{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","id":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","uuid":"d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title":"Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism  The Value of Selection, Narration, and Expertise in New Media Cultures","normalized_title":"curationintheageofplatformcapitalismthevalueofselectionnarrationandexpertiseinnewmediacultures","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781032023007","isbns":["9781032023007","9781032023014","9781003182801"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":177,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Curation%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Platform%20Capitalism%20%20The%20Value%20of%20Selection%2C%20Narration%2C%20and%20Expertise%20in%20New%20Media%20Cultures","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/d1c31cd8-6afd-4ea5-b7b0-085c26a4e406/search"},"page":{"printed_page":94,"pdf_page":104,"physical_index":104,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"d7ab67535b11e583f53261a4c4f69e6880675ee58b1dda1548dac1f38754f5b4"},"chapter":"CURATION IN THE AGE OF PLATFORM CAPITALISM","content":"The appropriation of the figure of lumpenproletariat by Vetements is an example of “poor chic”, which more broadly refers to “an array of fads and fashions in popular culture that make recreational or stylish—and often expensive—‘fun’ of poverty, or of traditional symbols of working class and underclass statuses” (Halnon, 2002: 501). Instead of appropriating the exotic other, as in more traditional accounts of cultural appropriation, poverty chic is a form of appropriation that colonizes the class other (Ryndya, 2023). This has been a constant motive of Demna and post-Soviet fashion design in general (Gosha Rubchinskiy is a case in point). As in the process of cultural appropriation, the class other does not have the power and cultural capital to self-represent in high-culture milieus and the luxury fashion designer speaks exclusively on its behalf. This conceptual gesture of aestheticizing the lumpenproletariat and elevating a typical security uniform to an expensive fashion item (its price is more than \\$1,000), parodies high fashion and injects friction into the system.\n\nVetements, Balenciaga, and Demna repeat the motive of “safety” in many collections; for Demna, as seen above, this is justified through references to his past. For instance, in the SS20 Vetements collection, presented in a McDonald’s restaurant, Demna showed a number of militaristic costumes, such as the pufer jacket and pants that almost precisely copied the German police uniform in a more oversized silhouette. Yet when it comes to banal representations of power, Vetements is omnivorous as it also welcomes its exact opposite, that is anarchism and revolt. As such, there is the “Destroyed Anarchy sweater”, which is actually a ripped black sweater with the symbol of anarchy printed on the front and priced at €1,480.14 Anarchism and the ripped sweater are signs of anti-power, that is anti-systemic signs, as such signs can range from the anti-capitalist Santiago Sierra to conspiracy theory slogans. In this endless semiotic play, even the “okhrana” and police personnel represent anti-systemic figures as from the point of view of liberal mainstream society they are the lumpenproletarian “others” with poor taste and little volition of their own (see Figure 4.3).\n\nThis romanticization of poorness is equally spectacularizing in the “Paris Sneakers” launched by Balenciaga in May 2022 under Demna’s creative direction. Balenciaga sneakers are a trademark of the brand—they even figure in Douglas’ paintings, as we saw. In Obrist’s question of why to paint sneakers, Douglas responds that they are “Balenciaga, there is a lot of hype around them” and they are “the kind of thing where people line up around the block hours before they are first released in the stores” (Douglas quoted in HERO, 2019). The Balenciaga sneakers in Douglas’ paintings become a fetish, telling a story about cultural obsession that should be read along the lines of their context, concept, and creator.\n\nIn this sense the “destroyed sneakers” is a deconstructive reference to the larger trademark of “Balenciaga sneakers”. The Paris Sneakers essentially look like a shattered, ripped, torn, muddy, and dirty item. One would associate these damaged shoes with people in a state of despair, such as refugees or economically disadvantaged people. And still, the more destroyed the sneakers the more economic value they have as they verge toward the conceptual artwork instead of a common footwear item: “while Balenciaga will sell 100 pairs of the limited edition extra-destroyed sneakers featured in the campaign for \\$1,850 each, the actual Paris sneakers—slightly distressed but still very much intact—start at $\\$ 495$ (Kennedy, 2022). The sneakers were launched amidst some of the biggest refugee movements in Europe and the world, including Syrian and Ukrainian, and somewhat expectedly caused frustrated headlines, debates, and Twitter polemics. Yet this very frustration around the Paris Sneakers has “generated almost \\$5 million in media impact value (MIV), a measure of conversation on social media, in just 48 hours”, that is, it created “a self-sustaining conversation on social media” that kept on promoting the brand (Kennedy, 2022). Here, again, the scandalous avantgarde tactic is a means to generate publicity and virality for the brand.\n\n94\n\nCultures of Platform Capitalism","previous_page":93,"next_page":95}