Purge 1: Reinterpreting Fashion

From a post on Momus’s LJ:

And because the clothes have all been pre-worn, you know that your costume references aren’t just allusions: they?re the actual clothes the actual people you?re referring to actually wore.

No.

The history of an object (like clothing) is all but negated when recontextualized (ie, worn). See found art, sampling, etc. wherein the object’s history becomes just another element of the overall piece, akin to noting tone or texture in a larger composition.

Wearing the blood-stained shirt of an executed revolutionary does not make you a revolutionary; you’re just a guy in a bloody shirt. Unless you go around telling everyone about your bloody shirt and where you got it.

Fashion is a performance for an audience that doesn’t know they’re an audience.