Capitalism and Fashion - Topic of the day 2/28/25
In "Adorned in Dreams", historian Elizabeth Wilson said "Fashion is the child of capitalism," but to what extent do you agree or disagree with this? Is this a good or bad thing? Is this a necessary thing because we wear clothes, or are there ways to opt in or out?
218 Replies
I have to focus on work you guys cant be posting shit like this
I don't think I could argue that fashion isn't permanently entangled with capitalism if I wanted to
even the secondhand marketplace is incredibly capitalist focused and can drive firsthand production
I don't think there is a way to opt out of capitalism. But you can practice damage control
well, there is a political one, but not really an individual one
Fashion is inherently a luxury. But it's not an all or nothing scenario; you don't have to excuse or support the worst aspects of it and you can try your best to support smaller makers and more sustainable alternatives, as well as secondhand shop.
i have no talents or skills so i love buying shit. i get joy from acquiring well made goods. what i don't like is that the expectation for most companies is they have to keep growing x% in perpetuity or close down which inspires cost cutting that affects materials, workers, and craftsmanship and is inevitably a net loss for the customers and the brand once the customers lose trust
Or damage dealing depending on how ya look at it š
i have not said damage mitigation, I said control š
a few of us were having a conversation last night about DIY and the power it can have to subvert systems. I think if I could have it my way, I would love to see lots more people here practicing DIY garment creation/modification
I wish I had the time to learn how to sew
Iāve been slowly trying to teach myself but I think itās the one hobby my brain canāt figure out how to latch onto
I think fashion is inherently consumerist and capitalist. Even if you are making your own clothes, you still are purchasing things (even if used) and supporting the industry which is quite materialistic. Unless you are not paying attention to any trends in what you create, and never strive for more, itās supporting the capitalistic nature of this hobby
I think the best way to not necessarily subvert the capitalist aspect of fashion, but play into it less is to buy quality used garments or things made within/local your community or generally items that will last you longer so that you buy less overall
Sure, but thatās not the way I want to engage in fashion. I want to look the hottest, sexiest, and trendiest in the world
I was on a pretty long spending freeze up till Alfargos and focused on only doing mending projects, I had a lot of fun and extended the life of some lower quality clothing that I definitely would have tried to "upgrade".
Plus now I have an emotional attachment to them.
On the same coin, I agree with char that there's an artistic expression part that isn't fulfilled by secondhand clothing, and that is a balance I have to make.
What is non-expressive about second-hand clothing?
We should be thankful for the Vietnam War because otherwise we would have never gotten OG-107s
I feel like the harder ive leaned in to my vintage wardrobe the more ive felt that ive been able to express myself
i am going to buy some shoes today
Not to mention the fact that you can get designer stuff second-hand really easily
It's not necessarily non-expressive, it's just a different expressive
There are designers creating art that I like, I can't emulate it without either extremely good DIY skills, or purchasing their clothing
You can also engage but just looking at pictures and going to museums! That way would be not capitalistic
But the unfortunate fact is that we like collecting, and collecting is inherently consumerism
I also like supporting the artists š¤·
so it's always a balance
would fashion exist in other economic systems
I donāt think art would exist in the current way in other economic systems
100%
what does art look like in china
Probably the same, but he'd have a paired down wardrobe because of luggage restrictions
Me when parroting Derek guy, but anyways. I actually don't think that fashion and capitalism are inherently linked, but capitalism has tricked us once again. Like I don't have a source but people expressed themselves through clothes even without money involved.
But I don't know what that'd look like, because it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism
I just want to point out though that not all forms of engaging in capitalism are equally unethical i feel like that kinda gets lost.
speak on that
Art is capitalistic
And art is good
Is it inherently?
