IN THE SECOND WEEK OF MARCH I RECEIVE AN EMAIL RESPONSE FROM LESLIE, MY THERAPIST I GUESS, AFTER A MONTH OF SILENCE.
INITIALLY, WHEN I DESPERATELY EMAILED HER A MONTH AGO, I GUESS, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN HALF PAST ONE IN THE MORNING. FOR SOME REASON, I FELT SHE WOULDN’T GET BACK TO ME FOR SOME TIME [SHE WAS INFAMOUSLY OVERBOOKED... THERE'S A WAITING LIST... AND SO ON...]. THOUGH ONCE I WROTE THE EMAIL, I NOTICED THAT IT SEEMED TO ALREADY SKETCH WHAT IT WAS I WAS SCARED OF, WHAT THWARTED ME ABOUT MYSELF AND MY SURROUNDINGS. IT COULD HAVE BEEN THAT THAT EMAIL WAS MY PRE-THERAPY WITHOUT THE THERAPY FEE. SOON, I FELT LESS AFFECTED, WITH DECLINING ANGUISH.
I KNEW THAT THE "DRAWING" OF MY ISSUES WASN'T FINITE, THOUGH PERCEPTIBLE IN SHORT DASHED PHRASES IN THE EMAIL...
AFTER A MONTH OF NO RESPONSE, I WAS NO LONGER MISERABLE NOR IN NEED OF LESLIE’S OVERDUE SESSION BUT WAS STILL CURIOUS AND PERHAPS HOPEFUL SHE COULD HELP ME TO DIG SOMETHING I HAVEN’T THOUGHT OF YET OUT OF ME. [THEREFORE] I KEPT FAITH IT MIGHT BE GOOD TO [STILL] TALK TO HER REGARDLESS.
AT ONE OF DANSEART'S OFFICE BUILDINGS, DURING MY THIRD SESSION IN TWO YEARS WITH LESSLIE (MY NOW FORMER THERAPIST), I CONFESS MY CONCERN ABOUT AN EXCESSIVE DRINKING, ABOUT WHAT IT IS THAT I’M DOING WITH ANDREW, ABOUT THE STATE OF THE WORLD AND HORRORS OF WARS I FIND HARD TO COMPREHEND, ABOUT MY DOUBTS WHILE WRITING, ABOUT MY FEAR OF AGING AND ANOTHER OBSESSION OF NOT KNOWING HOW TO “PROLONG”, OR FOR ONCE ACCEPT MY MOTHER'S DECREASING HEALTH CONDITION. BECAUSE EVERY TIME I SEE MY MUM HER FACE GAINS MORE CREASES WHICH ONLY REMINDS ME THAT THOSE LINES ARE THE SAME LINES THAT AWAIT PEOPLE LIKE ME TOO. AND I PANIC AND AM WORDLESS FOR A WHILE AND I START TO BITE MY LOWER LIP UNTIL THE DREAD IS GONE AND I RETURN TO WHATEVER STATE OF MIND I WAS IN: I'M STARING INTO THE DUSTLESS VOID OF LESLIE'S CONCRETE DESIGN OFFICE.
IN MY MONOLOGUE, I TAP ON, IN SOME DETAILED MANNER, AND DESCRIBE THE LAST EVENTS TO LESLIE. SHE WEARS A BONE-WHITE CASHMIRE TURTLENECK, AND IT LOOKS SOFT AND I WANT TO TOUCH IT. BUT I SUDDENLY NOTICE AN INVISIBLE WALL, A GLASS THROUGH WHICH I MAY PERCEIVE LESLIE BUT CANNOT SEEM TO REACH HER. HER PRESENCE ALOOF AS EVER, INSTEAD SHE FINGERS THE CHAOS OF HER PEROXIDED HAIR NEST. I WONDER, MAYBE THAT INVISIBLE GLASS IS THE REASON WHY LESLIE'S AN EPITOME OF ODOURLESSNESS [I'M ALMOST CERTAIN SHE DOESN'T WEAR ANY SCENT, EVEN HER ANTIPERSPIRANT MUST BE SCENTLESS]; HER CULTIVATED BONE-WHITE CASHEMERE AURA HAS TINGE OF AN ABSOLUTE ZERO. I WANT TO BREAK THAT GLASS AND MESS HER UP.
