CLONE LIFE

To a great extent print media is dominated by pictorial representations of the very stories they coexist alongside, which are in turn intermingled with various advertisements. This is not a new phenomenon; magazines inform through the medium of both written text and pictorial documentation, being a feast both for the eyes and the mind. Anna Wintour describes Vogue as the ‘cultural barometer’ of society, a hefty mission statement if ever I’ve heard one. The role of the magazine is thus to capture an entire cultural moment before it has even happened, prophesizing trends and interests before the regular folk (that’s you and I) have even seen it coming. I mean who’d have thought Puffer jackets would have made a comeback?!

However, nowadays adverts are not merely a vehicle of brand promotion but also of the people behind the photo. Models, stylists, makeup artists, photographers, pretty much everyone involved in the creation of the image is desirable to the general fashion public. We want their knowledge, their stories, and more often than not, their wardrobes. Consequently fashion is extricated from the confines of the magazine pages as mannequin and model, stylist and socialite and photographer and ph… (okay that’s where my alliteration ends but you get the point) are blended seamlessly. The result is somewhat of a fashion personality, which quickly transitions to the status of celebrity. Models and the fashion elite (Alexa Chung, Cara Deleveigne, Karlie Kloss, Kate Moss, Anna Dello Russo etc…) are as popular – arguably more so – than the clothes they are wearing/modeling.

Whilst I consider the rise of fashion personalities a hugely exciting element of fashion (allowing keen fashion devourers like myself evermore exposure into an increasingly undiluted world of fashion), I can see how this can also be considered an alienating fact. Did my grandmother recognize the cultural significance of Marc Jacobs using the notoriously staid Victoria Beckham in his tongue in cheek advertisement? Probably not.* 

The growth of social media has had a significant hand in promoting the image of the fashion world as something increasingly tangible. It is now possible to watch a fashion show hundreds of miles away whilst in the comfort of your own home, someone else’s home, on a park bench, on the move or in fact, any continent, anytime, and anyone can do it. There are no boundaries, fashion media is now continually updated minute by minute and it has never been as readily available or as easily transportable as it is now. People want to be closer to fashion, want to be a part of the world, want to experience it as it happens. Today’s society is built upon a culture of images; point in fact the rise of sites like Instagram and Tumblr. The world of fashion is therefore not only documented at a moments notice but is also made all the more enticing by the use of photographic filters that not only allow you to record life but also manipulate the very aesthetic of it. Not only do the clothes look remarkable but the fashion bubble surrounding it looks utterly delightful too.  

However, my grandmother is less so impressed by all of this. Her true love is of the clothing, in their material sense rather than the celebrity buzz or promotion and she prefers to follow her own sartorial compass rather than the trend forecast. It seems blasphemous to admit but whether Kate Moss wears skinny jeans or bell-bottoms on her morning round is of little importance to my gran. The generational shift in this scenario is obvious, there has been a definite move in interest from actual fashion garment to catwalk model to model off duty to celebrity and this has left many, including my gran, disconnected from the pages of her favourite fashion magazines. Does it make the clothing any better if the highest paid model is wearing them? No. There may be a fashion frenzy over who can get the best picture of said model or in worst case scenario detract attention from the clothing if it falls short but ultimately they will have no influence or impact on the makeup of the clothes they are modelling.

Of course, with most arguments, I am generalizing hugely, not all magazines feature models in the celebrity sense but it is increasingly becoming less and less common for the two to be considered separate entities. The categories that once separated model from actress and vice-versa are all the more fluid. Actresses now endorse fashion brands (Emma Watson became a fashion darling due in large part to her association with Burberry), models are now turning their hand at designing themselves (both Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Elle Macpherson designing lingerie lines) and models like Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum branching into television. No longer can fashion be as neatly packaged as it previously had been. The fashion industry is after all a business. In its simplest sense fashion is a product that needs to be sold and celebrities are a guaranteed means of doing this.

Whilst the printed representation of fashion is a powerful means of generating fashion buzz it is by far not the only or most popular means of doing so. In a society built upon fast trends, the focus is not how to procure the item but rather what is to be done once the garment is secured. And with the pace at which fashion now moves, can a monthly magazine (though supposedly forecasting trends months/seasons in advance) keep up? For my grandmother the race has been lost. The printed word focuses now upon bringing the trends through the lens of celebrity. But what of the art of fashion? What of its craft and history? What of the future? No longer do magazines weave a text of fashion, communicating the intricacies of fashion as art, giving voice to material. Rather it offers categorized pictures, silencing the rhetoric of fashion individuality and instead perpetuating a sense of uniformity. Seasons are organized as trends but the focus then narrows on to what is deemed ‘trendy’, what the fashion personalities/celebrities are wearing and what in turn we should be wearing.  

It’s a difficult gap to bridge, magazines are in competition with the various forms of social media and in a bid to remain relevant it’s easy to become oversaturated with the celebrity culture surrounding fashion rather than fashion in it’s purest sense. Despite this I know I’ll remain a loyal follower and avid reader of my favourite magazines. I fully admit I’m just as interested in what Rihanna wore last Thursday as the next person but the only trend I’ll be following is the one my grandmother has set and that’s to wear whatever the hell I want. I mean isn’t that ultimately what fashion is all about? Can my outfits ever be considered ‘out of fashion’ or ‘so last season’ if my opinion is the only one that matters to me? The answer is no. So here it is, my individuality is out. You’ve been warned! 

(All pictures my own)

*(An interesting thought: what was he trying to communicate in putting Victoria Beckham in one of his shopping bags? Does buying his product buy you the credentials of celebritydom? Illustrating my point of the fashion personality and the fashion product becoming ever more indistinguishable.)