I have never and will never consider my position within capitalism or participation of capitalism WRT fashion
Yes, because in order to have an artist, you have to create value for the artist
cave people did art and had no capitalism tho
That's what I was thinking
did they or did they do wall porno in exchange for dinosaur meat
is that capitalism
In a non-capitalist world, the artist cannot express themselves because they cannot sell their art to make a living. And any full time artist would have to be chosen by the governing body, which makes it difficult for a non-artist to be transitioned into an artist role if they have no way of selling their art
Buying new from a small business and buying new from fast fashion do not have the same environmental, economic, labor, etc impacts. It supports different people. It gives your money to different businesses. Buying new thread to fix your old coat is not the same impact as buying a new coat.
Aspiring artists would just be relegated to sign painters or furniture builders
im going to the museum naked š¤
bartering is capitalism only if one of the objects in trade is porno
Again, small businesses are good, but theyāre capitalist
We love supporting small businesses and they deserve all support (until they become a medium sized business and then you have to decide if you want to support them enough to become a large business)
an inherent part of the discussion we're missing here is the context of fashion explicitly which has a much nastier supply chain and level of exploitation even in the small businesses (eg: buying slave picked cotton that was dyed in a toxic river in india and woven by a megacorp that hired hitmen to kill their competitors in brazil)
Yes i am not saying they arent capitalist
Im saying within capitalism we can still make our choices based on ethics
excuse me didn't u read the sign
Capitalism wouldnt be so bad if it didnt suck
Yah know what i mean
Someone come stub my fuckin toe
weeg to be clear this is a shitpost
I know haha
how come only one of conics shoes has a buckle. shouldn't you see the buckle peeking out over the top of the other shoe
Anyways the art industry is capitalist but art itself is not capitalist its just art
Not enough people are discussing thisā¦
levi gets it
Caught myself text rambling im gonna take a break
A system other than capitalism also doesn't mean no consumption
capitalism is great with a socialist backbone!
agree!!
I think the question about inherency or necessity is philosophically interesting but practically a bit of a red herring when it comes to personal ethical choices.
hmm i disagree
i will not elaborate
Art and fashion both existed before capitalism but they looked very different. And they can exist without capitalism, but they will be very different.
The assumption that there is a governing body making selections isn't one that needs to be made here I think. Also, making art that expresses something does not require it to be sold. Even in a system where a person performs work for resources, art could be created in free time with whatever material available
@Smiles need ya here buddy
People also make art for free all the time
let me clarify, the career of independent artist would likely not be prominent in a non-capitalistic world
as the art industry would not exist
This is entirely incorrect
Most are anyway
Also using money is not what defines capitalism. Capitalism is when surplus value is siphoned off by those who own the means of production.
Art would exist without the art industry, would it be good? Who knows what good art is anyways
LMAO
like 99% of independent artists can't live from Art under Capitalism
Art would exist in a purer form if it was outside a capitalist system.
There would be no reason to pander or mollify
Or cater to a clientele that could afford the art
As a capitalist, I'm going to need to collect some royalties on this totd title
Why would someone create this without a profit incentive??? Are they stupid?
Art is an immutable fact and inherent element of existence that we as human beings use to justify our place in the worldāitās not a method of building capital
People are going to want to express themselves in some way, regardless of whether money is a factor
Yeah, was more trying to say that being a "full time" artist isn't required to make art
Human self expression did not start with capitalism
It, just like everything in this system, has been commodified and twisted for the gain of the very few and to the detriment of the many
It wasn't really a point against you, more like a common misconception that I see n this thread
many artists create art and never sell it or even share it
The first bone flutes were made tens of thousands of years ago, while money is only thousands of years old
But even then commerce ā capitalism
if you are actually able to live without needing to sell your labor to someone in exchange for a pittance I think we would have much more Art
This! Y'all clearly never read theory and it shows lol
Should i drop the hunt in the morning fish in the afternoon quote or will i be reported to senator mccarthy
It's like that common post about how rich people all do art
Read theory
R E A D T H E O R Y
To be fair theory is really boring
E
A
D
T
H
E
O
R
Y
Reading theory
Alexa play capitalist realism by Mark Fisher
Not always but definitely sometimes. There are contemporary thinkers whose stuff is easier to read and you can work backwards from there if you struggle to hop into theory imo
You donāt need theory to understand this shit, itās fucking fundamental to being a person.
