The Beckhams, UFOS, Conferences & Harringtons
Style is having a bad time at the moment. The Beckham’s, or rather the cultural phenomena they represent, have reduced style to a series of signals, a logo, a brand or a message to those around you that you have “loads of money” and you can afford to be stylish - in that brassy, cheap, peroxide kind of way.
However, style is ultimately an expression of our cultural aspirations and how we express these needs is rooted deeply in our internal drive to discover and connect with the extraordinary, the unusual, or the marvellous.
Here are three short stories illustrating my point. Read into them what you want…
Vodka and UFOs - Don’t Mix
As I walked out of the foyer of the National Theatre into the moonlit forecourt, I was confronted by an image looking like a still from a science fiction film. Scattered all around me were groups of people standing in twos and threes, all very quiet and very still, and every single one of them was staring with a fixed gaze up towards Waterloo Bridge. I also looked up. A silver object was floating in the air and it moved in small jerky movements, changing shape all the time or, rather more disconcertingly, it didn’t seem to have an edge. Its edge kept changing all the time. This ‘thing’ enchanted me, and the whole scene suddenly became rather eerie. What could it be? I had never seen anything like this before; it looked modern, silvery and shiny, and completely unfamiliar.
I later made the excuse to myself that it was the copious amounts of vodka I had just downed that prompted the exhilarating thought which flashed through my head “My God, it’s a UFO!” To be honest, in that one moment I really believed I was witnessing a UFO or, rather, the part of me which had always yearned to see a UFO kicked in and took over. The side of me that had always wanted to be in a film, a character in Star Wars or Blade Runner - it was wish-fulfilment time. I fought with my drunkenness and focused on the object that had a fine string hanging off it. I followed the arc of the string all the way to the man standing only meters away on Waterloo Bridge and realised that he was flying a spinning silver kite. It was a bitter let down and I staggered off home, muttering that I would never touch vodka again.
Conference
Nearly twenty years later I am attending a conference on Patterns of Belief in a Scientific Age held by the Institute for Cultural Research in London. David Simpson presents an exceptionally interesting paper that outlines how our beliefs (or prejudices) can skew our ability to observe dispassionately the world around us. He outlines the beliefs of UFO spotters who, on a regular, basis claim they have seen extraterrestrial craft and he proposes that their viewpoint is deeply deluded. He proves his point by describing an experiment that he carried out; his team floated up a silver weather balloon in the dark, right above a hill where many UFO spotters hang out (on Friday nights!). They then asked the spotters what they had witnessed that night. The exaggerations and contradictions reported are hilarious and I laugh along with the others at the poor fools, and only stop myself when the memories of my earlier experience flood back.
The discussions that follow in the Q&A session become heated when Judith Williamson (of Decoding Advertising (1978) fame) accused David Simpson of deception and exploiting this group of people. In my notes from the lecture I have the gist of her point; my notes say “She accuses him of deception. She insinuates that it is better to leave people in a deluded state rather than to expose them to a hoax and test their beliefs.” There my notes dwindle out. I stop writing and start spluttering with disbelief at her assertions.
Harrington Jackets
I recently bought a tomato-red Harrington jacket from a shop in Covent Garden. The shop caters for aficionados of a particularly type of the American preppy look and though I wouldn’t describe it as a gentleman’s store, it has a certain air about it. It’s no ordinary jacket, and it cost me a lot of money - £150 actually - which is too much for a simple jacket!
Nevertheless, I argue with myself, it’s the jacket I could never afford as a teenager and now I can; I work hard and I deserve it! The make is Barracuta, the G9 model, the crème-de-la crème of windbreakers. It has all the detailing that a classic jacket like this should have: raglan sleeves; slanted pockets with buttoned triangular pocket flaps (the done thing is to immediately cut the buttons off the jacket and tuck the flaps into the pockets - you should never be seen wearing a Harrington with the pocket flaps out); an arched vent yolk at the back which allows air in; the lining is Fraser tartan; two inside pockets; elasticated wrist and waistband (unlike the classic American version made by London Fog in the 1960s). The best thing about it is that it has no logo on the outside.
