Moda agênero: ativismo e consumo na indústria cultural contemporânea

Abstract

Fashion, as constructor of meanings out of clothing and other objects of consumption, manages social formatting, breakages and reconciliations between the being and their surroundings. We are individuals in a world-wide administrated system, in which the constant remodeling of Cultural industry creates products that mediate tension between individual and society. Fashion itself is an example of such mediation. This research seeks to investigate, based on Critical Theory, the relation and consequences between the birth of market niches, such as genderless fashion, and the activism for freedom. That happens in an administrated world that takes everything in order to capitalize and control, especially with the support of technology, thus creating (pseudo) freedom. To perform the analysis, a few brands were exposed. Those emerged in this environment of supposed autonomy of subjects by means of enlightenment; from there they propose to break paradigms/stigmas/framings. In other words, they sell freedom. Oddly, labels are created to break others. Therefore, as perspective of theoretical thinking before the propositions, it’s kept in mind that marked, politics and society remodel themselves to carry on fully functioning. Thus, the contradiction and feedback of the two sides - the individuality sustained by consumption and the system that administrates society - awaken the reflection on psychosocial formatting of contemporaneity. The methodology is a netnographic exploration on niche businesses that allies empirical and theoretical views. It resulted in the discovery of brands which co-opted in sociocultural causes, such as gender equality, to crate and sell new products. Thereby, it provides a discussion about dialetic tensions between freedom and domination in the market-subject dynamics. Therefore, this work generates reflections on activism and the consumption in the contemporary Cultural Industry by exemplifying with genderless fashion and other market niches.