Brave New World’s Future is Undoubtedly Fashionable

March 17, 2021

In a previous article on the topic of costume design and science fiction (the Raised by Wolves one, in case you forgot or did not know), I mentioned NBCUniversal Peacock’s series Brave New World. There is a purpose behind it. I wanted readers to acknowledge its existence because eventually, it would be the show’s turn to receive an exploration of its fashion designs. Regardless of how well it did with critics and audiences, or how well it adapted and built upon its source material (Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World novel, a critique of the early 20th century’s utopian ideas about a possible future based on the values of the times), the show’s costume design, and style in general, is a visual experience that uses a mixture of 1930s motifs with contemporary fashion to picture a dangerously attractive version of our future.

Brave New World was developed by Brian Taylor, David Wiener, and Grant Morrison. While you may not know any of these names, Grant Morrison is an iconic DC Comics writer, and if you know me and my article oeuvre, you know I love DC. He is known for esoteric plots and crazy scripts, so adapting a novel that is aesthetically rich and full of possibility storywise, most significantly due to the shifting values that mark each century, is something he excels on. For those rare few reading right now that know Final Crisis, Multiversity, and his run of Doom Patrol, you have an idea of what this writer is capable of imagining; otherwise, I believe anyone reading words like Final Crisis, Multiversity, and Doom Patrol without having the slightest idea of what they mean in the context of comics may comprehend the level of “out thereness” and existential dilemmas they convey. That is all to say that, even if the story in the novel is not very similar to the series’ (and I must tell you, the latter deviates so glaringly from the book in its characterization and message), the show’sstyle, especially the myriad of different garment designs, is for sure one of its most fascinating aspects.

In broad strokes (a challenge in itself), the TV show follows two characters, Bernard (played by Harry Lloyd) and Lenina Crowne (played by Jessica Brown Findlay), in a utopic New London where, amongst the various changes to today’s society, human embryos are genetically developed in artificial wombs and separated into social castes before birth (Epsilons in the bottom and Alpha Pluses in the top). During their childhood development, they are conditioned to deny solipsism and monogamy and give in to sharing their pleasures with the rest of society while performing their caste vocations correctly and without question, always perceiving their mental health as a benefit for the collective, and never challenging the social bodies above them and accepting the provocations from those below them. However, upon venturing into the Savage Lands and encountering John, the Savage (played by Alden Ehrenreich), Bernard and Lenina’s view of this “utopian” society changes into eventual defiance of its machinations. The social castes’ fashion also reflects the citizen’s positions in society, but interestingly, while in the book, only one color is assigned to each class (Black for Epsilons, Kaki for Deltas, Green for Gammas, Pink/Purple for Betas, and Grey for Alphas), in the show, it is instead the style of clothing that primarily defines the classes.

Therefore, to speak of Brave New World’s fashion in detail is a very daunting experience as the amount of variance inside the social classes (besides Epsilons grey janitor uniforms) is vast, especially without the use of colors to help to define them, which makes appropriately distinguishing Alphas from Betas and Gammas from Deltas challenging when, for example, they are walking on the streets. However, it is possible to classify the series’ costume designs in three different ways: day looks, night looks, and the clothing of the Savages.

But first, I would like to acknowledge costume designer Susie Coulthard, who previously worked on Black Mirror’s episodes Metalhead and the award winner San Juniper (my favorite episode, and I think of many people), and brands Jako Schelpfer and Cotweiller for their work on the show. Although there is not much on the internet about the creative process behind the designs Couthhard worked on and how she came up with the futuristic look (I would love to know how she worked with the production team to design Brave New World’s version of the future), she has briefly commented on her inspirations before. In an email to SYFY Wire, she mentions, “Let’s not forget the novel was written 90 years ago. I wanted to give a nod to this by looking at the fashion of the '30s when the novel was written.” I will go a little bit more into the day looks later, but the 1930’s high society male and female fashion clearly inspired the show’s garments. Moreover, it is known that Coulthard partnered with Swiss textile company Jakob Schlaepfer to weave the glossy, oily, and glassine looks that populate New London in contrast with the more wool-based comfortable 1930s inspired ones. And she also worked with Cottweiler at one point, a high concept, high-fashion streetwear company, since they mention they helped design Brave New World’s costumes in their Instagram (specifically which ones remain to be known as the series has a lot of different garments), something very on-brand for Cottweiler as they are known for innovative fashion.

