CSFB 6 (2) pp. 259–272 Intellect Limited 2015 Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty Volume 6 Number 2 © 2015 Intellect Ltd Book Report. English language. doi: 10.1386/csfb.6.2.259_5 Book REPoRT 2015 ‘Fashion: Red in tooth and claw’: A lycology for Alan Moore and Malcolm McLaren’s Fashion Beast, Moore, Alan, McLaren,Ltd Malcolm and Johnston, Anthony (2013) Fashion Beast, Rantoul, IL: Avatar Press. ISBN 9781592912117, Trade Paperback, $24.99 Otto von Busch, Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York Intellect Abstract The graphic noveldistribution Fashion Beast from 2012 is a story by Alan Moore and Malcolm McLaren that 1. takes the reader into an apocalyptic world on the verge of war, but also into a narrative about a fash- 2. ion housefor and its inner workings. 3. As an example of popular fiction on the topic of fashion, from both an acknowledged popular 4. Copyrightauthor (Moore) and a fashion-insider (McLaren), the graphic novel exposes an interesting perspec- 5. tive on what could be seen as the personal and social forces of fashion. Whereas the novel starts 6. withNot clothing and fashion being used as part of an individual identity project, the story quickly 7. evolves into a more violent narrative, revealing the double-faced nature of fashion: attraction and 8. rejection, desire and death, beautiful as well as beast-like. At a key passage in the novel, the designer 9. reveals the evolutionary essence of fashion and glamour: power. 10. 11. 259 CSFB_6.2_Book Report_259-272.indd 259 11/3/15 11:52:54 AM Book Report 1. This article is structured as follows: the first section introduces the Fashion Beast storyworld, while the 2. following sections examine a series of narrative hints at the main themes of the novel; firstly, the Janus- 3. faced evolutionary force of fashion (Section 2); secondly that the faction, the pack, is the main vehicle for 4. this social competition (Section 3); and finally, that this force of fashion is something beyond human 5. control, a rage or a meme, in itself a monster of sorts (Section 4). The article then sketches a framework 6. of what Jacques Derrida calls a lycology, a ‘politics as discourse about the wolf, lucos’ (Section 5). The arti- 7. cle concludes by pointing towards how a lycology drawn from Fashion Beast may help expose how fashion 8. is a realm of both peace and war, attraction and rejection, with beautiful as well as beast-like qualities. As 9. the Fashion Beast suggests, there is a beast in fashion: red in tooth and claw. 10. 11. 12. Section 1: The Fashion Beast 2015 13. Fashion Beast is a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Malcolm McLaren, with sequential adaptation 14. by Antony Johnston and artwork by Facundo Percio, released in 2012. The full story was released as 15. trade paperback in 2013 (Moore, McLaren, Johnston & Pericio 2013). The story, Ltdwhich stretches 16. over ten issues, is an adaptation of a 1985 script that Moore wrote with McLaren based on the classic 17. fairy-tale Beauty and the Beast, that was originally intended to be turned into a feature film. 18. The story is set in a dark future, on the brink of war and a threatening nuclear winter or apoca- 19. lypse. As the plot develops, the subplot of a coming war becomes apparent through ever-recurring 20. hints in the dialogue. At the beginning of the novel, the main protagonists, Doll and Jonni, are having 21. an argument about clothes, identity and street style, and later both Intellectcome to work for the much-hyped 22. but never seen fashion-designer Celestine. Celestine, who is trapped in his fashion castle with his 23. oeuvre and a warped mirror reflecting his image in a distorted and ugly way, is portrayed as the 24. ‘beast’, imprisoned by his creepy matrons, who protects the legacy of Celestine’s mother by keeping 25. Celestine locked up and in the creative delusion about his own ugliness and beast-like appearance. 26. Already from the first encounter, Celestine is revealed as the sovereigndistribution king of the fashion house, 27. forming the world according to his whims and desires. After a quarrel with Jonni, Doll runs away 28. wearing one of Celestine’s creations, and in town a mob offor austere anti-fashion activists attacks her. 29. She runs back with the ruined dress to CelestineCopyright who then ‘discovers’ Doll as a model, and makes 30. her his mannequin, his doll. Later, as the conflicts mount, Celestine savagely beats Jonni, as Jonni 31. does not agree with Celestine’s artistic vision Notand threatens Celestine’s creative leadership. As 32. Celestine calms down and returns to reason after his temporary and beast-like rage against Jonni, 33. he now explains to Doll the true nature of fashion: the evolution of aestheticized power. This mono- 34. logue by Celestine about the evolutionary power of fashion and the degeneration of humanity stands 35. as the central part of this research text as it also echoes throughout the novel’s main narrative. 