Sat, Sep 18, 2004 page9

• The politics of fashion

  Despite couture's incessant seasonal changes, its liberal political leanings have been a constant since the 1960s

  • By Zoe Williams / THE GUARDIAN
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  The accessory of choice in the New York fashion shows of last week was, apparently, a campaign badge for one political party; or the other one, depending on your point of view. One well-regarded stylist, Mary Alice Stephenson, had a Bush/Cheney pin on her list of What Not to Wear. But it's safe to say that, were the Bush twins to turn up to any shows with or without a dad pin, they wouldn't have been turned away.

  Both US President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry have made substantial use of their pretty offspring in the battle for the hearts and minds of voters who can't be bothered to read a manifesto -- the Kerry daughters feature in a shoot for this month's Vogue; the Bush twins have already been there and done that.

  

  ILLUSTRATION MOUNTAIN PEOPLE

  Politicians will line up behind anything that might give voters a warm, fuzzy feeling. They care not for the likely political leanings of their photo-companions -- they'll use babies, dogs, horticulture, fish-and-chip shops.

  There's an interesting comparison to be drawn here with royals, who will mainly only use children for PR purposes if they're terminally ill, and save their big photo-opportunity smiles for posing behind a beer pump in a pub.

  Anyway, suffice it to say that Bush and Kerry will be equally delighted by fashionista support, and, lagging 10 points behind, Kerry must be glad that his daughters got the modishly lanky genes, a nice contrast to the Bush family legacy of we-look-like-people-who-enjoy-a-drink-or-two.

  But just for future fashion week/election crossovers, it might divert us to nail down which party is the most fashionable, to avoid those shaming accessory errors. Socially, Bush-era Republicanism is as unfashionable as it's possible for a political position to be. Interestingly, although fashion has a reputation as one of the flightiest and most changeable of cultural forms, it has actually stuck resolutely to a liberal social agenda.

  Abstinence and celibacy cults have taken hold in much of American culture: pop stars preach virginity; the largely rightwing news media report on organizations like True Love Waits with admiration rather than bafflement. Yet the sexual politics of the fashion industry have remained basically unchanged since the 1960s.

  Where primness pops up, it is ironic. The music and film industries tend to use nudity cynically and misogynistically. It will only be required of young women; they will then feel compelled to launch self-justifications, in the style of the evangelical Beyonce, who defended her skimpy outfits with the remark: "I honestly believe He [God] wants people to celebrate their bodies -- as long as you don't compromise your Christianity in the process."

  Fashion has a much more bohemian attitude toward bare flesh, admiring it equally from men and women, never grubbying itself with a side-order of 1950s morality. Homophobia, likewise, is anathema to the industry.

  People have detected a dodgy attitude toward women in the fact that models have to be so thin, but that's about no more than the line of the garment -- the men have to be thin as well.

  All models have to look perfect for clothes. There's no malicious subtext.

  The emphasis of couture is on iconoclasm and originality, which would also be at odds with any conservative agenda. And yet, at the same time, it can be read as the most capitalistic cultural form there is. Its sine qua non is that newness is valuable for no better reason than that it is new.

  It relies on reckless consumption, since the very nature of the changing seasons is entirely unrelated to weather, addressing itself instead to the utterly strange idea of six-month-old items being passe, ergo worthless.

  No other industry pursues acquisition so baldly as an end in itself, nor relies so totally on obsolescence as a given, regardless of whether the product in question is broken or has an egg stain on it.

  Of all the strands of culture, fashion probably has the purest and least abashed relationship with capitalism. This is what makes it so irritating when it borrows the imagery and language of civil rights and/or leftist movements in its advertising; not the fact that clothes are trivial and rights aren't, rather the fact that it panders to our basest instincts, the rotten core of us that makes us want to spend a lot on some teal boots and too bad for the family that could live on that for a month.

  In conclusion, then, a Bush badge is too conservative to be fashionable. A Ralph Nader badge is too hypocritical to be fashionable. Had Howard Dean won the democratic leadership, he'd be too left-wing. The triangulated, socially liberal but politically centrist views of Kerry -- and, should an election ever bisect London Fashion Week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- dovetail perfectly with what's in vogue. Just remember, no carbs at the after-show parties.
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