What can clothes do? Some say it’s a sign system, others compare it to language, while the more political theorists cynically attach their power to class delineation. Regardless of whatever fixed way of seeing clothing is applied, the way fashion is made to work is in terms of the way clothing projects outwards.
Most theorists question the work of designer clothes, and one of the best models for how designer clothing works is the Simpsons episode where Marge acquires a Chanel dress. A designer dress is not special because of the dress itself, it has a different power because it is Chanel. While wearing the dress, Marge is able to transform her identity as high class, powerful, and glamorous. However, the way this garment works in its interiority is still defined by a preconception that a designer dress can change the way one is seen. Even if someone buys designer to convince themselves that they are wealthy or glamorous, the conception that designer can do this ultimately works because of an understanding that these garments reflect these concepts outwards. The same could be said of subcultural garments, band t-shirts, or any clothing that has meaning. Interiority exists only thanks to knowledge of an exteriority.
Alternatively, if clothing is so tied to socialization and defining what kinds of clothes do what, what of those who are not socialized? Think of a child who chooses what they want to wear. Their decisions are based on comfort and impulse, if any notice for the exterior factors in it is limited at best. In this sense, an ensemble or garment is constructed through a higher interiority. Take this photo:
Little Saoirse proclaims “I’m so fashion“, announcing knowledge of a fashion that suggests a knowledge of the outside world. However, Saoirse also informs me that their fanny pack in this picture is in fact filled with rocks, illuminating a wholly different way in which this outfit functions as an extension of interior desire and personal comfort. In spite of the outfit being “so fashion“, because it is an extension of interior desire the addition of a functional bag with completely different uses from “fashion” can still fit comfortably in the ensemble. A child could just as easily deem a pirate costume appropriate for the everyday with it technically fulfilling their understanding of being socialized (featuring shoes, pants, etc.) with other minor additions serving merely as pieces designed for one’s self with little regard for the thoughts of others (a sword or tricorner hat in this case).
I am currently working on a thesis project that concerns the world of fashion - specifically the world of archive fashion. Like the model of designer or subcultural clothing, archive fashion works in the valuing of specific designers and collections. The archive fashion world attributes meaning (and usually price) to garments and figures from the past while similarly locating and determining value for what will enter the archive of the soon-to-be past. Is 2018 Vetements archive? Is only one piece of a 2020 Raf Simons collection valued at thousands, or are all of them? These “pieces” can range from the odd to the innocuous, and one may find that in spite of the patina of that black Yohji leather jacket, it still costs less than a pair of shoes that resemble glorified Converse. Like any subculture, a piece takes on a new associative meaning when it is recognized by other members of the same subculture. In other words, archive fashion seems to resemble a model of fashion that is inherently exterior.
If ever there was a case study for the apparent subjectivity of archive fashion tastes it is through the decade-long collaboration between Patti Smith and designer Jun Takahashi. Takahashi is an obsessive of both the punk and the literary, first using an audio recording of Smith reading one of a 1978 poem entitled “neoboy” while a flock of Smith impersonators strode by. This yielded the most valued archive Undercover garment yet: the 68 Denim which mimicked the distress of Smith’s pair of Levi’s and recreated her lightning bolt tattoo in the same position. Smith returns in 2009 for a collection titled “Neoboys & Poptones”, which included the also archive-acknowledged neoboy denim. These were a pair that also used the Smith lightning bolt while embroidering the entirety of Smith’s neoboy poem along the jean pockets. Takahashi released tee shirts, jackets, chinos, and shorts that bear the Neoboy title or poem yet none of them, alongside the garments from Takahashi’s ‘04 collection of Smith impersonators, have been as successful.
Why is it that two kinds of garments that seem to proclaim the same things seem to function in such different ways? The enlarged text on a tee shirt seems too obvious and loud. The shirts proclaim large text that doesn’t provide easy explanation or works as a mere simulacrum of the more valued and original neoboy/Smith denim. What of the chinos that Takahashi designed with text down the legs? The chinos and tee serve as intentionally loose garments that separate from the body and reference the text through poem title or obscured words. The relation between the meaning of the garment and the wearer involves a knowledge of the poem and the designer and their complement through the garment.
The denim pieces are constructed as more personal recreations of Smith through the recreation of her tattoos and original denim tears, or through the stitching of her verse into the jeans in a readable format. Then there’s the tightness of the denim fit, the idea of embroidery and rip and faux tattoo meeting skin, becoming one. There is no separation through drapery, no shifting focus through large text, there is just a unifying of the poem, its author, and you. Someone may bend down and read from your pant pocket, just as a superfan may recognize Smith’s tattoo, but both are unlikely. So, you will walk the streets with denim that clings to you and makes you seem closer to Smith, or in the case of the neoboy pair, Smith and her poem.
This is a garment that constructs interior pleasure. It is the pleasure of a story, it is the pleasure of a reconstructed history, and it is the pleasure of masquerading as Patti Smith. This final point is what makes the denim stand out from the other similarly Smith-adjacent pieces - they do not provide the illusion of a window into authorship, and they do not provide the same compelling opportunity for self-transformation. It would be overly simplistic to label Takahashi as “childlike“ in his approach, but there is certainly a beauty in the way his garments allow the wearer to dress as and in the worlds and characters they love. His graphics are loud and his clothes extreme, but their communication and subversion function best when it is with ones naive self.
We return to archive fashion as a double-edged sword, simultaneously a tool for finding these objects and raising them up as deeply serious artistic endeavors, while also placing their value in and around cash and burying other underlooked work from Takahashi. What’s more, if the archive fashion snob sees you walking down the street in your neoboy denim they don’t have to read the poem to recognize it or its monetary value. What this reminds us is that a consideration of garments as objects of interiority does not eliminate the idea that they will be seen and recognized. Inversely, just because Marge’s Chanel suit is powerful because it is recognizable does not strip it of its power to affect Marge in an interior sense. It also reminds us that for every Chanel dress there is a neoboy denim that weilds interiority in the way Chanel weilds exteriority.
Disregarding any archive fashion valuation, these are the garments that last. These are garments with true meanings that are not thrown away after a season or cycle. These are garments which we can have relationships with, and which remind us of the beauty and power of getting dressed.