Fashion Meets Fiction

six exhibits

1.

Scan the pic to the left, reproduced just as it appeared in a fashion magazine (i.e., it was not cropped for the Array): consider: submissive vs. dominant body language posing in profile vs. hiding in a corner regarding the camera warily vs. secure anonymity and aplomb the role of the (almost) empty alley in staging both confident display and unease the 'designer' of the shoes is Japanese, the "fashion" shoe company is Italian, the product itself is called a "Pony Zebra Bootie" what does the wall graffiti have to say? what instructions did the photographer give the Chinese woman (assuming she didn't just happen to pose that way)? How much was she paid for this "shoot"?

Shanghai, China, May 1998

s p r e ad

2.

A woman's $1200 silk skirt, designed by Gianni Versace. Queer, Versace made many things for women but did not have a thing for them. He did give his attention, though, to making "artistic" X-out marks all over the wearer's sex be part of his design. R.I.P. x G.V.

spread wider

Another shot of how a woman's thighs, sex, and lap are abstracted to become "fashion"

3.

			4.
		what in the world ???				Venetian House covered with clothes donated by local townspeople, Camp Santa Margherita, Italy by Matej Andraz Vogrincic 1999 Venice Biennale Art Show

				5.		photo from Brassaï, Les Nuits de Paris
		"Etrennes utiles" [see label near bottom of photo]: etrennes are New Year's Day gifts, pour le Jour de Etrennes. Etrenne also means to wear for the first time, or to be the first customer. The name suggests the ideal uniqueness of each buying experience. Strangely, though, what is shared by each customer is the illusion of uniqueness---not just that one is the first and only buyer, but also that the pleasure in giving and receiving commodities is unreproducible, is not commodified. Stare, stare, and stare again.... To experience this illusion, one has to repress knowledge of what everyone knows, that everyone's buying. Or is there a secret pleasure in knowing that everyone thinks he or she is the first and only? This may be the true seduction here.... As for "utiles," meaning useful, isn't it really this sense of generic uniqueness that is "util" and sexy-soft---more so even than the undergarmet itself?
			Brassaï the great photographer has an ümlaut over his eye. umlaut, from Old German: um is a prefix indicating alteration; laut means "around": umlaut = an alteration around the letter. Or the thing seen.
			le bord des objets, déchiré
			what we desire appears in sharp focus while the rest of us blurs

			6.
			"fashion": the make, form, or shape of a thing; to give a certain form to; shape; mold
							an aura-filled world vs. flamingo shit
			Is it just me? I always have to think for a moment not to confuse mold and mould, which spelling applies to which.
		Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Work

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