Author: Chen Bin
Fashion brings people pleasure and even madness. People are crazy about fashion. What are they pursuing? The General History of Fashion, written by Marni Fogg, runs through the deep historical depth, from 500 BC to the present, which is as long as 2,500 years. It is all-encompassing, detailed and detailed, just like an encyclopedia. Through this magnificent picture, readers can see the rich projection of human history on fashion.
A General History of Fashion (Second Edition) [English] Manu Fogg translated by Chen Lei and published by China Pictorial Publishing House.
Fashion is an upgraded version of fashion power expression.
What is fashion? This seems to be well known, but it is difficult to summarize it accurately in one or two sentences.
For Chinese people, the word fashion is "imported", but fashion has never been absent in history, such as the openness and freedom of women’s dress in the Tang Dynasty, which is still impressive. Fashion and fashion are inseparable, and fashion is the mainstream of fashion history. Mani pointed out straight away: "The word" Fashion "comes from the Latin word" ‘Facito’ ",which literally means" making ".It is used to express all kinds of values, including such different concepts as consistency and social connection, rebellion and eccentricity, social desire and status, temptation and deception. The desire to dress up has broken through the limitations of history, culture and geography. Although the form and content may be different, the motivation is the same, dressing up the human body and expressing identity. "
Mani’s explanation is very comprehensive, the main meaning is nothing more than these aspects, that is, fashion symbolizes a kind of value and is the embodiment of identity; There are both inheritance and rebellion in fashion, and some people’s visions are often mixed. Fashion is essentially an external dress of the body.
The costumes in the initial stage of human civilization were rather crude. About 11,000 years ago, people gradually got rid of fishing, hunting and gathering life and began to settle down. Animal skins and plants that were only used by human ancestors to keep out the cold or disguise at that time gradually evolved into clothing. Living conditions are bad, materials are in short supply, and human beings don’t have many choices. Those who can wear animal skins are probably the "heads" who have more power.
The connotation of clothing being empowered has become an important carrier for the ruling class to defend its "sacred" status. To this end, the ruling class strives to innovate in clothing to show off the superiority of power.
"The concept of fashion is usually regarded as unique to western society and originated from the court in the 14th century." At that time, Europe’s commercial economy developed, capitalism began to sprout, and the status of emerging civil classes improved. "The combination of court and commerce brought the birth of modern fashion industry." In order to ensure the superiority of the ruling class’s clothing, on the one hand, power shows its unique luxury, on the other hand, it introduces a "ban on luxury".
Through Marni’s exhibition of history, we can see that "the gorgeous court costumes in Italy in the 14th century reflected the desire for luxurious silk decoration"; Women in the Tang Dynasty rushed to enlarge their sleeves, so that the court had to specifically limit their size; In fact, the "Twelve Orders" of women’s dresses in heian period Palace are composed of 10 to 25 pieces of silk, "each outer garment should show a part of the inner one"; The pleated headscarf advocated by the French court also symbolizes wealth.
The prohibition of luxury is an important starting point to distinguish power from ordinary people in the history of eastern and western courts. The medieval European court stipulated that ordinary people could not wear expensive silk from the East at will, and the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan also issued the same ban, while the ban on luxury in Myanmar focused on jewelry …
Mastering power means mastering the power of resources, so social aesthetics inevitably has a strong power color. In this sense, fashion is also one of the crystallization of power aesthetics. For a long time in history, the focus of fashion manufacturing is often the focus of power accumulation, which is why "the king of Chu has a thin waist and many people starve to death in the palace". Worship of power clothing, metaphor of obedience and proximity to power, even without asking why.
Through Manilow’s clothing styles, we can see that the power clothing show existed before the 14th century, so why didn’t the fashion tour start until the 14th century? On the one hand, it benefited from the prosperous development of European commerce, on the other hand, it was the changes brought about by the Renaissance. The social material is getting richer and the basic food and clothing is improving gradually, which provides an important material basis for the ordinary people to pursue higher clothing. Under the pressure of folk imitation enthusiasm, the power center had to speed up the pace of clothing novelty, which in turn stimulated the enthusiasm of the people, so the clothing realized the gorgeous turn of fashion.
Fashion is a short-lived accelerated version of fashion.
At that time, the clothing changed from the function of keeping out the cold to the so-called aesthetic significance, so it was doomed that no matter how warm it was, it could not last long. Coco chanel is a classic that never dies, but only the brand remains, and its connotation and form have been constantly updated with the pace of time. Even the "created tradition" like Scottish skirts is not what it used to be, and there are obvious differences in details such as fabrics and styles.
Mani pointed out that "fashion is often considered to be one-off, capricious and fleeting". Eric hobsbawm, a famous British historian, wrote in The Extreme Age: 1941-1991: "Why are outstanding fashion designers, a well-known group that is not good at analysis, sometimes able to predict the development of things more accurately than professional prophets? This is one of the most difficult problems in history; For cultural historians, this is the most important issue. For anyone who wants to understand the impact of the era of upheaval on high culture, elite art, and especially the avant-garde, this is definitely a key issue. " If you solve the question, you can’t call it fashion. Fashion is always so abstract and elusive.