Now, I think it is time to address the visual side of this article. From my classifications, I will be separating the day looks into work clothing and leisure clothing. Looking into the Alphas first, because they work in positions of power and control, their garments usually are very formal and cover most of their bodies because they work in positions of authority. For male characters like Bernard, who is in charge of ensuring that people are emotionally healthy and available for the social body’s good, tailored wool blazers, dress pants, and open trench coats were designed to be worn with a turtleneck sweater and sometimes an added scarf to create this image of power from volume. Also, as sex is something normal, rather encouraged in Brave New World’s society, covering the flesh instills the idea that such a person is harder to get, more unattainable, creating this dynamic of power and respect. Yet, it does not prevent the look from being attractive as Henry Foster (played by Sen Mitsuji) wears form-fitted suit jackets with low turtleneck shirts that accentuate his athletic physique. Separately, the 1930s were famous for the sharp form-fitted business suits, and both turtlenecks and trench coats were around at the time and part of the male wardrobe. But together, the garments are a fashion statement suitable for the future.

As a side note, the show does not depict many Alphas of the opposite gender, but the female Alphas key to the story (Wilhelmina Watson portrayed by Hannah John-Kamen and World Controller Mustafa Mond) wear loose poncho shirt-dresses and robes as professional attire. The 1930s reference is lost on me, but they fulfill the “cover less skin” and “power through volume” constant of this caste.

Compared to the Alphas, the Betas wear lighter, more transparent, and glossier garments and appear with leisure clothing, something that sets them apart. Here is where Jakob Schlaepfer’s textiles start to shine in the series. Because Betas are, in a summarized way, the scientists or lab technicians of the society, fertilizing and classifying the caste of different newly formed embryonic zygotes, women wear white lab coats that cover different types of dresses and skirts while men wear white lab coats over loose scoop neck t-shirts and trousers. However, they only wear their coats inside their labs, which look almost transparent and very glassine as if instead of protecting, they serve as a reminder of a past custom. Thus outside them, anything is possible.

Lenina is an excellent example of how her sense of style transcends the limitations of work clothing. Betas can wear different types of dresses or t-shirts for work, but Lenina not only has a closet full of dress types like rompers, sleeveless bodycon, and wrap, but she is seen with evening capes and tied-up trench coats replacing her lab coats as a leisure look. The audience even gets to see Lenina Crowne and her friend Frannie Crowne (played by Kylie Bunbury) wearing white sports attire full of webbed and accordion mashes playing tennis in a high-tech court. Betas are the most fluid and dynamic caste in terms of fashion, and most of the garments I listed Lenina wearing (her rompers, trench coats, capes, wrap dresses) were very much present in the 30s. What makes the show’s costume design feel futuristic is the use of unusual textiles and colors and the combination of past and present fashion to create something new.

Night looks, then, go all out on the futuristic innovative side of fashion Huxley could never even possibly imagine. These looks, characteristic of New London’s social nightlife, are very much a result of the haute couture and technology of the present and our understanding of how fashion may look in the future from a 2010’s viewpoint, with 3D printed clothing that can morph into anything you design in real-time, selected from tech lenses that connect characters with the whole of society (yep, that happens in the show). Every scene that occurs in a nightclub is priceless because of the creativity behind each and every style for both the main actors and the extras, especially the female garments, and I believe it is something anyone interested in fashion should look forward to when watching Brave New World (if you choose to, but be careful because nudity and sex are primarily depicted in them).

It is in the nightlife scenes that Coulthard, Cottweiler (I would believe their collaboration resulted in at least the night looks), and Jakob Schlaepfer’s work become something transcendental and maybe even prophetic (not regarding the dystopian background, but the fashion scene). I say this because Brave New World’s night fashion is not the result of one person depicting what they think the future may resemble based on their perspective of life, but a consequence of haute culture and high-fashion brands giving their input on today’s fashion scene and likely trends to inform a more realistic future. It is indeed exciting to imagine how technology will influence how we will look, and it is even more exhilarating when seeing a well-crafted educated guess depicted visually on the screens.

