Clothing Hedonism: Glamourizing Fashion In Conventional Discourses

By Mai Manaloto

The ideology of consumption immersed from the perception of oneself. Fashion goods and services has the capacity to alter one’s current lifestyle and physical appearance. When we casually talk about fashion, it reflects our personal goals, life history and specific interests. Others however, may argue that fashion fosters depthless and materialistic outlooks.

When speaking of fashion, there are generally two perspectives. You can either glamourize it or trivialize it. Glamourizing fashion takes one to a type of realm wherein goods and services project our dreams and fantasies about living the ‘good life’ – an idealized consumer dream world (Thompson and Haytko, 1997). This take on fashion has given rise to the world of haute couture (or high fashion), runways, magazine spreads and billboards. Cambell (1987) coined the term “imaginative hedonism” to encompass this phenomena. Glamourizing is a level of fashion consciousness wherein pleasure and satisfaction arise from attaining clothing and being able to take part in the world of fashion.

The other take on fashion is by trivializing the discourse. A salient view of fashion becomes a practical nature of everyday life with clothing. Fashion is viewed for its seriousness of purpose – to be worn for daily endeavour. This take has produced a business approach towards fashion by producing Ready-to-Wear and Basic-Everyday-Wear clothing. It removes the superficialities associated with appearance and focuses on the practical purpose of wearing clothing such as modesty, protection, presentation, tradition and expression.

Hence, these two countervailing interpretations of fashion give us a better understanding when discussing fashion in a conventional manner. It also shows the type of influence fashion marketing has on its target market. In all these cases, fashion discourses can become a proactive means to discuss clothing and trends, with an underlying reflection of one’s ambitions, interests and background.