Ethics of Fashion

[Belacqua]

In America, guns, motorcycles, and the clothes that go with them, are fashion. Using these to show who you are makes you fashionable. Like it or not.

I think the best example in recent American history is the red MAGA hat. The amount of information it carries is impossible to ignore. There's no way to wear one in a neutral way—it is a symbol. And insofar as others in the group are wearing one I would consider that fashion.

I think we can expand the ethics question to address symbols directly—are you responsible for their meaning? For example, I own a pair of Dr Marten shoes. They're very popular today, so they're mostly neutral. However, every now and then someone points out that neo-Nazis love Dr Marten boots and are associated with wearing them. (There's also significance behind the lace colors). Therefore, people sometimes argue that's it's not okay to wear the shoes for that reason.

Initially when I thought of ethical issues around fashion, I thought of things like Zara and H&M. These are rightly criticized for being wasteful. (Though whether they're worse than others or not I don't know.) On this topic, I think good old Marxian critiques are probably the starting point. Allocation of resources, class exploitation -- all the classics. I can see the arguments for not buying new stuff every single season. 

As for the symbolic meaning of clothing: this goes deep. The obvious symbols like MAGA hats are the proverbial tip of the iceberg. There are conscious symbolic systems. Like when I was young there used to be gay signifiers, determining which ear you had an earring in, what color bandanna you had in your back pocket, etc. These are codes that insiders know.

(And it's disorienting when you see the coded symbols used out of context. Japanese people sometimes adopt a style out of a magazine without knowing the political meaning. So I've seen classic skinhead looks on mild college kids. There was a young couple in my neighborhood who had full Nazi gear for riding their big motorcycle. They would always smile and wave, non-threateningly, and didn't seem to understand what they were doing.)

Not to get all Roland Barthes about it, but I'm sure there are all kinds of fashion choices which are far less conscious, though equally symbolic. 

So when I saw the footage of the January 6 riot, one of the things that stood out to me was the conformity of the clothing. (Except for the guy with the horns.) Except for the MAGA caps it was almost entirely colorless and aggressively casual/functional. These were middle class people with disposable income. They flew in planes, stayed at hotels, ate at restaurants. But they were all dressed as if they were going out to hunt possum. 

Robespierre wore velvet and ruffled shirts, so we know that urban revolutions don't require camouflage gear.

To me, this looks like a strict and well-enforced fashion choice. They would deny it's fashion, but this is what makes it a fashion statement. Anti-fashion, maybe, or a kind of aggressive statement of values. "We don't dress-up like those big city snobs. We wear our auto maintenance clothes every day all the time. This shows we are Real All-American Citizens." 

God forbid they should get some pleasure in looking nice, or enjoy some color, or brighten someone else's day by offering an attractive view. How conscious this is I can't say. A lot of it is probably what's been said on this thread -- a silly fantasy about protecting yourself from bears, because that's what Real Men dress for. And dressing for bear protection, because it's absolutely not necessary, becomes a fashion statement. It's an act of vanity to declare you are better than others for NOT wearing fashion, as much as for wearing it. Socrates told Antisthenes, who was dressed down for moral reasons, "I see your vanity through the hole in your cloak."

When my nephew came to visit me I took him on a fashion tour around Kyoto, thinking he'd like to up his game a little. (Kyoto is still an aesthete's city.) Even though he was a college student near a major city, he said he couldn't wear anything but khaki pants and check shirts, because people would make fun of him. And it's true that the last time I was in my home town, where he also lives now, people yelled at me from passing cars simply because I wasn't dressed like I was going camping. (Yohji Yamamoto suit and pink cardigan.)

What's your take on this? I can't imagine that anti-fashion is really an ethical rejection of fashion, since a lot of the boring stuff people wear is just as disposable as Zara. But is the pretended rejection of fashion itself a statement about values?