“AND HOW DOES THAT DRINKING MAKE YOU FEEL?” SHE FINALLY ASKS.
“CAN’T TELL (IF) IT MAKES ME UPSET,” I SAY.
“SEE?, THERE YOU GO. NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.” SHE DOESN'T MAKE ANY NOTES ON HER IPAD AND I PAY IN CASH AND LEAVE MORE CONFUSED THAN WHEN I ARRIVED. THIS WOULD BE MY LAST SESSION. I'D NEVER RETURN TO HER DANSAERT OFFICE.
IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOW, I TASTE ABSTINENT WATERS OR SO DECIDE TO GO SOBER FOR AT LEAST FIVE CONSECUTIVE DAYS. JUST TO SEE WHAT POPS OUT. AND MY NOVINOPHOBIA [FEAR OF HAVING NO STACK OF WINE IN ONE’S HOME] IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND AND I BELIEVE IT’S GONE. AND DURING ONE OF THOSE DRY NIGHTS I HAVE A PREMONITION, A DREAM THAT SEEMS NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD, I CAN’T FIGURE. FROM THE FRAGMENTS THAT I (STILL) REMEMBER, THAT DREAM LOOKED LIKE THIS:
“Some anon Versaversa SHE THING appears as an empty eye socket
seeking meaning. Their inquiry started to come to me during my slumber.
That vision reverberated night after night, bareheadedly
The vision’s set replicated Meditterean features—the scent of salt and pine timber,
equally cerulean artificial sea and sky—and you,
you couldn’t tell where the horizon starts and the sea ends.
My friends and I arrived at the SHE THING writer’s residency after days of travels in the hills of Stonez. Sweat was a holy matter that haloed brighter than light. It stang. We collected it into tiny jars.
Surrounded by a group of gnats suckling on our flesh,
If Only, if that was SHE THING arrival.
SHE THING spoke to no one
We knew that any little move and gabber might annoy her
yet, SHE THING was writing the most sensuous of words.
SHE THING, the name in whispers “Seééékhmeééét” bloodthirsted, war-raged,
wrote cryptic posts on X and made bestial TikToks—quite (post) modern
In one ceremony, chained tongues were stabbed by primordial beehives—
all live-streamed in a galaxy of Instagramable reactions
SHE THING devoured bigmac, dates with thick hair and dust;
SHE THING chugged a rusty beer
SHE THING was an air sign, too and so I assumed, stupidly
SHE THING and I would get along together
SHE THING swam twice a day in a pool that was as huge as a football field and
SHE THING appeared fearless, combated in algae in there.
SHE THING performed an Occult swim—against the clock
thirteen times SHE THING went,
thirteen times SHE THING copulated with water algae
hair hybrid snakes, nails daggers, pressed flesh, A THIRD HIP BONE, algae combed
We all gaped at the SHE THING writer Seééékhmeééét the name of whispers
from behind a dried olive table or a shipwreck desk we sat on
Afterwards, as SHE THING stepped out from the pool her halo emerged before her
—a fainted tinge
SHE THING lasciviously raged, paced aggregated, automated, cataclysmic
through prickly stems, starving
brittle fast food was delivered by an unpaid intern to SHE THING
The name of whispers, titled, it ought to be
we eyeballed out, gagging, groping
sick light gored SHE THING'S salted body,
SHE THING consulted her visuals and her flesh produced a self-branded outerwear
And then gradually, Her empty eye socket begins to fill with an ingenious orb
Like when you pour liquid into an empty shaft
The weather broke equal cerulean sea and sky
crimson Saharan winds scandled the land, outlined
blows impregnated everyone with more uncanniness
invidious monuments were burnt the fuck down
SHE THING'S brittle radiance blinded with a horrid temper.