Fashion was born from the imitation of power body performance, so, "Fashion is very good at’ borrowing’, which draws inspiration from different cultures and different historical times". Fashion developed with the improvement of production level, that is, the industrial age. Under the competitive pursuit of various new technology fabrics, new technologies and media, although there are still customized fashions like Valentino, a century-old shop, which insist on hand-making, fashion has since embarked on the fast lane of industrialization. This also shows that the more advanced the technology, the more branches of concepts, and the shorter the fashion.
Industrialization provides conditions for the rapid development of fashion, but fashion is not naturally produced by assembly line. There is a continuation of history and a rebellion against reality in fashion, just like the absurd clothes of American hippies. Fashion is the product of society first, and technology is only one of the factors. But historical factors often occupy an extremely important position. "From 1850 to 1860, at that time, men had to change clothes four times a day", and "the prince of Wales’ obsession with clothes-he usually changed six sets of clothes every day-started the fashion people". Without these historical deposits, fashion might be another look.
No matter how amazing the fashion is, it is only a flash in the pan. The steel petticoat patented in Britain in 1856 seems extremely bulky today, but it was all the rage at that time. There are many forces that provide acceleration for fashion, and the court in history bears the brunt. It is like a big stage. Nowadays, the entertainment industry is firmly at the top of fashion. Hollywood is undoubtedly the biggest promoter of fashion in the last century. With the help of light and shadow art, a large number of stars such as Hepburn and Monroe are competing to become the leaders of fashion trends. Fashion also benefits from the rapid development of media technology. Words, photos, light and shadow are deeply involved in fashion, which helps to spread the influence of fashion to the maximum extent and attract more people to fashion trends.
Another force to promote the development of fashion can not be ignored. Mani pointed out that during the Edo era in Japan, the dress code was very strict, but "high-end prostitutes often dressed according to the most popular fashion." Wu Renshu also pointed out in the book "Luxury Women: Consumer Culture of Jiangnan Women in Ming and Qing Dynasties" that as a high-income group in Ming and Qing Dynasties, some "women who lost their social life" did play the role of pursuing fashion or even leading the trend.
Interestingly, unlike the historical power deliberately creating fashion focus, with the demagoguery of modern politics, the distance between power and civilians is getting closer and closer, and it is becoming more and more difficult to create class differences through material. This means that power is no longer the main driving force of fashion butterfly change. Power withdrew, and the business and entertainment circles quickly succeeded in filling the position. Today, there are still a few politicians among the spectators of several famous show halls around the world, but entertainment stars are the frequent visitors on the red carpet. Entertainment is synonymous with fashion, and fashion is like a business card that never fades.
Fashion is a condensed version of fashion power aesthetics.
Aesthetic, different people have different opinions, but the fashion is different, which has obvious characteristics of public recognition. What kind of fashion conforms to the aesthetic taste of the public is extremely difficult to answer. If the fashion beauty that people are obsessed with in history is essentially the beauty of power, what is the symbol of today’s fashion?
In 1750, the German philosopher Baumgarden, known as the "father of aesthetics", defined it in his monograph Aesthetics: "Aesthetics (as the theory of free art, low-level epistemology, the art of beautiful thinking and the art of thinking similar to reason) is the science of perceptual knowledge." He defined aesthetics as perceptual science because he thought that "since people’s psychological activities can be divided into three aspects: knowledge, emotion and meaning, and since we specialize in the logic of knowledge and the ethics of meaning, we should also establish a science specializing in emotion, otherwise the philosophical system will be incomplete". According to its definition, aesthetics is the product of acquired cognition. Newborn babies don’t know what beauty and ugliness are. Only when the power defines the connotation of beauty and ugliness, does society really have aesthetics.
It is power that creates aesthetics, which covers all aspects of society. Fashion is only a condensed version of power aesthetics. Louis XIV thought that fashion was a symbol of absolute power. After the Manchu entered the Central Plains, they not only changed the Han people in their clothes, but also forced to leave their iconic long braids. However, at the beginning, the Han people refused to submit, and when the Qing Dynasty fell, many people fought to the death to hold on to this "ancestral family business". Once the power aesthetics goes deep into the bone marrow, it becomes a life over time. Later, what I didn’t like in the past not only looked good, but also saw another kind of "beauty".
Of course, some fashions in history have no obvious coercive significance, and power has only demonstrated some things, which still benefit people today. Brumel, a playboy, also makes people pay attention to personal hygiene. He brushes his teeth, shaves and takes a bath every day. Brumel’s fashion move has become the daily life of most people today.
As a book that presents the development of fashion rather than explores the reasons, this book may cause readers to have other questions. For example, in French and British court fashion, male fashion once occupied an absolute position. Why did fashion later become a paradise for women? One more thing, fashion is not without negative effects, for example, it will lead to huge waste, and it may also have a negative impact on the environment-Europeans’ fanatical pursuit of fur clothing directly gave birth to the fur trade in North America for three centuries, resulting in a serious survival crisis for species such as beavers, beavers, beavers and buffaloes there. (Chen Bin)
Source: Wen Wei Po
