Hegemony and Homelessness

[photo via The Sartorialist] This week I commented on the glorification of homeless people by influential (aka wealthy) people in fashion. After taking a closer look, I think that this Zoolander "Derelicte" infatuation can actually be attributed to hegemonic attitudes. Slowly, the "homeless chic" look (it made me nauseous typing that) is making its way to the fashion forefront.

W Magazine did a spread featuring items that could be purchased for hundreds, even thousands of dollars to make consumers look as if they were living in the direst of situations. Erin Wasson, a model-cum-designer famously said “The people with the best style, for me, are the people that are the poorest. Like, when I go down to like Venice Beach and I see the homeless, I’m like, oh my god, you’re pulling out like crazy looks. They pulled shit out of like garbage bags.” Well, they did pull that out of garbage bags and congratulations, these inspirations were just evidenced in your latest RVCA collection at Fashion Week. Now we can all buy into the trend for a couple hundred bucks.

The dominant class and tastemakers will be plucking these homeless inspired looks from the runway followed by major companies capitalizing on the misfortune of others by marketing a more affordable and accessible version of the trend to the middle class. What I find more disturbing is that the group of people who "inspired" this look in are the ones who will still be struggling to survive each day. I think that this form of hegemony is interesting. Unlike other instances where the elite use hegemonic ideologies to maintain their power, this example draws on a situation that neither the masses nor the elite would ever desire.