Summary

Abstract

The last chapter will try to throw light on the nature of the seasonal sale and its dramatisation of the ugly as observed by us on our walks through main shopping streets in Paris, Vienna, London, New York ⁵⁴⁷ and Hamburg. Roland Barthes decided to use the fashion magazines of only one year (1958/59) for his discussion of the “fashion system” As we pointed out at the beginning, we have followed an idea that, though articulated, was not developed by Barthes when comparing the feelings of female customers during the advent of the spring collection with the emotions of the female followers of the ancient Greek Dionysian festivals. He assumed that an ancient myth was returning from the darkness of the past as part of the fashion system today. The end of a collection, the rite of passage, and the launch of the new collection are the critical turning points of the fashion year. We need to enlarge our field of vision in order to discuss this and relate it to the idea of the return of an ancient myth. We must first ask ourselves what the content of the myth could be. What story does the fashion system want us to believe in? The second question deals with the ritual launch of a new collection.The ritual of the catwalk presentation will be at the centre of this discussion. Thirdly, we will bring in our observations of the seasonal sale, which we originally interpreted as a rite of passage between the old and the new fashion. Involving the catwalk presentation of the new collection raises the question of the function of the aesthetic death of the fashion pieces as transition between the representation of the new collection on the catwalk and its real arrival in the show windows. We therefore imagine that these three steps are part of one and the same dramatisation of fashion mythology. Irrationality in the dramatisation of the fashion system will be discussed as a fourth point with an excursion into the perception of the magical in our consumer society. As a fifth and last point, we will focus again on the seasonal sale window in order to relate the aesthetic with the economic practice in the fashion system.