Thematic Section

Clothes with no emperors: the materiality of digital fashion

Author(s)
Keywords
  • Digital fashion
  • Materiality
  • Atmosphere
  • Hapticity
  • Aesthetic economy
Abstract

Digital garments are tailored computationally and dressed virtually. Intended to be displayed rather than worn, digital fashion exemplifies the function of aesthetic commodities as defined by Gernot Böhme: the production of atmospheres – intangible qualities arising from a material encounter – towards the staging of life. Yet, made from pixels instead of fabric, virtual garments beckon a new conceptual framework for the role of materiality in atmospheric productions. Drawing from new media and affect scholars, this essay traces the display of digital garments across three sites: the e-commerce website, social media, and the runway show. By analyzing the visual and literary production surrounding digital fashion, this essay proposes
“elemental surface” as a representational technique and rhetorical strategy through which digital garments produce and intensify the body’s affective presence. Situating Böhme’s formulation of atmosphere in dialogue with the notion of
“aura” put forth by Walter Benjamin, the study of digital fashion foregrounds the role of environmental perception in the history of haptic technology.

References
  1. Bao, W., Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915-1945 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015).
  2. Benjamin, W., “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction,” trans. H. Zohn, in H. Arendt, ed., Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1969): 217-251.
  3. Böhme, G., Critique of Aesthetic Capitalism, trans. E. Jephcott (Milan: Mimesis International, 2017).
  4. Böhme, G., The Aesthetics of Atmospheres, ed. J.P. Thibaud, (Oxon: Routledge, 2017).
  5. Bora, R., “Outing texture,” in E. Kosofsky Sedgwick, ed., Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).
  6. Brown, B., “Materiality,” in W.J.T. Mitchell, M.B.N. Hansen , eds., Critical Terms for Media Studies (Chicago - London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010).
  7. Bruno, G., “Surface encounters: materiality and empathy,” in D. Martin, ed., Mirror-Touch Synesthesia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
  8. Bruno, G., “Surface tension, screen space,” in S. Saether, S. Bull, eds., Screen Space Reconfigured (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
  9. Cantoni, L., Ornati, M, “Fashiontouch in e-commerce: an exploratory study of surface haptic interaction experiences,” in F.H. Nah, K. Siau, eds., HCI in Business, Government and Organizations, vol. 12204 (Cham: Springer, 2020): 493-503 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50341-3_37.
  10. Chen, M.Y., Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012).
  11. Coccia, E., Sensible Life: A Micro-Ontology of the Image, trans. S.A. Stuart (New York: Fordham University Press, 2016).
  12. Derhi, R., Interviewed by the author. November 2021.
  13. Eco, U., Travels in Hyperreality, trans. W. Weaver (San Diego: Harcourt, 1986).
  14. Entwistle, J., The Fashioned Body (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015).
  15. Guan, C.X., “Critique of flowers: the exigency of life in the era of its technical reproducibility,” October 175 (2021): 26–69, https://doi.org/10.1162/octo_a_00415.
  16. Jonas, H., The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology (New York: A Delta Book, 1966).
  17. Knight, A., Interviewed by the author. November 2021.
  18. Kosofsky Sedgwick, E., Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).
  19. Mendes, S., “The instagrammability of the runway: architecture, scenography, and the spatial turn in fashion communications,” Fashion Theory 25, no. 3 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2019.1629758.
  20. Minh, N.T., Ngan, H.N., “Digital fashion - an optimal solution for fashion industry during Covid-19 pandemic,” AIP Conference Proceedings 2406 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0066478.
  21. Simmel, G., The Philosophy of Money, ed. D. Frisby (London - New York: Routledge, 2004).
  22. Starosielski, N., “The elements of media studies,” Media+Environment 1, no. 1 (2019), https://doi.org/10.1525/001c.10780.
  23. Volino, P., Magnenat-Thalmann, N., Virtual Clothing: Theory and Practice (Cham: Springer, 2000).
  24. Wegenstein, B., Hansen, M.B.N., “Body,” in W.J.T. Mitchell, M.B.N. Hansen, eds., Critical Terms for Media Studies (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010).
Read Article
Published

20 December 2022

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17124
How to Cite
Zhang, Y. (2022). Clothes with no emperors: the materiality of digital fashion. AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433], 1(II). https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17124
Copy

Issue
Vol. 1 No. II (2022): Just an illusion? Between simulation, emulation, and hyper-realism

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...
License
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.