An article by Nilani Mathur
I think that fashion is, maybe, a kind of tactile poetry.
When good poetry is read, we feel it within ourselves. However, to feel or see poetry on ourselves—or someone else—would be different—the level of intrigue. Because fashion—whether as an act of wearing or witnessing—can cause a visceral or emotional reaction like poetry can, but exceeding poetry, fashion is tactile—the enchantment or enlightenment.
My problem is that I have grown to detest the word fashion. So much.
Its connotations are inevitably shallow—something even I, someone who appreciates fashion, can recognize.
When I read it or hear it aloud, my mind goes straight to the trivial, superficial surface connectors: clothing, shopping, luxury, et cetera. Again, I’m saying this as someone who appreciates fashion far beyond these things. In fact, I believe I only appreciate fashion for what it is beyond these things.
And what is that? It is what strikes me as essential in any art form: cultural, political, and economic reflection, potent expression of emotion, or conceiving unprecedented ways of seeing that life is allowed to be beautiful, mundane, terrible, and transcendent in waves or at once.
Fashion can and does do all of that, but so few of us faithfully seize the opportunity of seeing it, of recognizing it, and probably because so many of us are struck by those same, shallow connotations when we hear that word, ‘fashion.’
The synonyms don’t help, either. Outlets like Google and Merriam-Webster offer a myriad of choices, including “vogue, trend, craze, rage, mania, fad, fancy, style, look.” These are worse—so much worse.
Why is there no synonym or definition that even begins to hint at what I, and so many other thinkers, love about fashion? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I propose a solution to the problem: a new term.
Vestigia—rooted in the Latin word vestigium (trace, footprint, vestige). It rewrites “fashion” for what it is: a physical and psychological remnant of life, humanity, and inhumanity, in a slew of fascinating ways.
I recognize that it is likely that few people will read this, and it is certain that even fewer will ever use the word ‘vestigia,’ but it soothes me and gives me hope, at the very least. Maybe that is selfish—wanting other people to understand my thinking almost always does—but it feels okay here. There is importance behind it.
And conclusively, like fashion or poetry, you can make anything feel utterly unserious or unimportant if that is how you choose to see it (or really, fail to see it). To honestly appreciate and understand any art form, you must be willing to do so and be vulnerable, curious, patient, and thoughtful. The more intense these qualities become for you, the more you will see—the more you will learn.
A matter for contemplation, though, is that heaps of people are unsuccessful in even getting their eyes on poetry, while fashion—I mean, vestigia, touches everything and everyone, whether they are practicing the seeing or not. Perhaps that is the other reason why people forget how vital and labyrinthine an art it is—it’s because it’s so omnipresent that its profundity is so omnipresently ignored.
The Violet Post 
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