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Transcript of Consumption Consumption : Fashion and and Beauty Beauty Jack YUE Division of Social Studies City...
ConsumptionConsumption : FashionFashion
and and
BeautyBeauty
Jack YUEJack YUEDivision of Social StudiesDivision of Social Studies
City University of Hong KongCity University of Hong Kong
The ThemeThe Theme
Some (mis-)conceptions What is consumption(-ism) History of consumption Context and system: shopping Fashion/Beauty: the trend Fashion/Beauty: the meanings Appreciation & Critique
Some (Mis-)ConceptionsSome (Mis-)Conceptions
All about moneyMeaningless hedonistsSubsidiary & residualNot-for-the-youthDecadence (materialism)Superficiality
(fetishism of commodities)
“ConsumptionConsumption”In 1928, André Siegfried, a Frenchman who had visited the United States four times since the beginning of the century, commented that a "new society" had come into being, in which Americans considered their "standard of living" a "sacred acquisition, which they will defend at any price." In the Atlantic Monthly, the journalist Samuel Straus called this new society "consumptionism" and identified advertising and motion pictures as its distinctive forms of communication. In Muncie, the Lynds found that new leisure activities and a new emphasis on consumption had supplanted politics as the focus of public concern. Elections were no longer "lively centers" of public attention as in the nineteenth century and voter turnout had fallen dramatically. National statistics bore out their point; the turnout of eligible voters, over 80 percent in 1896, had dropped to less than half of those registered by 1924. There were many reasons for this decline, including the consolidation of one-party politics in the South, the enfranchisement of women (who for many years voted in lower numbers than men), and the long period of Republican dominance in national elections. But the consumerist shift from public to private concerns undoubtedly played a part. "The American citizen's first importance to his country," declared a Muncie newspaper, "is no longer that of a citizen but that of a consumer."-- James Foner in The Story of American Freedom, © 1998, pg. 151.
Consumer sales depend on the habits and behaviors of consumers, and those who manipulate consumer markets cannot but address behavior and attitude. That is presumably the object of the multibillion-dollar global advertising industry. Tea drinkers are improbable prospects for Coke sales. Long-lunch traditions obstruct the development of fast-food franchises and successful fast-food franchises inevitably undermine Mediterranean home-at-noon-for-dinner rituals—whether intentionally or not hardly matters. Highly developed public transportation systems lessen the opportunity for automobile sales and depress steel, rubber, and petroleum production. Agricultural lifestyles (rise at daylight, work all day, to bed at dusk) are inhospitable to television watching. People uninterested in sports buy fewer athletic shoes. Health campaigns hurt tobacco sales. The moral logic of austerity contradicts the economic logic of consumption. Can responsible corporate managers then afford to be anything other than immoral advocates of sybaritism? -Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld, 1995
Marxist cynicismMarxist cynicism Advertising tries to stimulate our sensuous desires, converting luxuries into necessities
But prosperity without a soul is like a corpse whose heart has stopped beating. There is no life, only consumption.
http://www.stthomas.edu/recycle/CONSUME.HTM
(but … why don’t we do more saving?)
History of ConsumptionHistory of Consumption
goods consumed for their exchange values
(rituals and social relationship)
goods consumed for their use values (economics, production and capitalism)
goods consumed for their sign values (culture, identity and postmodernity)
from production to consumption
YuppiesYuppies
Yuppie was an acronym for 'Young Upwardly Mobile Professional Person'. The word was coined by the advertising industry to capture the essence of a particular type of work hard, play hard, ambitious minded city career person of either sex.
The hectic lifestyle of a yuppie meant that after long hours of work, rare free time was spent in a self indulgent way frittering away the cash earned on anything, fr
om expensive make up and perfume, to a bottle of fine champagne.
Conspicuous wastage was part of the attitude.
For day Yuppies sported wide shouldered jackets and for weekends they wore a
Barbour to effect a country aesthetic or a ballgown to assume the appearance of
a more advantaged lifestyle.
Designer labels and brandingDesigner labels and branding
gained impetus.Brand names became status symbols for sports gear and sportswear, perfumes, electrical equipment, cars and fashion designer goods such as clothing, bags, luggage, scarves and spectacles. The appearance of affluence was reinforced by access to designer label goods.
Context and Context and SystemSystem
The experience of“shopping” and “shoppers”
:Self-construction
through display and acquisitionimplemented in a variety of
relations(with people, material goods and
representations)
Shopping malls(e.g. Festival walk, Trendy Zone, etc.)
Department stores(e.g. Seibu, Sogo, LaneCrawford, etc.)
Shops(e.g. Joyce, D-mop, Agnes’b, etc.)
Supermarkets(CitySuper, Park’N, etc.)
but … what could be other alternatives?Is HK still a “shopping paradise”?