The struggle of a modern artist is existing within the confines of capitalism while still being able to create art independent of that system, because 99 percent of the time the system is not allowing the artist to live a full life solely through art
Theory gives you a framework to argue it instead of just vibes
You donāt even have to be literate to understand this, let alone read theory
Because people are not swayed by vibes
We are about to lose the plot
Iām not arguing against theory broadly, more so that in this specific case, theory is absolutely not needed
This is a fundamental element of existence
Im something of a vibesman
Human beings were not dealt from the hand directly into a capitalist card game. Part of what makes us us is the ability to create freely and with reckless abandon. Capitalism is a system thatās used to directly stymie creation if it doesnāt benefit the few. Thereās literally no argument here or theory necessary to argue this, because itās just a fact of existence. Art created through capitalism is still art but itās art thatās been twisted through the lens of the need to survive in a system that will never allow that.
You realize capitalists donāt view capitalism as a system to stymie creation that doesnāt benefit the few right
Like thereās a theoretical basis to that argument
Literally the one I posted
go ask any lib what they think capitalism does
EFFICIENT MARKETS :letsfuckinggo:
Art isn't inherent to capitalism but the proposed alternatives don't fundamentally change what most people complain about imo
There since people wanted my lib take
You still have to work under communism
Not everyone can be an artist under communism so you just run into the issue of who gets to be an artist in a different form
And still get pressures about who consumes your art
Insert that poet who went to the Soviet Union hoping to be a coal miner and they forced him to continue being a poet or whatever
Fashion is always gonna have a status element
It did before capitalism
And it will after
It was way way way worse before capitalism
this. one million times this
Feudalism and similar had like sumptuary laws
I hate that stupid status novel which I haven't read which everyone jerks off but I do think it applies a bit
art without capitalism would be people making the art they truly want to, not art that is profitable. i say this as a mostly traditional folk and country musician knowing damn well anything i make wouldnāt sell anywhere near as well as what the industry trends towards
you claim to be against capitalism and yet you wear Rick Owen's? Curious. I am very smart.
I think we as a society produce a surplus of necessary resources right now in a way that if they were distributed more efficiently and equitably people would work slightly less- for instance I think the US even right now under capitalism could go to a 32 hour workweek without too many issues- and I think in that space people might have the ability to engage in passion projects like fashion
Obviously you canāt end up on a spot where everyone gets to be a haute couture designer or whatever
But plenty of great artists had day jobs
Then you start getting into leftist infighting about how much of a market system you can have without being a traitor!
But agree
People that read my message and decide to have a purity contest about its implementation need to spend more time reading Marx and less time reading Twitter
Anyway my lib take is most issues people have with capitalism's intersection with art/fashion would exist in different forms under communism/anarchism
saved by the edit
I do think a bad thing about the capitalist links to fashion are the scarcity
Like it should be a swag contest
Not a "whose got the money to buy things"
Ya feel
Turns out people gotta build houses and grow food under any system
I think most people donāt want to paint the Sistine Chapel when it actually comes down to it and a few hours a day and better access to raw materials would fulfill their artistic inclinations
The interesting part of capitalism and fashion is about fashion as a commodity not as an art form and I propose that we pivot to that
But I have a meeting so itās all you guys
you know Marx has something about that as well I think
Economic Manuscripts: Capital Vol. I - Chapter One
Capital Vol. I : Chapter One (Commodities)
Marx had bespoke shoes that fucking capitalist
Marx was an economist folks
No hes my jesus
Sorry im just saying shit now im gonna unfollow this thread and go on with my life
Yeah I read theory (twitter)
Reminds me of this great quote from Jonathan Anderson I saw recently
I feel like Iāve yelled this at so many trust fund marxists in my life
This is probably the best take here so far (and a realistic possibility if people would actually do itāthey wonāt but point stands)
I had to scroll up to remember what the actual initial point of this thread was and think its actually right. It seems like we have been discussing fashion as art form in general and then fashion as an industry in general but not accounting for the fact that the author is talking about fashion as it exists in its current form
And with that said i think she is right, fashion is the child of capitalism as we know it
The machine of capitalism has fully shaped how fashion exists from the newest seasons being sold by the best brands down to the secondary market
Thinking on the question of is this good or bad? I think its kind of hard to say. A lot of people i think would point to the presumption that capitalism encourages innovation and without the economic aspect we would not have the vast and varying types of fashion we enjoy today but i dont necessarily think thats true because it is still an art form and, as said above, art will exist regardless of the economic factors.