Finally, I should mention the designs worn by the Savages. For contextualization, not all cities globally are ultra-technological conditioning hubs of progress, sex, soma (compliance and emotional welfare drug), and complacency. Some people decided not to give up their freedoms and solipsism to be part of Brave New World’s depiction of a flawed utopian society, so they live in poverty in reserves worldwide. The show’s Savage Lands are different from the books as they are located in an undisclosed US Midwestern place and work more like a resort, museum, and theater experience where the “savages” act out the sins behind concepts like monogamy, capitalist indulgence, and free will (crimes).

So, the savage garments represent how stuck in time (outdated) and materially impoverished they are. They wear something that resembles a 70s hippie style, with lots of disco suits, tank tops, and jeans and leather pants, belts, and jackets. The show does this to seemingly depict the savage community as a group of cults and gangs (the Savage Lands do look a lot like Spahn Ranch) seeking to remain outside of civilization’s mockery in a self-sufficient reserve. There is a lot of gaslighting between John, his lover Madysun, her boyfriend, and gang leader Sheila at the beginning of the show, and Sheila herself tried to get John into her gang to help them kill all outsiders in an act of defiance against the world.

John, then, goes through the most and least significant change in fashion of any character in Brave New World. He goes from troubled lover boy wearing dirty white t-shirts and tank tops with skinny pants and an orange shirt covered by a red nylon jacket to, when he moves to New London, troubled lover boy sometimes wearing light grey and white t-shirts and slacks, other times wearing black/navy velvet peacoats and black/navy slacks. The show depicts the “Savage” devoid of any bright hue in the new city, outfitted in the dullest of shades. Yet there are moments in the series that display John with a similar wardrobe to his Savage Lands style, especially his choice of a white t-shirt. He never wanted to go to New London; he just wished to escape the poverty-stricken place he lived in for his and his mother’s sake (played by Demi Moore), so at the beginning, his mentality in the city was one of escape, reflected by the similarly styled clothing. But as John began to fall in love with Lenina and (briefly) enjoys London, the fabrics and colors of his garments became darker and more sophisticated to represent him losing his principles, joy, and will to be free due to (mild spoiler) sexual indulgence and Lenina’s own doubts about free will and love’s importance against the “perfect life.”

In conclusion, Brave New World should be on anyone’s list who likes to watch shows not only because of their compelling stories and characters but also because of their ability to weave clothing and personalities together and translate possibility into a visual aesthetic that either predicts that future of fashion or provides grounds for inspiring future trends.

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Source: https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/brave-new-...

Is Pierre Menard a Plagiarist?

October 20, 2020

“Why don’t they try the same thefts? If they do they’ll find it's easier to steal Hercules’ club from him than to steal a line from Homer.”

– Virgil in response to critics of his thefts from Homer, according to Suetonius

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.”

– T.S. Eliot, “Philip Massinger”

Determining what counts as plagiarism in art is notoriously tricky; the line between inspiration and ripping off is thin. No artist can create in a vacuum, nor can a work of art have meaning in one: all art exists in a lineage (or perhaps a web) of influence. Even Shakespeare based his plays on previous stories, and Proust wrote pastiches before composing his masterpiece. But we must draw the line between influence and stealing somewhere. As lawsuits like Katy Perry’s have shown, the potential for monetary penalties for getting it wrong is steep. And we clearly have an intuitive sense of when an artist has gone too far, as in the case of Led Zeppelin. Plagiarism also does not always align with copyright, so the law cannot be our guide here. We must find a way to demarcate plagiarism from inspiration without relying solely on copyright.

