something relation to the design process. The design- beyond the picturesque or visual qualities er can charge an object with time, and thus of an aesthetic experience. The texturesque seek to create a durable connection between design experience is characterized by tactile subject and object. Briefly put, Ørskov’s stimulation that nourishes and cultivates the three concepts of time can be defined like recipient’s sense of touch. this: The time of becoming is the process A thorough design process is a corner- time, which can manifest as visible or tactile stone when creating long-lasting objects traces in the object; the time of existence is that may enrich the user’s everyday life aes- related to the way an object decays or ‘deals’ thetically. Slowness, so to speak, passes both with wear and tear. If designed to ‘embrace’ forwards and backwards. Artefacts that have usage, an object gets better, or more aestheti- been infused with time and careful consid- cally pleasing, as the time of existence passes erations—and that have been marked by the by. The time of being is the most abstract of hands that literally or metaphorically shaped the three concepts of time; it is, so to speak, them—invite users to give them a long life. the time it takes the recipient or user to be The aesthetically sustainable object is an with an object in order to detect or compre- object that has been created to be used and hend it. The time of being can either be of appreciated day after day. It is a crafty and long or short duration. Conditioned by how visionary thing. complex the object is, a kind of ‘inflection’ Danish philosopher and sculptor takes place. Hence, the time of being is asso- Willy Ørskov (1920–1990) deals with three ciated with the interplay between a subject concepts of time that are highly relevant and an object that the process of detection in regard to exploring aesthetic sustaina- demands; the focus is the aesthetic expe- bility: the time of becoming, the time of rience itself. Prolonging the time of being

94 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability The symbolic side of an object—meaning the connotations that an object might trigger—is, to Ørskov, only a secondary quality, whereas the primary quality concerns the purely physical and spatial existence or presence of an object. As such, it is by ‘being-present- with’ an object that the world becomes available to the subject in a new way, rather than by interpreting its symbolic value.

Aesthetic Strategy

The experience of beauty cannot be as subjective as it first appears to the person affected by it. If the productive effort to create beauty is to have any meaning at all, Fig.2 — Susanne Guldager, then it must be supposed that our experienc- Canvas Dress #2, 2018 es of beauty are, at least to a certain extent, betrays a potential for establishing a durable shared. […] The artist, the designer, the or sustainable bond between subject and architect will want to know what he or she object, since this temporal extension, and has to do to ensure that a public will expe- the break it introduces, ‘forces’ the subject to rience his or her objects or arrangements as experience a sense of presence. The intense beautiful. And to say what the artist has to experience, following the experience of a do would be the task of aesthetics. Böhme 23 prolonged time of being, tends to linger. Ørskov’s phenomenological point of According to the German philosopher view means that he considers physical ob- Gernot Böhme (b. 1937), different experi- jects, and what shows itself to consciousness ences of beauty are similar in kind, despite (phenomena), as the most crucial path to their apparently subjective nature, and are, insight. The body and the senses, in other therefore, characterized by a certain univer- words, constitute the most vital point of sality or by being common to all (or most) entry for human beings to navigate and unhuman beings. This is probably why we derstand the world. And the object (which enjoy reading fiction about the experience for Ørskov concerns the sculpture primarily, of unity in the world, or why we get caught but which in my interpretation and usage of up in film sequences about other people’s the terms can also encompass the ‘design- sensuous experiences of beauty. If there were object’ more broadly conceived) is a source no similarities between different human for understanding more about life and the beings’ experiences of beauty, it would not world—through the body and by way of the make sense that we feel a certain satisfaction senses, rather than through cognition or characterized by the joy of recognition or reflection. The aesthetic experience based understanding, compassion and identifica- on phenomenological insight is neither intel- tion, when exposed to a description of other lectual nor founded on thought in any way; people’s enlightening, beautiful, or harmoni- instead, it is corporeal and sensuous. ous aesthetic experiences. It is precisely this

95 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability point—that the aesthetic experience is char- beauty was identical to order; as a result, it acterized by being universal, and that it thus was linked not only to the human experience (largely) defies cultural and zeitgeist-based of the world but rather to something abso- differences—that forms the basis of my lute, something unchangeable and universal. definition of aesthetic sustainability. Fur- Beauty was seen as the sum of the world’s thermore, this universality is fundamental to harmonious, symmetrical, proportional the aesthetic strategy that I outline below. forms Jørgensen 29. In Aesthetic Sustainability, Product Design In the Platonic dialogue Hippias and Sustainable Usage, I explore the aesthetic Major (c. 390 BC), Socrates and Hippias are experience and the fundamental division searching for a definition of beauty, and as between the beautiful and the sublime, part of this search, they try to determine which constitutes the basis for the aesthetic whether a spoon made from gold is more strategy that I have developed in the book. beautiful than one made from fig-wood The aesthetic strategy is meant as a tool for Plato 908. Socrates feigns uncertainty. Of the designer to be used in the design process course, a golden spoon is finer (and thus in order to create long-lived, aesthetically more attractive) than its wooden counterpart, nourishing products. The historical divi- but it is harder to handle when eating soup. sion between the beautiful and the sublime In the final analysis, the wooden spoon is indicates that an aesthetic experience is not more beautiful since it is better at being what necessarily linked only to beauty but can also it is (that is, a spoon)—it is more functional, be induced by something unpleasant, unbal- useful. For Plato, beauty is linked to the good. anced, distorted, or even the hideous, yet still In this way, for an object to be considered aesthetically fulfilling. This counterpoint to beautiful and, hence, durable, the material the beautiful aesthetic experience is defined must, fundamentally, follow form. by the sublime. The difference between In eighteenth-century aesthetic and the beautiful and the sublime concerns the philosophical treatises, the idea of the sub- difference between order and chaos, sym- lime comes prominently to the fore. The metry and asymmetry, predictability and sublime is generally considered as a coun- unpredictability, demarcation and bound- terpoint to classic beauty, and thereby as lessness, shape and shapelessness, proportion something formless, chaotic, horrific, and and irregularity, and between the comfort alien. The sublime is the antithesis to that providing the aesthetic experience and the which is proportioned, symmetrical, and special kind of aesthetic experience that graceful. The first to name the difference challenges us or breaks our comfort zone. between beautiful and sublime aesthetic Hence, the sublime aesthetic experience experiences is British critic Joseph Addison pulls us away from familiarity and the well- (1672–1719). However, in Poetics (c. 335 BC), known and forces us to be present. Aristotle had already called attention to the The connection between the beautiful multifaceted nature of aesthetic experiences. and shape, or proportion and balance, is Using the concept of catharsis, he discusses rooted in ancient times. Aristotle (384–322 the nature of aesthetics, touching upon the BC) describes in his Metaphysics how the curious phenomenon of how human beings Pythagoreans (from the sixth century BC) are drawn to moments of emotional release— viewed the world’s manifestations as math- such as bawling at a sentimental theatre play ematically structured and determined by (or movie)—and how they even find comfort numeric relations. To the Pythagoreans, in doing so Aristotle.

96 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability An example of one of the eight- the user is immediately (and time and time eenth-century’s pioneering treatises on the again) challenged and forced to consider its division between the beautiful and the sub- provenance in relation to the surrounding lime is A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin world? Perhaps the pleasure of sustainable of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful from objects lies in their ability to disrupt the 1757, in which British philosopher Edmund user’s comfort zone since colour schemes Burke (1729–1797) connects the sublime to bleed and asymmetrical shapes confront our vast, redoubtable (nature-)experiences. Burke powers of perception and conception when suggests that the classical ideal of beauty—as combined with the use of unexpected ma- pursued by neoclassical artists, who (refer- terials. Understood in this way, sustainable encing the Hellenistic worldview) adhered to artefacts possess a multifunctional dimen- symmetry, harmony, and order—no longer sion, in either a practical or aesthetic sense, includes all facets of the beautiful, and he that enhances their aesthetic flexibility. This uses the concept of the sublime to connote perspective is related to the sublime aesthetic everything that evokes aesthetic pleasure, experience. but which falls outside the sphere of classi- It is important to note that neither cal beauty. approach cancels out the other. The point When I started developing the theory is rather that each form a different overall of aesthetic sustainability and the aesthetic strategy for analysing and working with aes- strategy, my initial assumption was that the thetic sustainability. I usually view them as most durable expression is easy to decode the yin-yang of sustainable aesthetics. I have and appears balanced and in proportion to named the first approach ‘the Pleasure of the its message. This kind of expression contains Familiar’ and the second as ‘the Pleasure of a certain degree of ‘neutrality’ and mini- the Unfamiliar’. malism. ‘Neutrality’ here is understood as Regarding the universality of the aes- referring to harmonious objects that may thetic experience (that I touched upon in the appear in many different contexts and appeal beginning of this section, and on which I to a broad range of tastes; they comprise a elaborate thoroughly on in Aesthetic Sustain- kind of expressive or common universality. ability, Product Design and Sustainable Usage), I Furthermore, that aesthetic sustainability is draw, among others, on the perception theo- joined to expressions producing a form of ry by German philosopher and psychologist pleasure that is founded on the expectation of perception Rudolf Arnheim (1904–2007). that basic rules regarding symmetry, harmo- Arnheim considers a natural function of nious colour schemes, and design materials sight to actively select and categorize: for are maintained. This angle on durability is example, oval shapes are spontaneously and linked to the beautiful aesthetic experience. immediately categorized as variations on Inspired by the division between the beau- circles. In the effort to order and understand tiful and the sublime aesthetic experience, I our surroundings, the human sense organs was—and still am—also fascinated by an op- will naturally seek out forms that are easy to posite, yet related, question: can a sustainable recognize and label. In Art and Visual Percep- expression be so complex and challenging tion, Arnheim lays out a number of concrete that it demands a sustained interest in ex- principles for spontaneous universal human ploring it (for an extended period of time)? visual experiences. For example, it may be Is the most aesthetically sustainable object that “an unbalanced composition looks ac- a thing of such elevated complexity that cidental, transitory, and therefore invalid”