Clothing is necessary from a functional stand point but then iād argue that clothing is not fashion necessarily
this is the future digs wants
She eating in that sack tho
i worked hard to find the cutest grey jumpsuit because that is the future i want too
I never said i wanted this future!
u didn't reject it when i implied u wanted it so
I think it does bring up another interesting idea though, that even without the massive variety created by capitalism, fashion will always exist in some form because people inherently inject individual style despite limitations
We could all he relegated to wearing shapeless brown sacks but people will do something interesting with that anyway. You see it all the time in the military
I knew youād have a good take on this
I strategically waited for you all to shut the fuck up so i could get on my soapbox
i really like this sentence
One of the opening portions of ametora talks about kenzuke ishizu growing up in japan when the gakuran was pretty much all a school aged kid could and even in that people were able to find differences and express themselves and find ways to dictate fashionable vs unfashionable
here to say that "vote with your wallet" is my least favorite phrase of all time
Yah i recall this story from articles of interest! Basically i guess my end point from my rant is that people will enjoy and consume fashion regardless of the socioeconomic situation they are in. capitalism allows us to have a plethora to choose from making it easier for people to develop individual style or create unique fashion but it comes with usual negative trappings of capitalism in the forms of fast fashion and pushing people to overconsumption.
I dont think there is a clear answer to if it is good or bad it is just the state we live in and if that state changed we figure something else out
Oh it may have been aoi!
Itās why I always wore my cover at a jaunty angle. To show how cool and unique I was. Very original
Same i tilted that mf to the max degree allowable by the 1020.34g
That and my flight suit zipper was aggressively low
I was a serial no undershirt im my cammies guy
Hell yeah. The Marine squadron in my air wing would do Freedom Friday with no undershirts
What about the leisure-socialism we were promised from the industrial revolution? and again with the new automation and now with AI?
We saw in covid people turned to making when they had time and energy - food, gardens, clothes, art.
I imagine it would look a lot more custom, not just mods but building from scratch too. More at-home fabric dying too.
Isn't that what is done here with fits though? Looking at what others did, trying it, and finding your own way to do it.
please for the love of god read some fucking theory
I cannot create a significant amount of the clothing that I like
unless I spend a large chunk of time learning how to construct clothing
Modern automation and AI is just furthering the alienation of labor
Look at what happened when the cotton gin was introduced - instead of eliminating slavery like it was intended it only extended it
Read Capital and read Foucaultās Panopticon
Ai will free us from labor so they can put us into the human grinding machine to make bio fuel for ai
Iām not joking please open a fucking book
i have not read enough to confirm this but it seems like this technological progression alienation of labor only happens under a capitalist system?
Well yes but the progression of technology does not bring about the change of a system
I dont see ai as being fundamentally different than any tech progression that has happened historically so we have the evidence of what happens already
Like AI is not going to give us fully automated gay space communism
I was not talking about ai specifically
yes agree
It could make a poorly drawn picture of it tho
true !!
the Industrial Revolution increasing the alienation of labor was the impetus for Marxās analysis sure
And anyway, talking about leisure socialism is so ridiculous that it shouldnāt be taken seriously
Leisure socialism is just socialism for the imperial core
i really liked the labor system in walden two, i think labor is pretty fulfilling and beast
whats the writer that makes a big delineation between labor and work? labor is soul-building and work is soul-crushing
probably like all of them
yeh
Like I said people gotta build houses and grow food under any system
But a lot of people derive fulfillment from that!
