How cool is fashion? In this paper, Fashion is fun, I investigate the fashion scene from a humorous point of view and expose the absurdity of fashion. This essay
brings you in the mood. I aim to be the Zoolander … follow me Fun is the way out for fashion. Can we add more humour to our wardrobe while reading?
Be a fortuneteller with a sense of humour and follow the smiling futurologist in you and me. Humour may be inexplicable when we question what is funny. Focus on the essence of humour and see what it reveals about culture and experience.
We can change the rules of the fashion industry. Is fashion and fun like see-saw? Or is fashion art or anti-art?
The fashion scene of the future is a world full of surprising technique, humour, irony and pastiche. What is under the umbrella of fashion humour? The answer is: values, ideals, rules, history and psychology and philosophy. Fashion is not just on the streets, it is also in our heads. Fashion makes us present, not absent. Discover yourself and the true character of fashion today. Humour is the élan vital of fashion or how humour becomes our demand from life.
Fashion can mean love and gratitude but also hatred and ingratitude. Fashion shows the difference between humour, laughter and comedy and is all about emotions. Fashion is an act of creation and makes us laugh out loud. Still curious about fashion trends and the future of the fashion world? What about YOU? Do you want to fit in or stand out? Do you feel like being a cool trendsetter and be like Dutch designers Viktor and Rolf or would you rather follow the advice from style guru Karl Lagerfeld who said that fashion is a game that should be played seriously? But how serious is fashion? Fashion is action. Humour is reflection of this action. Fashion is fun offers a moment of reflection and relaxation. So lean back… and LOL
In fashion there are people that laugh at everything and others that never laugh. Which one are you?
As a fashion lover it is important to take the laughable very seriously and smile when you see something on the catwalk or street that you had not expected. It is hard to explain why people laugh but finding out the reason behind beauty may be the reason. Humour is aesthetic. E.B. White said: “Analyzing humour is like dissecting a frog, few people are interested, and the frog dies of it.”
Fashion becomes funny when it is asked to play a role. In this book, fashion is playing the leading part in a comedy full of caricature. I will treat fashion like a character that tries not to act like a machine but is a Byronic hero.
Fashion’s mission is to make you smile and not to weep. The fashion scene is a place where free play is allowed. The visual is laughable and may be ugly or beautiful. Designers today are looking for humorous content to make them stand out. Hegel said: “ Nowhere can more contradiction be found than in the things that people laugh at.”( Aesthetics, II 528, 1200)
What is it that makes fashion so funny? Maybe because fashion is art and non-art at the same time.
The end of art ends in a smile because it shows our love for deviation. Fashion is fun when it is trivial or excentric. Humor is subjective and is experienced differently from person to person. We all need humor in our life. The future of fashion ends in humorous ways to answer our needs. But what do we define as humor?
Fashion and humor are like partners in crime. Dutch fashion writer Cecile Narinx says that clothes reveal age, sexual preference, gender, class, national identity, well being, ethnicity, religion, political preference, and personal interest. Affluent people have always been trendsetters and like(d) to show off with new extravagant trends. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Trendsetting may be an indicator of one’s wealth and is copied by the lower classes. Think of the extravagance of both French Queen Marie Antoinette and Queen Elisabeth. Their style was widely copied. Today we see European wearing Zara or H&M and have a lot of followers. Georg Simmel called this the tripple down theory of which we may now witness the end.
Why does European royalty act more like you and me? Fashion is universal and there is no law in fashion. Will today’s gatekeepers (magazines, bloggers, designers) run the fashion world in the future or will we move into a whole new world where everyone with a sense of humor and talent is taking over the fashion scene? Let us hope so. Can technology such as Apps, A.I and 5D make us smile more about fashion? What about art? Humour is art and probably the most underestimated form of art. Happily, the great philosophers of the nineteenth century starting with Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard took humour seriously and reflected a lot about comedy.
Humour is getting in the limelight and is now the new hot topic in the jungle of fashion. How can YOU become involved in this evolution? Well, have a good laugh with your outfit. Take a picture of your fashion mishap and put it on your Instagram account. Having a good laugh is a mystery because we often do not know why we are smiling. Humour makes us feel good and it even creates the impression we are walking on a cloud. Humour is not a pseudo-topic in the fashion world: it should be acceptable and taken seriously because it adds to our quality of life. Humour is like a summer cocktail: it gives you a break from all the drab in your life. Humour in fashion is more than just a laugh at bad taste or a slipping model on the catwalk. Humour questions the essence of fashion. Should fashion exist or change in a critical time? How close can humorous get to ridiculous?
Having been a kid of the eighties, I still think a lot about the trend oversized. Everyone had clothes in their wardrobe that we would label as too big today, but that was just the trend of the 1980s. It is a big step from this extreme to the other extreme of the skinny legs in 2000. This was a trend that lasted longer than I had expected. Maybe both trends were so powerful because they question size and play with the concept of size. Why are we throwing away our clothes when we can combine things from all ages? Vintage became the trend of the 1990s as topmodels like Kate Moss made it popular around the world. The newness of vintage is gone. The rise of vintage is also linked to the direction Fast fashion is taking now. No one is ready to pay anything overpriced. Haute couture is seen as an investment in quality. Trends happen through the wallet but rationality drives the buyer.
My question to the fashion industry: is Disneyland replaced today by the fashion scene?
Fashion is a funhouse. Fashion is a funfair. Fashion is fun. Gucci , Marc Jacobs and JC de Castelbajac use Mickey, Snoopy and other Disney figures to add humour to its collection. I fashion still real or has the fashion world become hyperreal? Have you ever wondered why we cannot touch fashion. Why is fashion intangible? Is fashion a fictional world? Is fashion no reality? Or just fantasy? We cannot touch or reach fashion because fashion is inescapable.
Fashion is an entity full of plurality. There are many voices in fashion. The further we evolve in history, the more conflicting and critical voices about the fashion industry we see. We need to seek a new direction for the fashion industry. Do you want it to be more or less serious is like asking whether it should get more or less sexy? Can clothes still be unique in this world of H&M and Zara uniforms? Unique clothes are a sign of creativity and talent in the fashion scene.
A classic can be so good and timeless that it looses the aspect of time. Trends and fashion follow the stages of the fashion cycle ( introduction, growth, maturity and decline). Introduction means that a new product comes on the market, growth shows how the product becomes more popular among more people, maturity indicates that the product is wide-spread but losing its attraction and decline means that the end of the product is near.
The fashion cycle of my a garment my be short and that makes me a late adopter. Just like in communication the innovator is the sender bringing a new product or message and I am the receiver or adopter who decides to buy it long after the hype is over. Fashion is communication.