FASHION: Consumption as a social marker

After focusing on the fashion industry in its productive aspect, we should look at how consumption operates as a social determinant. 
An American anthropologist, particularly known for Stone Age Economics(1974), in which he equates primitive economics with an economy of abundance, Marshall Sahlins discusses the issue of consumption and production in the fourth chapter of Cultural and Practical Reason, published in 1976. On this occasion, he studies the American food preferences and clothing system.

Production as “cultural intention”

The essence of Marshall Sahlins’ thinking resides first in his criticism of a univocal conception of the process of the merchandise simply considered under its “pecuniary quantities (exchange value)”. Historical materialism, like orthodox political economy, would share a utilitarian vision, effectively omitting the “social organization of things”. According to this logic, the consumer would only think in terms of functionality. His choice would be made in a completely rational way on the most recent object logically benefiting from the latest technical improvements. It would be this rational quest that would qualify bourgeois material happiness. However, for Sahlins, human behavior would also be guided by other parameters: “men do not merely survive”, they survive in a “definite way”. Thus, there are several types of houses, which are as many ways to “consume” a house. This is precisely what leads him to define production as “cultural intention”, and to affirm that “the material process of physical existence is organized as a meaningful process of social being”, or that “production is a functional moment of a cultural structure”. He therefore outlines the project to provide a cultural explanation of production by studying the food preferences of Americans, before focusing on their clothing system.

Consumerism and bourgeois totemism

It is from this reflection on the “cultural intention of production” that Sahlins attempts to broaden the concept of “totemism” popularized by C. Lévi-Strauss in La Pensée sauvage (1962). Criticizing him for not having transposed it to the contemporary, the anthropologist postulates for the replacement of the “totemic operator” by “species and varieties of manufactured objects, which like totemic categories, have the power of making even the demarcation of their individual owners a procedure of social classification”. In the end, capitalist society would only be an extension of this “pensée sauvage”, but this time with exchange and consumption as means of social marking. The author here takes up J. Baudrillard’s reflections, considering consumption as an exchange of meanings (besides the exchange of material goods). Goods would present themselves as “object codes for the signification and valuation of persons and occasions, functions and situations”. 


The American clothing system

M. Sahlins proposes to study the American clothing system, “a veritable map of the cultural universe”, governed by “a set of rules for declining and combining classes of clothing-form so as to formulate the cultural categories”. His aim here is to achieve a “cultural account of production”. How do the physical characteristics of the clothing object transcribe into the social space? First, it notes the existence of categories of time and place with direct reference to specific situations or activities. Thus, a garment can be used for the day, evening, winter or sport. Similarly, it may denote a person’s social class, gender or age. In this way, the use of certain materials may be perceived as “womanly” (silk), while others may be more appropriately described as “masculine” (wool). Similarly, “blue jeans” will be considered as clothing restoring an opposition between teenagers and adults, joining in the process that of a worker/capitalist.

Sahlins then notices status categories. He uses on this occasion the distinction between ceremony and workmanship clothing highlighted by T. Veblen, namely the opposition between solemnity and formality on the one hand, and utility and good service on the other. From this, the rule of “ceremonial correspondence” is established, defining the opposition between ceremonial and professional categories, applicable to any social class. In other words, for Sahlins, the “ceremony” garment would always be different from the “workmanship” garment. The evening tuxedo would be more formal than the dark work suit, itself more formal than the sports outfit, itself more formal than pajamas. He also notes the rule of “ceremonial exaggeration”, according to which the tuxedo will be more stylized than a suit, itself more stylized than the interior garment.

Finally, Sahlins tries to determine the oppositions inherent to the material characteristics of clothing objects. In texture, line and colour, he looks for elements that could mean social differences. In terms of texture, for example, the heavy would be opposed to the light, the coarse to the fine, the crunchy to the soft, all parameters signifying an individual’s age, sex, activity, class. For instance, a light, thin and soft garment would be more appropriate for Sahlins as a “feminine” garment. Similarly, clothing lines and colors would provide us with many clues about an individual’s social state. He cites, for example, a study by Maitland Graves in which the vertical line (severity, austerity, dignity) would be opposed to the horizontal line (calm, passivity, quietness).

Without spending more time on the categories drawn by Sahlins, let us retain the way he tries to systematize American clothing practices to find social meanings. While we will not share all its categories nowadays, as it is increasingly difficult to distinguish, for example, between certain “male” and “female” clothing, it must be noted that clothing is indeed a social marker, and that its consumption/production is nonetheless significant.

Consumption and identity construction

French philosopher J.P. Sartre published Being and Nothingness in 1943. Often referred to as “phenomenological ontology”, this essay invites us to question ourselves on the being of Man and to describe its fundamental structures. Composed of four parts, it is chapter II “Doing and Having” of the fourth part “Having, Doing and Being” that will interest us here. After having outlined his project of existential psychoanalysis, based, unlike Freudian psychoanalysis, on consciousness and aiming to grasp the totality of the human being through a decoding of the empirical behaviors, Sartre focuses on the important question of possession, the link between doing, having and being.


After studying the “doing”, the philosopher comes to the question of “having”. “What is meant by “to appropriate”? Or if you prefer, what do we understand by possessing an object?”, in other words, how to define possession? He proposes several key characteristics.

Possession as use?

