As fashion is not only a physical quality of a garment but perhaps even more a

mythical, ritual or symbolic one, it is not enough to acquire individual practical

skills or advanced craftsmanship in construction and sewing to become fashion-

able. There is also a need to understand how we are to relate to the fashion system

out there, how we should navigate and interact with its dominant expression, and

how we should connect and collaborate with other fashionistas.

To better understand this we can examine how social activism can ground itself in

the organization of belief-systems, and through involvement change the energies

flowing through that system. Here we can look for inspiration among the Latin

American base communities, created from a standpoint of the theology of libera-

tion. These are self-organized groups of Catholic believers, usually from the bot-

tom of society who reclaim their faith as a tool for social struggle, making faith not

only a question of the immortal soul, but a question of politics too. Through their

practice we can find inspiration for how a complementary fashion system can be

created and organized, yet still in intimate connection with the greater established

one, using its intensities and powerful rituals.

But it is important here not to read this comparison as blaspheming or reducing

faith to being similar to fashion, nor is it an attempt to raise fashion into a religion.

What I am trying to do here is to compare approaches to practice and organization.

What is a matter of life and death, and especially the life after death, for the reli-

gious believers cannot be compared to fashion. But as I hope we will see further on,

fashion designers can learn a lot from the practices of heretics and this can make

designers better understand their position in relation to the fashion belief system,

a system telling us what is considered meaningful in much of contemporary social

relations. This is the meaningful “myth” of our contemporary society and fashion,

similar to that argued by Roland Barthes in his acclaimed book Mythologies (1973),

which shows how we today surround ourselves with various forms of non-rational

beliefs.

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