Chasing Fashion

 Chasing after a fashion... Are we really free?

        Young people today wear tight pants and colored fabrics decorated with flowers and inscriptions, and they buy accessories, and a large number of them are accepted in beauty halls.

       

Today, in public spaces, we see young people dressed in bright colors, including the colors that are said to be associated with femininity, such as pink, red, orange, and others. Young people today also wear tight pants and colored fabrics decorated with flowers and inscriptions, and buy accessories, whether necklaces, rings, etc., and accept A large number of them are in beauty parlors, styling or dyeing their hair, as well as using cosmetics for skincare. How did this strange and enchanting world form from renewed cliches, and what are the real reasons behind it?

         

New Fashion Week, Centuries of Tradition:

Loud music, bright lights, bright clothes, graceful models, and glamorous faces! Welcome to a new world of theatres, festivals, and rave parties. A new world is like a vast table for an infinite number of delicious foods, while the inhabitants of this world rush behind the sweet smells and their hearts are various as if they are enchanted, completely losing the ability to control their instincts in the face of this great torrent of temptations on display.

      

These people stand at fashion parties during International Fashion Week, which the world is watching with more attention as if they are drunk and they are drunk, their hands do not stop clapping, as Jennifer Baumgartner, who holds a doctorate in fashion psychology, goes that the biggest attraction of these people At fashion parties, she calls “trends.” She says, “The brain loves trends because they happen quickly and react in a short time, like a sudden global change or an explosion that attracts attention spontaneously.. and our brains like new things.” 

          

              

Dr. Nixo Ponzik explained in a 2006 study that the neuronal substance of the reward area in the brain is stimulated when new things are presented to it, and the study also showed that we seek to obtain a reward, and new things give us the reward for the brain. But it's not that simple, the abundance of new things and one's getting used to the new can dampen the brain's stimulation circuit, so the explosion in the world of fashion must be more confrontational each time.

            

On the other side of the view of neuroscience and brain function, an obscure philosopher presented an approach that would be the first philosophical approach to understanding an ever-changing world, when the German sociologist “Georges Simmel” (1858-1918) chose an approach that contradicted the German intellectual tradition that used to associate the relations of science economic, political, and moral ones to each other, "and presented a prescient sociological conception, not for the study of society as a basic rule from which individuals are a product, but rather for the study of the forms of mutual action between individuals within society". The principle of interaction is an essential point in Simmel’s thought, and he explains it by saying: “We must proceed from the idea that everything is in a relationship with everything, and that between any point in the world and every other point there are forces and mutual relations, and that the analysis of reality must be based on any point in the world we see from multiple horizons. The truth lies in the relationships between those horizons, by linking the link between the reality of each one, and not in a primary principle that establishes thought.”

             

However, the approach presented by Simmel did not like the masters of German thought at the time, and Simmel remained immersed in his country. In his book “The Philosophy of Fashion” published in Berlin in 1903 and recently republished in Paris by Alia, Simmel explains how fashion could make an amazing mix of opposite actions and movements.

         

     

           

Wearing clothes and adorning the tools of the age, dye, and the trends of the season, or adopting new convictions and innovative normative rulings, and even uttering some expressions that were not familiar, is at the same time keeping pace with others by following the trend, and distinguishing from those who have fallen behind, either because they do not have the material capabilities or after The so-called exit from the crowds, the fashion combines collective conformism and the pretense of individual decision, between submission to arbitrary dictates and

To demand individual novelty.”  On the threshold of the debate over the possibility of fashion to represent a measure of freedom, exclusivity, and resistance to the dominant, and between being another form of capitalist subjugation and totalitarianism, the question stands: How did fashion appeal?

          

Kingdom beyond history

Contrary to what some opinions say that fashion is an ancient phenomenon that has accompanied all societies since time immemorial, the “Libovitsky generation” asserts that “throughout the greater part of human history, societies have lived without knowing the fickle games of reckless whims, the ancestral societies have imposed the rule of constancy ubiquitous, repetition of inherited paradigms from the past and strict conservatism in how people are and how they look.” 

         

Ancient societies were based on respecting the collective past and carefully reproducing it. “Society in the old days did not allow innovations to be sanctified, nor the fondness for exclusivity, nor the aesthetic independence of fashion,” and did not allow the destruction of the traditional and traditional costumes of the group, because it is simply an erosion of identity.