FashionFashion
For centuries individuals or societies have used clothes and other body adornment as a form of nonverbal communication to indicate occupation, rank, gender, sexual
availability, locality, class, wealth and group affiliation.
Fashion is a form of free speech. It not only embraces clothing, but also accessories, jewellery, hairstyles, beauty and body art. What we wear and how and when we wear it, provides others with a shortha
nd to subtly read the surface of a social situation
It is true of dress, in even a higher degree than most of items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of privation in the comforts of or necessities of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of was
teful consumption.(Thorstein Veblen)
And the eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, and they knew that they were
naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
(Genesis)
Fashion --- including haute couture, all forms of anti-fashion and nonfashion --- produce a visual culture --- a visual manifestations of an entire system of value --- in which individuals become more self-conscious of their own appearance and that of
others.(Joanne Finkelstein)
Haute Couture(made to measure)
vs
Prêt-à-Porter (ready to wear)
Pre-WWII --- e.g. Chanel (Americans’ mass production; French as leader in wealthy fa
shion)1950s --- e.g. Dior, Balenciaga
(suburban life style and accent on family life)1960s --- e.g. Mary Quant, Pierre Cardin
(London as leader in youthful fashion)1970s --- e.g. YSL, Ralph Lauren, LV
(towards anti-fashion, ethnic look, physical fitness)1980s --- e.g. Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, NIKE, Kenzo
(Jap/Italy’s role and towards global business and deconstruction)1990s --- e.g. Lagerfeld, DKNY, Fendi, Prada, Helmut Lang
(age of discount, off-price, outlets; trying grunge/relaxing/etc.)2000s --- look at your own self !!!
Trend of FashionTrend of Fashion
Fashion … made in HKFashion … made in HK
BeautyBeauty
Makeup(skin, face, hair, fragrance, etc.)
Accessories(diamond, rings, watch, pen, etc.)
Body fitness(spa, sports, muscle, etc.)
Lifestyle
(bath, nutrition, stress management, etc.)
Beauty Beauty == Aesthetics Aesthetics = = Color Color
Elizabeth Taylor who set trends in hair and make up
looks.
Awestern
definition of beauty ?
裝扮 美容 豐胸 纖體 健身 排毒 養顏 靜心
From femininity to masculine
From accessories to professionalism
From cosmetics to fitness-cum-wellness
From glamour to natural lifestyle
For men and/or
women
[男]為悅己者容
Makeupartists
Image/hairstylists
Biochemengineers
Doctors/nutritionists/
trainers
Health & WellnessHealth & Wellnesstowards
inner beauty
through physical activities
e.g. aerobic, gym fitness, sauna, spa, golf, etc.
… 愛纖體、亦愛身體 …
Back to the natureBack to the nature
Integratinghuman beings’ culture
with the nature
MeaningsMeaningsofof
Fashion/BeautyFashion/Beauty
[ Sex ][ Sex ]
“It is the the shame of lacking a penis which has drawn women to the use of fabrics, clothing and fashion, originally to conceal this lack, and afterwards as substitutes for it. The fashionable woman, then, approximates the dignity
of any normal man by being attired in the best, most envied and respected suit of clothes.”
(Joanne Finkelstein)
“While women are turning in vast numbers tomasculine clothing styles,
men are re-appropriating their rightto a certain level of fantasy in dress”
(G. Lipovetsky)
[ Body ][ Body ]“The individual and
personal act of getting dressed is an act of
preparing the body for the social world, making it
appropriate, acceptable, indeed respectable to
othersone may encounter in a
social setting.”(London’s Hayward Gallery)
“Styles of dress and body adornment attempt to
produce a different body, i.e. to reshape it into an
aesthetic and social ideal. Fashion has an effect on
subjectivity. The increased use of uniforms (for various
specific occasions) constitutes a regime of
discipline.”(Michel Foucault)
[ Identity[ Identityandand
Status ]Status ]
[ Autonomy ][ Autonomy ]
“Aren’t we madto let them
move us about,push us around,
wrap us up,reproduce us so
we are all the sameor nearly so …
I wonder if it is you or Iwho dictate fashion.”
(Sonia Rykiel)
[ Aesthetics ][ Aesthetics ]“There would on doubt be something slightly paradoxical in
opening a fashion museumif fashion were just a seasonal trend …
a fashion museum isthe history of practices and looks”
(Jack Lang, French Minister of Culture)
While fashion had invented ‘the woman’ forover a hundred years, a ‘fashion after fashion’ began
to deconstruct that self-same woman;while fashion initially hid its art, it now begins
to also display its bag of tricks.”(Barbara Vinken)
Consumptionis more than ever befor
ean experience which is
to belocated in the head,
a matter ofthe brain and mind,rather than seen as
the process of simply satisfying biological bod
ily needs(Robert Bocock)
Towards a concept of Towards a concept of lifelife
food career colors creativity
creativity identity