Moda Documenta: Museu, Memória e Design – 2015
FASHION, MEMORY AND AFFECTION: CASES CHANEL AND HUGO BOSS
Renata Pitombo Cidreira (Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia)
[email protected]
Abstract: This text seeks to strengthen memory in fashion world, in which the productive
agents become themes of compelling narratives, revealing the intense blending of fashion, life
in society and their political and economic aspects. Through the analysis of one aspect of Coco
Chanel’s and Hugo Boss’s personal lives, the text highlights the historical capacity, the
communication power, the values dimension and the affective aspect of fashion.
Keywords: Fashion, memory, affection.
1. Introduction
The clothing assumes a unique dimension in contemporary society, is an attribute that
reintegrates and relate social practices, conforming ways of communicability. Expresses the
values of a culture as also reveals subjects in essence, who take ownership of it and/or are
welcomed by it. Clothes, as well as the characters that constitute the fashion scene, carries
histories, values and memories. The idea of this text is to strengthen this dimension related to
the memory that is present in fashion world, in which the productive agents become themes of
compelling narratives, revealing the intense blending of fashion, life in society and their political
and economic aspects.
Therefore, will be analyzed a text presented in brasilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo,
written by Pedro Diniz 1 , in December 2014, which theme focuses in personal lives of two
fashion world’s great designers: Coco Chanel and Hugo Boss, exploring their relationship with
the Nazi movement, in a historical and cultural rescue exercise. To understand how the
journalist's narrative affects their readers, supposedly members of a community of receptors
who known the fashion world and its vicissitudes, we will use a conceptual contribution of
aesthetic of reception, through the work of three authors: Hans-Robert Jauss (1994, 2002),
Wolfgang Iser (1996, 1999) and Paul Ricoeur (1997).
It is worth to detach that the journalist took over responsibility, since August 2014, for the Blog Peça Única,
specialized in the fashion segment and associated with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, seeking more agility
and space for photography and audiovisual, indispensable tools for the segment.
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2. Between the horizon of expectation and the aesthetic pleasure
For Hans Robert Jauss (2002), there is an enjoyment in art experience that is articulated
in three fundametal moments: the poiesis, the aisthesis and the katharsis. Revisiting these
classical concepts of philosophy, Jauss argues that under the Poiesis, the pleasure is
manifested in productive experience that can lead the subject to other dimensions, such as the
inner world, or remain in the real world in search of the artistic creation. In Aisthesis the
pleasure is produced by the “receptive aesthetic experience”; when in contact with a work of
art, the reader's horizon of expectation is renewed, expanding their perceptive possibilities. The
Katharsis, for its part, is revealed in the effective transformation of concepts that the reader has
of world and life, in face of freedom, legitimacy and autonomy of the art work.
By rehabilitating the viewer in the constitution of the meaning of a work, Jauss eventually
resumes two hermeneutics’s fundamental concepts: the ideas of hermeneutical circle and of
horizon of expectation. The idea is that we have a sedimented experience, in which a new
experience will be added, thus, establishing not only an increase, but also a restructuring of
accumulated experience. Therefore, we have a circularity that sustains itself by a deviant
dynamic, that promotes a certain frustration of the expectation.
In one of his seven theses, Jauss (1994) shows how a work that appears in a certain
historical context, exceeds, attends, goes against or satisfies the expectations of his public,
that confers a criterion for determining its aesthetic value. Usually, great creators innovate
“firstly, thanks to a convention of the genre, the style or the form, evoke, (…) a marked horizon
of expectation in their readers for, after, destroy it, step by step”2 (JAUSS, 1994, p.28). The
work can promote, thereby, a “change of horizon”.
3. The interpretation of the meaning
Also in Ricoeur the focus on mediation of the reading reinforces the importance of the
reader, so far as the author argues that is through reading that the literary work gets its full
significance. In his work Time and Narrative, Volume 3 (1997)3, especially in the chapter on
Free translation of: “primeiramente, graças a uma convenção do gênero, do estilo ou da forma, evocam, (...) um
marcado horizonte de expectativas em seus leitores para, depois, destruí-lo, passo a passo” (JAUSS, 1994,
p.28).
3 Book consulted in portuguese: Tempo e Narrativa, Tomo III (1997).
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The text’s world and the reader’s world, the author argues that “Just in the reading the
dynamism of configuration contains his way”4 (p. 275). “And it’s beyond the reading, in the
effective action, instructed by the acclaimed works, that the text’s configuration turns into
refiguration”5 (p. 276). Therefore, there is an intersection between text’s world and reader’s
world.
Ricoeur potencializes the aesthetics’s place in work’s reception. The aisthesis, that
means the way a work affects the reader, by acting on him, is fundamental to its full
significance. “This affected being has in remarkable the fact that he combines, in an experience
(…) that is particular, a passivity and a activity that allows designate as texts reception the very
action of reading it” 6 (p. 286). One of the relevant aspects of aesthetic theory for an
interpretation of reading is the author’s understanding of leaving the field as free as possible for
the reader.