If using an object can indeed be a sign of its possession, it cannot be irreducible to the question of use. Someone can use a cup of coffee in a brewery without being the owner of the cup. In the clothing industry, an individual can rent an outfit without owning it. Similarly, the right of destruction cannot define possession. A man may own his dog without the right to kill him, otherwise he may be concerned about the law or animal welfare associations. Possession and appropriation, in other words possession and the right of possession, must be separated. A man can indeed possess an object without appropriating it, in other words without “making it his own”, and appropriate it without possessing it. Hence Sartre’s refutation of the Proudhonian equivalence between ownership and theft (Proudhon said: “ownership is theft”), since ownership can very well be the result of theft without affecting the relationship between the thief and his new possession.

Possession as being

The object cannot therefore be defined by a total exteriority to its owner. We speak of a “possessed” man to mean that he no longer belongs to himself, that he belongs to others, that he is someone else. Sartre mentions the existence of primitive societies where people are buried with their property, where these two entities (the person and its belonging) are inseparable. Even today, objects that belonged to a dead person may still be placed in his grave to mark their indissoluble connection. The author also evokes haunted houses belonging in a sense, even after their death, still to their owners. Hence Sartre’s remark: “to be possessed means to be for someone”, which means that “the bond of possession is an internal bond of being”, that “having” finally amounts to “being”, that there is finally an equivalence what is possessed and who is possessing. The exhibition of old celebrity clothes is precisely a similar case: a jacket that once owned Jim Morrison still seems to have his memory in it.

Possession as a union

In addition, Sartre notes that the object refers to “permanence”, “non-temporality”, “substantiality” (it exists in itself) when the possessor is completely dependent on it. “To possess is to be united with the object possessed in the form of appropriation; to wish to possess is to wish to be united to an object in this relationship”. The desire to have is the same as the desire to be. I do not only want jeans, I want to unite with them to form a single entity. I am therefore composed of the self and the not-self (jeans). Thus, the person is in a way the purpose of the object he owns. The original notion of luxury that haute couture exemplifies, also testifies to this. A dress is made for me, so the dress has no other purpose, no other possible purpose than to be worn by me.

Possession as a continuous creation

For Sartre, the act of purchase also amounts to an act of creation. In fact, the wearer gives meaning to the garment purchased. He contextualizes it, actualizes it in the middle of other clothes, etc. My jeans are not just any jeans, it’s the way I use them. My jeans are the way I use them, the way I interact with them (personalization, how to roll them up, etc.). The object cannot make sense without my act of use, without a relationship of appropriation. But what I create for Sartre is “me”. He notes that “the totality of my possessions reflects the totality of my being. I am what I have. It is I myself which I touch in this cup, in this trinket”.

Also, the relationship of possession cannot be anything other than a continuous creation. If the object is placed under my dependence, there is no less of it by itself. The object therefore exists without me (in itself) and by me. A certain univocity of the relationship is found here. It is still my usage that defines possession. Jeans are irrelevant if they are simply placed on a hanger. To own them, I have to wear them, wear them out, patch them, etc. Sartre notices the alienation of the possessor, who cannot exist outside the possessed object. The object belongs to me but it remains independent, or “originally in itself”.

The infinity of possession

The relationship to an individual’s possession is thus defined as “symbolic and ideal”. The consumption of a possession is continuous. It seems impossible for Sartre to achieve possession all at once. He takes the example of the bicycle. If it only takes one act of purchase to own it, this act is accompanied by multiple gestures: I touch it, contemplate it, then drive with it to get the bread, before going on a tour of France, etc. In the case of buying a jacket, I can simply contemplate it on a hanger, but I very quickly have to touch it, to wear it, otherwise I won’t appropriate it. Thus its use remains uninterrupted. And since I’m going to die, I can’t help but exhaust his consumption. 
But destruction and deterioration are also an appropriation. I can’t have an object in itself, I destroy it somehow to make it my own. I wear out my clothes, I alter and destroy them little by little, but at the same time I take them over. The deterioration can therefore sometimes be synonymous with enjoyment, especially in the clothing industry. This gives prestige to certain raw jeans that are worn, perforated, frayed, etc. The object is then marked by consumption, by appropriation, and therefore by possession. Sartre draws a parallel with the elegance of G. Brummel and his hatred of the new.


“To possess the world”

Finally, the philosopher focuses on the meaning of possession: “What then is it which we seek to appropriate?” To possess is to want to appropriate at the abstract level what he calls the “the mode of being of an object as the actual being of this object”, i.e. its existence as a solitary object devoid of my use, but also, at the empirical level, its extensions, i.e. the possibility of use that I can make of it. Owning jeans is both owning jeans, in that it belongs to a specific category of trousers (jeans are not formal pants), but also owning their possibilities of use (wearing it, etc.). Basically, possession is defined as the synthesis between these two particularities. “Each possessed object which raises itself on the foundation of the world, manifests the entire world (…). To appropriate this object is then to appropriate the world symbolically.” Sartre mentions his experience with tobacco, and his fear of losing the flavor of events such as a dinner or a show, by quitting smoking. Finally, the act of smoking was for him to achieve a destructive appropriation function of tobacco, meaning an appropriate destruction of the whole world. Consuming an object would therefore, according to Sartre, amount to consuming it individually, but also to consuming the world. “To possess is to wish to possess the world across a particular object.”

To conclude, if desire refers at the same time to the desire to be and the desire to have, these two are distinct, although they are inseparable in daily life. The first is related to for-itself, when “the desire to have aims at the for-itself on, in and through the world”. 
Consumption choices therefore reflect a certain way of being in the world. The purchase of one garment among others is not insignificant, translating “symbolically to our perception a certain way which being has of giving itself”.