Julien* has never loved anything so much as provocation. He likes to denote, to be noticed when he enters a room. And that evening, Marie*’s birthday, he had found the perfect garment. “I had taken tickets for a play at the Comédie-Française, she says. And there, he arrives in Adidas jogging. In jogging!” Three years later, his exasperation is still palpable: “Frankly, who allows himself this kind of thing?” The question is rhetorical. Marie knows very well that Julien, this son of a good family who grew up in inner Paris, cannot be accused of ignorance of what is or is not in good taste in this place: “He dresses like that , probably just to show that he can do it. It always appealed to me a lot.”
There are a plethora of Juliens today, especially in the big French cities. They wear work overalls, a banana slung over their shoulders, buy colorful sweatshirts or trainers from Lidl. Some even dare to adopt a mullet cut, to be worn with a touch of irony, of course. So many clothes and distinctive signs once attributed to the working classes. A way of distancing oneself from trends, and of showing that one knows – and above all that one can – juggle with the codes.
The arrival of ready-to-wear
It has not always been so. At the end of the 19th century, the German sociologist Georg Simmel analyzed in fashion philosophy the tastes distributed in a pyramidal form. Once a fashion first adopted by the upper classes is diffused throughout society, the more affluent find a new one, in order to continue to differentiate themselves from others. “Fashion is both imitation and distinction”, notes Frédéric Monneyron, professor of literature and sociology of fashion at the University of Perpignan Via Domitia. Some fifty years after Simmel, Pierre Bourdieu clarifies this model in The distinction, and enriches it: the dominant taste is that of the dominant classes, and therefore of the wealthiest. In response, those of the working classes are considered less good, illegitimate. “Until the early 1960s, working-class seamstresses imitated haute couture models, continues Frédéric Monneyron. The appearance of ready-to-wear is gradually changing things.”
The “hierarchy of taste” was upset by the arrival, in the 1960s, of American counter-culture movements. “The relationship to culture is changing. For the first time, there is not one but trends”, remarks Luca Marchetti, specialist in the semiotics of culture and fashion. It was a time of protest against the Vietnam War, the rise of hippie culture, the Beatles and yéyé. The first signs of a fragmentation of tastes and colors appear in the streets. “Young women from the wealthy classes start wearing fringe because they think it gives them a scoundrel look, for example”, illustrates Frédéric Monneyron.
Haute couture inspiration
These years of upheaval saw the children grow up who would become the creators and prescribers of the 1990s. The same people who, twenty to thirty years after the 1970s, learned not to rely on a single trend. R’n’B, hip-hop… In the same way that musical styles are diversifying, the podiums designed by this generation are multiplying their influences. Generation X is entering a job market devastated by the recession. The optimism of the previous decade is replaced by a nihilism which is particularly illustrated with the emergence of grunge, a clothing style at the crossroads of punk and the hippie movement, symbolized by the group Nirvana.
Ripped jeans, t-shirts and casual clothes are increasingly on the covers of magazines, but also on the catwalks. It is no longer haute couture that inspires ready-to-wear, but the reverse. Azzedine Alaïa, creator of the eponymous house, was inspired by the Vichy of the Tati brand for a collection in 1991. He was followed by other luxury houses, such as Louis Vuitton in 2007, or Celine in 2013. Beyond the motifs, accessories hitherto attributed to the working classes are taken up in the parades. “Tom Ford decides to put the masculine sandals up to date in the campaigns of the Gucci brand, reminds Luca Marchetti. The aesthetics of comfort are gaining more and more space in the parades”. The costume era of the self-made man 1980s is over.
Time for comfort
It’s time for comfort, cool, but also provocation. In 2000, John Galliano, commissioned by Bernard Arnault to make Dior an international brand, shocked with his “neo-poor” aesthetic. In the fashion show for her Spring-Summer 2000 haute couture collection, dresses were patched and jeans decorated with patterns from old newspapers. The creator intends to draw inspiration from the homeless. Galliano caused a scandal, but claimed not to show “provocation” or “mockery”. He claims to want to “point the finger at the trivialized condescension of the bourgeoisie”. “Fashion needs to renew its forms and styles, which means that designers are bound to draw on the codes and cultural practices of other groups”, analyzes Benjamin Simmenauer, research director and professor at the French Institute of the fashion. Despite this coup, the “crisis fashion”, inspired by the minimalism of the 1990s, was however almost abandoned for nearly fifteen years.
It reappeared in the 2010s. In the same way that the adults of the 1990s were inspired by the codes of their childhood, the toddlers of the end of the century have in turn become adults with purchasing power. “And so, prescribers, remarks Luca Marchetti. Some of the adolescents influenced by the ‘neo-poor’ aesthetics of the 1990s are now adults living in inner Paris, with money, influence and power. They have become what we now call sores.” “Bourgeois-bohemians” eager to celebrate the codes and influences of their past. “They have adopted a minimalism that takes up grunge in its materials: big checkered shirts, hunter codes, hikers”, lists the semiologist.
Return to favor of the banana
It’s hard not to see the comeback of the banana, a popular accessory of the 1990s, as the symbol of this seizure of power. And then there are overalls. As explained byclothing historian Jérémie Brucker at France Culture, this object ended up “gentrifying”. Abandoned by workers over the years of French deindustrialization, clothing is now more worn by “a privileged, rather urban segment” of the population. “It is completely diverted and has nothing to do with its primary function, he said. It is called a blue work; in fact, I think it is an abuse of language.” In the same way as the Lidl sneakers, each sale of which has led to an unexpected crush in the stores of hard discount, the old worker’s outfit is now monopolized by the wealthy classes. “To say that I was ashamed of my father and that now you are going to buy your quinoa with his heating blue”, quipped in an Instagram post in May 2022 the novelist Nicolas Mathieu, who regularly addresses questions of deindustrialization in his work. .
But if the most privileged take up certain worker codes, these pieces are often intended to convey a message. “It is a deliberate strategy of transgression, observes François Hourmant, professor of political science at the University of Angers. Those who belong to the wealthiest classes have the dual capacity to conform to the traditional codes of their environment, but also to transgress them. We come back to the work of Pierre Bourdieu.” In his work What speaking means: the economy of linguistic exchanges, the sociologist also evoked in 1982 the figure of the “condescending consecrated person”. Someone who “deliberately chooses to cross the line”. “He has the privilege of privileges, the one that consists of taking liberties with his privilege,” he wrote. […] Anyone who is sure of their cultural identity can play with the rules of the cultural game.”
To differentiate themselves from the less privileged, eager to imitate the fashion “coming from above”, the most privileged groups therefore turn… to elements abandoned earlier by the working classes. The traditional rules are exploding: Bernard Arnault is still in a suit and town shoes, but Xavier Niel has abandoned the tie and is wearing sneakers. Royalty is also getting involved: during the jubilee of the late Elizabeth II, Kate Middleton appeared dressed in… blue jeans worth 69 euros.
Today, this “recycling” also adopts an ecological pretext. By looking for old pieces in thrift stores, for example, designers and customers alike can demonstrate their desire to break with the disasters of “fast fashion”. “Kitsch and vintage become elements of distinction, but these are always associated with a cut, a fabric, elements that allow you to recognize yourself as belonging to a well-referenced universe”, continues François Hourmant. In summary, the privileged person can afford to wear Lidl sweatshirts without staining, because they “have the codes”. “To simplify, dressing like this when you frequent the 7th arrondissement of Paris is a bit like saying ‘I like the counter-culture’, ‘I’m not like everyone else'”, laughs Benjamin Simmenauer . Until everyone does the same?
* The first name has been changed