Eleni Mouratidou - Re-presentation Policies of the Fashion Industry

“A forgery of a work of art is an object falsely purporting to have the history of production requisite for the (or an) original of the work” (Goodman 1976, p. 122). Based on this premise, it is possible to consider counterfeiting as the process of falsely endowing an object with a certain authenticity. Authenticity also plays a key role in the discourse and strategies of those involved in the sector. Faced with what Abélès (2018a, p. 92) describes as a “logo fatigue”, the argument of authenticity becomes a communication necessity. However, it is based on illusionist discourse about the historical and symbolic depth that accompanies the goods and the communication strategies of commercial luxury. By questioning the counterfeit position of the fashion industry’s re-presentation policies, the aim is to account for the way in which discourses that are commonplace, such as art and culture, the sacred and religion as well as politics, present themselves as an excellent communicational pre-text and pretext granting the actors of this industry a self-referential legitimacy . It is also a question of accounting for the way in which, just as fashion is copied and counterfeited, art and culture, the sacred, religion and politics can be copied and also counterfeited, probably because of their polychresic 21dimension.

However, this communicational counterfeiting is motivated by a goal of persuasion, efficiency and belief. This is how spectacular density comes into play, by erasing the fiction, the rigged, the fabricated and by offering what marketing professionals call an experience. Here is Guy Debord’s introductory reference to his book The Society of the Spectacle , quoting the German philosopher Feurerbach:

and without doubt our epoch…prefers the image to the thing, the copy to the original, the representation to the reality, appearance to being…what is sacred for it is only illusion , but what is profane…is truth. More than that, the sacred grows in its eyes to the extent that truth diminishes and illusion increases, to such an extent that the peak of illusion is for the peak of the sacred . (Debord 1987)

The fashion industry’s re-presentational policies, such as certain advertising campaigns, museum exhibitions or commercial scenography, are organized as a smooth, controlled spectacle to make people see and believe . As historian Daniel J. Boorstin points out, “the most effective images are usually those which have been especially doctored for believability” (Boorstin 1961, p. 188). The regimes of showing and make-believe instituted by the fashion industry’s re-presentational policies are no longer constructed, like the theatrical convention, as a process of illusion in which we want to believe because we have agreed to put ourselves in the position of spectators adhering to that convention. Re-presentation is an admission of the concealment of the merchandise and the promotional methods that go with it. “This concealment is not the lie that should be pierced through [it is] its way of telling the truth about the concealment that constitutes it” (Rancière 2017, p. 66, author’s translation). What is happening in the framework of the fashion industry’s re-presentation policies is a belief system that is no longer a matter of making people see and make them believe , but of seeing and believing . Belief becomes an assertion because it is manipulated by the re-presentational device, its mechanisms of orientation and modeling. It offers itself to be seen as a presence and tends to minimize, even erase, its re-presentational discourses (Boorstin 1962, p. 249). It densifies its mythological dimension because it introduces fashion into its system as a presence “rendered as transparent” (Barthes 2002, p. 832, author’s translation). The appearance of merchandise and promotional strategies is not an “illusion to be crossed to discover the truth, it is the phantasmagoria that testifies to the truth of a metamorphic process” (Rancière 2017, p. 66, author’s translation), a process that describes and even troubles the fashion industry and to which the latter must respond through its re-presentational policies.

Fashion is a creative industry that “has become a model for many industries, such as the automobile industry, which now varies in color to the other” (Godart 2016, p. 97, author’s translation). In particular, it is integrated into the capitalist system of conglomerates, groups in possession of numerous brands in the sector, aiming at oligopoly, or even monopoly of the latter. This industrial organization affects all segments of fashion, from the bottom of the range to luxury goods. Emblematic brands in the luxury sector with constantly growing sales, such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci or Balenciaga, belong to groups such as LVMH for the first two and Kering for the other two 22.

As for luxury ready-to-wear, whose projected values are based on quality, rarity and selectivity, it has to face its trivialization , both symbolic and commercial, for two main reasons. The first is the change in its manufacturing methods. Luxury today is produced according to semi-industrial or industrial processes, with craftsmanship being reserved for certain exclusive and unique products. Take the case of the Louis Vuitton brand. Founded in 1854, initially specializing in the handcrafted manufacture of travel trunks, it inaugurated its first ready-to-wear collection in 1998; it currently manages “45 directly operated boutiques around the world” 23. This beneficial expansion for the LVMH group has led to a certain trivialization of Louis Vuitton brand products, which have become omnipresent and particularly popular. As Bruno Remaury notes:

Under the effect of the unprecedented transformation of the object into merchandise, we are witnessing in a few decades a shift in the very definition of luxury, from the individual and aristocratic vision of luxury (luxury as use, election, way of life) to that of a mass-produced object (luxury as a consumer item). (Remaury 2011, p. 307, author’s translation)

Luxury has to deal with the possible dysphoric values that may emanate from its presence “in a new territory [...] managed by financial groups, based on an industry perspective oriented towards mass markets” (Barrère and Santagata 2005, p. 262, author’s translation).

The second reason for this trivialization is the dysphoric discourses and values that are often associated with the fashion industry in general. Many brands are relocating factories and workshops, which is a strategic choice that allows “companies to reduce their labor costs” (Koromyslov et al. 2013, p. 38, author’s translation) 24. This has two consequences. The first is symbolic, since consumers associate the offshoring process with fast fashion , mass consumption and lower quality. The second is managerial and directly linked to the working conditions and remuneration of workers in developing countries or countries undergoing major economic crises.

The fashion industry is also subject to denunciations concerning some of its managerial practices: conditions of recruitment of female and male models, moral and sexual harassment. If the majority of the models remain silent on the psychic and physical pressures suffered, the revelations of some draw a picture of a particularly different view from the aesthetic, beautiful and smooth face of the fashion industry:

Non-consensual kisses, spankings, pinches. […]. Lack of adequate space for the model to change. Persecution from editors, photographers, stylists and clients who want us to be topless or nude. Publication of nude pictures when the contract stipulates that it is forbidden to use them. Unauthorized massages. Inappropriate e-mails, SMS and calls. Pressure to consume alcohol while underage. [...]. Being forced to sleep at the photographer’s home rather than being able to sleep in a hotel. Being threatened with losing my job if I don’t cooperate. Being called difficult, feminist, virgin, diva, when I talk or say no. I’ve lost count. And that’s just what’s “easy” to share, and that happens at such common times as 9:00 in the morning, at fittings or at lunch. 25