Conclusion

Both fashion and power are things people can possess and larger systems. How does power dress? The question is what power? The establishment? The opposition? From the Western suit and tux to the Eastern turban and bisht, socially established men tend to dress in similar dark, full coverage clothing codes. Various types of subcultural groups modify and oppose these forms.

Woman in socially powerful positions display variation in fashion codes. Female power through clothing also evokes the questions of objectification and seduction using a feminine language of forms.

Fashion is used to reinforce and negotiate power; it can be used to unite and separate, and to command authority and attention.

There is also the potential for fashion to influence society by advancing cultural values.

In the words of Oscar Wilde, �A history of dress would be a history of minds; for dress expresses a moral idea; it symbolizes the intellect and disposition of a nation."

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FASHION & Spectacle: Usurpation and Inscription of Power From and On the Modern Consumer of Illusion in Capitalist Society

by Rahkua Ishakarah

"The phenomenon of fashion is essential to understanding today's individualistic democratic society, because it is an integral and constitutive part of modern western society, and therefore a central and permanet phenomenon" (Fuentes and Quiroga 384). Fashion exercises its spectacular task in its global division with its own set of commodities and the hieroglyphic instructions with which the consumer society discerns its place. It asserts cultural, economic, aesthetic hegemony through the homogenization of image that the social being follows.

What complicates and, quite frankly, justifies the relationship between fashion and its consumer as mutual symbiosis, is the fact that identity can be discerned through the employment of these fetishized commodities, which are at once tools of capitalist society producing artificiality/image for consumption and tools actually lending an individuality and empowerment of identity: "The final twist ... [is that] fashion ... often does successfully express the individual" (Wilson 395).

What becomes more important than actual truth - whether or not these products are empty fetishes perpetuating capitalism global dominance - is our perception of said truth - the products have a transformative power of image and identity that can serve to promote social status and relationship. This perception gives us over to a sense of self, even if based on falsities.

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Decoding the Multicultural: The House of Balenciaga and its Fall/Winter 2007 Collection

by Sara Johenning

The House of Balenciaga is one of the most esteemed and directional fashion brands working today. Initially founded by a Spanish designer, Cristobal Balenciaga, in 1937, the House has progressed into the modern day fashion frontier under the creative direction of Nicolas Ghesquiere, a young French designer who has had control of the House since 1997. The House of Balenciaga was built on and is still associated with impeccable craftsmanship, the play of fabric and color, and exaggerated/structurally baffling silhouettes (i.e. the �tonneau�, or barrel-shaped line).

Although some of the notions of power that Cristobal built his House on have shifted in recent years due to Ghesquiere�s redirection of the brand, Balenciaga has managed to become a major force in the Parisian fashion scene, while still paying generous homage to its Spanish routes.

More specifically, by analyzing Ghesquiere�s FW07 collection for the House closely � in relation to the brand�s history, visual power codes (the ruff, military jacket, ikat textile, and Palestinian keffiyeh), and Parisian street culture, a bricollaged signification of multicultural dressing is revealed.

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Gothic Fashion: The Power of the Haute Macabre

by Alex Hess

�They play up their otherness, �happening� on the world as aliens, inscruables� (Hebdige, 121) My essay explored the ideals behind the bondage chains and black lipstick associated with Gothic fashion and look at the fragile power structure between the Goth subculture and the �straight world� in contemporary European society.

I propose that it can be interpreted through two different lenses: the fetishism of objects and the employment of fantasy clothing. In looking at �fetish parties,� we can see examples of fetish wear being brought to the surface. Marx asserts that �fashion itself is only another medium that lures (sexus) even deeper into the material world� (Lehmann, 434). In other words, fashion�s act of covering up the body leads the unconscious association of certain items, such as the high heel, with sexuality. These leather corsets and dangerously high heels manipulate the power of associations apparent in today�s society by magnifying them. By becoming the physical manifestation of a taboo, the gothic subculture asserts their voluntary status as outsiders, as representations of all that is repressed in contemporary society.

Both Gothic shops that I visited in Paris doubled as sex shops, selling items pertaining to bondage an sadomasochism. This act can be viewed as a conscious act of rebellion according to Hebdige, the surfacing of existing social codes within the Gothic community arises �at a time when such an affirmation of the classic concerns of working-class life (is) considered inappropriate� (Hebdige, 79). They have no obviously apparent political goals, however, their logos focus around morbid and romantic symbols, and not political ones. Their focus is centered on a willful retreat from society by questioning normative gender identity.

Gothic subculture also questions gender roles and androgyny by playing with the power of associations and reversal of fashion codes. Certain couples set up a number of visual precedents that knowledgably violate power codes within gender, the woman adopting the masculinity associated with the American cowboy and the male unabashedly sporting historic symbols of feminine power. Hebdidge suggests this is an attempt to escape normative gender roles. �Bowie�s meta-message was escape- from class, from sex, from personality, from obvious commitment- into a fantasy past� or a science-fiction future� (Hebdige, 61).

The Gothic subculture does not just restrict itself to fetish wear, but ranges from fantasy costumes turned street wear to dressing like an animae character. These looks have little to no relation to social constructs, but estrange themselves through antiquity paired with surreal and fabricated elements or a bricolage of elements so diverse that they defy all interpretation.

Lehman proposes that clothing is connected to the wearer emotionally in saying what we wear is a �protection against the general unfriendliness of the world as a whole; or expressed more psychologically, a reassurance against the lack of love� (Flugel, 131). Gothic fashion sometimes features several heavyset body chains that cover the entire chest or back area. This direct connection between armor, Flugel�s theory of psychological protection and Gothic fashion lends itself to the subculture�s attempt to shield themselves from the outside world that they perceive as dangerous.