              

       

And it remained the same even after the emergence of the state, stratification, and social hierarchies, "the Japanese kimono remained unchanged for centuries, and in China, the women's dress remained unchanged between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries without any real change," but the change found its way into societies with the emergence of the state. Colonialism and invasions, "the currents of import and spread were disturbing from time to time the uses and fashion, as the invaders imposed on the defeated peoples their own fashion, so the Mughal costume became the norm in the countries of India they occupied", but the matter remained outside the circle of fashion, it did not turn into a prevailing taste or a permanent form of innovations in fashion.

          

But the matter will be different from the middle of the fourteenth century within Europe, where a new style of dress will suddenly appear that imposes itself on the wealthy aristocracy in Europe. Instead of the long, wide robe that men and women have worn for several centuries, short and moderate fashions for men, and long narrow ones for women will appear. The male costume would consist of a short, narrow suit called a "pourpoint" attached to pants like tight pantyhose detailing the legs, and the women's costume was an extension of the traditional long dress, but it was more moderate and more revealing to the chest.

               

This is how the phenomenon of fashion change and accelerated innovation began within the aristocracy in Europe, where wealthy families will slide down the slope of successive modifications to fashion decorations, and waterfalls will pour down from “small things without meaning” and from simple differences that will shape the entire fashion, and based on which a new classification will be made for members That nascent kingdom when it began with the phenomenon of fashion, "the social power of trivial signs, and the astonishing position of social distinction based on the trends followed"  Everyone who follows the trends of subtle changes in fashion deserves the honor of belonging to this nascent society, while the others are excluded and monopolized under the pretext of Underdevelopment and not keeping pace.

             

Fashion was a form of modern Western civilization at its height, so it did not stop raising criticism and clashing with aesthetic, moral, and religious standards when it created forms of immodest and ridiculous fashion.

           

With the influx of the new and newer fashion industry, these fashions began to displace the old forms of the distinctive dress of the groups, as the phenomenon of fashion and its nascent kingdom represented "historical discontinuity, a kingdom beyond history, and a great rupture, albeit limited in scope" within wealthy circles. Just as modernity within Europe represented a major break with the past and its heritage, the short temporal use of these fashions was abandoned as “a break from collective coherence that affirms habitual continuity”; In the sense that it caused a rupture and cracks in the identity of traditional groups, widening the difference between classes and groups within a single nation, and even redrawing new forms of social cohesion on modern, completely different and permanently changing foundations.

            

The philosopher Gabriel Tard explains this phenomenon, saying, “We know that the influence of ancestors and the imitation of the old usually prevail in the eras of tradition, while the reverence of trends and the imitation of contemporary and foreign models prevail in the fashion eras, as people want more to imitate the modern innovators, while they turn away from imitating the ancestor. Two basic principles govern the times of fashion: love of change, and being influenced by contemporaries until contempt for the ancestral heritage spread. The historical radicalism of fashion includes in what it establishes a social system of modern origin freed from the control of the past, so the old is no longer worthy of appreciation.

          

To keep pace with the times and catch up with the procession of modernization, societies took off their old and traditional robes and put on the latest fashions. The wealthy classes were the first to catch the frenzy of shouts, and they were caught in the flames of the last fashion that appeared. But if the kingdom of fashion had formed that rupture with the past, then the rupture was not only in fashion, but in the most rooted standards and values ​​​​in human perception, as fashion was a form of modern Western civilization at the height of its ascent, “that is why fashion did not stop exciting Criticism, and the direct collision with aesthetic, moral and religious standards when it created forms of immodest, scandalous, and ridiculous costumes.”  The matter soon moved from the circles of wealthy aristocratic families to the middle classes and the new wealthy of society and the bourgeois class on whose shoulders Western civilization was built.

         

Upcycled fashion

Clothes have a profound psychological impact on human behavior, and this effect may extend to shaping a person's view of the world and shaping a person's image of himself in front of the world

      

In a study conducted by Northwestern University researchers, participants were given a white lab coat and were told it had been used by various doctors.

before, and then assigning them some tasks, and then the researchers noticed that the performance of the group that wore the coat increased from its performance before wearing the coat, and they also had an increase in the level of interest and efficiency.