97 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability

Arnheim 20, and consequently, designers seeking object lingers, so to speak, for a while after- to satisfy the spontaneous universal human wards, and it can be difficult to forget the pleasure derived from balanced expressions experience. should work toward creating well-balanced The aesthetic strategy is structured pieces. The human senses search for balance around four conceptual pairs that constitute and harmony and will thus be ‘repelled’ or each other’s opposite, meaning that they confused by unbalanced pieces. either provide the receiver with the Pleasure As a designer, it is of course possible to of the Familiar or the Pleasure of the challenge the universal and instantaneous Unfamiliar. The four pairs are the following: drive to juxtapose and categorize sense —— instant payoff versus impressions in order to understand them. instant presence However, since the human gaze is constantly —— comfort booster versus looking to structure and order its surround- breaking the comfort zone ings, by accommodating this drive artefacts —— pattern booster versus can create a high degree of immediate sat- pattern breaker isfaction or instant pay-off. This immediate —— blending in versus standing out kind of satisfaction is connected to the Designers wanting to give the recipient Pleasure of the Familiar and to the beautiful an aesthetic experience in line with either aesthetic experience. Contrarily, challenging instant payoff or instant presence should pri- the human need to categorize and recognize marily seek to appeal to the recipient’s senses is linked to the Pleasure of the Unfamiliar. and bodily presence; these categories are, in The beautiful and the Pleasure of the other words, based on phenomenological Familiar involve an experience of impecca- detection. If the emphasis is on either boost- bility, harmony, symmetry, and limitation, as ing or breaking the recipient’s comfort zone, well as an experience of being able to easily designers should focus on working symbolic comprehend or decode and apprehend a giv- value into the product, and, hence, semiotic en object. By contrast, the sublime and the decoding. The same goes for the two other Pleasure of the Unfamiliar demand, antithet- conceptual pairs. Working with pattern ically, the dissolution of forms, harmonies, boosting or pattern breaking is related to the and symmetries; this side of the aesthetic sensuous aesthetic experience, whereas the spectrum can be accessed through objects categories blending in and standing out are or concepts that are difficult to apprehend more closely associated with either meeting and decode, or not easily ‘taken in’. The or challenging the recipient’s basic cultural Pleasure of the Unfamiliar is character- and societal assumptions and the identity ized by an almost magnetic and corporeal providing qualities of design-objects. or sensuous kind of attraction (the fingers In the following section, I elaborate on one just have to touch, investigate, and prod), as of the four conceptual pairs, namely instant well as a bodily and psychological taking-a- payoff versus instant presence, in order to step-back-from to recover control through a exemplify the way the strategy is built up. moment’s reflection and a processing of one’s sense impressions. Herein lies the strength Instant Payoff versus Instant Presence of this form of aesthetic pleasure: the fact Seeking to provide the recipient of a design- that what overwhelms or disgusts us is that object with an experience of either instant much harder to ‘shake off’. The feeling of payoff or instant presence implies that the being in a room with a challenging (design-) recipient is either able to instantly detect and

98 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability use the design-object, or that she is being payoff experience can be triggered by imbu- challenged due to the materials, shapes, and ing a product with an immanent or obvious colors used, hence making her suddenly feel way of using it, thus rendering it transpar- very present or torn from her daily ‘hypnot- ent. This would imply that the product itself, ic’ activities. The category of instant payoff/ without the use of supplementary words in presence is especially useful in the creation the form of hang tags or other such text, can of physical objects, as opposed to intangible ‘explain’ to the recipient how to use it. As design-concepts or experience-design, since part of the instant payoff experience, the the focus is on sensuous experiences. In the aesthetic quality of an object must be easy instant payoff/presence category, the recip- to detect as well as how to use the object ient’s sensuous handling of the object is the immediately. This aesthetic category should, centre of attention. The focal point of this therefore, lead to creating unobtrusive and category is the phenomenological experience accessible objects of harmonious expression. of the object itself, rather than the connota- The aesthetic experience of instant tions triggered by the object. payoff is straightforward and character- No matter which type of aesthetic ex- ized by an instant connection between the perience one aims to provide the recipient object and the recipient, and, hence, the with—or in what way one strives to nour- Pleasure of the Familiar. The recipient gets ish the recipient aesthetically—thorough what she expects, or maybe an even more knowledge of the target audience is essential. ‘tailored’ product experience than she could In relation to instant payoff/presence, it is ever imagine. particularly important to obtain knowledge The aesthetically sustainable about the recipient’s bodily or sensual basic object juggles both familiarity (the resem- assumptions. For example, what does the blance of something the recipient is already recipient expect when introduced to a winter familiar with and, as such, has seen or coat? Are there certain materials she specif- touched before) and rejuvenating variation. ically associates with outerwear? Are there The rejuvenating or regenerative element certain colours, colour combinations, or pat- can, in relation to instant payoff, be relatively terns that are generally linked to the product understated and can involve, for example, the category in question? Only by knowing what use of materials that can easily adapt to the the recipient expects is it possible either to shape of the object, thus fitting the idiom per- meet or to challenge those expectations, and fectly but at the same time differing slightly thus to either provide the recipient with a from materials that would usually be used in sense-based Pleasure of the Familiar or with similar objects. Maybe they work even better. the opposite. Or maybe they are more sustainable. Incor- porating an instant payoff strategy into the Instant Payoff: Accommodating design process can advantageously include a Tactile Expectations study of how much renewal an object, such as Designers working with an aesthetic strategy a coat, a chair, or a coffee cup can hold: How that includes instant payoff should basically far can you stretch the shape or the sensory meet the recipient’s sensuous expectations, qualities that characterize the object and still meaning the recipient’s anticipations re- be confident that it can give the recipient a garding the sensations of the product—how pleasurable instant payoff experience? it ‘should’ feel when touched, held, lifted, or Working with instant payoff as one worn. A particularly satisfactory instant of the building blocks of one’s aesthetic

99 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability —— Non-complex, symmetrical, harmonious structures are typically perceived as easily detectable and should therefore dominate the product expression in accordance with instant payoff. —— The material must ‘fit’ the shape—or it should have a minimal degree of inertia in relation to the object’s shape. —— The experience of the object should be characterized by a short time of being. It must, so to speak, be easily accessible.

Instant Presence: Challenging Sensuous Assumptions

“The more different temporalities are deposited in an object, the richer and more complex its appearance” Ørskov 84

As shown by this quotation, working differ- Fig.3 — Susanne Guldager, ent time courses into an object will make it Wrap Me Jumpsuit, 2018 appear complex and hard to detect, accord- strategy includes having the following guide- ing to Ørskov—and when working with the lines in mind: instant presence category, complexity is de- —— The product should basically be sirable. Hence, if one charges an object with quickly and easily detected; the us- both the time of becoming and the time of age of it should ideally even be a part existence and simultaneously (or due to this) of the idiom. The instructions for aims for a prolonging of the time of being, use, so to speak, must be inherent. the object-accessibility will be remarkably —— Functionality should be in focus, reduced and thereby the recipient might ex- akin “the most beautiful spoon is the perience the Pleasurable of the Unfamiliar. spoon which is best at being a spoon A product that is charged with differ- and hence is made of a material that ent temporalities or that appears complex can actually withstand being used due to, for example, asymmetry or the use for cooking and eating”. The object of a material that doesn’t seem to match its should be immediately usable, func- shape is intrusive. It forces the recipient to tional and ‘talk’ to the user’s hands. stop. It forces her to be present. And the —— The recipient’s physical and sensual sudden presence is the core of this aesthetic expectations must be met; if the category. Aesthetic nourishment in an in- design object appears heavy, it stant presence way includes being forced to should be heavy, and if the object be present, forced to relate to the object one looks soft, it should be soft. is facing, touching, or holding, and forced,

100 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability more or less brutally, out of the daily grind. An aesthetic instant present experience is often characterized by self-awareness; the recipient’s expectations are underlined, and she is thereby confronted with her experiential limitations. The arts, whatever their materials, pressed forward by the aesthetics of the sublime in search of intense effects, can and must give up the imitation of models that are merely beautiful and try out surprising, strange, shocking combinations Lyotard 100. As the quotation points out, according to French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924–1998), surprising, strange, or shocking combinations (of shapes, materials and colours) can be effective agents when aiming to pull one’s recipient out of her daily hyp- notic chores, or ‘force’ her to be sensuously, physically present. The fact that something (unexpected) is happening can cause the pleasurable instant presence experience. If the designer works with instant presence as a jigsaw piece of her aesthetic strategy, it will generally include aiming for an extension of the time of being or the detection time—thus retaining the recipient in chaos for an extended moment with the intention of inducing the Pleasure of the Unfamiliar. In order to achieve this, one Fig.4 — Sofie Edvard, An Archive of can work with one or more of the following Usage #1, versions 1, 2, and 3, 2017 guidelines as a part of the design process: —— Disrupt universal aesthetic something that ostensibly looks principles for composition and light when in fact it is heavy. For harmony, such as asymmetry or example, one could create an interfering with colour harmonies. illusion of lightness by imitating Working with such disruptions is a lace or other featherweight fabrics way of challenging the visual sense, as print on a heavy material—or since the eye of the recipient is simply create a hole-pattern in unable to immediately find balance a compact material and thereby and structure and to capture or visually break its dense surface. conceptualize the object. Thus, —— Redesign focussing on using ma- the time of being is prolonged. terials and/or objects in new ways —— Repeal gravity in the sense that or in new contexts. An example of the designer can ‘play’ with this could find inspiration in the

101 APRIA #00 June 2019 Kristine H. Harper Aesthetic Sustainability

principles of ready-made art and Bibliography Surrealism and place objects that Aristotle. Poetics. Penguin Books, 1996. Arnheim, Rudolf. Art and belong in one particular context Visual Perception. University into another, thus experimenting of California Press, 1974. with “surprising, strange, shocking Böhme, Gernot. “On Beauty.” Nordic Journal of Aesthetics, vol. Lyotard 100; emphasis added combinations” . 39, 2010, pp. 22–33. —— Charge the object with time. By Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry underlining the time of becoming into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime andBeautiful. Routledge or the design process in the object and Kegan Paul, 1958. itself, whilst emphasizing the time Harper, Kristine H. Aesthetic of existence, the complexity of the Sustainability: Product Design and Sustainable Usage. Routledge, 2018. object will be increased and the Jørgensen, Dorthe. Skønhed: en engel detection time will be prolonged. gik forbi [Beauty: An Angel Passed For example, by incorporating by].Aarhus University Press, 2008. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The flexibility or open shapes into the Inhuman: Reflections on design, or by creating an illusion of Time. Polity Press, 1991. wear or decay, several different time Plato. Hippias Major. Translated by Paul Woodruff. Complete courses are deposited in the object. Works, edited by John Garments with aesthetic flexibility M. Cooper. Indianapolis/Cambridge: and inherent changeability in the Hackett Publishing Company, 1997. Ørskov, Willy. Samlet: Aflæsning af aesthetics or the expression of the objekter, Objekterne, Den åbne object can challenge the way we skulptur [Detecting Objectsand Other use clothes. Incorporating open, Writings]. Borgen, 1999.

changeable shapes into a dress or Kristine H. Harper a jacket is a way of inviting the Kristine H. Harper is the author of the user to engage in sensuous explo- book “Aesthetic Sustainability – Product Design and Sustainable Usage” (Routledge rations and a way of prolonging 2017) and is currently writing a book the lifespan of the garment. on anti-trendy, sustainable living and I would like to finish this article by answer- product design. Furthermore she blogs about sustainability and simple living ing my initial research question: at the Immaterialist (immaterialist. blog). Harper has been working as an Why do we dispose of some things before Associate Professor at the Department of Sustainable Fashion at the Copenhagen their use has expired, while others are kept School of Design and Technology for and repaired time and time again, despite a decade. Her research focuses on their wear and tear? sustainable product design, tactile and aesthetic nourishment and philosophical aesthetics. She has written a wide A simplified answer could be because the range of articles on sustainable things that are insignificant to us—that we design and durable aesthetics. hence discard without further thought— don’t nourish us aesthetically, due to the fact that they provide us with neither the Pleasure of the Familiar nor the Pleasure of the Unfamiliar.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/aesthetic-sustainability/

102 APRIA #00 June 2019 Sanne Karssenberg RES MATERIA

Res Materia is an artistic research project and the garment, are the starting point for by fashion designer Sanne Karssenberg that an embodied reproduction of garments—an proposes a personalized form of the repro- attempt to bring change into ‘public affairs’. duction of garments and an alternative form In this project, a person brings in a gar- of value creation. ment with a history, or a special emotional The title Res Materia is inspired by the value or personal memory. Latin phrase Res Publica, meaning ‘public af- This is a piece that one would not throw fairs’ or ‘commonwealth’. Res is a Latin noun away but also no longer wants to wear. The for a substance or a concrete thing. ‘Materia’ garment is then shredded and its remnants is Latin for material. In this project, the ma- are re-used as a layer on another garment by terial and the thing, or in this case, the textile the same wearer.

