SELF SELF SELF

The modern self was filled with anxiety about the newly realized concept of identity as a construct. For the first time, identity was not limited to kinship, land, or monarchical ties and thus became, as Douglas Kellner in his essay “Constructing Postmodern Identities” describes, “mobile, multiple, personal, self-reflexive, and subject to change and innovation” (141). Modernity brought out a degree of awareness of the different social types one could present oneself as. Kellner writes, “one can choose and make—and then remake—one’s identity as fashion and life-possibilities change and expand” (142). Judith Butler analyzes this performance and construction of identity with respect to gender, and Kellner speaks more generally about the performing and the viewing of the performance as the formation of identities through recognition.

This topic of modernity and identity is one that I have been approaching in depth with regards to nineteenth-century Paris, but (as a non-history major) I always end up more interested in how identity formations carry through to the present. Theories of identity in the present, whether it is described as postmodern or a late modern formation, describe the same processes of construction but with a new kind of naturalized acceptance of the performativity and transience. There is a proliferation, a constant multiplication of types and identities that one can choose to construct for oneself, accompanied by an awareness of this possibility. Additionally, riding on the back of awareness and dissolution of anxiety is pastiche and endless “repetition of past images and forms.” (145) I had accepted repetition of past forms, pastiche, and meaninglessness as the basic underpinnings of fashion. But I have recently realized that that is a very specific postmodern vestimentary development. Although fashion--from the nineteenth century and beyond—has always appropriated from cross-cultural and historical traditions, its references became increasingly scattered, condensed, and flattened further into the modern/postmodern age. The sixties were marked by innovation in fabrics, looking to the future, and influenced by the political climate of the cold war, etc. John Galliano, however, perfected and solidified the form of drawing from narratives of the past and spectacularizing the in the present. The 1990s, less than 20 years ago, were a major trend on the runways this year. Is our postmodern awareness of the speed and possibility of reconstructing identity keeping up with the speed of production? Does it have to be necessity? I think that fashion blogs and metropolitan cities in which keeping up with the trends is a visible necessity (at least for those looking), there task of anxiety-production is more exclusive to the Luddite-type as the real and the virtual increasingly coincide. 

 

pastiche of death and religion in Comme des Garcons and Jeremy Scott

 

Desperately Seeking Susan- Susan (Madonna) and her friend draw from every which way, Jackie Stacey analyzes the function of identification and desire in her essay "Desperately Seeking Difference".

Another question I constantly have is, does awareness of your own self-construction bring back essentialist notions of the true self? Berger describes the woman watching herself being watched—is not one of those woman identities a more “real” self that experiences the construction? The Internet and its use in producing identities takes this question to the extreme. In terms of fashion blogs (like this one, kind of) there is a real person, a physical mass, sitting at their screen creating an image of herself. Through her hyper-linking and uploading, she can construct her identity as “fashion forward”, to use the most reflexive example, or she can post a picture of someone else dressing in a “prepster” look. In both of these cases, the identity constructed does not necessarily correspond to how the individual actually feels about herself, or her personal history, or what she will go do after she finishes the blog post. Does postmodern theory say that that is irrelevant? Kellner argues for the importance of content and value in postmodern superficiality, saying that identity does not disappear in a sea of meaningless signifiers but is just reconstituted. Does this reconstitution account for virtual reality? I am trying to find room for simultaneous, multiple constructions of identity and what occurs at the root. Additionally, the ultimate goal is to figure out fashion and fashion culture’s role in that either as a representation and exemplification of these constructive experiences or an agent in them.