Culture & Society

Fashion Has An Identity Crisis

Fashion can start with letting go of everything it is usually related to.

Cover of 'Following the Fashion', published December 9, 1794, by James Gillray (English, 1756-1815).
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Fashion is break-free. Even the Oxford Dictionary adheres to it, fashion follows the word fascism.

Much of ‘fashion as a trend’ has been talked about.

A way of doing things? Again, it is what fashion has always been thought of.

It is supposed to be more than the things it has ever been associated with. Maybe we need to erase the word fashion itself. Fashion can start with letting go of everything it is usually related to.

Let's rather call it ‘ZYX’ for the time being.

ZYX may not be something material, but it can sustain an impression in our minds.

In fact, hypothesis is the first step towards a new reality. Everything we can think of will be possible someday.

Or maybe ZYX can be a way out for those who want to live their fantasies. ZYX may be a reality to someone’s hypothesis.

ZYX should be a new medium away from garments, dreams, music, paper, mannequins, colours, love, people, photographs, videos, oil, water, sculptures, etc.

ZYX is looking for India and discovering America.

ZYX has to offend itself rather than doing it to others.

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Courtesy: Harkirat Kaur

ZYX is newness in every possible way.

It has to be the unapparent.

The unanticipated.

ZYX has to be a two-way process, a give and take rather than a one-way accumulation.

And this is a lie I am telling since these words and this language exist for ZYX to be talked about. How no truth is told 100%.

ZYX could be an aid to other ignorant things in this world like technology, politics, medicine, law and for all those who say fashion is a business out of entertainment and look at it as something inferior.

ZYX should be one’s selfishness that doesn’t affect others. ZYX has to be a way out of all the miseries.

ZYX has to un-entertain illiteracy, unawareness, poverty, terrorism, etc.

ZYX has to be an international issue and should exist just as a superhero does, and people be curious about them.

ZYX has to lure the world, the terrorists, the non-fashionistas, the doctors, the engineers, the taxi driver, the electrician, the construction worker, the good and the bad.

Something like terrorists giving up on terrorism and wishing to dress up or design, for that matter.

But before all, ZYX has to aid itself. The practical approach would say that something like fast ZYX has to undo itself. A Zara T-shirt worth $40 is thought to be very nominal for a person buying it; it might cost $15 to the producer, but a 12-year-old is missing out on all the enlightenment and fun (that’s what we want in life, right?) while he makes that T-shirt. In that case, we are buying it very cheap.

All the ZYX designers and students should pledge to give away whatever money they earn to educate people. Educate ZYX, maybe.

Luxury has been exploited, we don’t need it anymore. No luxury products. A lot of funds are being dumped. Aren’t all the good things for free? All the luxury products have to be disowned. They should just not exist. Let’s see what happens.

Let’s celebrate a day when everyone destroys their luxury items, makes a video, and puts it on the Internet.

ZYX has to overtake a lot of aspects.

ZYX should make everyone live the life of a Richie-rich, a wanna-be and later hate it. Be less pretentious?

ZYX has to undo and unquote whatever has been quoted about itself.

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months,” said Oscar Wilde; how do you revamp this quote?

I remember returning from my school, seeing the road to home as a ramp and walking it down, looking at the tiniest details on the way. The guy serving tea on the way was such a model. All that while I was studying sciences. So ZYX need not happen to a ZYX’ista or a designer.

ZYX has to be a saviour.

It may not mean anything.

ZYX is about being less pessimistic and more optimistic.

No business involved.

No incoherence produced by unoriginal ideas.

ZYX redefinition isn’t supposed to be looked for but should simply happen to one’s mind, shared, agreed to and worked on.

Coco Chanel didn’t say things so that later people could quote it. She didn’t design things to make all the difference. She wanted things a certain way that was away from what society could accept.

ZYX isn’t about this writing competition; it’s a process that shall keep going.

One has to be free, so will be ZYX.