Ok marxist theory is tomorrows totd stay on topic
some kids really do yearn for the mines
Fashion is all about getting people to have sex with me
Every time people start talking about theory on here it causes me so much psychic grief and pain that I almost canāt go on.
what about game theory
At the end of last year, I spent every Friday and Saturday night for a few weeks at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, visiting an exhibition titled "Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350." The formally interesting, iconic, and influential works of art inside were all from artists working in the 14th century in the Italian city of Siena, which was a home for artists at the dawn of the Renaissance because it was on a trade route. All of the work on display was created under non-capitalist conditions, even though the artists were paid for their work and concomitantly alienated from the products of their labor. The reason for this is that capitalism is a system of social relations in which workers do not own the means of production. In order to produce anything and to survive, they have to enter into a transaction with the owners of the means of production, who take advantage of this structural inequality to exploit workers and pay them less in wages than they can make in profit from the commodities produced. Artists who own their own means of production and produce art which they sell to others are not engaging in capitalism. (Unless they, like Kehinde Wiley, for example, run a massive and stupid studio staffed by underpaid laborers who actually make the art they sell.) Actually, almost half of the Met's collection is dedicated to works of art that predate capitalism. I visited earlier tonight to see the new Caspar David Friedrich exhibition. To get to it, I had to enter on fifth avenue and take a left in the grand hall, and walk through the Met's massive collection of ancient art, all made under non-capitalist economic systems.
It's fascinating but has nothing at all to do with real people.
Whoah is that chrome hearts? I see the cross
If I was an uncharitable person, I would say that it is difficult for me to take someone seriously who tells others to READ THEORY who then says to read "Foucault's Panopticon," which is not the name of anything Foucault ever wrote but rather a concept Foucault lifted from Jeremy Bentham to explain an argument he develops in a book called Discipline and Punishāa book that tracks the development of the disciplinary society to modernity and technological development, not capitalism as such, as evidenced by the incredibly advanced disciplinary apparatus of, say, communist Russia.
the OG chrome hearts
If people are really interested in thinking through the connections between art, fashion, status, and capitalism, I'd highly recommend reading a book I wrote in 1979 called Distinction.
I think Discord is a frustrating place for me to have these discussions because in them precision is of the utmost importance, and the format of this medium is almost by definition reactionary.
Do you have a link to the book? Even if just a database listing or goodreads?
damn sending a link to your own book
It's called generating word of mouth
Didn't just send a link, handed us a full damn copy. frfr
Another really good book that serves as an introduction to contemporary aesthetic theory:
you're right my apologies for not tracking down everything i post on a fashion discord
You killed the convo by telling people to "go read" and refusing to engage/accept replies.
Great googly moogly
Lets all go to sleep
I wrote a little book on this a while back as well, pardon my self promotion but I think it covers the topic well, although I admit I ramble a bit.
this is a discord server it's not a debate. a lot of people come in the totd to spit their take out and not engage further and they are not obligated to engage with your take
and if anyone has any suggestions I'll happily accept them
needs more diagrams
you might enjoy this
I'm sorry for coming after you so vehemently. We clearly agree politically on the issue at hand, which is all that really matters.
Postulate
I was thinking over the original question, and if we separate clothing from fashion I think it breaks down interestingly.
Clothes, yes, some body covering would continue to persist even if all fashion/clothing manufacturers poofed overnight. As someone else said about things that would continue to exist.
Covid, too, was an amazing example on how people with time WILL create, something, anything, learn new things.
The original topic was "opinions on fashion as the child of capitalism."
Are clothes the product of capitalism? No, there seems to be historical and thread agreement that clothing predated capitalism and would persist without.
