Fashion - An exercise in mythmaking
Fashion is like God, it impacts you even if you don’t believe in it.
The best advice I got as a young scribe is “don’t be a writer, be writing” but as one grew up, the world changed. You had to dress the part to be believable to others, and this belief of others reinforced yours. It was an acknowledgement from the reflection, that you yourself set in motion; ‘so dark the con of man.’
Sportswear has been given a warrior makeover; even as cricket comes to symbolise war. Now you have UnderArmour leading the charge among sportswear brands that are designed to radiate competence. Trunks are aerodynamic, leggings breathe, and sports bras will have you sweat proof. The focus is on performance and the epithet has transferred from the athlete to the clothing.
The athlete is marked out, in colours of ‘bleed blue’ for India or the Manchester Red Devils. Even the referee, in wrestling or football, holds back an army of muscled-men by the authority of his black and white.
Everything that requires a modicum of trust becomes white. Be it the doctor’s uniform, the chef’s apron or even the pharmacist jacket. The Indian politician also takes from the white/purity syndrome. White kurta pyjama, Nehru jacket, Nehru topi (co-opted by Anna/Kejriwal). Nehru was such a master of iconography that his uniform has come to be the politician’s uniform. Even though it may now ring hollow, much like in the following example, where the original signifier gets so separated from the final product one has to go looking for the symbolism:
A famous trend forecaster recounted his day in Vegas, passing through a casino. It was night but the roof-sky simulation was lit up. All the dealings in that casino were in paper or plastic. Yet, every time you won there was a ‘ding’ sound. It is a sound that has lingered from the days when actual coins were used in casinos. It is the metaphoric tail that the hominoid refuses to shed, even though it serves no function anymore other than that of the Pavlovian reflex – an evolutionary sense of delight at the clinking of noise, which is now being generated in an electronic machine.
We wear uniforms not for uniform civil code but to create an ‘us’ and ‘them’, the professional and the civilian. Ad-men, sailors, accountants all use the term 'layman' – without acknowledging that often , they are the laymen that 'layman' refers to. These uniforms are leveraged to signify that one is in service of a ‘higher purpose’ and therefore must not be questioned; they create distance.
From the soldier who can kill and still not be murderer, because his is not a personal motive, he is under orders. From the magistrate who volunteers nothing and yet judges all and sundry, in inscrutable black. From the saint, in orange white or purple, depending on in which god you believe.
But these are symbols only of men who are compartmentalised in the social order. The women (because they have not mattered for a large chunk of history) descend or ascend in social mobility with ease, wearing the same thing, just differently.
The sari, therefore, is a conundrum because it is an excellent device in mythmaking and an exception to its own rule. It’s a drape, not a shirt or a pant, and therefore can be adjusted to belong to the lady of the manor, the whore, or the transgender at the traffic signal. Only two values remain static to this garment: that it is Indian and that it is feminine.
Even the fishnet stocking or the clear heel has transitioned from being ‘stripper friendly’ to ‘edgy’ or avant-garde. And as myths, at least in female clothing, become more ephemeral what shall the myth maker do? Repeat.
Anna Wintour in her Chanel suits, Lagerfeld in constant high collar, Picasso in his Breton stripes (and now Gaultier), Tom Ford, always in a B&W suit and always photographed from the left, Marilyn in the iconic white, Jackie O in her pearls, even Kim K in constant pencil skirt and boob top – we are making our own uniforms in the service of mythmaking, a projection that may outlast ourselves.