Face masks and politics of vulnerability

In a conversation between Lukáš Likavčan, theorist and The Terraforming guest faculty, and Sofia Irene, an Eindhoven-based fashion design researcher, an exploration of fashion design’s pre-coronavirus obsession with face masks brings us closer to untangling different cultural meanings of clothing and their potential to open up new horizons of political imagination.

Sofia Irene: In my research on survivalist fashion, one example that frequently comes to my mind these days is Marine Serre’s Fall-Winter 2019 video campaign titled Radiation. In this video, we encounter 3D renders of virtual models outfitted in tailored upcycled clothing and aestheticized protective gear—especially face masks—situated in the post-apocalyptic landscape of Paris. One of them is collecting flowers, another one is walking a dog, a third one sits on a checked fabric: first making a picnic on it and then wrapping it as a dress. The landscape burns, the air feels toxic, yet these rendered beings do not cease to make a fashion statement in the decaying world. What are they telling us? Do they protect themselves from outside forces and influences? Or do they protect us from themselves? Or is the statement rather more nuanced?

Lukáš Likavčan: When I saw this campaign for the first time, I read it initially as a statement of militarization of everyday life. As when people from upper social classes drive SUVs because that’s how they purchase a feeling of ontological security. So to me, it occurred as a translation of this concept of security, from the context of cars or gated communities to the one of clothing.

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