Then "opt in and out" I'll take ask asking about ethics or ethical consumption, as this thread seemed to generally go that route. So then, could there be ethical clothing under capitalism? I suspect not. "There is no ethical consumption under capitalism" was mentioned, and to avoid devolving into discourse purely on what ethical is, I'll define it for this thought as relating to pollution, waste, and unrewarded labor/harm. That labor one is key. If someone wanted to make their own clothes to be purely ethical then one can ask how the sewing machine was made, where the metal came from, the electricity, the fabric, etc. Realistically, within the capitalist system it would not be feasible to contol the inputs such that no part was part of a chain where someone profited without having added value, or profited unfairly for their cost/risk/health. Technically you could try to go to a landfill for metal, make your own sewing machine, ignore peta's arguments against pets and keep some very happy rabbits for hair to make into thread but not feasibly. More likely there are just comparatively more ethical options based on supply chain.
(1/2)
Hawk tuah
Spit on that thang
(2/2)
That puts clothes under capitalism as still having been poisioned by capitalism.
Now what of fashion? Self expression is separate from commerce, it is social, and capitalism is economic. So it could be argued that it would exist in some form, a mix of self expression of clothing choices and mimicry.
However, there are social costs - under capitalism how you dress has a lot of effect on your opportunies to sell your labor. Now, that opens for a fashion industry, something to sell under capitalism. Not the clothes, but sell the idea of what one could gain as a way to market clothing. Competition arises and now that "style" of how to get more value in the time one sells is required to change faster than a competitor can undersell. So now we have the ingredients for what we generally consider the negatives of capitalism - disposability, overconsumption, exploitation of natural resources (ie dye processes polluting rivers), and exploitation of cheap labor. Fashion as it exists now, is irrevocably tied to capitalism. What is fashionable is largely though not entirely tied to how the clothing displays wealth, how it can sell oneself, and earnings.
What would "fashion" look like if it was separated from capitalism? From the exploitation of labor and profit?
Full Rick socialism
I am not seeing a thesis here
Are you going to keep asking questions or do you want to have an opinion
Mostly trying to round back to the topic.
The easy answer is to point to fashion under monarchy and say fashion existed under feudalism.
but that is boring
Good
Keep going
That's all I had. I restated the topic and a bunch of thoughts that might give others ideas.
@thomas do you still have that video of beans in your pockets? Iāve been pondering this
what does this mean
Want me to write a critique of pure beans in your pockets?
Itās right there plain enough, just curious if this artifact stills exists
honest question did I really post a video of that
it does sound like something i would have done in ehf lmao
but I have no memory of it
I wasnāt on ehf at the time so it must have been here
maybe i posted it in the midst of one of my infrequent but harrowing dissociative episodes, when I forget who I am and experience a series of intense personal disasters
Tbh the mystery of it adds to the allure
if someone finds this video please send it to me
@LlamaĪ»Wave please try to be more concise in the future. i notice you tend to post these BIG blocks of text a lot. it's not very polite to others
I apologize it has been brought to my attention that the post in question was a picture not a video my apologies
The discussion is, to Thomasā point, one that requires nuance. I for one appreciate that people are willing to take the time to think through their thoughts in public, even on a medium as unsuited to it as a discord thread.
Idk I don't think it's helpful to stream of consciousness your way through discord. People are reading that expecting a coherent thought and instead don't get anything.
I donāt object to suggesting people be more clear, or even more concise; but I do think it is unfair to call it āimpoliteā if someoneās text isnāt perfectly clear. This shit aināt easy!
if I'm lifting a garbage bag and it splits open and spills all over the sidewalk, even though it's not easy for me to pick it all up, it's still impolite not to do it
I don't think the point of this thread is to be helpful, it's just to share your thoughts on the topic of the day. People think and write differently for a variety of reasons and I honestly think it's really reactionary to insist that people only post in ways that are legible to you.
儽å§ę··čęč¦å¼å§ēØäøęåäŗļ¼ęä¹ę ·
It's the equivalent of throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks vs making an actual opinion or point, which doesn't further the conversation
wait im confused are we making spaghetti or are we expecting everyone to treat this like a debate
Ite i think we have reached the very end of this topic