Relay Column: "Fashion" as a Disease (Shihoko Ansai)

Fashion is dominated by visual power. In fact, it is said that during the 1960s, when television began to spread, cases of "anorexia" started to increase due to envy of beauty[1]. At the same time, the "system" of fashion was established in the modern era, a time marked by the development of industries and industrialization, during which technologies such as transportation methods, printing, and communication evolved, gradually encroaching upon people's lives.

Hannah Arendt suggested that modernity is an age where bios (social life) and zoe (biological life) are intricately intertwined. Our existence is not entirely dominated by power but includes an irreplaceable life (bios) shared with others and the world, alongside the life (zoe) necessary for sustaining life. Furthermore, according to Jean-Luc Nancy, we are managed by "technology," which he describes through the concept of "ecotechne (techno-biosphere)." Everything, including sovereignty, is contained within this ecotechne, and our existence moves forward without purpose.

Ecotecnics without sovereignty is also a phase directly embodied in "fashion." The system created by "fashion" is maintained by trends that stimulate consumption, and as if to predict this, it has been noted that "in '〔未来派〕男性服宣言,' there is actually the assertion that 'if clothing is not durable, it cannot promote the textile industry'"[3]. We, living in the modern age, have been incorporated into this system since the advent of modern technology, and the dazzling pace of promoting and continually renewing technology might very well be the essence of "fashion."

Such temporal changes have dramatically transformed our living environments and greatly altered our bodily sensations. In the late 19th century, the emergence of department stores led to peculiar phenomena. By placing products within reach of everyone and intentionally creating an environment that paralyzed rationality, department stores led consumers to repeatedly engage in theft. This marked the birth of "kleptomania," a psychiatric condition. It is said that in 1896, the number of cases reached as high as 1,000 per year, but department stores intentionally concealed this number—presumably because this condition was thought to be infectious—so the actual number may have been expected to be double that. Authorities in the medical community of the 19th century condemned the unhealthy atmosphere of department stores[4].

Kleptomania has been defined in a scholarly article as a sexual disorder characterized by dependency induced through contact with products. This was a period when the "democratization of luxury" was dismantling consumer distinctions based on class, leading to a crisis in consumers' identity preservation. Particularly, items related to the bodily boundary, such as fabrics and ornaments, became central to the thefts. It was discovered that a woman's home in Paris contained as many as 148 pairs of rose-colored gloves. Furthermore, although kleptomania is related to women, it has been argued that this act of thievery has a deconstructive power that nullifies the masculinity of men who "see" women as "objects" to be "viewed"[5].