vienna

tion of the death of fashion are in the dark. The beautiful statues
of consumer culture enact a strange rite of ugliness for several
weeks in the year. 182 Are they like idols with an irrational and
unwarranted power over somebody (the shoppers)? 183 For those
who have doubts, a few more from Freedberg:
“It is obvious that paintings and sculptures do not and cannot
do as much for us now. Or can they? Perhaps we repress such
things. But did they ever?” 184
Advertising and propaganda are the image-makers of today,
and there is little doubt that they want us to believe in their
seductive images. And the show window is the best way for a
shop to advertise. During the year, the beautiful and fashionable
mannequins wear what we should be wearing. But what do
they want us to do when they are naked or dressed in paper?
During the year, they wear different clothes, signalising that
we can achieve individuality by shopping. But in the state of
anti-structure, they are dressed identically and have lost all their
individuality. The window dresser is the ritual master and
image-maker behind the scenes, who transforms the show
window into a ritual space during the seasonal sales, treating
the mannequins symbolically, divorced from their representational
function. These beautiful statues are now together with the
evil snake, but the representations of men need images beyond
those of the body, 185 and these images are created by fashion.
During the sales, however, they are replaced by images beyond
the fashion canon of the high street. The process of making a fetish
out of the garment requires that the mannequin in the show
window is dressed. While the clothes rack represents the state of
the commodity before it becomes a fetish, dressing breathes life
into the mannequin. This is analogous to dressing holy statues
for religious services. The life-like image is suspended by the
seasonal sale when the mannequins are undressed. This state
becomes ambiguous because the periods of symbolic death are
part of the dramatisation of passage rites, at which point the
mannequins really come to life. They cannot move, but they are
also not “allowed” to move in this liminal state. Thus, their very
inability to move becomes the real strength of the dramatisation.
182 See Mitchell (1987:109) for a discussion on the beautiful Greek statues in combination with the servant.
183 Ibid., p. 113.
184 Freedberg (1991:10).
185 Belting (2005:357).
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