Fashion has always been about freedom of expression and more importantly fun. Fun has recently come under fire from all fronts – especially in fashion and in the politics of fashion. It seems we have thrown out satire and camp as political moves. If you don’t know Camp by now – you should.
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing or humorous because of its ridiculousness to the viewer. Camp aesthetics disrupt many modernists’ notions of what art is and what can be classified as high art by inverting aesthetic attributes such as beauty, value and taste through an invitation of a different kind of apprehension and consumption. Camp is a way of deliberately exploiting the mainstream discourse to undermine it/critique it through ridicule. Camp is all about context – it’s clever. Sometimes too clever. Camp started way back with Oscar Wilde (according to Sontag) and hopefully, will be a subliminal way to invert the ‘normal’ even after we die. Quite frankly, I will always stand by and in the political camp called CAMP. As Christopher Isherwood said best, “You can’t camp about something you don’t take seriously. You’re not making fun of it; you’re making fun out of it.”
By now I am sure you are wondering what this long winded detour into my academic past has to do with a fashion blog. Simple. Christopher Lee Sauvé Tees. They are camp. If you don’t get it – then don’t buy them. But maybe this isn’t the fight you shouldn’t be having to make a political change. And maybe it’s time to learn about the politics of Camp. And maybe it’s time us gays stopped mainstreaming so much that we dilute the power of Camp. As Sinead O’Connor would say ” Fight the Real Enemy”. Can I get an AMEN! (And if you missed all those camp references, like you have in Sauvé’s artwork – “look it up”)
Editors note: Hudson Bay bowed to a few outcries through Twitter and has pulled this T-Shirt from stores and online.