why i'm interested in fashion

above all fashion is costume. it's the INDUSTRY of costume - so what better prism to think about race/class/gender? fashion is the direct link between appearance and money. fashion is in bad taste - admittedly a guilty indulgence within say activist intellectual artist circles for example. so this contradiction is deeply pleasurable for me to say the least - if not queer, radical etc. it's in the street, it works, it belongs to everyone. it challenges me to think about femininity in terms of construction of materials around bodies. it's feminine but not anti-feminist. feminine, as in a spectacular fabulous thing we can create and rule and there is no opposite counterpart to it. it's powerful whether we like it or not so why not engage with it riiiight?