I only know what I know so prove me wrong. I think almost all other forms of art, from music to television and cinema to sculpture and mixed media and painting to dance all have proletarian channels, but fashion is almost exclusively for the wealthy. Arguably also it seems to me that a lot of culinary art tends to cater to the wealthy too, so fuck that as well.
High fashion is inaccessible to the working class - but so are most forms of high art! And there absolutely is working class fashion, it's just not recognized as such
This argument could work a little bit for things like architecture and theater, but everyone wears clothes
You do realize that the people who design these things are often working class themselves right. It's about being able to sustain their art in such a way they can work on more focused and time consuming projects rather than having to pump a ton of lower quality stuff out for cheap.
There was a study done a while back that discovered the people who eat at the very highest end restaurants are not wealthy people, but mostly people who save up for months and enjoy this as their main hobby.
I don't think that's the case, people also save up for going on vacation because it can be a fun new and engaging experience. Economic status doesn't improve or lower ones ability to appreciate high end (re: only can be made by the most talented folks) food, art, and fashion. The people who work in these fields often have interest in this stuff and are working class themselves.
There are very few hobbies that are just for rich people even if a rich person could afford a more luxury experience within that hobby or do it more often. Extreme sports comes to mind as being only for rich people.
I'd never heard this term before, but an excerpt from the wiki:
Considering the amount of time, money, and skill allotted to each completed piece, haute couture garments are also described as having no price tag: budget is not relevant.
Yeah, let's burn it down
Let's not pay attention to the amount of time, skill and lack of money that goes into sweatshops that make t-shirts though. Their time and skill is priceless too, as in we don't pay them.
Interests in theatre aren't inherently haute, you can see most Broadway shows in NYC for 30 dollars if you know what your doing, and off broadway stuff for less.
The only hobbies that are always going to be haute are ones that require very expensive equipment, which generally speaking, only applies to certain sports.
Yeah good point, I always seem to struggle with it because fashion seems so aspirationally bougie. But you are right. They're ripping off poor people, jacking up the price, then gatekeeping.
They’re ripping off poor people, jacking up the price, then gatekeeping.
antithesis...
companies sell cheap, trendiest stuff is available to poor people†, they rip off workers so much more than consumers††, items have bad durability and ecological impact† in fact most extremely 'high end' brands are just selling their brand, not the design, the items cost maybe $200 but they sell them for $3000 which makes it a status symbol.
Those 'high end' things are barely even sold, but just by existing they generate demand for the cheap and flimsy unbranded version, usually made by the same corporation.
What they also do is sell unaffordable 'high end' handbags, then use the same brand to sell cheap cosmetics and accessories, capitalizing on their expensive brand cred.†† there is extreme competition within in the fashion industry, which means consumers have plenty of choice, and the market forces companies to give them a good deal while cutting corners everywhere else.
That said rich people can afford to buy things that are durable and that ends up being cheaper in the long run.I always seem to struggle with it because fashion seems so aspirationally bougie.
Aspirational bougieness is exactly why it sells so well to people who can barely afford it, most people trying to look like they are one class higher; meanwhile rich people deliberately act like they're at least one class lower (read at your peril...).
'High end' fashion is largely fabricated by advertising and such, the emperor has no clothes as it were; they want people to think it's bougie, it sells better than sex.(read at your peril…).
The worst part of this article wasn't even the class faking (although that was a significant massive part of it) but the odd rehabilitation of the Christakis duo because they suck.
I didn't even know Christakis, just assumed they were assholes from context, but via the google I found this, and he really is something special, just keeps digging deeper and deeper.
The fuck is that shirt homie is wearing lmao
I love how these guys become free speech warriors when their cushy HUSBAND AND WIFE JOBS are threatened for saying something stupid
It's not aspirationally bougie. Just like outsider art isn't aspirationally bougie. It's aspiring to rise above the mundane, it's just that we've conflated that with bougie because typically it takes a lot of wealth to accomplish.
There are plenty of affordable entry points into fashion. Thrifting has always played a big part in accessible fashion. So have the various fiber arts: sewing, knitting, crochet
The fashion industry is largely bourgeois, but like most things the culture and style is just ripped off of what the working class does.
The cycle always seems to go: Working class dresses a certain way -> fashion industry appropriates the style and charges $2000 for it -> working class dresses a different way -> fashion industry appropriates the style and charges $2000 for it.
You can wear cool clothes for cheap, the trick is if you like it, then it's cool to you.
Sort of related but I love these chumps buying $80 tie dyes. The whole point of tie dye was to take a cheap shirt and make it look cooler by dying it.
I'm not completely sure either. I used to just stick to the most basic stuff like jeans/t shirt or some muted colored button up shirts. Like it's lame and I'm sure somebody will tell me why the Gap is the most horrible company on earth, but most of their shit is just the basics that look nice regardless of who wears it. Just make sure the clothes fit.
