Suchergebnisse

Contrary to popular belief, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has not only impacted on the languages of fashion and clothing in matters of communication and corporate social responsibility, but also on the very creation of the fashioned bodies. Two very different examples of the metaphorization and inscription of AIDS on the male body are the heroic, muscular and healthy figures of the Versace and Calvin Klein models, inherited from the white Yuppie culture, and the popularization of the heroin chic aesthetics of Marc Jacobs and, later, Hedi Slimane's Dior Homme. Much more than simple body types, the hero and the heroin might be considered as different answers to the same epistemic crisis that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has caused in terms of body, sexuality, otherness, health and illness, from the late 1980s to the 1990s. The aim of this article is to read and deconstruct western high fashion of that period through a critical discourse analysis involving masculinity studies and queer theory concerning AIDS, to understand the narratives that the pandemic has created on the male fashioned bodies.

In No Logo, Naomi Klein states: "It is not to sponsor culture but to be the culture", referring to world-famous brands that started approaching new and experimental marketing techniques. Yet, as early as 1974, Pierre Bourdieu argued that the discourse on haute couture was already a discourse on haute culture, undoing the exquisitely philosophical prejudice that collocated fashion among small and frivolous things, unworthy of observation. This paper returns to this question through investigating the case of Gucci Aria, which used famous books of philosophy and critical theory as props. Even if this is not a novelty in the fashion world – from Miuccia Prada's "radical chic-ism" to Martin Margiela's deconstruction – what is new is that fashion has found itself having to study and incorporate knowledge that comes from the so-called high culture usually aimed at a niche audience of intellectuals. This is more than the attempt of lifestyle branding to address social and political movements' vindications as part of the social corporate responsibility strategy. What is the purpose behind selling theory itself? How can this exploitation carried out by fashion brands be read as a way of popularizing high culture? Are fashion designers playing at being organic intellectuals and is conspicuous consumption finding its new goal?