Cosplaying compentence in the time of COVID-19
I have greatly enjoyed watching brands pivot to selling stay-at-home wear and work-at-home wear. I have been amused by Zoom-ready tops replacing going-out tops. I have wondered if, indeed, we're about to see a radical reimagining of women's underwear[1]. And now, we have the so-called of "dawn of quarcore," a notion GQ thinks it discovered and describes as "a surreal merging of function and trendiness."
The thing is, "quarcore" was already defined and documented a decade ago in the William Gibson novel Zero History. This book, which rounds out a trilogy about trends, information and the shaping of consensual reality, follows the exploits of people who are looking at clothing to understand the shifting currents of global society, and at one point, a billionaire who's high on his own ideas explains why he's so interested in military-themed fashion:
"Our best analyst thinks it’s not a tactical design. Something for mall ninjas … The new Mitty demographic ...
“Young men who dress to feel they’ll be mistaken for having special capability. A species of cosplay, really. Endemic. Lots of boys are playing soldier now. The men who run the world aren’t, and neither are the boys most effectively bent on running it next. Or the ones who’re actually having to be soldiers, of course. But many of the rest have gone gear-queer, to one extent or another ...
“It’s an obsession with the idea not just of the right stuff, but of the special stuff. Equipment fetishism. The costume and semiotics of achingly elite police and military units. Intense desire to possess same, of course, and in turn to be associated with that world. With its competence, its cocksure exclusivity.”
I come back to this passage a lot because of what it says about the human longing to convey one's proficiency (and the status conferred by those unique skills) to others. That clothing should so clearly telegraph the American anxiety about our increasingly unequal society -- and that people make a lot of money off helping others express those anxieties -- is one of the reasons I remain fascinated by retail in the 21st century.
Americans cosplay competence in a lot of ways: What is athleisure if not a way to cosplay wellness and its attendant implication that you are biologically optimized to thrive in a winner-take-all environment? What is normcore if not a way to broadcast the luxury of assimilation: There's no need to peacock away your anxieties if you don't have any in the first place? And what was gorpcore if not a way to convey the idea that you're so well-optimized for the 21st century, you have the resources to spare for picking up highly specialized skills like rappelling from cliffs?
Clothing is always a visual stand-in for longer conversations, and the trick is to remember who's defining the topics and what choice the consumer has in participating in those conversations. In the weeks and months ahead, pay attention to what's being sold to you -- and whether you really want to buy it.
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[1] The "I haven't worn a bra in [X] days genre of sharing on social media" could prompt its own essay from a fashion outlet, hitting as it does on the questions of "What kind of bra are we talking about here?" and "What is your meaning of 'bra' in this conversation?"
I mean, I know a lot of women who wear bras because they're built in a way where it's more comfortable for their bodies; I know others who wear bras because that's one of the tactile cues that shifts them from relax mode to work mode. There is no one unified bra-wearing theory.
What I'm mostly interested in is seeing whether bras are going to shift from less ornamental/beheld to the dictates of fashion (viz the cone bras of the 1950s, the push-up-underwires of the 1990s, etc.) to something that is marketed to women as being a garment that helps them comfortably inhabit the body they have.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how underwear vendors try to market this moment.
ADDITIONAL READING
It's all me! Here's some of my past clothing-centric writing:
"I shall make you to be Eileen Fishers of women" (February 25, 2020) -- "We're now living in a moment where women are redefining the behavioral and aesthetic vocabularies of power and leadership."
"Who gets to look like an American" (June 5, 2019) -- "The American promise of democratically accessible cool has been flipped on its head."
"What we talk about when we don't talk about prairie dresses" (February 11, 2019) -- "The style is flogged by an industry unwilling to examine the garment's racist and sexist connotations at a time when hate crimes are on the rise in the U.S. and we're in an acrimonious national dialogue about how to treat women."
"Why there's a fine line between retro and outdated" (November 21, 2018) -- "Victoria's Secret stuck to the conceit that underwear wasn't for the woman wearing it, but for the man looking at the woman wearing it."
"Who can we blame for bridal chains going bust?" (November 15, 2017) -- "Saying yes to the dress may not matter nearly so much as saying yes to a wedding experience."
"How 'basic' baby clothing picks up on changing gender dialogue" (August 2, 2017) -- "The rise of gender-neutral clothing means that trying to avoid gender baggage for children's goods is no longer a luxury spending category."
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FOOTER TEXT, BECAUSE THIS IS THE END OF THE EMAIL: Thank you all for reading! It is delightful to know you're all out there -- now add to the army of readers by telling your pals to subscribe! Talk to me via Twitter because I love hearing from you. And I have at last noticed that you can send me email via TinyLetter, so I'll finally answer those emails! What a time it is to be alive.