       

The researchers concluded in the study that clothes have a profound psychological impact on human behavior, and this impact may extend to the formation of a person’s view of the world and the formation of a person’s image of himself in front of the world. When a fashionista in America was asked about the reason for wearing these clothes, she answered, “It depends. on how you want to present yourself to the world.” 

         

On the other hand, the philosopher "Gill Lebovitsky" presented a social analysis of the rise of fashion in all classes of society, under the title "Beyond the Competitive Classes" Lebovitsky argues that social logic is more capable of interpretation than economic logic, although economic growth in Europe and commercial development The emergence of cities, and the dismantling of royal power, has an impact on the emergence of the new merchants and brokers class, who can be called the bourgeois class, which imitated the lifestyle and tastes of the nobles and the rich. Levitsky explains that the launch of fashion was at a moment when the West knew the return of famines, economic decline, wars, and military conquests. The decrease in the annual premium for property, the spread of epidemics, the abandonment of land and agricultural work by farmers, and the emergence of "workers".

        

The forms of advancement that occurred at the end of the Middle Ages, the results of which were not the same everywhere or for everyone, in contrast to general stagnation there was a concentration of great wealth and a multiplication of the wealthy bourgeoisie, and a tendency to luxury and extravagance to assert influence, especially in terms of fashion.) 

           

           

Thus, Lipovitsky explains that it was the economic rise of the new merchant class and (bourgeoisie) brokers that favored the launch of their tastes and pushed them to imitate the lives and fashions of the rich. "It was this competition between classes that allowed this anomalous phenomenon to spread", and the same thing now explains the growing interest of individual members the classes The middle classes in our societies are characterized by the latest high fashion and artificial fashion, where sociologist Herbert Spencer goes to “that the poor classes imitate the high class in what they wear and how they look, in search of social appreciation, and for the high classes to maintain the difference and social class they were forced to accept innovations, and change their appearance As soon as others imitated him. And so the fashions continued.”

         

Also, the spread of new fashion was based on the establishment of the ready-made garment industry, when the traditional sewing profession began to retreat and the emergence of fashion factories and international brands, as the ready-made garment industry had the possibility to reproduce high-fashion models legally and quickly, but the isolation of the traditional profession of tailors will allow the emergence of Fashion artists and fashion designers, which will upset the scales of traditional, monotonous public life.

     

Estrangement with estrangement:

The real revolution, according to Lipovtsky, which clashed destroyed the fashion system that had grown during a hundred years, was the emergence of the so-called “ready-to-wear.” In 1949, JC WEILL launched the term “ready-to-wear” in France, taken from the same English term “READY.” TO WEAR", to rid the clothing industry of its bad brand image. 

     

Thus, ready-to-wear blended industry and fashion, and wanted new trends, styles, and cosmetics to reach the street. Since the fifties of the twentieth century, branches of major stores have spread all over the world, and then ready-made garment manufacturers have realized their need for designers' services to produce clothes that combine fashion and aesthetic creativity, which has promoted the emergence of designers and fashion artists. 

            

          

Instead of great heroes, politicians, sages, sheiks, preachers, and scientists, new gentlemen and celebrities came to the societies of the fashion era. Artists of all kinds appeared, from fashion designers, “fashionistas,” actors, singers, and even dancers. This is what happened at the beginning with one of the fashion designers “Worth”, where he gained influence. Great in European society, "He will be recognized as a poet, his name will be celebrated in fashion newspapers, and he will appear in novels accompanied by features of sublimity and elegance, and put his signature on his designs like painters".

         

"This is how the fashion designer imposed himself with his exciting speech on the necessity of inspiration, as the luxury artist "Poiret" who collects works of art, lives in an elegant decor surrounded by poets and painters, and creates stage clothes, ballet shows, and films." The emergence of the new celebrities of society was accompanied by the rise of the code of originality and personality and the insistent demand on individuality for diversity in wearing exotic costumes, “blind obedience and forced adherence to the standards of fashion designers, although each season brings a new fashion that immediately cancels the previous one until the matter became a unification of appearance, homogeneity of form and unified submission.” ', rather than delusions of exclusivity.

