Fashioning Dirt: Opening a New Discourse

Abstract

Dirt is fashionable nowadays. There are multiple and diverse examples of scuffed and thoroughly-soiled sneakers, stained jeans, and underwear with the yellowish smears sharing the shelf with the traditionally glamorous and impeccable fashion commodities. Observing contemporary fascination of fashion with one of the most sordid and debased elements of everyday life—dirt, this article aims to unpack this apparent conundrum. By investigating cultural meaning historically assigned to dirt, it aims to answer the question why have fashion designers and brands become so interested in what appears to be the antithesis of fashion’s preoccupation with the original and the new? This seeming contradiction is explored thematically via four distinct perspectives on dirt in appearance: symbolic inversion, gendered meaning, evidence of experience, and an act of liberation that conceptualize the cultural evolution of the meaning of dirt and articulate its esthetic significance. Through the use of sartorial examples from countercultural and fashion history, this article offers insights and original, theoretically grounded, perspectives on the on-going role of dirt in the fashion meaning-making practice.

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