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“I was thinking that If I could design time it would be very nice” — Yohji Yamamoto in Notebook on Cities and Clothes by Wim Wenders
Time and fashion cannot be separated; they share a uniquely inextricable relationship. No other form of art embodies time as poignantly as fashion does, exactly because it is so anchored in the now, yet simultaneously in continuous dialogue with the past and the future. In his essay “What is the contemporary?” Giorgio Agamben argued that the “now” in fashion is ungraspable, because it is located in a complex moment of untimeliness right in-between the “not-yet” and the “no more”1. The subject of time is not foreign to deep investigation; dozens of philosophers, historians and scientists have put forth various conceptions of time, arguing that it is a construct rather than a universal fact, and many of these unorthodox models have the potential to provide new insight into how fashion functions. Simultaneously, fashion's close affinity with time makes it an ideal object for understanding how time operates in contemporary society.
Turning our gaze to the fashion system, we would be hard-pressed to regard time as any other way than linear, a belief which can be traced back to Isaac Newton and enlightenment thinking in general; time is represented as a straight line, the past moves further away from us, and the future presents itself as if stretched out in front of us 2. This conception of time played a key role in the biannual fashion calendar we know today and paved the way for magazines who further cemented the chronology of fashion. Whereas initially fashion history may have been divided more sparsely, with the advent of a highly technological industry and the acceleration it has led to, it has become more common to think in terms of increasingly discrete fashion periods (the “fashion decade”), where each era is dominated by a particular style and cultural sentiment. This framework is what lies underneath the operation of industrial capitalist society which, following Marx, disciplined the individual into a clearly delineated rhythm of work and non-work3. In Vestoj’s On Slowness, Anja Cronberg argued that this “universal temporal framework, with time zones, seasonal changes and accurate clocks” enabled the creation of new technologies, goods and tastes to emerge and that the “previous more subjective understanding of time had to make way for expedience and the hustle of modern life” 4. Similarly, Alessandra Vaccari, pointed out how this same temporal framework manifested in people’s wardrobes, were it’s split between morning, day and evening wear like an “imaginary 24h assembly lines”, and how the modern fashion industry imposes “the rhythms of an ideal modern day upon the individual” 5. The same toil is observed in the higher echelons of the industry, where even the most renowned designers are forced to submit to the calendar, where talented creatives work tirelessly to capture the vision of the house, but more importantly, designing shapes and colors that aim to capture the cultural sentiment of today. Names including Raf Simons and Christophe Lemaire have decried the unsustainable work schedule that the calendar imposes, while journalist Suzy Menkes argued that the decline of John Galliano and death of Alexander McQueen were partly result of unattainable industry demands6.
In his work on Liquid Modernity, Bauman painted fashion as a “perpetuum mobile” that continuously creates new desires that render what people currently own no longer relevant, fueling a vicious cycle of buying, discarding and replacing. Fashion doesn’t just sell clothes but, more importantly, it provides dreams and identities that are “liquid” and unstable, necessitating its own constant renewal. He argued that the notion of “linear” or “cyclical” time was redundant and that modern time instead consists of a sequence of arbitrary and unpredictable moments that can’t be made sense of in the instant7. With the onset of new technologies and the veneration of immediacy made possible by social media and high-speed logistics, the actual palpability of a linear rhythm has lessened considerably; discoverability and consumption of newness is no longer exclusive to the witnessing of runway shows, it is available on-demand. Coupled with the vertical integration of large conglomerates, allowing them to harness every stage of the production process, the industry discovered a potential to compress its time even more. Jonathan Crary argued that production and consumption had become 24/7 activities, abolishing our default metabolic patterns of sleep: “no moment, place or situation now exists in which we can not shop”, saying that the relentless assault of the non-time of “always” had invaded every facet of our lives8. The once-established idea of seasonality and the time lag between the runway show and the shop exists no more, calling into question the validity of the dichotomy between fast and luxury fashion, knowing they are both forced to operate on “always” time to retain competitive advantage. As a result of immediate communication and acceleration of technology, instant availability became the norm.
Critique of the instantaneous and “always-on” mode of fashion has been thoroughly expressed at every strata of the industry. LVMH and Kering recognize that speed is in opposition to the notion of luxury, small designers who cannot compete with the speed and distribution power of conglomerates, and perhaps most infamously by Li Edelkoort, proclaiming the fashion system to be obsolete9. In reaction to this, the slow and anti fashion movements cropped-up, symbolizing a recognition and defiance of the pace of fashion and the social and environmental damage it causes, with one of the more notable examples being Carol Christian Poell who adheres to a radically slow approach to production and distribution, limitations on volume, and shunning of the fashion calendar. It is important to recognize that “slow fashion” is more than the opposition to the pace of fashion, but also realises the potential for healthier and more ethical practices10.