36. The beast-like behaviour of Celestine and his monologue on power leads the narrative towards the moment when he is actually revealed to be a handsome young man, imprisoned and oppressed 260 CSFB_6.2_Book Report_259-272.indd 260 11/3/15 11:52:55 AM Book Report in a reversal of the traditional Beauty and the Beast narrative: here, the beast is a handsome designer 1. prince who carries a beast within (discussed in Section 2). 2. However, as this fact is revealed to Doll, she agrees with the matrons not to tell Celestine the 3. truth about his handsome appearance. She has turned herself into a doll of the fashion narrative 4. itself, and as Celestine later dies in his dark room, she reconciles with him. Yet, later at the funeral, 5. Doll agrees to betray Jonni and lets the matrons put him up for conscription and he is sent to fight 6. in the war, which has finally erupted with the total conscription for all men in the city. The soldiers 7. ritually burn the conscripts’ clothes as they are forcefully enlisted. 8. However, as Jonni later returns to claim his role as the new designer, as the new Celestine, Doll 9. fights with one of the matrons and turns up on the catwalk wearing clothes stained with blood. 10. Witnessing this transformation, the audience turns into a mob and the show becomes a blood- 11. stained, violent riot in which the vicious 2015force of the mob consumes the matrons. Repeating 12. Celestine’s original success (which also caused riots), the cycle of birth and death through the rage 13. of the mob becomes an inherent part of the narrative (discussed in Sections 3 and 4). 14. Finally, in celebrating their victoryLtd and the happy ending, Doll and Jonni withdraw to 15. Celestine’s old room. In the final panels, as Jonni stares into Celestine’s warped mirror his 16. distorted reflection looks back at him. The reader witnesses the beast return: a new sovereign 17. wolf-king born in the cradle of the ephemerally liberated state. The lycos – the wolf-king, werewolf 18. – is reborn sovereign, and a new master monarch reigns over the Celestine territory (discussed in 19. Section 5). 20. The narrative Intellectnot only resembles the tale of Beauty and the Beast, but also portrays the interlinked 21. subject of fashion production, image distortion and recursive violence as perpetual, as a force which 22. may be temporarily displaced, but cannot be stopped, much like Zygmunt Bauman’s perspective on 23. fashion as a perpetuum mobile (Bauman 2010). 24. The three following sections will draw from Celestine’s central monologue where he reveals to 25. Doll the evolutionarydistribution nature or power of fashion. As the text will posit, Celestine’s argument is also 26. mirrored within the overall story and reflects three beast-like characteristics in fashion. 27. for 28. Copyright 29. Section 2: The evolutionary force of fashion: A love/hate relationship 30. InNot the beginning of the monologue Celestine proclaims that aesthetics are an essential part of nature, 31. and fashion is an invention of man and part of our evolutionary struggle. The point of it is survival 32. and evolution, 33. 34. There is no other point, not for any of us. This is a constant, throughout the natural world 35. […] There are moths that embroider their wings with owl’s eyes […] and flowers that can 36. reproduce the inviting hindquarters of a queen bee […] but the bald ape invented fashion! 261 CSFB_6.2_Book Report_259-272.indd 261 11/3/15 11:52:55 AM Book Report 1. Sheathing its featherless, furless paw within a glove of animal velvet, it took evolution by the 2. throat and shook it ’til it screamed […] for in the image there is power!’ 3. (Moore, McLaren and Johnston 2013: 125ff, original emphases) 4. 5. The comparison between fashion and sexual/natural selection is not as far-fetched as it may seem, 6. having been already popularized in Nancy Ectoff’s Survival of the Prettiest (1999). According to 7. philosopher Elizabeth Grosz (2008), the arts are an extension of the human sexual selection process, 8. emerging from the affirmation of life, the biological surplus energy surging through our species. 9. 10. There is much ‘art’ in the natural world, from the moment there is sexual selection, from the 11. moment there are two sexes that attract each other’s interest and taste through visual, audi- 12. tory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory sensations.