The author notes that the inclusion of the aesthetic dimension has two consequences
already noted in Iser’s e Jauss’s works: the effect produced on the individual reader and his
response; and the public’s response in terms of their collective expectations. The ‘appeal
structure’ of a work is revealed in the individual act of reading, as well observed by Iser, but is
through the participation of already sedimented expectations that the reader becomes
competent for the reading act, as Jauss strengthens. Therefore, the two concepts
complements each other and point to a phenomenology of the act of reading, and insinuate the
importance of interpretation in the sense configuration of the work. Ricoeur recognizes, along
with Jauss and Iser, that the a work’s signification is established in the interaction between it
and its audience in each historical period, and the reader itself is modulated from the contact
that will establish throughout his life with several generations of works, that reference other
works, in an iterative process.
4. Receptive experience: fashion and memory
The recent reading of the Blog Peça Única, whose scripture sometimes adopts
effectively journalistic tone, and sometimes appears in an uncompromising way with the news
demands, has served as a stimulus to think about the intricate relationship between text
Free translation of: “Só na leitura o dinamismo de configuração encerra o seu percurso” (p. 275).
Free translation of: “E é para além da leitura, na ação efetiva, instruída pelas obras consagradas, que a
configuração do texto se transforma em refiguração” (p. 276).
6 Free translation of: “Esse ser afetado tem de notável o fato de combinar, numa experiência (...) particular, uma
passividade e uma atividade que permitem designar como recepção do texto a própria ação de lê-lo”. (p. 286).
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production, fashion and the entanglement between the creator and the receiver in the
constitution of the text’s possible meanings and the effect that it may cause in their community
of receptors, activating memories, feelings and values. The text to be analyzed appears under
the heading “The Nazi past of Chanel. And also of Hugo Boss”7, posted on December 9, 2014,
in the Blog Peça Única, written by Pedro Diniz. In the act of reading it, we were realizing,
gradually, that the meanings were gaining their sense in function of the already available
meanings: the previous knowledge of the two fashion designers, the reach of their creations for
the female universe, in the case of Chanel, and for male, in the case of Hugo Boss; besides,
the recognition of Nazism’s consequences in humanity’s history; and the textual device used to
narrate the new facts involving the two characters. We realize, thus, a dynamic process in
which is effected a current experience of the past itself, that is accomplished through our body,
in the act of reading. In receptive action our horizon of memory updates aspects of the fashion
designers’s lives and of the fashion dynamics itself, as a cultural phenomenon, in resignifying
them.
At early stage, the title highlights by supposedly reveal unknown aspects of the life
histories of two great names in fashion, Gabrielle Chanel and Hugo Boss. In this text, we
observe that one of the aesthetic of reception’s principles proposed by Jauss appears: the
initial breakdown of the horizon of expectation, because, at first (at least in common sense), the
fashion world is not tied to political issues; by the fact that fashion is considered, by many
people, something futile, disposable and unpretentious is not associated, initially, to socially
relevant themes. The horizon of expectation is frustrated again because the text demystifies
great icons of fashion world, stars, successful characters, great creators, synonyms of
elegance, style and sophistication; is an aesthetic deviation that is unfolded… In the case of
Chanel, particulary, we know that the image of her brand was created and conceived in the
light of the fashion designer’s image itself. As Rita Andrade (2008) warns, since the emergence
of the first couture houses, in Paris, it already had a tendency to create the pieces associated
with the images of the tailors, printing personal characteristics in clothing; here, life and work
mix and consolidates a gradually creation of a great myth. Coco Chanel is one such example.
By recounting aspects of Chanel’s and Hugo Boss’s lives, we can recognize, along with
Ricoeur, that the text is grounded in a dialogical relationship between a familiar repertoire, on
the type of text format (journalistic), on the subject (Chanel and Hugo Boss) and on the
historical context (the nazism); and a defamiliarization strategy, in relation to some standards
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Free translation of: “O passado nazista de Chanel. E o de Hugo Boss também.”
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Moda Documenta: Museu, Memória e Design – 2015
that the reading believes it can recognize and adopt easily, concearning the association 1) of
fashion world as far as political field; 2) of the identification or collaboration of the characters,
that had recognized success and respectability of the fashion world, with a questionable
historical event, from a human point of view; and 3) of a shift in the type of press coverage
about fashion, that usually narrates fashion shows and trends for every season.
The text clarifies that the alleged Chanel’s collaboration with the Nazis started to be
ballyhooed in 2011, when a biography of this fashion designer was launched, and which
mentioned her involvement, during the war, with the Baron and member of the high-ranking
Nazi spy, Hans Günther von Dincklage. Dincklage would have influenced his lover adherence
to Adolf Hitler’s Party. The novelty now, brought by the documentary “The shadow of a doubt.