Of course, for plagiarism to be a meaningful concept, a certain notion of authorship is presupposed which does not hold for all artistic pursuits. In folk music, for example, songs – even ones for which a single author is known – are commonly considered communal material; it is a faux pas to claim individual ownership of a song. Borrowing lyrics and melodies from earlier songs was commonplace, and some even disdained writers of original material. Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village subscribed to this more diffuse notion of authorship, and Dylan’s branding as a phony even before his “electric” moment was in part due to his insistence on writing original material (while generously borrowing old melodies, of course). Indeed, for forms which are not often considered “art” to Western audiences, such as many oral traditions, the notion of authorship which plagiarism presupposes is inconceivable. Stories or songs are passed down from one performer to another, with changes made according to the vagaries of memory and personal style. Some “postmodern” works of art, furthermore, challenge the relationship of spectator to artist, such that the work of the spectator is constitutive of the art itself; engaging with the piece is an active part of the creation of the art. They thus break down our ordinary ideas of authorship, making plagiarism harder to pin down. What we need is a conception of authorship which attributes an artistic work – and even what can be said to be art is up for questioning – to a distinct individual for plagiarism to make sense.

Still, even when working under this idea of authorship, not every instance of borrowing is rightfully considered plagiarism. Here is where “intertextuality” is usually invoked, usually defined as when a text references another, thereby appropriating its meaning for its own purposes. A prominent example is the photomontages of Hannah Hoch, which borrowed and combined magazine clippings, advertisements and paintings to create entirely new pieces. She often re-appropriated male images of the female form, as in her famous work “The Sweet One,” to satirize the monstrosity produced by the male gaze. Hoch, then, in Eliot’s words, “welds [her] theft into a whole of feeling which is unique,” makes “it into something better or at least different” than the originals she uses. In a word, she re-contextualizes the elements of previous artists, as Virgil did to Homer’s lines. The meaning of her work is understood through reference to the previous works she uses.

Although Eliot is suggesting a criterion for separating good poets from bad, perhaps we can use it to demarcate plagiarism from influence: if the stolen idea is put to different use, is re-contextualized in some way, it is not plagiarism. This would explain why Hoch does not plagiarize the images she uses and why Virgil and Dylan stole, but are not plagiarists. Richard F. Thomas, in his book Why Bob Dylan Matters, notes a further difference between the two:

intertextuality is as far as you can get from plagiarism, which is a practice meant to escape notice. Plagiarism is about passing off as your own what belongs to others. In contrast, the most powerful and evocative instances of intertextuality enrich a work precisely because, when the reader or listener notices the layered text and recognizes what the artist is reusing, that recognition activates the context of the stolen object, thereby deepening meaning in the new text.

We therefore seem to have a way of differentiating intertextuality from plagiarism. Plagiarism tries to disappear, while intertextuality calls attention to itself; plagiarism does not build on the meaning of the original, whereas intertextuality adds new layers of meaning. Intertextuality allows the artist to acknowledge and make reference to a particular tradition, while simultaneously adding something original to it. They can thus stand in a more complex relationship to their tradition, be it one of criticism, irony, reverence and so on. Plagiarism does none of this.

The two differences, then, might be summed up as follows. (I) Intention: plagiarism wants to be invisible; intertextuality, for its full purpose to be comprehended, must be noticed. (II) Meaning: plagiarism adds no new meaning to the plagiarized work; intertextuality does. Also note that here intention seems inseparable from meaning, but that we can distinguish them for clarity for now.

But there’s a potential problem with this attempt at a definition: it might not include much of anything as plagiarism. In his story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Jorge Luis Borges provides a reductio of sorts of this definition. The story consists of a monograph, written by one of Menard’s “true friends,” which seeks to justify the recently deceased author’s final project.

Those who have insinuated that Menard devoted his life to writing a contemporary Quixote besmirch his illustrious memory. Pierre Menard did not want to compose another Quixote, which surely is easy enough – he wanted to compose the Quixote. Nor, surely, need one be obliged to note that his goal was never a mechanical transcription of the original; he had no intention of copying it. His admirable ambition was to produce a number of pages which coincided – word for word and line for line – with those of Miguel de Cervantes.

We will analyze his project in terms of our definition of plagiarism, in the stages through which his project evolves. Menard’s first method was to “be Miguel de Cervantes” – he learned Spanish, converted to Catholicism, and attempted to forget the history of Europe after Cervantes’ time. This was his intention in producing another Quixote. He eventually gives up this course, however, because “To be a popular novelist of the seventeenth century in the twentieth seemed to Menard to be a diminution.”