         

With the spread of this pattern that depends on the continuous consumption of new fashion and trends, societies have undergone profound transformations in the public sphere. The sociologist Zygmunt Baumann in his book “Liquid Modernity” emphasizes the disappearance of the old pattern from the public sphere that allowed people to discuss and transform their common problems Nowadays, the private sphere, the lives of celebrities, the latest fashions, and the scandals of artists are occupying the public sphere.

           

Fashion and self-investment:

If fashion did not openly create narcissism, it has reproduced it unmistakably, making it a structural and continuous structure for PAK dwellers.

         

 

Baumann argues that “the unceasing, never-stopping, obsessive-compulsive modernization, the deep-rooted, endless thirst for creative destruction or destructive creativity depending on the circumstances, is all for the sake of enhancing productivity or competitiveness”.

This is all to gain consumer satisfaction and attract their attention.

          

Fashion has made societies into parties for individual review, and “a stage for admiring the performances of others,” in Lipovtsky’s expression, but at the same time, it is “an investment in the self and an aesthetic observation without any precedent. by exposing itself to the gaze of others, and if fashion did not openly create narcissism, it has reproduced it conspicuously, and made it a structural and continuous structure for the city-dwellers, by encouraging them to pay more attention to their performances and to search for elegance. 

          

This individualism led to the emergence of what Lebovitsky called "aesthetic individualism", where "fashion allowed relative individual independence in terms of appearance, in exchange for collective constraints, so that the specificity of fashion lies in an overall standard and fixed criteria launched by fashion makers. At the same time, it left space for the emergence of personal taste; For one ought to be like others without being exactly like them, he ought to follow the tide.”

        

As soon as fashion opened the appetite for seduction and human instincts, humans raced to display their bodies as commodities, and the constant demand for change and renewal to attract attention, and belonging to a life of elegance, fame, public and famous personalities, the possibility of social advancement, the continuous change of identity, and the alleviation of anxiety, obsessions, and fear that filled the world these Al-Ayyam, "Fashion has become an expression of a personal desire, a cultural orientation, a lifestyle and a social status."

           

fashion freedom:

“I don’t want to be a model, and the fashionistas take me out of the pressure of work”  These were the words of Alaa, the dentist who turned into a “fashionista” after undergoing a diet. As a result, her weight shifted from 78 kilograms to 53 kilograms, as Alaa expresses that fondness. The intense Arabism of girls and boys with their weight, shape, and lifestyle in front of society, their fame and elegance, and the extent to which the scents of their antique narcissism reach global social networking sites.

   

Fashion has become a form of modern civilization's domination of our lives, transforming the discontent of individuals, their worries and anxieties into the consumerism of fashion, diets, and new trends.

            

Dr. Mustafa Hegazy goes in his book “Social Underdevelopment: The Psychology of the Oppressed Man” that “many showy behaviors that are common in developing countries are aimed specifically at covering up his contract of shame, especially consumer showmanship. All forms of pretense, bragging, and deceiving others for prestige, money, or A privilege that has no basis in reality. The man of the backward world is a prisoner of appearances, no matter how superficial, as long as they serve the purpose of covering up his own shame.” 

         

On the other hand, Lebovitsky discussed the question “Does fashion represent freedom for individuals in the face of the world?” He says, “We often blame the materialism that has taken hold of our societies. Why do we not point out that perfect fashion has rid people of these things? Amid the influence of use-value 'We are no longer attached to things, we easily change the house, the car, the furniture. The age in which things are socialized is the same in which we give things away easily', but he goes back to argue this matter again.

       

“It becomes a mistake to see in the new happiness doctrine nothing more than a means of social control and an excessive manipulation of what is a factor of indeterminacy and certainty of private individuality,” he says. Lebowitz cites Marcus when he writes: “The domination of society over the individual is greater than ever before...there is no longer conflict between private life and public life, between individual and collective needs. 

      

Thus, fashion has become a form of the domination of modern civilization on our lives, transforming the discontent of individuals, their concerns and anxieties into the consumerism of foods, fashion, diet regimes, and new trends of ideas, words, and clothes, and gave them deceptive freedom conditional on what fashion makers and international companies impose on them, but fashion turned into a process A distraction from the real issues, Baumann says: