Sewn on boobs given the green light – Weekend
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Over the past 10 years, vulgarity has not only become part of fashion, but has fully entered into its main body. Now, not only does it not exclude what would previously have been called vulgar, but this very definition is no longer used as the opposite of “fashionable.”
As we all remember, Pushkin, having introduced the term “vulgar” into Russian literature, defined it through negation – this is something that fashion does not accept and which cannot be found at all in the guise of the ideal Tatiana. In the twentieth century, vulgarity was understood as any emphasized excess, be it decorative or physical. In the first case, these are, say, the notorious sequins (remember, there was once such a practically meme), feathers, everything beautiful at once – a mini with heels, a turban with huge sunglasses, red lipstick with smokey eyes, lace lingerie with mules with fur pompoms, etc.; in the second we are talking either about a specially emphasized own physicality, or about artificial excess – “made” buttocks, breasts, lips, hair. All this used to be contemptuously considered beyond the scope of not only fashion, but also good taste.
However, since the end of the last century, fashion, while continuing to be wary of vulgarity, nevertheless began to use its elements for its own purposes – this expanded the arsenal of means, made it possible to play with accents, and avoided smoothness and emasculation. Some did it easily and witty: Galliano with his grotesque boudoir and historicism, Jean Paul Gaultier with his bordello style – Madonna’s cone-shaped satin bras and stewardess outfits in The Fifth Element – and, of course, Miuccia Prada. She was (and remains) a true master of handling vulgarity, its connoisseur and connoisseur: lace, multi-colored fox tails, prints in the form of bananas and black dancers, sandals in the form of Art Nouveau flowers – few others knew how to so brilliantly use the clichés of bad taste and turn them into a total trend. It seemed that she could take any, the most fabulous thing from the arsenal of vulgarity – and it was one hundred percent guaranteed to become a fashion hit.
On the other hand, there were those who used vulgarity almost without any irony and with minimal distance: Versace with its abundant gold, wild prints, tightness and other objectification – and the subsequent succession of other manufacturers of bandage dresses and stripper shoes. But both in artistic and almost literal execution, all this was presented as a special aesthetics, postmodern, full of irony and quotations, taken in very noticeable (sometimes emphatically redundant) quotation marks.
Conceptual fashion, and above all analytical, also worked with the stereotype of decorative vulgarity – Margiela had Barbie pink, sequins, and lace – but treated the body as harshly as possible: practically refusing to accept traditional ideas about beauty, she dealt especially radically with everything unnatural, extended, enlarged and sewn on. Open to the maximum acceptance of all kinds of ugliness and awkwardness, she almost did not notice standard beauties – and even more so redesigned and improved beauties in every possible way.
The situation began to change decisively only with the victory of inclusive fashion – that is, the fashion of the last 10 years or so, striving for true diversity, where there is a place for anyone and everyone. It was in this way that camp entered the main body of fashion, that is, the fashion of mass brands, on the one hand, and the fashion of large houses, on the other. Camp is a specific aesthetic of many subcultures and minorities, built on a love for everything unnatural, exaggerated, extravagant and theatrical, and vulgarity has always been an important component of it.
After the MET Costume Institute’s acclaimed 2019 exhibition, Camp, Notes on Fashion, camp entered the fashion vernacular and became a word that united phenomena ranging from Elsa Schiaparelli to Alessandro Michele. With camp, everything related to bodily modifications became fashionable, from dressing up to plastic surgery – drag queens, crossdressers, etc. This vulgarity – cranked up to maximum power and brought to the point of grotesquery – has always implied play in various senses, including theatrical ones.
Along with camp, vulgarity of a less exotic and more mass-produced variety also came into fashion. And now at the latest Balenciaga show, Kim Kardashian, an icon of vulgarity, walks in black leather next to a real drag queen – and there is practically no irony here. They both walk in the ranks of the famous middle-aged, intelligent (not the least bit improved) women, and Gvasalia thus seems to be telling her fans: “You can be anyone and look whatever you want – add hair extensions, glue on eyelashes, sew on boobs – my dresses are all the same for you, and they will adorn you, no matter what you are.”
That is, if analytical fashion put an end to discrimination against bodily “ugliness,” then inclusive fashion also dealt with discrimination against exaggerated “beauty.” The stereotype of vulgarity has practically ceased to exist – in the sense that it is no longer possible to seriously talk about vulgarity as something excluded from the space of fashionable and cool. When you go to any fashion-related event – fashion week, a fashion festival, a party in a fashionable place – you will certainly see people with deliberately overweight bodies and a deliberately provocative manner of dressing, using all this as a fashion statement. Yes, there must still be some irony here, but there is no longer any doubt that fashion has accepted and legalized vulgarity.
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