framework
[the magnetic myths of caged consumerism]

Imagine a wire shopping basket, the type you see in the top right-hand corner when browsing online. Have you ever considered its resemblance to a cage? An open-ended one, I must add, but still a cage. Open-ended cages we, as consumers, are somehow trapped in, whether we acknowledge it or not. This sparked my curiosity: why is it that we don’t escape it? Because, as mentioned, it’s open-ended, therefore not tying us down. Through research, I became aware of the role of language in all this and the linguistic austerity by which we seem to be raised. As for my research, that meant taking a closer look at the repercussions of language on the act of dress, specifically its effect on fashion as an embodied practice. 

Overall, language is considered rational. Not to mention, the language used within fashion already tends to leave little room for interpretation. It’s considered factual when, essentially, it concerns mythology. Myths that we as consumers consider truthful. Their thought-out language is pungent yet somehow soft to the touch of our being. Magnetic. Gently steering us into a one-way street of perception. By inserting small moments of repulsion - in which we may distance ourselves from the fashion industry, not wanting to be associated with it – the industry has developed a strategy, a mechanism to give us the impression that we do have a sense of agency. However, exactly at that point, when we tend to feel ‘self-sufficient’, the fashion system will strike again, luring us back in by the attractiveness of a myth of some kind. A myth consisting of linguistic signs that will then engrain themselves within the tissue of our being. Which leaves us with a fixed idea of what’s the done thing. Paralysed in TIME and SPACE, all credits to fashion’s LANGUAGE.

Caged in by what I identify as ‘magnetic myths’ – generally rooted in a normative understanding of LANGUAGE, as well as TIME and SPACE – many find themselves unknowingly trapped within a ‘consumer cage’. Intrigued by this ambiguity, I wanted to unravel and retrace the mechanism behind such myths. It is these fashion myths, constructed by and in favour of the fashion industry, that act as gatekeepers of this caged consumerism.   

    imagine this shopping basket
    an open-ended cage
    yet still trapped

Trapped by the vast magnetic field of these ‘fashion myths’, stitched together by norms taught and passed down to us through language. The narrative of our lives is seemingly spelt out for us. Which, ultimately, deprives us of a more embodied experience. Garments which are physically so close, yet mentally so far removed. And so, it seems about time to re-curate the TIME [memory], SPACE [movement] and LANGUAGE of fashion to get back in touch with a more embodied fashion experience.


email ... instagram ... substack ... 2026