fashion protest?

I want you (and by you I mean the literally one or two people who may read this) to understand that very little thinking goes into these blog posts, which is why more often that not I end up posting something trivial to bitch about, but I don't quite know myself what in particular bothers me. It's more like I'm vaguely disturbed and instead of thinking about it at a deeper level, I'd rather just put it out there even while my thoughts are still fuzzy and undecided.

And so, HOW WEIRD IS THIS AD? I guess a major point of anxiety for me has been trying to reconcile my love of aesthetics and fashion with my interest in politics. Not that they're necessarily at odds with each other, but yes, sometimes the worship of fashion gods and labels feels extravagant and wasteful in comparison to subalterns and postcoloniality and blahblahblah. But looking at this ad sort of clarifies for me (just like that Erin Wasson image) just how distant the world of Marc Jacobs and Karl Lagerfeld is from the one of actual political protests and activism and ANGER. It's, once again, almost mocking.

It reminds me of this piece on hipsterdom from Adbusters, that states "Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion... The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution." (I'm equating the 'hipster' with the 'fashion-conscious' because even if the hipster is set up as the anti-label, they feed off each other so its essentially the same thing). My point? That we are at a loss for actual movements, that the well of protests has run dry and now the only thing worth marching for isn't human rights or protecting the earth or or... anything like that, but consumerism. The only thing worth protesting is the cut and design of textiles as a sign of social status?

At least, that's the message I get from this.