But then I woke up and realized
that it was just an odd dream I had, during one of those wine-less nights
Pure and ancestral, wicked as the Mother Night,
And I wasn’t scared, neither did I feel empty anymore,
nor was I momentarily obsessing about aging, or my mother’s lines
I rolled on my right side and felt synchronized with the rest of the world,
It wasn’t good or bad, it was awakening
***
Later on, in the same week, Crystal and I attend a series of performances. We take metro number 6 from Hallepoort station until Heizel. All dank and rancid, the red tiles of the Hallepoort metro station—most probably a clash of urine and humidity. It’s past seven and in the metro, I observe a little dark-clothed figure carrying two stacked bags of what I assume might be groceries.
It’s mostly men who occupy the metro. It’s Ramadan and women, their wives and kids are at home waiting for groceries to be delivered, so they may cook and eat after sundown.
When Crystal and I arrive at Heizel, we get out of the metro and out there in the March cold we see the glistening globes of the Atomium, with the Full (Worm) moon’s aura in its background mashed with dark clouds. “You know people are fallin’ in and out of love and all I do is fall asleep,” laughs Crystal when I ask about the new guy she’s started seeing recently. “And what about Andrew… how’s that going so far?” She asks, and I say, wryly, almost dismissively “…it’s complicated…”, to which Crystal answers “and…? what does that suppose to mean?”
Inside the performance arena, above the bar, the yellowed titles remark “Ricard” and “Gancia” and a long painted display portrays different iterations of sports, from discus, petanque, the javelin throw… depiction of Brussels Expo on the far right, and I wonder why this feels so communist to me. Crystal orders sparkling water and I get a glass of white wine, and while I pay I wonder if tonight is the night I'll stay with one or get a second glass later on.
There are patchworked blankets on the ground—the podium filled with gravel and as the first set of performances is about to start, I spot one of the graffiti saying “GOD IS TRANS” in electric red and pink, next to a poster with tarantula spider illuminated by a purple haze of artificial lightning.
The first performance starts with a group of grunge-dressed-like collective dancing in couples exchanging their partners in the sound of John Scott which weirdly enough reminds me (of) a French chanson instead. Almost all performers wear tartan/flannel skirts or shirts as skirts, pieces of baggy garments draped over their pants. Seemingly unfinished, safety-pinned perhaps—the audience and I attentively watch thrift-store clothing collages, some ripped, hanging loose on moving bodies, gender-free, de-emphasizing body-consciousness, messing with, dirting the silhouette. Someone wears a pink towel top with a horsehead print, and then the whole thing makes me recall some looks from VETEMENTS and/or Balenciaga shows. Or is it the other way around?
The performance utters yet another memory of a book I once had in my library. Exactitudes, the publication by Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek of striking dress codes of various social group identities that they have encountered on the streets of cities around the world since 1994. Systematically documented, the project tests the apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity, subverts the idea of "street style" and disrupts conventions of documentary street photography.
As I observed the performance that night, I wondered—are those carefully curated brands’ looks influenced by parallel-looking subcultures? Who was the first? The brands or the subcultures? And then—To what extent are we influenced by the brands and, to what extent are the brands shaped by us, the consumers?
Now “uber-normcore” Levi’s jeans were initially invented as a response to the reinforcement of gold minor’s workwear during the California Gold Rush, with a patent dated in 1873. However, since then, these jeans have been numerously altered. They were re-fashioned baggy and oversized by the Bronx's early 70’s hip-hop members in reflection of the negative effects of post-industrial decline, political discourse, and a rapidly changing economy. The jeans were further worn carelessly loose by the early 90’s grunge subculture movement concerned with social injustice while at the same time, the 1992’ Calvin Klein campaign stormed the media staging a 17-year old Kate Moss with Mark Wahlberg both wearing ck jeans with poking ck underwear, claiming “nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s.”