When I wear it I feel comfortable and unique and I know there aren’t many others who would wear exactly the same jacket. Should I see some one else on the streets wearing a jacket like mine, well, there is always a customary nod followed by the mutual sense of “he’s one of the gang.”
And finally…
We are constantly attempting to define and distinguish ourselves from ‘those others’. The need to witness a UFO or the fantasy of being a character in a film is analogous to the need to be the hero of that story which is our own life. We recount to ourselves the implausible narratives that fulfil our need for the extraordinary. A storyline that demands all the external trappings of costume, accessories and is accompanied by a sound track kindly provided by a little friendly iPod.
The perpetrator of this illusion is the designer, be they fashion, product or graphic designer. Most designers have given up a genuine curiosity for the world around them and don’t even attempt to respond in a meaningful and poignant way to the issues facing them. Instead, they submissively reach for the latest contribution from the trend machine and adjust their ‘design’ by styling it. There are only a minority of designers who actually design, most of them have become stylists.
To be able to alter the world one has to be able to alter oneself. To be transformed through the touchstone of the wondrous insight is the consequence of a deep spiritual need. When life offers us this challenges we often fail to rise to the occasion and, faced with this miserable shortcoming in our character, we turn to the world for an answer. There we find an endless series of objects sold to us through advertising or, in my case, the conceited need to be part of a discrete elite by the wearing of an object that signals to others; I am separate from the hoy-palloy. I would ordinarily deny the assertion that I have the same aspirations as the Beckhamenados, the chavs, and the unstylish. However, I am in there with the rest of them, spending £150 on a windbreaker that only a handful of people would recognise as unique. These misperceptions of my internal longings are projected out on to the world of objects and styling provides me with the handy illusion of individuality.
In the internal conversation (or even argument) I have had in my head with Judith Williamson since the conference, I keep telling her “Surely it’s reassuring to know that we are being deceived by a hoax - surely we are duped by objects of desire, the illusion of style” - all the things she has talked about (or decoded) in her now famous book.
Yet my argument rings hollow and, like Judith Williamson, I am full of contradictions. I know I am deluded - especially by style - and even knowing this truth, it has not set me free.
Maziar Raein 05
looked at some of the concerns expressed in this blog – I have difficulty with the Gablik book, as I have a with some of the views expressed here, because they accept the ‘trick’ without a rigorous interrogation, at least to my rationalist tainted world. Without a doubt, the need to replace the fetish of the Harrington jacket is needed– but I am not sure design can do anything more than alternate the product; from jackets, to trainers; from interior design to skyscrapers – I am not sure what the paradigm shift would be to change this dilemma?
Thank you for your stories—I may be way off base here, but your theme reminds me of a thesis put forward by an anthropologist, Michael Taussig I think, who said small scale societies often operate by what he called ‘the trick’ put simply, he observed how people would often communicate by understanding certain falsities or tricks – thus the shaman can only carry out a ritual because the audience understand the ‘trick’ and suspend disbelief to allow the ritual to proceed – this action is beautifully observed in the novel In an Antique Land
by Amitav Ghosh ( a book I highly recommend !) Thus, power resides in this circle of masking and unmasking of the trick. I often see variants of the trick in my day to day life – especially in the moral decisions of buying expensive clothing, arriving late to an appointment because of the damn subway etc. I often wonder if the people who gather at crop circles, UFO sites are not also part of the trickery – a Harrington jacket, a crop circle, a UFO sighting, all provide opportunities for community – of shared experience – in a homogenised world, a piece of specialist knowledge?
Design, of course in many ways, provides the hieroglyphs, the runes from which we read much of the trickery of modern life and the reason why many people laugh at the Beckham’s and the like is because we feel they are not aware of the trick!
And now I feel I have travelled full circle because, for Judith Williamson, advertising is all about masking and unmasking – but for her, the trick is usurped by political consciousness.
/Michael Powis 29/08/2005