Think you're conflicting fashion in general with Runway fashion, that kind of "haute-culture" high brow shit is definitely bourgeois as fuck but people have always dressed up in cool and interesting ways.
From my perspective as a trans person, for me at least, fashion was all about seizing back the means of dress and accessory and blending it with my own new style. I'm poor, so almost all of my clothing comes from thrift shops or from clothing closets, and for me it's insanely liberating to break the views of normal, conventional fashion and to set my own world. I'm very much into retro fashion, I very much love the use of hats, I love brooches, and I can create a "fashion" style, outside of bourgeoise conventions. I really love going to antique shops and finding new brooches and hats, and it's something cheap, and even though as I am in college, none of my cis female peers would really do this, I can't help but find it liberating.
I think something like this would be a proletarian outlook into the realms of fashion. Especially when conventional fashion (like fast fashion in the vein of forever21) doesn't accommodate the build of being trans.
extremely dope shit, your style sounds awesome too. I think maybe that's one part of this post this misses, fashion can be extremely gender euphoric. When this ol' enby got their hands on their first vest i felt like a whole new person.
There is plenty of affordable creative fashion.
Also a great deal of ethically sourced, well built fashion.
The dream is to have the best of both worlds, maybe one day.
Yeah I guess I just don't think of that as fashion because it's not decadent and ridiculous
I don't give a shit about fashion beyond basically just not looking like a loser but I think there has been a big trend over the past 10 or so years to democratize fashion. Like obviously designers and shit are as popular as ever but the actual "cool" people have been getting their looks by going thrifting for years.
I will say there is even a class contradiction in this though as it's mostly petit bourgeois and PMC urbanites spending lots of free time and effort sifting through hundreds of random thrift store goods in an attempt to perform a faux proletarian image.
oh god one of my friends is literally a day trader (with daddy's money ofc) and he always talks about how he goes thrift shopping for his "style" all the time and I'm just thinking like bruh I can't afford new shoes
i don't think fashion has to be bourgeois. I think people choosing their own styles is cool and good. Maybe a prole fashion show would be things people modified/created themselves. The problems with fashion i see are these:
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Price. Most clothes are either way too cheap because they're made with slave labor, or way overpriced because rich people are easy marks. Ideally basic clothing would be free and made by union workers and relatively environmentally safe dyes/materials
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Style over Utilty. Anyone who has looked at women's clothes knows this to be true. There are no fucking pockets anywhere, or they cost like $100 if they have actually decent pockets. I've yet to meet someone who wears women's clothes that likes the lacks of pockets. Just sew some dang pockets in. And clothes should mostly be baseline comfortable to wear and not restrictive. That's not even getting into the horror show that is women's shoes. Heels are not comfortable, at most you adapt to them and stop being quite as uncomfortable.
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We live in a Society. A society that sucks and is bad and likes to put unrealistic expectations on people but also expects them to conform even when they literally can't. If you're talking about the problems of the fashion industry you can't leave out all how them choosing only thin white models is giving people eating disorders and self-esteem problems. That shit just isn't realistic. We need diverse models, in sizing and body type, skin color etc because that just makes the most sense if your goal is to show people how clothing looks on the general populace. And to discard all the arbitrary rules about which gender is allowed to wear what and how black people must do their hair etc.
Anyway, in a post-scarcity socialist world, i'm sure fashion would still exist because there is an art to it and artists gonna art, and humans gonna self-express. It'll hopefully be wildly different than the bourgeois fashion world of today, that you need to be rich to participate in.
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but I don't mean to disparage your style and so on and so on
It absolutely depends on what you consider to be fashion. If it's how a particular person dresses and presents themselves, there are very substantial working class manifestations of such, especially within queer communities.
If you're talking about high fashion and brands, then yeah no shit, the entire point is that you're manufacturing something exclusive. But I have a lot of friends who've made far more money than they've spent from a hobby in branded fashion, so it isn't something that's simple.
You're just hyper focusing on all the wrong parts of these things rather than the broader thing at hand. Like there are tons of working class people who like to fix up old cars, but there are others who own 200k ferraris, it's still the same hobby.
You're probably right in general, but I've just watched Paris is Burning and then binged through Pose, so, hard disagree. The ballroom scene of the 80s had some great fashion and none of them were rich at all.
Pose is what prompted this in the first place. The trans women of color on the show are all poor, but several characters are aspirationally rich and attempt to adopt a bougie lifestyle and appearance, which is what doesn't sit quite right with me. Like that Louis Vuitton you just shoplifted was inspired by the looks you created and had stolen from you, burn down the fucking shop instead.
aspirationally rich and attempt to adopt a bougie lifestyle and appearance
idk if Contrapoints is still canceled but her video Opulence was about exactly this.
she had some odd takes about class in there but i can't remember most of it so...