103 APRIA #00 June 2019 Sanne Karssenberg RES MATERIA

The added layer provides a new aesthetic component and is a way to repair torn or worn out pieces of the second garment.

The added layer does not hide its recycled aesthetics, but rather turns recycling into an added value. Hence, this specific technique emphasizes the garment’s transformation into its next life. The old remains present within the new.

A cardboard packaging material is used as a frame during the transformation process. The resulting product is a combination of the transformed garment and the cardboard. This item will be shipped back to the wearer in this casing. It is up to the wearer to keep the garment as an artefact, or to unpack it and wear it again. If worn again, the same transformation process can be repeated endlessly. A desire for the new is altered into a process of change.

104 APRIA #00 June 2019 Sanne Karssenberg RES MATERIA

In times of mass production and overcon- Sanne Karssenberg sumption, this project presents the process of Sanne Karssenberg obtained her Masters in Art and Design at the Sandberg re-using or even upcycling worn clothes that Instituut, Fashion Matters in 2017. Her have a special meaning or affective value work is situated in the intersection for the wearer as an alternative strategy for of art and design, with a strong focus on materiality and textile. value production. Instead of merely repre- She investigates and designs alternative senting ‘the new’, Res Materia explores how perspectives and strategies within clothes can express personalized forms of fashion. The relation between individual identity and global production, which upcycling. In doing so, Karssenberg contrib- she critically analysed in her MA thesis utes to a critical fashion discourse. and project, are her main points of Different wearers are invited to join the interest. Her work explores the role personalization can play for a possible project as participants. The garments are a future of embodied fashion design by starting point for a dialogue about the indi- focusing on the relationship between the vidual’s relation to the garment and fashion’s wearer and their garments. She employs different media and forms to investigate societal impact. Both the material specifics how individual stories reflect and of the garment, such as the brand and textile relate to larger societal structures. composition, and its personal history, like Currently, she develops self-initiated projects, working both collaboratively the favourite place to wear the garment, and on commission. She lives and are revealed as part of the material value works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. production.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/res-materia/

105 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs Fashion, Flirting, and Biosocial Growth

“Everybody’s got the fever, squandering, from the continuous produc- That is something you all know, tion of flowers and beauty in the realm of Fever isn’t such a new thing, nature, to the human fabrication of new Fever started long ago.” paintings and novels. I myself often revel in Elvis Presley, “Fever” the needless multiplication of new love songs, these ceaseless loops of desires, passions, It may seem obvious that the best way to heartaches, and longing, which seem to just challenge today’s accelerated and unfettered feed entire radio stations with endlessly consumerism is with frugality and calls emotive hits. for more lasting experiences—for example, With the help of love songs, I think we through ‘slow fashion’. However, this ascetic can approach one of the central paradoxes response of austerity and self-denial seems of fashion: every age needs its new looks, at odds with the more passionate connec- just like every generation needs its new love tions of dress and desire. It seems reasonable songs. Yes, classics have their place, and to aim for lasting and emotionally durable may even form the back bone of an aesthet- designs. Yet as with our passions and love ic canon, but every passion is framed in its in general, making emotions last is no easy time, in its emotional Zeitgeist, attuned to thing. Or rather, it seems almost natural the sensual landscape of the moment. We that suffering can be lasting and chronic, may fall in love to the soundtrack of clas- however unwanted (such as depressions), yet sics, or at the opera, but our passions more euphoria and bliss can only exist as ephem- likely burst their dams to the tunes of a cer- eral waves of elation. By definition, passions tain moment. Indeed, if we look back at the appear unsustainable and unquenchable. pinnacles of our life’s passions, they may be Perhaps we must approach fashion dif- swathed in the soundtracks of those special ferently if we are to make it sustainable. Our moments: love songs are accompanying in- first question must be what it is we want to terfaces to our most intimate moments, like sustain in the current phenomenon of fash- radio waves connecting hearts in ways that ion. What do we want to sustain? Or to perhaps language often fails. The love song is a space put it more poignantly: what do we want we enter together, where our desires meet, to save in fashion, since we have to give up play, and excite our shared dreams. They are the current model of consumerism in order soundtracks to our sizzling passions. to sustain life on our planet? And even if some of our most intimate Some ascetics would argue that we moments in life may be sparsely clad, or technically don’t need fashion to survive. perhaps enveloped in bedsheets rather than Fashion is, after all, a problem of aesthetic winter jackets, our passionate bodies are abundance. To even spend time thinking of most often draped in clothes that in some fashion is a form of luxury and excess. But way answer to the fashion of the time. These at the same time, our culture is saturated garments are, in a sense, also soundtracks to by unnecessary and unsustainable practic- our passions. To understand fashion as an es—not least the arts, which is drowning in emotional phenomenon of deep interperson- its own wastefulness. The whole aesthetic al connection, we should perhaps not only sensorium of life itself seems dependent on look to mood boards and fashion magazines

106 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs but turn the search towards our own bod- The anxiety makes us cringe, our posture ies, desires, and emotional journeys. We changes, we feel wounded, contract into a must start to understand fashion from the ball and try to escape from sight like a suf- emotive agency of the body, from the draped fering animal. We may rationally know that soundtracks of our burning desires. looks do not matter, but the experience of Not unlike the passions of an emerging social pain in a humiliating situation may be love affair, or the stirring emotions of the just too much to bear. Fashion connects not shared love song, when fashion works best, merely to our identity but to the emotional we feel it in our bodies. It may be a sense of grounding of the body, the very core of our excitement, allure, or arousal. Fashion is a biological being. We desire the pleasures of passion, a sensibility of aesthetic desire, an an answered love, but we fear the exposure ephemeral wave of pleasurable anticipation and pain of ridicule. rushing through the body. It is sexually We are born free, but we are constantly charged, but not necessarily in a narrow, held in chain stores. Through the dynam- genital sense. Fashion can trigger our erotic ics of dressed pleasure and pain, most of us imagination, a stirring dream world, but come to desire our velvet chains of safe con- as with sexual fantasies, this may include a formity. Exposing our passions too publicly wide variety of relationships, events, and sce- feels unsafe and we become anxious when narios that are not always explicit, nor speak putting our appearance at risk. Whereas to our more rational side. When fashion some garments come to feel like a safe hav- works on us, it changes our posture. We feel en from unwanted attention and comments, seen and on top of things. We expand emo- other garments help us take social risks, to tionally, socially, and bodily, opening up our engage and move socially and emotionally. sensibilities to the world. We feel a plasmatic Such garments help us reach out and touch pulse of energy streaming along the spine our social surrounding. On such occasions, and through our limbs. The eye contact, the we may feel more alive than usual, as people affirmative comments and looks; it’s like a respond to our appearance, and we can feel kick, and once you have experienced it, you the touch of their perception, their eyes on cannot get enough. Yes, at its best, fashion is us. However, the same looks may feel un- that thrill of appreciation and adoration and comfortable when it happens in the wrong a surge of inflammable aliveness sweeping setting or from an unwanted source. In some like a wave of pleasure through the body. In instances, it may even be an attention taint- a way, it is the fever. ed by fear. But like passions, our desires can be In order to unpack these clashing de- betrayed, our passions answered by silence, sires of fashion, we could approach it from a or even ridicule. Thus, when fashion does biosocial perspective, where the emotions of not work, we also feel it in our bodies. We the body are tightly coupled to the affective feel the anxiety, humiliation, and shame dynamics of the social realm. The biosocial that emanates from what is jokingly called perspective on fashion in this essay primar- a ‘wardrobe malfunction’. We may not pay ily emerges from the works of psychoanalyst, attention to it a run-of-the-mill occasion or political theorist, biologist, and natural sci- when we have no witnesses around, but like entist Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957). Reich’s a numb limb or broken tool, we first recog- ideas offer a twofold approach to fashion that nize it in the moment of failure, we realize helps capture two central dynamics in the the agonizing effects of the clothed wound. emotional experience of everyday fashion.

107 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs On the one hand, it helps see how the Reich develops the idea of the stream- emotions of fashion are moving the body as a bio- ing of the libido to describe a biosocial social energy, how we feel fashion as an allure “sexual economy”, or “energy household” of and pleasure (or promise of pleasure). On the the organism, in which energy is excited and other hand, because of its anchoring in the flows through the body or is regulated by body, we may also become anxious of the emo- contracted muscles or inhibitions. He comes tions evoked by fashion, to fear the judgments to call this bioelectrical energy ‘orgone’, pri- and responses of others, which in turn draw marily because Reich sees this energy capable us towards authorities. Even if Reich’s origi- of charging organic, non-conducting (insu- nal ideas do not touch on fashion specifically, lating) substances The Function of the Orgasm 340f. his analytical framework combines embod- Similarly, it is specifically the movement and iment and psychology with sociological and direction of energy, its streaming and pul- political theory, thus coupling politics and sating tendencies, that makes Reich see these emotions. In order to enrich Reich’s per- flows as the fundamental drivers of emotion spective, other theorists will also become and health. relevant as fashion is unpacked as a biosocial In a healthy person’s body, the energy phenomenon, straddled between the embod- flows and pulsates freely. But some people ied sensations of pleasure and pain, arousal are “armored”, with inadequate circulation and anxiety, allure and predation. of energy. The flow of emotion is held back. Reich began as a physician and psycho- This ‘armouring’ results in muscles binding analyst and was considered one of Sigmund the energy, making it stagnate. The bind- Freud’s most talented but controversial stu- ing corresponds between body and mind: dents. Reich was immediately captured by a rigid body ties to a strict character. Such Freud’s ideas of the libido as a “motor force character is not only prone to neurotic disor- of sexual life,” an “electrical field,” a “quan- ders but also to fear of spontaneity, life, and titative energy,” and “something which is freedom. Under a regime of authoritarian capable of increase, decrease, displacement family and repressive social institutions, this and discharge, and which extends itself over fear of one’s own life energy makes people the memory traces of an idea like an electric irrational and draws them to authorities and charge over the surface of the body” Freud 577. leaders. Armoured people are uncomfortable Yet Reich draws his own conclusions around with the streaming sensations of the energy this sexual energy of the body to open new throughout their bodies, as it evokes a loss vistas of thought and practice in the bio of control. They fear what others may think social realm. Firmly grounding his theory in of them. Similarly, they also feel uncomfort- biology, Reich explores whether the libido able together with more spontaneous and is no metaphor but in fact a material form free-minded spirits, who are looked upon as of bioelectrical current, streaming through a threatening other, someone who threatens the body in a process he called ‘energetic the order of things. To Reich, it is this fear functionalism’. This focus on the biology of of what others may think that is the foun- the body makes Reich one of the early inno- dation of the dilemma that, “man is born free, vators of psychosomatic therapy, connecting yet he goes through life a slave” An Introduction the body to its social environment, in its to Orgonomy 467; original emphasis. The judgment cultural, sexual, and socio-economic context of others and the avoidance of emotional and conditions, thus merging the biosocial self-knowledge keeps people fearful of the realm with political theory. emotions streaming through their animal

