Fashion shows are a remarkable sight.
It is always wonderful to behold, with its weird materials, designs, hair and
make-up, shoes and accessories. Nobody really wears them, though. It is merely
a fashion statement. For one thing, it would take an acrobat to get into most
of these clothes and accessories. And no one would be caught dead in those
hairstyles outside the catwalk. Yet fashion shows continue to make the lifestyle
headlines, supermodels still get paid a gazillion to wear these monstrosities
and makeup and hair product sponsors fall over themselves throwing money at
these shows. Why? One way to look at it is the propensity to self-subversion.
Fashion shows, at least most of them
nowadays, are primarily about thinking out of accepted norms and conventions.
Fashion houses guard their designs with ferocious will because once it becomes
the norm, it is no longer fresh or different, and will cease to amaze. But it
is a shallow definition of self-discovery because more and more they only
strive to catch attention and not really to start a new trend. After the oohs
and ahhs and the flash of cameras, it ceases to have any real meaning or
significance to the people who design or wear them. There is no substance to
it, like bubble wrap clothes. Bubble-wrap fashion will probably never be
available on the racks because whoever wears them will be arrested for indecent
exposure. Besides, the compulsion to pop those suckers will most certainly be
almost too much to resist for most of us. Bang! Assault charges and try to
explain that to the judge.
When Albert Hirschman wrote his book
on political economic theory, it is doubtful whether he had fashion shows in
mind, yet the applications are quite clear. The desire to change the way things
are done is present in everyone but very few are brave enough to actually do
something about it. It is like sheep following other sheep. If one sheep
decides to go this way, then everybody follows. But it takes an exceptional
sheep to go his own way and find the sweetest field of grass, and a really
stupid one that goes over the cliff. But chances are the other sheep will
follow either one, because that is what sheep do when they are in the flock.
But ordinary sheep will just stay in the field until the shepherd comes to lead
them away.
Conversely, people tend to follow
what other people do, and where other people go. If a famous or popular person
starts wearing bubble wrap in public and off the ramp, it will become all the
rage and packaging companies will have a field day with it. The same is true of
establishments. It does not matter if they charge an arm and a leg for soggy
French fries and warm beer. If it is the fashion, people will follow. However,
ordinary people tend to stay within the norm, doing what other people do with
no regard or concession to their own inclinations.
Self-subversion may not lead to the
catwalk, but it may lead to a more fulfilled person. While it is safe to stay
with the flock, sometimes the need to follow a different path is overwhelming,
and suppressing this need leads to discontent, restlessness or apathy. Each
person is different, yet society expects conformity among its members. Some
people are content with this path but for those who are not should gather the
courage to strike out on their own. It may lead to disaster, or to fame, or
just a different neighborhood. Whatever it is, exercising self-subversion will
lead to knowledge and understanding. And maybe, who knows, it may lead to the
catwalk after all. We need to develop emotional comp.