Artists under the Occupation”, is a document that seeks to identify the involvement of Chanel in
an agreement tentative with the British ambassador in Spain, Samuel Hoare, that, in some
way, could benefit the Germans. Another indication of Chanel’s collaboration, appointed by the
same documentary, was her relation with the Jewish family Wertheimer. The fashion designer
would have sold the right to market the perfume Chanel no5 for this family and tried to reverse
this process, in this period, with support of the Nazi Party, but without success. The text brings
a statement of the brand Chanel, which says that the document does not bring, indeed, new
facts, because doesn’t make clear what was the fashion designer’s involvement with the Party.
In the case of the German brand Hugo Boss, also from 2011 is recognized that the
founder of the brand, Hugo Ferdinand Boss, used Jews’s forced labor in the period of Second
World War, as also produced the uniforms of Hitlerist Youth and SS Nazi police. Unlike Chanel,
the German brand says that always have made a point to clarify the facts and recognize this
brand’s past. Even comments the fact that it was published a book by the Japanese group of
investors, that bought 60% of Hugo Boss’s shares: Hugo Boss, 1924-1945. A Clothing Factory
During the Weimar Republic and Third Reich, to tell the brand’s bloody history. In the text it is
also reproduced a statement of the brand that says: “We never hide anything and we always
try to bring clarity to what happened in the past. It is our responsibility with the company, our
employees, our clients and with all those interested in the history of Hugo Boss. (…)”8.
The journalist Pedro Diniz expresses his opinion, suggesting that Chanel reproduces
Hugo Boss’s act and launches a book definitely clarifying the fashion designer's relationship
with Nazism, in orther to not tarnish the legacy of the brand: “In addition to provides a service
Free translation of: “Nós nunca escondemos nada e sempre buscamos trazer clareza ao que aconteceu no
passado. É nossa responsabilidade com a empresa, com nossos funcionários, nossos clientes e com todos os
interessados na história da Hugo Boss. (...)”.
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to fashion literature, the book could serve as a formal apology to the families affected by war
and, consequently, would avoid baseless speculation – now, inevitable – that can maculate
Chanel’s legacy.9”
Specially at this point, the author reveals his reaction to the narrated fact, even suggests
an action to others and, albeit unintentionally, induces a certain type of response from the
reader to the narrated event. And then, in fact, we understand that the text is an integral
process, that covers from the author's response to the world, to the reader’s experience.
Therefore, we try to understand the aesthetic effect of the text “The Nazi past of Chanel. And
also of Hugo Boss” in this dialectic relationship between the text itself, the reader and his
interaction. In this act of reading, where the interpretative praxis is effected and configures
sense, we feel with our bodies the symbolic elaboration; and, at the same time, the ability to
turn the own body’s senses, already prepared, into the perceptual dynamics with the world.
What is changed is not only the perception of the fashion world, of knowledge already
sedimented on Chanel and Hugo Boss and even of perception, but our own perception gets
new contours as well. Therefore, we have an experience, because we are led to restructure
what we are. Something goes on us, something happens in us, something toutches us;
ultimately, we transform ourselves.
References
Books:
BERGSON, Henri. Matéria e memória: ensaio sobre a relação do corpo com o espírito.
São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1990.
ISER, Wolfgang. O ato da leitura: uma teoria do efeito estético. Vol 1. Tradução de
Johannes Kretschmer. São Paulo: Ed. 34, 1996.
______________. O ato da leitura: uma teoria do efeito estético. Vol 2. Tradução de
Johannes Kretschmer. São Paulo: Ed. 34, 1999.
JAUSS, Hans Robert. O prazer estético e as explicações fundamentais da poiesis, aisthesis e
Katharsis. In: JAUSS, Hans Robert. Et. Al. A literatura e o leitor: textos de estética da
Free translation of: “Além de prestar um serviço à literatura de moda, o livro poderia servir como um pedido de
desculpas formal às famílias impactadas pela guerra e, por conseguinte, evitaria especulações infundadas –
agora, inevitáveis – que podem macular o legado de Chanel.”
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recepção. 2. ed. Coordenação e tradução Luiz Costa Lima. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 2002.
p. 63-82.
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MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice. Fenomenologia da percepção. Tradução de Carlos Alberto
Ribeiro de Moura. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1994.
RICOEUR, Paul. Mundo do texto e mundo do leitor In Tempo e narrativa. Tomo III. Tradução
de Roberto Leal Ferreira. Campinas, SP: Papirus, 1997.
STALLYBRASS, Peter. O casaco de Marx: roupas, memória, dor. Tradução de Tomaz
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VALVERDE, Monclar. Militância e poder. Salvador: Editora da Universidade Federal da
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VALVERDE, Monclar. Estética da Comunicação. Salvador: Editora Quarteto, 2007.
Thesis:
ANDRADE, Rita de. Boué Soeurs RG 7091: a biografia cultural de um vestido. 2008. 224 f.
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de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2008.
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