108 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs bodies. Trapped in their bodies while living the frissons of excitation, and is, as such, be- in their heads, fear of life and spontaneity yond words or rational communication. But ensnares them to their habits. The only an important component of Reich’s perspec- way to mitigate the trap of this “emotional tive is how the emotions of the body expand plague” is to challenge the everyday repres- outwards into the world, beyond the bounda- sive anxieties and find therapy that unlocks ries of the organism. Emotions are plasmatic the muscular binding of the plasmatic ener- pressures in the organism. Reich points gy of the body. out how many languages reflect this, for From a Reichian perspective, the example in the German word Ausdruck and human animal shares its basic functional the English equivalent ‘expression’ (out- characteristics with very simple organisms. ward-pressure), as the language of the living Even if humans live and experience much organism; “the living organism expresses itself of their life through the lens of culture, the in movements; we therefore speak of ‘expres- basis of our being is highly organic and an- sive movements.’ Expressive movement is an imalistic. Consequently, as organic beings, inherent characteristic of the protoplasm.” we share the same biological functions as An Introduction to Orgonomy 141; original emphasis If our primitive relatives. We are basically jel- we think of fashion as an ‘ex-pression’, it is lyfish, pulsating with organic life, from the felt as an emotional pressure, a stirring of single cell all the way up to the complexity the plasmatic core of our being. of our whole bodies. Rhythms of plasmatic The plasmatic motility does not happen excitation resonate throughout our bodies, in isolation but is coupled with other organ- from the heartbeat and pumping of blood, to isms. Emotional movements of organisms breathing and digestion, sleep, metabolic and affect each other, their sensorium mem- menstruation cycles, all the way to the cycle branes touch and relay plasmatic movements of a lifetime itself. The organic life of the between each other, like waves throughout protoplasm is the “morphological forerunner” the social plasma. The protoplasmic move- and is echoed in the function of the human ment, or ‘ex-pressure’, expands into the autonomous nervous system The Bioelectrical sensorium of another organism that thus Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety 56. The auto transfers the wave to the next. An example nomous nervous system “merely carries can be the sensing of danger: “the panic re- on, in an organized manner, a function which action in the animal kingdom is based on already exists in principle in animals without an involuntary reproduction of the move- nervous systems; i.e., the function of plas- ment expressive of anxiety” An Introduction to ma movement, hydration and dehydration, Orgonomy 143. Such expressions “bring about an contraction and expansion, tension and re- imitation in our own organism” An Introduction laxation” The Bioelectrical Investigation of Sexuality to Orgonomy 144; original emphasis. As a result, emo- and Anxiety 58; original emphasis. At the basis of tional affects and imitations are physical these plasmatic movement in the protoplasm, expressions in the organism—not conscious Reich traces the foundations of emotion. As thought patterns—that are anchored in the Reich points out, “literally defined, the word depths of the organism: “the living organism ‘emotion’ means ‘moving outwards’ or ‘push- functions autonomously, beyond the sphere of ing out’” An Introduction to Orgonomy 137. language, intellect, and volition” An Introduction to Emotional sensation also echoes Orgonomy 147; original emphasis. The main body of through the protoplasm, as in the “inner stir- emotional functioning and social expressions rings” of music An Introduction to Orgonomy 140 or are thus non-conscious, or “supra-personal”

109 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs

An Introduction to Orgonomy 149. In relation to social field like a wave of an energetic force, current discussions around ‘mirror neurons’, moving all affected bodies floating on the Reich saw material and embodied component surface of enclothed sensibility, transmitting in biosocial imitative behaviours. Our emo- this force into plasmatic motility. A new tional life is therefore governed by excitation fashion is, indeed, a contagious passion that waves and “biological energy is being transmit- spreads like wild fire: neurons firing from ted in these wave movements” An Introduction to the seductive energy of allure and arousal; Orgonomy 154; original emphasis. new sensibilities matched with new looks; a As with the “inner stirrings” evoked network of bodies ready for new dopamine by music, an analogy between fashion and charges. Passion is an energy that pulsates music is not far fetched—in fashion, there through the body awakening the emotional are trends and recurrent themes in music sensorium. But passion is also erotic, that styles. The anticipation of new rhythms, is, a force of imagination, a vitalization of tunes, and sounds excites people, producing desire and anticipation. It is a process dean endless desire for new songs and art- fined by movement, as fashion never is, it ists. On a very material level, the pulsations is always becoming Simmel. Thus, fashion is a of music also have the ability to break the wave of anticipation, a connection, a sense of isolation between individuals—doomed by frisson. We use fashion to dream up a world their membranes to remain distinct from of becoming, and even if not always eroti- each other—and dancing is the recurrent cized, it builds suspense and expectations—a playground of passion and flirting. Rhythms becoming as a process, pointing to pleasure echo between the organic plasma of bodies, and the arousing ascent towards coming. making peers move to the same beat, even Applying Reich’s perspective of bio- if separated. It is music that brings them social energy and plasmatic motility to the together in an undeniable unity, deeper realm of fashion would rearrange the spatial than what language can bring about: their configuration of agency and action within bodies pulsate together while separate. the everyday realm of fashion. The locus of It is this sense of unity that also brings fashion is not in the ‘system’ or in the ‘in- about a micro-utopian state between musi- dustry’, even if these are its commoditized cians, listeners, and dancers. Fashion, like vectors (that is, the channels or infrastruc- music, leaves a sense of discharge, exhaus- ture through which most of the energy is tion, relaxation, and, in the end, a sense of fashion transmitted). Instead of being out haunting loss. there, in the system, an energetic perspective A Reich-inspired perspective opens puts the locus of fashion in the body, in the some exciting avenues of thought in re- plasmatic flows of energy rushing our excite- lation to fashion. Firstly, we can radically ment when our cognition is attuned to the rethink fashion as energy, and secondly, the expression and allure of another peer, or the social phenomenon of fashion is the transmis- ‘object’ of our cognition. Fashion streams inside sion of this energy. Like orgone, this energy and between organisms in the excitation of emo- can change organic (insulating) materials, tional and plasmatic movements. such as everyday clothing, and it is essen- This means fashion does not happen in tially connecting waves of social excitation isolation. It is fundamentally a social phe- with plasmatic movements in the body—that nomenon, a pulsation of energies coupling is, conveying fashion into passion. A new look two bodies together. Fashion is a form of flirt- or aesthetic expression sweeps across the ing. Enacted socially, it grabs attention and

110 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs holds it: you know fashion works when you When I experience this, I realize fashion can’t tear your eyes off its wearer. This atten- is not a thing, it is not bound to clothes or tion excites and affirms the other, radiates a goods, but it is a place you go, an emotional sense of attractiveness, sends a pulse of affec- space you enter inside yourself and another. tion and pleasure. It is a co-creation between Fashion is a pleasure, a feeling of growth in two people, an exchange of looks, of mutual between bodies as their emotional sensori- recognition and allure. At its best, fashion um reach out, touch, play, and embrace. As connects two people; it ties their attention with flirting, this emotion can be cultivated together to form an emotional charge of at- and shared abundantly as the important tentive togetherness. There is such a thing erotic endorsement it is. as a biosexual “sexual aura” or “sex appeal”, Coming back to the homology of fash- which Reich sees as “the contact of two ion and music, we see how sound waves and fields of orgonotic excitation” The Bioelectrical beats make people move in unison while Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety 7. It is two they stay separate. The love song frames aroused plasmatic systems pulsating together our desires, as we are alone together, or to- in mutual energy exchange, growing and gether while alone. Music as well as fashion expanding together. can be used in marching tunes as much as Flirting in this sense should not be lim- in soothing lullabies. But music can also ited to the narrow experience leading up to help us imagine waves of sustainable forms sexual intercourse, but a much wider array of togetherness, like the never-ending cycle of emotionally changed practices connecting of new songs that pollute the airwaves and the living bodies of organisms. Flirting is a our attention but do not destroy the planet series of practices, behaviours, and rituals through environmental disasters. Perhaps capturing the attention of a peer, drawing loving forms of fashion can be like love their sensory apparatus into an intimate songs. And there is a continuous need for world, inviting them to attune their sen- new love songs. Each new generation needs sations to each other in order to share an their new love songs, and the repertoire experience of anticipation. Flirting is a space is endless, just like the wide spectrum of of connection in which passions are entwined; anticipation, eroticism, intimacy, and disap- it is here fashion takes place. pointments of love. Indeed, perhaps we also If I have dressed up and I feel at my best, need to reframe our work around fashion as I build up an excitation in the body, a will- love songs rather than collections, accesso- ingness to be seen and be judged by my looks. ries, or aesthetic statements. Perhaps we can Through my dressed sensorium, I reach out paraphrase Deleuze and Guattari, who argue: into the world and seek to touch the atten- Psychoanalysis ought to be a song tion of others. Then, if someone gives me an of life, or else be worth nothing at all. It affirming look or acknowledgement, I feel a ought, practically, to teach us to sing life. And rush of excitement, a release of tension, and see how the most defeated, sad song of death pleasure rushes through my body. A passage emanates from it: eiapopeia. From the start, has been opened between us. A build-up of and because of his stubborn dualism of the excitation and then a wave of affirmation drives, Freud never stopped trying to limit surges through my nerves from being seen the discovery of a subjective or vital essence and acknowledged. My neurons fire, dopa- of desire as libido. But when the dualism mine rushes: I feel a sense of life affirmation, passed into a death instinct against Eros, this alive in my body in the most positive sense. was no longer a simple limitation, it was a

111 APRIA #00 June 2019 Otto von Busch Love songs liquidation of the libido. Reich did not go Note wrong here, and was perhaps the only one to This text is a reworked version of the first chapter of Vital maintain that the product of analysis should Vogue: A Biosocial Perspective on be a free and joyous person, a carrier of the Fashion (Selfpassage, 2018). The text life flows, capable of carrying them all the has been changed to add emphasis on the love song as a medium to understand 331 way into the desert and decoding them… the connection between fashion and In a similar vein, the task is never to sensuality from a Reichian perspective. ‘save’ fashion from consumerism or emotional armouring, and is not even to save it from Bibliography itself, but rather to ask how fashion can be Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus. University closer to the wellsprings of life and desire, of Minnesota Press, 1983. how fashion can be a joyous love song to Freud, Sigmund. Three Contributions to life, a flirting with the cosmos unchecked by the Theory of Sex. In The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud, edited anxiety and fear. Reich’s endeavour echoes by A.A. Brill, Random House, 1938. throughout this search. Or paraphrasing Reich, Wilhelm. The Function of Robert Smith (lead singer of The Cure), at the Orgasm. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970. its best, just like a love song, fashion can Reich, Wilhelm. Selected Writings: make me feel like I am free again, like I am An Introduction to Orgonomy. Farrar, clean again, like I am young again, like I am Straus and Giroux, 1973. Reich, Wilhelm. The Bioelectrical fun again. Investigation of Sexuality Like the superabundance of emotions and Anxiety. Farrar, Straus flowing between anticipating mates, the and Giroux, 1982. Simmel, Georg. “Fashion.” American plenitude of love songs marks the relentless Journal of Sociology vol. 62, desires aching in organic bodies. It is the no. 6, 1957, pp. 541–558. enigma of love, to which we owe our being. Otto von Busch By exploring the emotional grounding of Otto von Busch is Associate Professor of fashion and its vital affects, we may shift the Integrated Design at Parsons School of locus of fashion from sustaining the ‘sys- Design. In his research he explores how the energies of fashion can be bent to tem’ to focusing instead on the passions of achieve a positive personal and social togetherness. In togetherness, we can work condition with which the Everyperson is towards making fashion a crucial democratic free to grow to their full potential. science, cultivating mutual ways of attraction in ways that will serve the many rather than the few. It’s a passion. Call it fever, or call it fashion: oh, what a lovely way to burn.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/love-songs-fashion-flirting-and-biosocial-growth/

