The Presence Of Fashion.

Photo by Simon Thorogood, courtesy of the National Gallery.

“Absence, the highest form of presence.”
― James Joyce 

Can fashion develop as something more abstracted and something more ‘absent?’ As a philosophically speculative medium, can clothing become progressively determined by a process of perception rather than through physical fabrication?

Being There. 

It may be argued that notions of presence and absence are largely determined by what we perceive to be ‘there’ or ‘not there,’ and the context and situation in which we ‘find’ things.  

For some, only the physical ‘thing’ itself can define presence. For others, as argued by Plato (Phaedrus), it can be through representations of the real, such as images or text, which establish mediated or collectively agreed legitimacy. For others still, as proposed by Jacques Derrida (De la Grammatologie), there is no automatic or central state of being. Rather, it is only through mediated and mutually agreed imperatives and practices, such as language, that can provide legitimate forms of presence for us, simply because significance and content cannot possibly exist outside intermediary meaning. 

In Being and Time, German philosopher Martin Heidegger asserted that all conceptions of the human being as a subject, self, person, individual, or consciousness, are all effectively captives of conventions of thinking whose inferences have simply not been thought through radically enough.  

One of Heidegger’s central points is that “being there” can only be defined by time, so that something can come into existence within a particular time frame. In such a time span, we are able to draw upon and engage with a past (both personal and cultural), and by the open possibilities ahead of us. For humans to understand themselves better, then, they need to project themselves to their own death or state of physical absence – what Heidegger called “being-towards-death.” 

In order to establish convenient frameworks for this to happen, we conceive for ourselves the notion of Gods, and where we reside within set religions. We can also create other philosophical and conceptual ‘arenas,’ in which we can both find ourselves and lose ourselves in – the arts, for example.  

Findingness. 

An interpretation of this idea is that we can only determine our true being through abstracted conditions, places, or conduits. What Heidegger believed principally defines and drives the human condition is our engagement with deep and ambiguous questions, states of “findingness,“ and why is there something rather than nothing? 

So, if perceptions of what may be real or not and what is present or not might become a little more convoluted here, then this gives us licence to always re-evaluate what constitutes a condition of fashion, an item of clothing, artefact, space or environment, how it exists, and how we choose to find it.  

There and Not There. 

To develop a point, let us consider how we engage with art and culture. As an example, let’s take Hans Holbein the Younger’s portrait of Christina of Denmark of 1538, which resides in Room 12 of London’s National Gallery. For many, an initial engagement with the clothing or colour in this particular portrait, or any other mediated ‘masterpiece,’ may not be by visiting the actual painting in person. More routinely, many of us experience seminal artworks through secondary sources, such as a reproduction in a book, or by watching a TV documentary.  

This tells us that culture need not just rely on physical proximity or presence, but that both a reproduced and/or abstracted artefact can provide a justified ‘art experience’ for a viewer, receiver, or audience. A photograph will, of course, be different to the ‘real’ painting, but the reproduction, the book, the catalogue, the lecture, etc., will likely reach a far wider audience than those who have seen the actual painting in situ.  

Philosopher Walter Benjamin argued that the replica or copy does, in fact, confer authority and context because it simply allows a work to exist where it may not otherwise. It can function, therefore, as primary information, meaning that the postcard or the magazine article can be the work. And, when we walk away from the ‘real’ artwork, we may cease direct contact with it, but it can retain existence and potency in the mind for a long time to come.  

Towards a Presence of Fashion.

“…might evolving forms of ‘cognizant clothes’ help us to be ‘more ourselves,’ or ‘less ourselves,’ or will they urge us to be ‘other ourselves?”

We might appreciate, then, that knowledge, presence, value and capital can be accrued through processes of abstraction. We might also recognise that resultant creative, intellectual or fiscal potency derived from such abstracted exchanges with clothing or dress ‘not actually there’ can lead to, and sustain, compelling forms of ‘notional fashion.’  

So, in the years to come, how might we learn to ‘visit’ fashion differently, and at different time points, and what will any ‘existence’ of fashion feel like for us?

Where a garment cannot currently question itself, issue commands or advice, overtly express doubt, excitement, anger or love, this may not always be the case. So, what might clothes of a future question of their wearers? As garments themselves become progressively connected, aware and astute, we may see types of ‘linked in-vestment’ pieces for our wardrobes, where these cede physical presence for philosophical presence.  

Where Heidegger contends that the human being must be expressed through indifferent characters, in turn, might evolving forms of ‘cognizant clothes’ help us to be ‘more ourselves,’ or ‘less ourselves,’ or will they urge us to be ‘other ourselves?’