"But Sh*t, it was ninety-nine cents!"
This week's readings encapsulated the past, present and (predictably) future notions of the differentiation between 'high' and 'low' culture. In Huyssen's text, After the Great Divide, we saw (almost in a chronological order) how different movements throughout time heavily influenced said dichotomy of culture. In addition, Seabrook's article about 'Nobrow Culture', defining it as the "space between familiar categories of high and low culture", also mentions said distinction and further includes the concept of branding and hierarchy of price and style, which is where my product of choice comes in (Seabrook, 1999, p.104).
I was in my car on the way to the supermarket a few days ago, listening to Kiss FM, when I heard a classic banger from a few years back. I think everybody remembers the song "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore, and in the moment I was just rapping along until I made a connection with our Popular Culture class reading. Although we can comment on the song itself, I'm more so focusing on the idea of thrift shopping and vintage clothes. Positively a cultural product, vintage clothing (or the action of thrift shopping) is a popular phenomenon that merges both the 'high' and 'low' concepts of culture.
Huyssen mentions in his text that during the Modernist movement, the overall sentiment was of "anxiety of contamination by mass culture", where high art and culture characterised the few who could afford it, and went hand-in-hand with the "traditional bourgeois" and romantic idealistic view, which coincided with the avant-garde as well (Huyssen, 1986, p.vii). Similarly, Seabrook mentions the term 'branding', and how it becomes the "price of admission to subculture" (Seabrook, 1999, p.104); both inferences can be applied to the idea of vintage clothing, since the ability to afford the expensive brands no longer limits the mass from being fashionable or trendy, because now it is "available to the many" (Seabrook, 1999).
Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" talks about how he feels like a boss walking around the club in an old-school Gucci jacket that cost twenty dollars, and how "grandpa clothes" are "in" now: this is the essence of Huyssen's "new paradigm" and Seabrook's "nobrow culture": the lines between high art and mass culture are becoming increasingly blurred, and what was once exclusive for the few, is now accessible to all.
I find really interesting how high-fashion can be seen as a commercial evolution of high-art, in this case, the artistic designes produced by traditional, European design houses. And how high-fashion, in turn, has become as you say, gains its broader reputation by comfortably blending with urban fashion with more affordable brands. Your posts makes me think of how these different standards actually feed from each other! Great post Carmen, very good activation of the readings and the class materials!
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