112 APRIA #00 June 2019 Orsola de Castro Loved Clothes Last

As a response to the Rana Plaza disaster in Orsola de Castro Bangladesh Orsola de Castro and Carry Orsola de Castro is an internationally Sommers founded in 2013 Fashion Revolu- recognised opinion leader in sustainable fashion. Her career started tion, a not-for-profit global movement that as a designer with the pioneering campaigns for systemic reform of the fashion upcycling label From Somewhere, which industry with a focus on the need for great- she launched in 1997 until 2014. Her designer collaborations include er transparency in the fashion supply chain. collections for Jigsaw, Tesco, During Fashion Colloquium: Searching for the Speedo, and 4 best selling capsule New Luxury? (May 31st, the Netherlands) collections for Topshop from 2012 to 2014. In 2006, she co-founded the Orsola de Castro discussed the Fashion Rev- British Fashion Council initiative olution magazine issue Love Clothes Last. It Estethica at London Fashion Week, explores waste and mass-consumption in the which she curated until 2014. In 2013, with Carry Somers, she founded fashion industry, and hopes to inspire read- Fashion Revolution, a global campaign ers to buy less, care more, and know how to with participation in over 100 countries make the clothes they love last last for longer. around the world. Orsola is a regular key note speaker and mentor, Associate Lecturer at UAL, as well as Central Saint Martins Visiting Fellow.

View video online: http://apria.artez.nl/loved-clothes-last/

113 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW Stimulating Mindfulness through a Smart Denim Jacket

Introduction behind Issho was to deliberately turn away In our ‘always-on’ society Olshannikova et al., from making a garment that acts as a simple mindfulness is the new luxury. As a result of intermediary between body and screen. In- our constant interactions with mobile tech- stead of encouraging people to attend to data nology, we are continuously distracted from that merely quantify physical experiences, our physical reality and bodies and pulled van Dongen and team explored the possibili- into a world of quantified data and digital ty of stimulating wearers to be more mindful information flows. This common-felt lack of their body and environment. To be ‘mind- of connection to the body in the here and ful’ here means to focus one’s awareness on now explains the current and increasingly the present moment and to consciously ex- growing popularity of yoga, mindfulness, perience one’s embodied presence in the here and meditation see, for example, Pickert. Such and now. For the purpose of our argument, ‘datafication’ of human life Lupton; Leder also we thus disconnect the notion of mindful- manifests itself in the design and application ness from its manifold therapeutic, spiritual, of smart fashion.[1] or meditative associations in order to narrow it down to a more mundane and down-to- During our PhD research, we have both earth state of embodied awareness. noted that there is a tendency for everyday applications of smart fashion to focus predominantly on measuring and obtain- ing information from our bodies Toussaint; van Dongen A Designer’s Material Aesthetics. Smart fashion such as the Hexoskin Smart Shirt or OM Signal Bra allows wearers to monitor their bodies by displaying biometric data. Ironically, many smart fashion designs thus uphold the promise that data and self- tracking can make us more mindful of our bodies, while they in fact distract and dis- Fig.1 — Pauline van Dongen, ‘Issho’, 2017. Photograph by Sharon Jane D. connect us from our embodied subjectivity. Despite smart fashion opening up pos- Problem statement sibilities for greater attention to the lived The smart denim jacket Issho Fig.1 has been experiential body, most designers seem to designed to encourage a more mindful rela- integrate technology into fashion merely to tion between the wearer, the garment, and maximize physical performance, efficiency, their environment. This article explores and productivity. As an alternative to this how Issho may encourage wearers to be focus on self-enhancement and data visuali- more mindful of their embodied presence zation, designer Pauline van Dongen and her in the here and now. In order to answer team designed a smart denim jacket called this question, we first describe the material ‘Issho’ van Dongen Issho. The design intention qualities and design process of Issho. Second,

114 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW we discuss the set-up and findings of several user tests with this smart jacket. We then analyse the interview data collected on wearer experiences with the help of the postphenomenological notions of mediation and material aesthetics. Postphenomenology studies the relations between human beings and artifacts, combining philosophical analysis with empirical investigation Verbeek, What Things Do 190. It does not approach artifacts as merely functional and instrumental objects but as mediators of human experiences and practices. In other words, postphenomenology helps not just to speak of smart fashion designs in terms of functions and signs but also to understand them in terms of mediation Ibid.. This article will conclude with a reflection on how Issho, as an example of smart fashion, mediates wearers’ experiences of their bodies in relation to their immediate surroundings.

Design process of Issho Our emphasis on the role of materiality and embodiment in understanding the experiences and practices of people wearing Issho Fig.2 and 3 — Denim with conductive prompts us to first describe the material- yarns woven in a striped pattern oriented approach that characterizes the design process. Denim is a sturdy, common, made touch sensitive by weaving conductive and protective fabric that invites the wearer yarns into the fabric. Issho thus allows the to move and be active. It is characterized by technology to form a soft, tactile, and fluid its durability and graceful aging: through interface between the body of the wearer fading, it embodies the traces of time and and the direct environment. The qualities of wear. In addition, denim’s widespread and denim inspired the team to create a design universal popularity made the design team that stimulates a kind of ‘friendship’ between recognize its potential for designing every- the wearer and the garment. Like a close day sensorial experiences. One of their friend, the jacket becomes an active media- translations of mindfulness centred around tor in the social dynamic between wearers the idea of touch, namely of being ‘in touch’ and their environment, while at times also with one’s body and environment, and the reminding wearers to take a moment for importance of touch for our emotional themselves. well-being. Being so physically close to the The conductive yarns, woven into body, clothing could play a role in enhanc- the weft of the fabric, rise from the surface ing haptic perception and heightening body to create a subtle tactility and a pattern of awareness. Moreover, denim itself could be golden stripes. Placed on the shoulders and

115 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW remarks that can be understood and further analysed with the help of postphenomenological theory, particularly the notions of mediation and material aesthetics.

Postphenomenology A postphenomenological approach to smart Fig.4 — Design sketch of ‘Issho’ Berentzen fashion is valuable for two reasons. First, postphenomenology helps to highlight next to the large (and only) front pocket, that responsive garments not only change these striped areas are sensitive to touch what the wearer experiences (the object of Fig.2–3. The microcontroller embedded in the experience itself) but also affect how that jacket registers physical interactions, such experience comes about Toussaint 46. In our in- as an embrace or a pat on the shoulder, be- teraction with material artefacts, our relation tween the wearer and others. The jacket to and existence in the world takes shape. also registers smartphone use by sensing the Following this perspective, design (including gesture of taking a smartphone in and out smart fashion) involves not just designing of the front pocket. After a certain amount things but also designing human-world re- of social interactions, Issho gives wearers lations Ihde Technology and Lifeworld; Verbeek What the sensation of a gentle caress on the upper Things Do. A sturdy denim jacket that records, back, inviting wearers to shift their atten- senses, and reacts to touch not only shapes tion to their body in the here and now. The how wearers experience their own body but haptic feedback is created by four vibration also affects the way they act, move, and be- motors that are programmed to simulate a have in relation to their surroundings. stroking gesture Fig.4. In addition, we find a particularly useful element of postphenomenological think- Study ing in Verbeek’s suggestion to broaden our To collect data on actual wearer experienc- understanding of aesthetics to a ‘material es of Issho, a small user test was set up and aesthetics’ Verbeek, What Things Do 209. This “sen- conducted by Isabel Berentzen in the context sorial conception of aesthetics” includes of van Dongen’s design studio Berentzen. The (the predominantly visual understanding study involved four participants [2] who of) style and beauty, while emphasizing the were asked to wear the jacket for three ways in which the material qualities of an consecutive days. These participants were artefact mutually inform our behaviour and unaware of how the jacket operates and perceptions Verbeek, What Things Do 211. The pre- did not know the location of the integrated vailing understanding of fashion is to focus technologies. Afterwards, each of them used on visual aspects of garments and what they diaries to report on how many hours a day represent Bruggeman 13, while the integration of they wore the jacket and how frequently the technology in fashion usually elicits mainly jacket gave feedback. Additionally, the four functional and aesthetic explanations Seymour . test subjects were interviewed to gather in- Material aesthetics places a semiotic and depth data on their experience of wearing functional understanding of smart fashion the jacket, focussing particularly on how in a completely new perspective because it they perceived the vibrational feedback. In helps reveal the material influence of arte- this data set, we found several interesting facts on shaping relations between humans

116 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW and the world van Dongen A Designer’s Material positively affect the wearers’ state of mind, Aesthetics . The user test we did with Issho, for causing them to feel more mindful, relaxed, example, indicates that this denim jacket in- or comfortable. vites outdoor and physical activities, such as cycling, not because of its visual properties Encouraging awareness of the but because of its warm, loose, and robust immediate surroundings materiality. We will now further analyse the The second type of experience that sever- findings of the user tests with Issho by con- al wearers of Issho mentioned concerned a necting the postphenomenological notions of heightened awareness of their own actions, mediation and material aesthetics to wearers’ behaviour, and relation to their immediate experiences of this smart jacket. surroundings. One respondent explains that the jacket “confronted” her with what she Analysis of wearers’ experiences was doing (Karlijn). Another respondent Encouraging body-awareness described how she often cycles the familiar The data from the user study were recorded route to and from work as if on automatic and carefully transcribed, but considering pilot. The vibration of Issho interrupted this the relatively small data set, there was no routine behaviour, stimulating her to be more need for coding. Applying an empirical attentive to the world around her. She noted: phenomenological approach Moustakas, we “And I actually quite enjoyed that because nor- combine the participants’ descriptions of mally I am not paying any attention at all to their experiences with our interpretation the things happening around me while I am of the meaning of these. The first theme on my way” (Barbara). In postphenomenolog- that stood out in the interview data was ical terms, this implies that the relationship body-awareness. Two wearers described how between the wearer and the world is tech- the sensations exuded by the jacket drew nologically mediated by Issho Ihde 57; original their attention to their body and posture. By emphasis. The jacket not only changes what this provoking an unusual and surprising physi- wearer experienced (the object of experience cal sensation, Issho makes its presence felt and itself) but also affects how she behaves and reminds wearers to stay in touch with them- relates to the world around here. selves Eco 192. Several wearers also noted how the material qualities of Issho—including the Material aesthetics and denim and the haptic sensations it evokes— emotional durability stimulated them to relax their shoulders The third and final type of experiences that and back. We interpret these experiences as the user tests with Issho highlighted is how indicative of how the material aesthetics of wearers experienced the design’s material Issho (i.e. the touch of denim in combination capacities and the ways in which the jacket with the haptic feedback that the smart tech- affected their emotional state. Wearers ex- nology provides) invites wearers to become perienced the material qualities of Issho as more aware of their bodies and of any phys- having a “comfortable fit” (Barbara, Karlijn) ical signs of stress. By reminding wearers of and liked the “rugged texture” created by their bodily states and physical interactions, the golden yarns (Sam). They described Issho amplifies the wearer’s body aware- the fabric as “warm” (Angela, Barbara) and ness and promotes a kind of “self-conscious “windproof” (Angela) and interpreted the self-surveillance” Balsamo 216. As such, the vibration of the jacket as a “short massage” jacket’s haptic feedback has the potential to (Angela). Due to these qualities, the jacket

117 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW The findings of the user tests with Issho show that wearers connect the material aesthetics and self-acting capacities of the jacket not just to their sensorial experiences but also to the level of feelings and emotions. Issho has the ability to reinforce or improve the emotional state of the wearer, which means it can emphasize positive emotions but may also evoke unpleasant or undesirable ones. This raises questions about the potential of designing smart fashion for emotional attachment, including human values such as friendship and happiness. It also signals that “smart textiles and smart clothing developments are very exciting, if not without some concerns” Cranny-Francis 170.