According to our definition, this stage of the project seems to be a clear case of plagiarism. His intention was to disappear, to be Miguel de Cervantes. His own identity – as an author writing in the twentieth century, whose first language is not Castilian but French etc. – had to be ignored for this attempt at composing the Quixote to succeed (or, rather, to fail in an interesting way). And the note’s reason for Menard to try a different tact shows why, according to our author, no new meaning would be added by this composition – it would be just as Cervantes wrote it. As Menard wrote to our author, “Composing the Quixote in the early seventeenth century was a reasonable, necessary, perhaps even inevitable undertaking; in the early twentieth, it is virtually impossible.” So he changes his course: he will continue being “Pierre Menard and [come] to the Quixote through the experiences of Pierre Menard.” Composing it thus is the more interesting attempt, and, as the author argues, will add meaning to the Quixote through the changed context of its composition.

“Menard’s fragmentary Quixote,” he notes, “is more subtle than Cervantes’.” Cervantes’ comedic juxtaposition of country life with Don Quixote’s fantasies is “crude”; Menard, “with perfect naturalness,” avoids such trivialities. When Cervantes’ Quixote comes down in favor of arms instead of letters, it is natural and understandable; when Menard’s does so, it seems a manifestation of Menard’s “resigned or ironic habit of putting forth ideas that were the exact opposite of those he actually held.” Our author sees those words from Menard’s Quixote – “a contemporary of La trahison des clercs and Bertrand Russel” – as more complex, precisely because of the changed context of its utterance.

Our author then recounts – with an apparent touch of irony from Borges – several “identical” passages from both Quixote’s, comparing their respective meanings. Cervantes’ passage is “mere rhetorical praise of history,” whereas Menard’s is praised loquaciously:

History, the mother of truth! – the idea is staggering. Menard, a contemporary of William James, defines history not as a delving into reality but as the very fount of reality. Historical truth, for Menard, is not “what happened”; it is what we believe happened. The final phrases… are brazenly pragmatic.

Again, it is the context of Menard’s composition which creates its meaning. This new attempt, then, satisfies our definition of intertextuality. Menard does not try to make the original disappear, nor does he try to erase his own identity from the composition. The meaning of the work also deepens, becoming more complex as layers of irony and ambiguity are added.

Is this not absurd? It begs the question of whether our definition is meaningful at all. Borges’ parodic style suggests that he senses the inanity of it all. But there is a serious point to be made. If context constitutes meaning, as the story seems to imply, then every new reading would generate additional layers of meaning – every new reading would be a different story. Like in many of Borges’ works, authorship in “Pierre Menard” isn’t stable. It is subject to tellings and retellings, filtered through memory and the inclinations of the particular author. The reader must also then make meaning from the text, not find it in the text. The reader, like the author, is a particular individual in a particular time and place, and relates to the text accordingly. They constitute the text and its meaning just as the author does. The story thus mirrors Barthes’ theory of reading in S/Z, where reading is equivalent to writing “by transforming the reading in re-writing.”

To return to our definition of plagiarism, on this reading of “Pierre Menard” it seems that our second condition, meaning, will always be satisfied. There is no possibility of creating identical meaning; there is, on this reading, no possibility of plagiarism. Even Menard’s first attempt at writing the Quixote – to become Cervantes – would add new layers of meaning, because meaning is unstable, constantly prone to being revised and amended.

to read the Odyssey as though it came after the Aeneid, to read Mme. Henri Bachelier’s Le Jardin du Centaure as though it were written by Mme Henri Bachelier. This technique fills the calmest books with adventure. Attributing the Imitatio Christi to Louis Ferdinand Céline or James Joyce – is that not sufficient renovation of those faint spiritual admonitions?

Menard rejects becoming Cervantes not just because it is impossible, but also because it is boring. Menard was right: we can only understand the text, to the extent that we can, through ourselves, and through its relevance to our time. It is the mark of great literature that it remains vital and relevant to new times, that it continues to speak to different experiences. When it no longer does so we are left with a stale alexandrianism, with Menard’s academic attempt to become Miguel de Cervantes. Borges is warning us to not let literature fall into this: to not let reading become boring.

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