We can see Gothic fashion�s relationship with Haute Couture as a �two-way practice of appropriation, parody, and sign entropy� (Gill, 495) as opposed to an empty symbol �worn without reference to its original subcultural meaning� (Polhemus, 331). , in the case of gothic fashion, the power is returned to the Goth by bringing him further away from reality by associating him with the otherworldliness of a haute couture show.

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The Extraordinary Power of Carine Roitfeld

by Emily Kearns

While she certainly holds power as the editor in chief of one of the most, if not the most, influential fashion magazines in the world, Carine Roitfeld clearly exhibits power in other ways. First, she has shown that by simply endorsing a designer or model, she can make or break their career. She has launched the careers of countless designers by putting their clothes in Vogue and has turned models into supermodels by featuring them on the pages of the magazine.

Roitfeld also displays her power as both an editor and a stylist, dictating trends and, ultimately, deciding what is fashionable. Her willingness to take risks as an editor and stylist has, in turn, helped Vogue as a business, as advertising revenue has increased since she took over.

Moreover, Roitfeld�s willingness to be unconventional plays a large part in her power. While the position of editor in chief is inherently powerful, French vogue�s Carine Roitfeld is one of the most powerful figures in the fashion industry as a whole and she exhibits and demonstrates this power in various ways.

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The Noblesse Oblige of European Fashion Power: Bernard Arnault & Francois Pinault

by Tribbie Nassikas

Bernard Arnault, founder, chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton Mo�t Hennessy

Aristocratic power of the French nobility from the late sixteenth to eighteenth centuries reveals the emergence of an essentially modern culture, one that has maintained a consciousness of the responsibility to give back to the community. This notion of benevolent acts of stewardship by those of a privileged social standing is known as nobles oblige, and is continued to be carried out today, evident in powerful individuals like Bernard Arnault, founder, chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton Mo�t Hennessy (LVMH), and Fran�ois Pinault, owner of Gucci Group.

Fran�ois Pinault, owner of Gucci Group

As two figures literally at the head of the fashion industry, each at the control of two of the world�s leading multi-brand luxury companies, Arnault and Pinault naturally can be typified as leaders solely concerned with dominating the luxury goods market. However, Arnault and Pinault are not just single-mindedly so, but rather, serious patrons of the arts and social solidarity, revealing the benevolence of fashion which is commonly overlooked. Therefore, Arnault and Pinault become two figures that represent the noblesse oblige of European fashion power.

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Structuring the Power of the Suit from Art to Photography

by Nicole Schloss

Louis-Leopold Boilly, "The Singer Chenard as a Sans-Culotte" 1792. Musee Carnavalet, Paris

�It is a useful garment spiritually. If you wear a suit you show the world you belong. Why? Because you are wearing a form of dress for men which�has come down to us from 1670, gradually altered to show the change from aristocratic to democratic rule, to show, by allowing it to be affected by sport, that man is free to exercise his body� (Amies 44). The male suit today is the most ubiquitous and standardized style of dress for men. Government leaders, job seekers, middle class businessmen and storeowners alike have all conformed to this seemingly drab uniform, but this has not always been the case. The suit is a product of both modernity and the Western world�s shift away from monarchical rule, a trend that can be observed through art, without which, we would have very little knowledge of these rapidly changing styles. The French suit, in particular, is implicitly aligned with modernity and republican values due to the French Revolution and the bourgeois rejection of decadent forms in the move towards democratization. Popular to contrary belief, the suit did not originate in Paris or even Italy, as so much of high fashion has; rather, it came to Paris by way of England and Puritanical thought, favoring simplicity over decadence. As clothing is the most basic indication of one�s social status and power (Simmel), the suit took on its own forms in the nineteenth century, evolving into what it is today.

Edouard Manet, "Dejuner sur l'Herbe" 1863. Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, "Moulin de la Galette" 1876. Musee d'Orsay, Paris

The male suit�s origins were brought to France by way of English hunting costumes. Malleable wool pants and coats allowed men to be comfortable instead of constrained by breeches and stockings. The sans-culottes of the French Revolution appropriated this style of dress to negate the ways of the French monarchy, thus aligning democracy with the suit. The Great Masculine Renunciation (a term coined by John C. Flugel) in the mid-1800s was a period of panic in which all men rejected tight and bright clothing in favor of a more austere and dark style. The suit manifested itself in this stage, coming to epitomize male power and masculinity influenced by the Greek male nude (Hollander). Painters such as Manet and Renoir painted the emergence of the suit onto Paris�s landscape, showing the costume as civil, democratic, and one that emphasized only the positive characteristics of all men. Men used the suit as an escape, an attempt to try and fit in with the bourgeois class, especially at places such as the Moulin de la Galette.

David Roemer's "Exclusive Updates" for the Robb Report

Today we can see the versatility of the suit in editorials by David Roemer and Miles Aldridge. Both photographers elaborate on the world of power that a suit provides. Men can fly overseas to a business meeting clad in the best-tailored suits surrounded by all the luxuries they can afford. They dominate the workspace, inspiring fear in all who pass by. The suit has become more than an item of clothing for men; it is their most accessible and recognizable form of power negotiation, dating back to hundreds of years of continuity.

Miles Aldridge's "Business Class" for l'Uomo Vogue

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