Conclusion In conclusion, we can say that the relationships mediated by the jacket are diverse and that Issho affected the embodied experience of each of the wearers in different ways. The Fig.5 — Pauline van Dongen, ‘Issho’, specific meaning, functionality, and role that 2017. Photograph by Sharon Jane D. they ascribe to the jacket depended on their subjective interpretation and practical deal- is easily integrated into daily activities and ings with the jacket in an everyday context. allows wearers to develop their own per- However, what all wearer experiences have sonal interpretation of and relation with in common is that Issho somehow trans- the garment. One wearer described her ex- formed the ways in which they related to periences as “fun” because the jacket “sort their own bodies, their clothes, and/or their of automatically made her happy when it surroundings. Whether Issho can effectively started to vibrate” (Karlijn). Another wearer give the wearer a sense of mindfulness and pointed to how she particularly enjoyed the self-awareness is only partially determined self-activated haptic feedback Issho provides: by its material aesthetics, yet has everything “I like the fact that it does not matter wheth- to do with the embedded, situated, and er I or someone else wears the jacket (…) embodied ways in which it is experienced the jacket is something in itself and works De Preester 343–44. independently” (Barbara). These comments We realize that this study has its limita- indicate that smart fashion designs such as tions, given the small number of participants Issho can be experienced as having an “ap- and the fact that they are automatically more parent autonomy” or extraordinary power aware of their relationship to the garments Verbeek, What Things Do 127. The jacket is able to because of their involvement in the test. Still, respond and vibrate of its own accord and the relatively small data set already generated acts in ways beyond the control of the wearer a wealth of insights. Our study revealed that Toussaint 98; see also Toussaint and Smelik 94. wearers valued the qualitative experiences

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(for example, heightened body-awareness) Eco, Umberto. Travels in that Issho mediated, which hints at the op- Hyperreality. Jarcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. portunity for smart fashion to encourage Ihde, Don. Technology and the Lifeworld. more mindful and embodied human-tech- From Garden to Earth. Indiana nology relations. This further indicates that University Press, 1990. Ihde, Don. Postphenomenology and there is an opportunity to move beyond the Technoscience: The Peking University quantified and functional approach to smart Lectures. SUNY Press, 2009. fashion. Issho represents a more embodied Leder, Drew. The Absent Body. University of Chicago Press, 1990. design approach that embraces smart fashion Lupton, Deborah. The Quantified for its potential to stimulate a more qualita- Self. Polity Press, 2016. tive and moment-by-moment awareness of Moustakas, Clark. Phenomenological research methods. SAGE our bodily sensations and environment. Publications, 1994. Olshannikova, Ekaterina, Thomas Olsson, Jukka Huhtamäki et Acknowledgements al. “Conceptualizing Big Social We would like to thank Isabel Berentzen, Data.” Journal of Big Data, who had a leading role in the execution vol. 4, no. 3, 2017, https://doi. of the project and the user study, in org/10.1186/s40537-017-0063-x. support of her graduation project for Pickert, Kate (2014). “The Mindful her M.A. in Integrated Product Design Revolution.” Time Magazine, 3 at TUDelft. The development of Issho Feb. 2014, http://content. was done in collaboration with denim time.com/time/subscriber/ manufacturer ItalDenim and was supported article/0,33009,2163560,00. by the Creative Industries Fund. html. Accessed 26 February 2019. Seymour, Sabine. Functional Bibliography Aesthetics: Visions in Fashionable Addington, Michelle and Daniel Technology. Springer Wien, 2010. Schodek. Smart Materials and Van Dongen, Pauline. “Issho: Intelligent New Technologies for the Denim Jacket.” 2017, http:// Architecture and Design Professions. www.paulinevandongen.nl/project/ Architectural Press, 2005. issho/. Accessed 26 February 2019. Balsamo, Anne. “Forms of Technological Van Dongen, Pauline. A Designer’s Embodiment: Reading the Body Material Aesthetics Reflections on in Contemporary Culture.” Body Fashion and Technology. Forthcoming. & Society, vol.1, no. 3–4, Technical University Eindhoven. 1995, pp. 215–37. Unpublished PhD Dissertation. Berentzen, Isabel. Issho: An Intelligent Toussaint, Lianne and Anneke Denim Jacket. 2016. Delft Smelik. “Memory and Materiality University of Technology, M.A. in Hussein Chalayan’s Techno- thesis in Integrated Product Design. Fashion.” Materializing Memory in Bruggeman, Daniëlle. More Than Art and Popular Culture, edited Meets the Eye: Dutch Fashion, by László Muntéan, Liedeke Plate, Identity, and New Materialism. and Anneke Smelik, Routledge, 2014. Radboud University 2017, pp. 89–105. Toussaint, Nijmegen, PhD dissertation. Lianne. Wearing Technology: When Cranny-Francis, Anne. Technology Fashion and Technology Entwine. and Touch: The Biopolitics Radboud University Nijmegen. of Emerging Technologies. 2018. PhD Dissertation. Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Verbeek, Peter-Paul. What Things De Preester, Helena. “Book Review: Do: Philosophical Reflections Postphenomenology, Embodiment, on Technology, Agency, and and Technics. Don Ihde, Design. Pennsylvania State Postphenomenology, and University Press, 2005. Technoscience: The Peking University Verbeek, Peter-Paul. “Toward a Theory Lectures.” Human Studies, vol. of Technological Mediation: 33, no. 2/3, 2010, pp. 339–45. A Program for Postphenomenological Research.” Technoscience and 119 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pauline van Dongen, Lianne Toussaint IN TOUCH WITH THE NOW

Postphenomenology: The Manhattan in Tech Europe’ (2018) and as ‘MIT Papers, edited by J.K. Berg, Innovator under 35 Europe’ (2017). O. Friis and Robert C. Crease. Pauline is currently in the final Lexington Books, 2015, pp. 189–204. stage of her PhD research that is part of the broader NWO- funded project Footnotes ‘Crafting Wearables’ (2013–2018). [1] Following Michelle Addington and For her dissertation, she combines Daniel Schodek’s definition of smart design research with the philosophy materials, we define ‘smart fashion’ of postphenomenology to reframe the here as garments that possess the understanding of technology. The internal capacity to respond to aim of her research is to better their environment and activate inform the practice of designing themselves directly, in real-time, wearable technologies and their role and in concrete and predictable in the daily context of fashion. ways Addington and Schodek 9. [2] These four test users (3 female, 1 Lianne Toussaint male; aged 25–26) have not been Dr. Lianne Toussaint is a lecturer and anonymized because they consented researcher at the department of Cultural to their first names being Studies of the Radboud University included in all research output. Nijmegen (until summer 2019) and at the department of Media and Culture Pauline van Dongen studies at Utrecht University (as of Pauline van Dongen (1986, Amsterdam) summer 2019). She currently teaches is a fashion designer specialised in courses in the BA and MA programmes of wearable technology. Through her design Arts and Culture Studies, including studio (founded in 2010) she focuses Working through Fashion, Thinking on developing alternatives for fashion through Fashion and The Body in the by exploring how technology (i.e. Arts and Visual Culture. Lianne’s electronics and digital materials) can research focuses on the socio-cultural add new value and meaning to clothing implications of the integration of and can enhance the way we experience fashion and technology, which resulted the world around us. Her studio in a PhD dissertation with the title received international recognition ‘Wearing Technology: When Fashion and with projects such as the Solar Technology Entwine‘ (2018). Her PhD Shirt, Phototrope and Issho. Pauline was part of the broader NWO- funded also received several nominations project ‘Crafting Wearables’ (2013– for her work: she was selected by 2018) that explored the properties, Forbes for their list of ‘Top 50 Women design, and application of fashionable technologies: www.craftingwearables.com.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/in-touch-with-the-now/

120 APRIA #00 June 2019 Roya Aghighi What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?

Fig.1 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry at Vancouver Design Week, 2018 “To be human is to be involved with cloth”– Beverly Gordon Fig.2 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry, 2018 Introduction We are touched by fabric and textiles since the fundamentals of our global/economic birth. We interact with textiles in every fashion industry, beginning with the de- little action we make, from surrounding structive nature of our current mainstream our naked bodies with clothes to covering relationship to clothing. This dynamic has ourselves with textile while sleeping at night. significant consequences. Fashion con- We use clothing to express our personal, sumption has become a passive act, and social, and cultural identity. We use clothes we no longer care for the longevity of our to protect ourselves and keep warm. We clothing. Clothing is often disposed long seek shelter under textiles, sit on rugs, use before it reaches its expected life. How can nets to provide for fishing to survive, wrap we urgently address all the negative impacts our funds in textiles, and light up our spaces of the fashion industry and have an impact with candles that are made by tiny twist- on fashion consumers? Fashion needs to be ed fibres. We use textiles for indisputably rethought. Our understanding of textile as a everything. And there is a long history we material needs forward and active thinking. could learn from. “We are potentially on the brink of materials What if Our Clothes Were revolution that could help rebalance our Alive and Photosynthesized? relationship with our planet and reshape The fashion and textile industries need to society for the better” Radical Matter: be urgently cared for. They need more per- Rethinking Materials for a Sustainable Future, manent and deeper solutions rather than Kate Franklin and Caroline Till, 9 temporary ones, which have to be immediately addressed. Making less wasteful clothes The era of thinking of material as a natural is no longer enough; we need to restructure resource and relying on it is over. Humanity

