The Clothed Body

The Clothed Body
(Barthes 1970: 107). In the West, on the other hand, it is the superabundance
of signs inscribed on the face that renders them ‘intransitive’, devoid
of any possible equivalence.
In makeup we can identify two ways of ‘writing’ the face: the imperceptible,
that concentrates on the skin to make it smoother and more luminous,
and the graphic, or conspicuous, that accentuates contours and
colours. The dividing line between imperceptible and graphic is by no
means clear, however: a mascara may lengthen and thicken the lashes,
miming an invisible naturalness, while a foundation may be particularly
dense and so openly declare its presence on the face. Even curative cosmetics
may have a graphic effect: for example, by restoring compactness to
mature skin. And if exaggerated, with the use of sunlamps, even the
‘natural’ and curative effect of a suntan may become graphic.
Fashion, that legislator without laws, that sign of the times outside time,
regulates the forms of cosmetic art. The ethics of fashion, which for
Baudelaire resided in a taste for the ideal, has transformed that ideal into
one of a replaceability of signs, not as an equal exchange, but as a ‘waiting
for the next one’, according to Heidegger, given the rhythms of anticipation
and fascination with the moment that go to create an ‘instantaneous’
body, whose fragmentary replaceability supplants both wear-and-tear and
ageing. Heidegger writes:
Today being means being replaceable … in the phenomenon of fashion, toilette
and ornament are no longer necessary (which is why fashion as toilette has
become as obsolete as mending) but the replaceability of the model from season
to season. We no longer change a garment because it is worn-out, but because it
has the specific character of being the garment of the moment, waiting for the
next one. (Heidegger, 1977: 107)
In this economy of the body, in the eternal waiting for a replacement,
mending and repairing only find a place if they challenge time. Today
makeup takes this law to its extreme: not only is makeup an eternally
replaceable mask in its graphic dimension, but it creates a constant structural
mutability in the face, even if simply curative. A cream for wrinkles
or spots, a hair dye, a vial to combat dry skin: today the challenge is to get
there first, to stop time, in a state of ecstatic expectation. Will the skin dry
out again if we stop using that lotion, is the natural colour of the hair
peeping out at the roots? Is the artificial body perhaps menaced by nature?
Or can we write the face not just with artifice, but with fatigue, wrinkles
and neglect? This too is part of the game, since buffoonery, irony and selfirony
all have a place in the world of fashion today.
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