Fashion Rio
The model is stationary, as a doll-like, in the sense of
“dollifyng” her body: an empty gaze directed towards nothing,
both arms inert by her side, her legs in a hopelessly waiting. The
trained eroptic (8) eye targets her without hesitation, not so much
the bikini, but what is tattooed just above her pubis: a vida não é
assim, nunca, para nem para sempre (‘life is not like this, never
and even less for ever’). A philosophical statement presented by
fashion as a reflective affirmation of itself. A meta-communication
of the profound meaning of ‘what’ is actually fashion. Rio’s
designer is a philosopher as much as Zaha Hadid. Philosopher in
both, the show composition and the public / pubic text tattooed
for the observer’s sexualized eyes. From this ‘eroptic’ dimension, I
offer two reflections based on dialogues with two poets-essayists,
Horace and Leopardi [1].
Horace
The Roman poet known for his proposition on time that,
in the unsurpassed simplicity of the Latin language, offers an
oblique perspective through which time can be observed. Indeed,
a time that is not only Kronos, as the Greek masters taught, but
also Kairos: a nonlinear time, less mathematic and relentless
time in its orderly flow, but also casual, random, sudden as his
god. Indeed, Kairos’ hair is just in front, placed forward whilst his
back is bald. When he presents himself, a unique, unrepeatable,
irregular opportunity faces the subject and, if missed, taking it
back will be impossible as his hair is just in front of his head. Carpe
diem ... this famous ‘carpe’ refers to Kairos’ hair, passing quickly,
before our undecided eyes. For this uncertain reason, life is not
what the “usual” pubis seems to offer: Eros’ pleasure is ephemeral
and it does not exist forever in this carnal temporality. So, the
carioca designer is a kind of philosopher who addresses every
glance from the model body to the bikini style and finally to her
tattoo. My emotive reflection about the style is crossing through
the three contiguous but not identical panoramas. And the last
one, the tattoo, is offered as a novel (or a myth) that threatens the
model’s beauty: in every moment, the doll-like body may become
a skeleton, a pile of dismembered bones without any connection.
In my fantasy, this reflexive fashion designer updates the famous
sentence of Horace in an original composition: he reinvents and
accentuates the seduction of the unrepeatable and unstoppable
caducity [2].
Leopardi
The poet of Recanati was also an essayist. In his “Operette
Morali”, Leopardi plays a philosophical dialogue between Fashion
and Death, with a capital D because both are living beings. Fashion
is what defies Death: she says they are sisters, claiming a deep
Curr Trends Fashion Technol Textile Eng 4(3): CTFTTE.MS.ID.555639 (2018) 0045
Short Communication
Volume 4 - Issue 3 - October 2018
DOI: 10.19080/CTFTTE.2018.04.555639
Curr Trends Fashion Technol Textile Eng
Copyright © All rights are reserved by Massimo Canevacci
Fashion and Death Ethnographic Explorations
on Ubiquitous Styles
Massimo Canevacci*
University of Rio de Janeiro UERJ, Brazil
Submission: February 12, 2018; Published: October 03, 2018
*Corresponding author: Massimo Canevacci, University of Rio de Janeiro UERJ, Brazil, Email:
Current Trends in
Fashion Technology & Textile Engineering
ISSN: 2577-2929
Abstract
My anthropological glance will focus one a fashion shows in Rio de Janeiro and a “passista” carioca in the carnival 2011; a Karl Lagerfeld’s
fetish design (body-corpse); a bizarre mannequin I met in Belem (Brazil). I’ll try to demonstrate the deep connection between living body and
death corpse in a meta-fetishist perspective and - by the meta-morphic dialogue written by Giacomo Leopardi - on fashion and death (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Coca Cola Clothing, Thais Rossiter fashion designer, Fashion Rio.