121 APRIA #00 June 2019 Roya Aghighi What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?

In a similar vein, Biogarmentry aims to challenge our perception of natural materials and exceed the material potential capabilities. What if living organisms are simply the new materials? And if this became part of today’s reality, how would it change our relationship to materials such as textiles? How would it change our behaviour towards fashion? Biogarmentry is a transdisciplinary collaboration of nature, science, and design in Fig.3 — Roya Aghighi, Photosynthetic which living organisms become an essential and Compostable Garment, 2018 part of the design process. In order to tackle the complex issue of the fashion industry, has created a mess that is no longer manage- the project employs the fields of synthetic able. We need new, impactful approaches. biology, material science, and design as a We need to look into infinite qualities of way to open up possibilities for the future materials for a potential revolutionary shift of fashion. Biogarmentry works through and explore new ways in which they could implementing a deeper, more holistic idea be understood by society, designers, artists, of change, creating a new material—while scientist and all creative fields. Therefore, focussing on a transformation of our values, alternative practices need to adopted by goals, and collective behaviours around our practitioners. consumption-oriented habits— embracing values that emphasize an ecological system “Design with sustainability at its core has the and are capable of lowering waste and car- power to change the world as we know it”. bon emissions. It also explores what place – Carole Collet design should have in our relationship to living things. Biogarmentry at the core aims As result of rethinking our world, merging to detach one from objective approach to the fields of design, art, technology, and clothing by challenging one’s briefs and val- science has become more common and the ues around it. Thus, it aims to open up one’s results are quite powerful. We need better, mind to re-create relationships with textiles. deeper, and cyclical approaches to our rela- To achieve this goal the work has found a tionship with materials as the core of design. special condition in clothing that users will Emphasizing on materials opens up possi- connect to—a living textile that is capable of bilities for reconsidering the building blocks photosynthesis. Fig.4 of design process from the bottom up. Now Biogarmentry’s first proof of concept The world has a clearer vision of potential was created through collaboration of design, possibilities for textile thanks to pioneering science, and technology. With the help of a designers such as Suzanne Lee, the founder of group of scientists—Dr. Jae Lee and Dr. Sun- Biocouture, who reimagined the design pro- Joo Lee from Biological Sciences department cess by placing the focus on material itself. In and Dr. Addie Bahi and Dr. Frank Ko from her creative process, she refers to living bacte- Material Engineering department all from ria as “the factories of future” and has created University of British Columbia—we created the first bacteria-generated clothing. Fig.3 the first proof of concept for the survival of

122 APRIA #00 June 2019 Roya Aghighi What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?

Fig.4 — Roya Aghighi, Preparing the Cells for Creating the First Photosynthetic Textile, Botany Lab, UBC, 2018 Fig.5a — Roya Aghighi, The Result of the First Experiment of photosynthetic living cells on natural tex- Making Living and Photosynthetic tiles, such as different kinds of cellulose and Textile, Botany Lab, UBC, 2018 protein-based fibres. As a unique approach to this project, biological manufacturers replaced industrial ones, and living entities are designed to make textiles. Fig.5a–6 In developing the living fabric further, a mixture of cells was spun into natural fibres. The outcome of this experiment was the first non-woven living and photosynthesizing textile, which feels close to how linen does Fig.7. This textile is 100% natural and biodegradable, fully compostable, and, more importantly, the material will work-while living-to purify the air through photosynthesis. Thus, by simply being present in the Fig.5b — Roya Aghighi, PAM Measurement environment, we can reduce the harm we of Cells Activities Proving the do to our planet. The work focuses on re- Life and Photosynthetic Activity, ducing the negative impacts of fashion on Botany Lab, UBC, 2018 environmental levels such as waste, carbon footprint, and air pollution, as well as acting as a catalyst for behavioural change through challenging our current relationships to clothing. Fig.7–8 After proving the feasibility of this concept, the biogarmentry family of living textiles was created with specific attention to both the variety of pollutant gasses and the need for a variety of clothing. The bio garmentry family consists of six textiles that come from different plant sources and absorb different gases from air. Based on Fig.6 — Roya Aghighi, Desired Nano Fibre Scaffold for Survival of Cells Made at AMPL UBC, 2018 123 APRIA #00 June 2019 Roya Aghighi What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?

Fig.7 their source, each one needs a different care instruction and grows differently. Fig.9 Biogarmentry’s targets fashion and textile industry on a larger and deeper scale. Making changes and impacting the future will not happen fundamentally unless behaviours, values, and thoughts change. With a specific focus on seeking alternatives for Fig.8 — Roya Aghighi, World’s textiles, biogarmentry ultimately introduces First Living and Photosynthetic a shift from traditional models of buy, use, Textile Spun at AMPL UBC, 2018 and dispose to buy, care, and compost. Since the lifecycle of the living photo synthetic textile is directly dependent on how it is taken care of, caring for clothes would regain ascendance as a crucial part of the system, encouraging users to actively embrace habits that work to support their living textile to flourish. In other words, Bio garmentry aims to employ one’s emotional attachments to living things that bring agen- Fig.9 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry Family of Living Textiles and Their cy back to textiles and clothing. Simply put, Required Care Instruction, 2018 regardless of how deep is one’s connection to living things, they wouldn’t want to harm them. This will change the way we engage with our clothes slowly but surely. Fig.10–12 The biogarment comes with exclusive care instructions in order to help the user keep the biogarment alive and last longer, which encourages a shift in our current perceptions of fashion and how we value Fig.10 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarment and treat it. More importantly, since keeping Growth Process Illustration, 2018

124 APRIA #00 June 2019 Roya Aghighi What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?

Fig.13 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry in Use, 2018

Fig.11 and 12 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry Care Tag, 2018

125 APRIA #00 June 2019 Roya Aghighi What if Our Clothes Were Alive and Photosynthesized?

each piece of biogarment alive and healthy requires user’s attention and time, users are encouraged to buy less clothes to manage to keep them alive. Which helps to slow the fast fashion and revers current consumerism habits. Fig.13 When garments are dependent beings, we build a more intimate relationship with our clothes through caring for them. Bio garmentry ultimately aims to introduce a possible future for textiles and to explore the application of biology in design to provoke thinking and facilitate new roles and ideals for design. Fig.14 Now in a near future when textiles are alive, photosynthesizing, and compostable, how would you take care of your biogarment? Fig.15

Roya Aghighi Roya is a multidisciplinary designer holding two industrial design degrees Fig.14 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry, 2018 from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Canada and Iran University of Science and Technology. Through her practice she aims to highlight the critical role of design in shaping human behaviors. Being a multidisciplinary designer, she activates the gap between various fields and aims to push the borders between traditional academic disciplines to explore and introduce alternative future possibilities. She has been exploring with materials as the fundamental element to re- imagine the role of designer as well as shifting the emphasis from product to process. She believes that focusing Fig.15 — Roya Aghighi, Biogarmentry, 2018 on materials could shape a new way to experience the world and how we position ourselves within it. Roya has been one of the material activist designers- collaborating with material engineers, scientists and biologists at University of British Colombia for past years to activate bio-design practices in Canada.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/what-if-our-clothes-were-alive-and-photosynthesized/

126 APRIA #00 June 2019 Tina Gorjanc The New Bio-ethics of Luxury

Fig.2 — Luxury definition, Google Dictionary, screenshot on 23 May 2018

Fig.1 — Tina Gorjanc, Pure Human, 2016, personal archive

Luxury can be a divisive word. Traditionally, luxury indicated a status symbol and worked as a social interface in a context of privilege, Fig.3 — Tina Gorjanc, Pure Human exclusivity, and accessibility. However, the 0.01, 2016, personal archive last few decades have seen a decline in the possession of material, as luxury appears to exploitation of our resources—seems to have have started refining itself from its social infused the meaning of the term with a more interest and become far more personal and nostalgic aftertaste. This new approach to individualistic. Fig.2 the idea of luxury puts its values in an entire- Scientists, futurists, and philosophers ly different context that emphasizes notions have theorized about the immortality of of identity and inheritance. Fig.3 the human body as the ultimate stage of Furthermore, as our current society is the luxury hierarchy and advocate that hu- becoming mostly driven by the aspiration to man perpetuity could be achieved in the constantly innovate, it is starting to lack the indefinite future. This awareness regarding ability to analyse the cultural understanding the possibility of extending our stay on the of what we are experiencing in the process of planet combined with the new responsibility innovating. Old definitions and stereotypes towards next generations to come—felt by of original and fake, natural and synthetic, most of us as the remainder of the excessive alive and dead are becoming obsolete as new

127 APRIA #00 June 2019 Tina Gorjanc The New Bio-ethics of Luxury

Fig.4 — David Parry, Mark Post holding the world’s first laboratory- grown hamburger, 2013, PA Wire Fig.6 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic Atelier, 2018, personal archive, project display

of The Great Passenger Pigeon Comeback project— the template project from Revive&Restore that offers a blueprint for most of the de-extinction aspirations. Fig.5 Portrayed within the display of the research project is a speculative scenario of a future venue that showcases a possible intersection of practices such as laboratory work, museum environment, and a luxury artisan gloves workshop. The product displayed in the fictional venue is a glove made from the de-extinct passenger pigeon skin—replicated by creating pigeon leather to resemble the hypothetical outcome. Visitors are encouraged to move the mechanical arm and examine the gloves to understand the ambitions and the motives of the organization Revive&Restore to de-extinct the species. Fig.6 A display of blueprints and informa- Fig.5 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic tive posters alongside the replicated first Atelier, 2018, personal archive, edition of the leather showcases the process blueprint of a pigeon and findings of the project. The documents displayed include research from the discoveries in the field of synthetic biology Revive&Restore organization: a sequenced are being made. Fig.4 DNA from the passenger pigeon and the Looking specifically at the de-extinction band-tailed pigeon, a comparison of the proxies, the paradox of what we categorize two DNA, easily understandable graphics as a synthetic and, therefore, unnatural/un- representing the proposed plan for the sustainable material becomes evident. The de-extinction process and a timeline of the research behind the Phylogenetic Atelier development of The Great Passenger Pigeon project showcases the process and findings Comeback project. see Fig.7

128 APRIA #00 June 2019 Tina Gorjanc The New Bio-ethics of Luxury

Fig.7 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic Atelier, 2018, personal archive, informative poster

Scaling down the complexity of the project to the debate already present in our Fig.8 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic society in terms of real and artificial leather, Atelier, 2018, personal archive, glove the project tries to understand and tackle the complexity of the much bigger scientific problem. Therefore, I am proposing that the public engage with some of the following questions: Fig.8 > as biodiversity is decreasing at a fast speed, would enhancing it with synthetic biology techniques help introduce and sustain a more holistic ecosystem? Fig.9 > if we are going to be able to bring back extinct matter, would that impact our willingness to care for the environ- Fig.9 — Jane Asholock, Petri Crop, ment? Fig.10 2015, Earth Island Journal > do we have the right to take ownership of nature? Fig.11 > is producing ‘fake’ copies of an extinct material an attempt to understand the past, or is it just an excuse to constantly create the desire for rarity? Fig.12 > if we can do it, does it mean that we should?

