vienna

designer (sacral symbolism) and the multi-sensory involvement
of the audience by the use of light, actors, and music (performance).
582 We will attempt yet another approach for those who
maintain that the street has the power of influencing fashion.
The production of meaningful action can be based on detaching
an action from its original context. People walk on the street and
wear their clothes. We can now detach this action from its original
context and objectify it as an autonomous entity by enacting
it on the catwalk with a restricted audience. The action of walking
up and down the street acquires autonomous status and can
then be addressed to an indefinite range of potential readers. 583
A normal action like that of walking down the street becomes
meaningful as an action that introduces new trends on the
catwalk. Identities are not just assigned but created by performative
processes, and this is true for the fashion brands as well. 584
As Clifford Geertz claims, the ritual melts together the imagined
world and the real world into a new system of symbolic forms. 585
The everyday experience of the street and the “ideal world” of
the fashion industry, where everybody is young and beautiful,
are enacted in the ritual of the catwalk show. Realising this
requires ritual power, a power that is not necessarily based on
rational arguments:
“Rituals are not only in the service of power; they are themselves
powerful because, as actions, they live from their power of
assertion. Whoever wishes to ritualise actions must also be
prepared to implement them. He or she must ensure that
the actions are implemented and recognised despite resistance
or lack of understanding. Ritual knowledge is knowledge that
has asserted itself.” 586
According to Humphrey and Laidlaw, rituals are a quality
of action and not a class of events. 587 And ritual action has to be
separated from action:
“To recapitulate: action which is not ritualised has intentional
meaning (warning, delivering, murder), and this is understand-
582 Bell (1997:138-159). Each scholar creates his own set of categories to define ritual action. In order to prove our theory of
the relation to older rites, we have chosen these rather strict ones.
583 Bell (1992:44-51).
584 Kolesch/Lehmann (2002:347).
585 Geertz (1973:112).
586 Belliger/Krieger (1998:28-29)*.
587 Humphrey/Laidlaw (1994:3).
The
Death
of
Fashion 249