Fashion however can also be studied according to other frameworks of time. Scholars during the 2000s, around the same time designers such as Margiela and Chalayan arose, challenged the chronological lens on fashion altogether. New ways of conceptualizing time ran concurrently with the increasing discussions about postmodernism characterized by the outright rejection of progress, master narratives and the linearity of time11. As opposed to cyclical time, “non-linear” time doesn’t rely on a sequential order of events, but instead regards them as discontinuous. This framework looks past industrial time explored earlier, regarding it as “fluid” and posits that fashion design itself can represent time. To Caroline Evans, postmodern design was a key example of how the nonlinearity of time manifests, with its promiscuous quotation of past styles and the scrambling of historical references12. Inspired by philosopher Walter Benjamin, she used the metaphor of the “ragpicker” who sifted through the waste of the city, and compared the process of “historical scavenging” to how contemporary designers work. The freedom to navigate historical events and the agnosticism towards the duration between them allows the designer — whose references almost necessarily consist of fragments from the past molded together into a narrative fit for the present — to make links between events in a way a historian cannot. To Walter Benjamin, fashion was closely related to temporality as a result of its ephemeral and constantly-changing nature, proposing that fashion has a dual function: as a phenomenon that registers change and as a marker of time13. Benjamin’s conception of non-linear time highlights the inevitability of finding the old in the new, the new in the old, and the ruptures and commonalities between phenomena not necessarily proximate in time. In her book Fashion at the Edge, Evans made a connection between fashion and trauma, exemplifying how the past never really leaves us but is bound to resurface in the present, referencing Balenciaga’s AW/2022 collection that commentated on the invasion of Ukraine, but simultaneously symbolizing a trigger for Demna Gvesalia connected to his own childhood experience of war as a “forever refugee”.
Michel Serres eschewed time further, asserting that universal time is a myth and that we’re inhabiting its planes all at once, depending on our bodies, cultures, technologies and experiences14. He viewed time as folded, twisted and complex, using the metaphor of the “crumpled handkerchief” and the poorly stitched rag to express its multidimensionality, where the crumpled handkerchief juxtaposes the ironed one the same way that non-linear time addresses linear time. As done with pleats, where one piece of textile touches another further away, Serres argues the same happens with the past and present.
The creative potential of fashion is infinite; it can take what it wants from history while simultaneously inventing countless paths to the future. Roland Barthes, argued that fashion is always based on a time “that does not exist”, enabling it to jostle with the past and predict futures without limits15. Through the systemic collaboration of designers, photographers, art directors, store buyers, etc, the stories and histories of fashion brands are continuously rewritten with the aim to mythologize them and re-orientate them into the present. Or to borrow words from philosopher Yves Michaud: “fashion is a permanent utopia that perpetually renews itself and reappears” 16. The process of mythologization is readily observed among luxury brands and their use of history to reassert a sense of nostalgia amongst people, where both the fetishization of the past and the desire for innovation interplay. This dualism of on the one hand holding on to their heritage, while on the other hand remaining radically open to possible futures, is exactly what underpins the identity of a luxury brand.
All of these concepts of time and how it functions in fashion are helpful in understanding both the developments of the resale industry and the fashion industry at large. It would be no understatement to claim that resale poses both a threat to and an opportunity for fashion as it continues to contend with the contradiction of profit demands and environmental limitations. For example, we’ve seen large swathes of mainstream businesses going lengths to integrate resale as part of their own business strategy, be it with varying success. Coupled with the seamless process of uploading your own wardrobe online has led to the ubiquitous availability of not just items from this season, but virtually all seasons. With smartphones always within arms reach, we have a bottomless catalogue to sift through, and nothing stopping us from browsing to our hearts content. To adopt the notion of “always” time, like retail fashion, resale is available 24/7. But unlike the former, the production of garments doesn’t happen at the same rate; the same styles and garments leave, but they also return again.
The ubiquity and increasing popularity of resale consumption has also called into question the time linearity of fashion. Archive culture and the work of resellers, each of them offering styles from different points in fashion history, yet still able to express a coherent vision, demonstrates that the once-believed notion of linear progress no longer holds, and maybe never really did. Whereas luxury is an example of our desire for the “old”, resale is a practical demonstration of how “the old can become new again”. The work of the reseller is akin to the comparison between the contemporary designer and the ragpicker. It is a type of creative work that assumes a non-linear perspective of time and the acknowledgment of potential links between events not necessarily in close proximity.
There is a liberating and almost revolutionary aspect to resale, because it provides an alternate structure in which we can participate in fashion. Not only does it provide people a way to engage with fashion outside of mainstream “industrial time” of continuous innovation and obsolescence, but exactly because it exists in its “own time” it also serves as a place that neutralizes the aesthetic order of fashion. New links are possible to be made between styles and garments of the past and empowered to flourish again in new contexts leveraged by the creative eye of the reseller.
“What is the Contemporary?” — Giorgio Agamben
“Time and History in Deleuze and Serres” — Bernd Herzogenrath
https://www.culturematters.org.uk/the-murderous-meaningless-caprices-of-fashion-marx-on-capital-clothing-and-fashion/
“Vestoj On Slowness” — Anja Aronowsky Cronberg
“The Daily Wardrobe - The Chronometer of Fashion” — Alessandra Vaccari
“Fashion Futures” - Valerie Steele
“Perpetuum Mobile, Critical Studies in Fashion and Beauty” - Zygmunt Bauman
“24/7 Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep” - Jonathan Crary
“Anti_Fashion Manifesto” - Li Edelkoort
“Slow + Fashion - An Oxymoron - or a Promise for the Future, Fashion Theory” - Hazel Clark
“Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity” - Ulrich Lehmann
“Fashion at the Edge” - Caroline Evans
“Style and Time” - Andrew Benjamin
“Genesis” - Michel Serres
“The Fashion System” - Roland Barthes
“L’Art à l’état gazeux. Essai sur le Triomphe de l’esthétique” - Yves Michaud