129 APRIA #00 June 2019 Tina Gorjanc The New Bio-ethics of Luxury

Fig.10 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic Fig.11 — Christian Leste, Atelier, 2018, personal Greenpeace protest, 1999, Germany, archive, pigeon dissection protests against cloning

Fig.12 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic Fig.13 — Tina Gorjanc, Phylogenetic Atelier, 2018, personal archive, Atelier, 2018, personal pigeon skeleton model archive, leather detail

130 APRIA #00 June 2019 Tina Gorjanc The New Bio-ethics of Luxury

Tina Gorjanc In May 2017, she has been awarded Tina Gorjanc is a Slovenian the A’ Silver Design Award in Public multidisciplinary scenario designer who Awareness, Voluntarism and Society is recognized for her work that merges Design Category for her current work. the practices of fashion and textile Her work has been featured in the new design with biotechnological procedures. TV series produced by the public Franco- Her exposure to the media placed her German TV network ARTE in September as one of the leading promoters of 2017, which is dedicated to new emerging critical and speculative design as well talents in the innovation design field. as an active advocator of bioethics, Tina is currently developing commissions bio-sustainability and bio-design. from several galleries – Science With just over two years from opening Gallery Dublin in Science Gallery her practice, she had the privilege to London – and private organizations – present her work on several events and Somerset House, Architect Association exhibitions across the globe including in Westfield Center London as well Biofabricate New York 2016, Most as being an educator and writer for Contagious 2016, London Design Festival educational institutions such as 2016 and 2018, Demo-Adi Barcelona 2017, Central Saint Martins, London College Echo Dubai 2017, Eye of Gyre Japan 2018, of Communication, University of the E-Cuerpo Mexico 2018 and 2019, Vienna Arts London, etc. She is also a Biennale 2019, etc. contributing writer for Clot magazine.

Read online: http://apria.artez.nl/the-new-bio-ethics-of-luxury/

131 APRIA #00 June 2019 Hester Brands, Maria Gil Mendoza Fashion and Activism an interview with Orsola de Castro & Otto von Busch

View video online: http://apria.artez.nl/fashion-and-activism/

132 APRIA #00 June 2019 Pascale Gatzen, David Bollier Reinventing the Commons a conversation with Pascale Gatzen & David Bollier

View video online: http://apria.artez.nl/reinventing-the-commons/

133 APRIA #00 June 2019 Julia Ewa Kaleta Aesthetic Sustainability an interview with Kristine Harper

View video online: http://apria.artez.nl/aesthetic-sustainability-2/

134 APRIA #00 June 2019 Chinouk Filique de Miranda Hedonistic Sustainability an interview with Timotheus Vermeulen

View video online: http://apria.artez.nl/hedonistic-sustainability/

135 APRIA #00 June 2019 Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee Podcast Loose Fit: about diversity in fashion

One size fits all or one size fits nobody? With: Listen to the podcast about inclusivity, Daniëlle Bruggeman (Lector Mode, Professor Fashion ArtEZ) diversity and a more embodied way of Ruby Hoette (Fashions and Embodiment fashion, recorded during the two-day con- Studio, Goldsmiths) ference Fashion Colloquium, Searching for Adele Varcoe (designer, School of Fashion and Textiles, the New Luxury (31 May–1 June 2018) in RMIT University) Arnhem. The online radio platform Ja Ja Ja Julius Thissen (visual artist, Nee Nee Nee made a live broadcast that can curator & gender activist) Pelumi Adejumo (writer, initator be listened to here. Student Curatorial Platform, ArtEZ) Chet Bugter (activist, artistic and embodied researcher, ArtEZ) Janice Deul (journalist, fashion activist, founder Diversity Rules)

Credits: Podcast: Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee Host: Arif Kornweitz, Radna Rumping Producer: Sara Liz van Til Language: English Broadcasted on 31-05-2018 at 11:15. Listen to podcast online: http://apria.artez.nl/podcast-loose-fit/

136 APRIA #00 June 2019 Biographies Editorial Board Searching for the New Luxury?

Daniëlle Bruggeman is a cultural theorist socio-cultural, environmental, and political specializing in fashion as a socio-cultural developments in contemporary society. phenomenon. In January 2017, she was For more information, see: appointed Professor of Fashion (Lector fashionprofessorship.artez.nl Mode) at ArtEZ University of the Arts. She futuremakers.artez.nl teaches both the M.A. in Fashion Strategy and the M.A. in Fashion Design at ArtEZ Jeroen van den Eijnde was appointed in and leads the Centre of Expertise Future 2016 as professor Product Design & Interi- Makers in collaboration with Professor or Architecture to shape the professorship Jeroen van den Eijnde. Bruggeman holds a E||scape. He was trained as a product de- PhD in Cultural Studies—‘Dutch Fashion signer (ArtEZ) and design historian (Leiden Identity in a Globalised World’ (2010–2014) University). He did his PhD research on from Radboud University Nijmegen, funded ideology and theory in Dutch design and by the Netherlands Organisation for Scien- fashion education. Van den Eijnde is author tific Research—which was part of the first and editor of books and articles about art, large-scale interdisciplinary research project design and design education. In 2018, he will on fashion in the Netherlands. She was a publish a new handbook for design students visiting scholar at Parsons, the New School and young design professionals. In the func- for Design (NYC), and at the London Col- tion of teacher ‘design history’ and ‘design lege of Fashion. She has published on topics theory’, he taught, among others at Haagse like the fluid, performative and embodied Hogeschool, department Industrial Product dimensions of identity, (Dutch) fashion Design, Design Academy Eindhoven and still photography, and fashion as a new material- teaches at the Product Design department ist aesthetics. Her current research interests of ArtEZ. He was a member of the board of include exploring more engaged approaches, Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Gelderland vocabularies and strategies, using fashion and Design Platform Arnhem. He was ad- as a tool for systemic change and societal visor art and design for, among others, the transformation. On April 25, 2018, Daniëlle province of Gelderland and the National Bruggeman gave her inaugural lecture Fund for Visual Arts, Design and Architec- and presented the accompanying publica- ture (now Creative Industries Fund NL). In tion Dissolving the Ego of Fashion: Engaging May 2015, Van den Eijnde was appointed for with Human Matters (ArtEZ Press, 2018), a period of four years as a member of the do- which outlines her main research lines for main committee on Visual Arts, Design and the coming years. Architecture of the Raad voor Cultuur (the The Fashion Professorship aims to Council for Culture): the legal advisory body develop critical theories and practices in of the government and parliament in the order to explore, better understand, and fields of arts, culture and media. Since 2016 rethink the cracks in the fashion system, he is one of the program co-ordinators of as well as the role that fashion plays—and the Applied Network Design Research that could potentially play—in relation to urgent focus on design research at higher vocational

137 APRIA #00 June 2019 Biographies Editorial Board institutes. In April 2018 he will be member Poldner is the founder of the Circular of the new program board of CLICKnl, the Fashion Lab at Wageningen University national research and innovation network & Research, which brings designers and for creative industries and responsible for companies together with researchers and the further development and implementa- students to answer pressing questions in tion of the Knowledge & Innovation Agenda fashion supply chains. The Lab contrib- Creative Industries 2018–2021. utes to the creation of new ‘categories’ of materials previously unknown in the fash- Ian King is a research professor at the Uni- ion industry, disruptive technologies that versity of the Arts, London and London re-define textile supply-chains and inspired College of Fashion. He is currently Chair processes of organizing that turn competi- of the Research Degrees Committee at tors into comparables. the college. King is widely published in Poldner is a member of the Scientific academic journals, media publications. Committee of the Fashion Colloquium 2018, His recent books include: The Aesthetics of because she is fascinated by how we can Dress (Springer, 2017) explores the relation- translate sustainable design and technology to ships between how the body appears and marketable innovations. Before she embarked feels in everyday life through aesthetics. on an academic career, Kim initiated the first King is also the founder and co- eco fashion store in the Netherlands and she ordinator of the International Fashion was a founder of online platform Eco Fashion colloquium series that originated in 2011. World. Her green wardrobe, including her Previous locations for Fashion colloquium upcycled wedding dress, was exhibited during include: London; Milan; Paris; New York; the exhibition Wear I Am in 2017. Amsterdam, Shanghai, Ho Chi Ming, and For more information, see: Sao Paulo, Vietnam. Future locations in- www.wur.eu/circularfashion clude: Rome in September 2019 and Jaipur, India in 2020. Anneke Smelik is Katrien van Munster professor Catelijne de Muijnck is the editor of Visual Culture at the Radboud Univer of APRIA and programme maker of sity Nijmegen, Netherlands, where she ArtEZ studium generale. is coordinator of the MA programme www.studiumgenerale.artez.nl/eng ‘Creative Industries’. She published widely on identity, body, memory and technol- Kim Poldner is Professor of Circular ogy in cinema, popular culture, and Business at The Hague University of Applied fashion. Recent books include Delft Sciences (THUAS). Poldner obtained Blue to Denim Blue. Contemporary Dutch her PhD at the University of St. Gallen, Fashion; Materializing Memory in Art and Switzerland for which she studied 58 Popular Culture; and Thinking Through Fashion. sustainable entrepreneurs in the fashion in- A Guide to Key Theorists. dustry longitudinally. Her research interests Smelik is project leader of the research evolve at the crossroads of business, aesthet- programme “Crafting Wearables; Fashion- ics, and sustainability, and she has written able Technology”, funded by the Netherlands award-winning case studies on sustainable Organization for Scientific Research, which fashion pioneers, such as Veja and Osklen. will be presented together with Pauline

138 APRIA #00 June 2019 Biographies Editorial Board van Dongen and Lianne Toussaint at the processes in fashion and design. She holds exhibition of State of Fashion. Searching for the a Visiting Professorship in Fashion Theory New Luxury. and Research at ArtEZ and works as an in She is a member of the Scientific Com- dependent fashion curator. mittee of the Fashion Colloquium, because Teunissen has previously worked she finds sustainability the most urgent as a professor, a journalist for several issue for contemporary fashion. Anneke Dutch newspapers and Dutch broadcast Smelik is developing a new research pro- television, and was a curator in Fashion ject on ‘slow’ fashion from the perspective and Costume at the Centraal Museum in of ‘posthumanism’ and ‘new materialism’, to Utrecht (1998–2006). understand how human and non-human In 2002 at ArtEZ, Teunissen was one factors are interrelated. If we recognize that of the first professors in the Netherlands humans are deeply entangled with things, to conduct research and develop theory in such as clothes, it may be easier to see why the field of fashion. She took various hot we need to take responsibility for the earth— items from the fashion industry, including and change the fashion system. the effects of globalization, sustainability, See: www.annekesmelik.nl and technology, and used them as the basis for research projects, publications, and ex- José Teunissen is Professor of Fashion hibitions in association with ArtEZ Press, Theory and Dean of the School of Design which earned her an excellent international and Technology at London College of reputation. Fashion, UAL. She is the curator of State of Teunissen has co-edited Fashion: Searching for the New Luxury (2018). many books including Fashion and Teunissen is currently a board member Imagination (2009), The Art of Fashion of the Dutch Creative Industries Council (2009), Couture Graphique (2013), Fashion and Chair of the network CLICK/Next Odyssey (2013), The Future of Fashion is Fashion, the Dutch Government innova- Now (2014), and Everything but Clothes (2015). tion network for the creative industries in She has also realized many exhibitions, the Netherlands. In 2015, she established including The Art of Fashion (2009), Couture the Centre of Expertise Future Makers at Graphique (2013), The Future of Fashion is ArtEZ, which is dedicated to new production Now (2014), and Everything but Clothes(2015).

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