Seemingly—Clothing used to reflect a deeper political intent and psychology behind their outer facade. Did the fashion at large become somewhat apolitical?
From the 2017 Dazed interview with Ari Versluis (the author of Exactitudes) about the study of social uniforms that inspired VETEMENTS’ A/W 17 collection, it becomes more palpable that the brand presented “a troupe of stereotypes down the runway – including the punk, the emo, the gabber and the chic Parisienne – in a brilliant study of clothes as signifiers of constructed identities. Gvasalia echoed this for the show by providing a written description of each VETEMENTS character, which probed deep into the details of their lives (and) how they wear things—as the designer relayed backstage.” (As reported by the Dazed.)
The imperative to generate novel ways how to translate and transcendent the times we’re living into a system of fashion pedigree (throughout research, design, craft meets tech, marketing, advertising, social media presence, influencers & VIP relations et cetera) was historically (originally) invented and later on used on basis of “sustaining the imperial status quo” in diverting (secluding) oneself from “the rest”.
If fashion was originally about seclude-ness, through the course of changing epochs it shifted to collectiveness and mutilated into variable derivates; think of the post-war clothing, the 60s and 70s, shoulder pads and the 80s office looks, gabber, punks, goths, 00s Juicy Couture and cargo pants and Destiny's Child, implants and infamous porn tapes, one tone-outfits and the 2007’s Venus-of-Willendorf-like-shaped Kardashian bodies, a cult of (post)celebrity, memes and doomscrolling.
What does fashion reflect today? Is there more to it or, what is fashion now but a beautifully clothed matrix with a well-crafted editorial statement? And for whom is the fashion now in the first place, if not for those who can afford it or the ones who promote it in our post-capitalist digital era? Fashion now may feel like an edging—you’re increasingly stimulated (but stopped) about something you may never get.
One could argue whether the brands elevate and re-appropriate raw seams realness, grungy-hip outfits from underground subcultures alike, from the street and re-shuffle “the low” with their “couture meets latest tech” into creating a super product by adding the illusory, the marketed filter of desiring that style, that look, that identification, that avatar. If the fashion appropriation is re-appropriated again, does it become nullified? or,—Is the way we dress and what we wear so “meta” that we hardly distinguish the beginning stage from its end?
Clean slate—The logo, The label are applied. The “sub” is fisted into the “beat”. In the contemporary info-core era, unforeseen fashion is rare. The new not-yet-cool glitz might feel chased. “so out it’s in,” Emily Segal advocates in her Talking Bout My Generation chapter of Mercury Retrograde that “The formula for alternative coolness, in which things that seem strange, off, or foreign are conquered and incorporated by cool people to confirm their status as unusual or unique.”
The hype may seem to be increasingly over-fashioned, omnipresent in over-priced products, some of which I admittingly fall into desiring but can’t afford to buy. (Though leaving them in my shopping baskets and wishlists online kinda feels like having them, kinda feels like window shopping though it’s not).
…
Somewhere along the performance program, a piece by the daughter of the notorious Belgian choreographer appears with her only props—a cinnamon leather biker jacket, a lemon, and a broom. At first, the performer swirls a broom and casually walks onto the gravel stage. She sweeps a little rectangle in front of her, then calmly rests the broom on the ground and launches herself by saying: “Life is a disease transmitted by sex and ends with death,” in a slow-paced manner; her voice fluctuates between steely sharp and recklessly aloof.
As she continues with various multiples of statements—some more recognizable than others—some in the audience laugh, some remain serious—and in her stand-up alone comedy the semi-performed, semi-real laid-backness prevails, as she casually halts and sighs a few times, invisibly, almost for herself.
In the next minutes, she shrugs her shoulders as if she’s trying to revive the lost memory of further anecdotes by peeling the lemon and eventually biting, and eating it. Surprisingly, her face doesn’t sour up and on the contrary, remains connected with the audience when she asks for more hints of anecdotes or leaves the audience to finish some she has started.
…