Creativity in the Political Economy (Reading Response)

Nielsen’s piece “Handmaidens of the Glamour Culture” and Andrew Ross’s collection of essays on garment workers and sweatshops generate the sort of productive anger that I think is essential to academic work that aims at social change. Somehow, despite our progressive awareness of the economies of slavery and exploitative labor practices, the types of examinations Nielsen and Ross engage in never fail to infuriate (and hopefully politicize). It seems clear that analyzing the division of labor in these practices is conducive to the Marxist project – the obliteration of labor from the final fantasy, the alienation of the worker from the finished product, validation of exploitation via myths of personal work ethic and integrity of labor, etc. Ross asserts that the tradition of sweatshops in the garment industry has always paid allegiance to “a three-tier system of small producers.” Meanwhile, Nielsen goes to great lengths to delineate the hierarchy of labor (in Hollywood movie studios), only to ultimately suggest that while the segmentation of workers into specific tiers of expertise complicates simplistic binaries, the Marxist logic of proletariat-owners still holds. Crystallized bureaucracies, as evident in contract agreements that cement roles of laborers, are deliberately rigid, ultimately prohibiting growth and innovation. Assumingly, what this segmentation also accomplishes is the fracturing of potential labor coalition. Nielsen talks about African Americans being employed in predominantly specialty shops as a result of discriminatory hiring practices. Solidarity among workers then works only to the extent that racial exclusion is possible. Furthermore, Steve Nutter, in his essay (in “No Sweat”) on the LA garment industry breaks down expertise by racial identification. But these fragmentations are also layered with class, gender, and age (post-feminist disassociation) politics. True to the Marxist method, both Nielsen and Ross’s contributors look to the political economy to explore how domestic deregulation and rapid globalization (usually, as a result of even the slightest hint of potential regulation, as was the case for Guess) undermine the labor movement.
My point in unpacking the Marxist project with regard to labor in the fashion industry is to suggest that this methodological lens is simply not enough to facilitate the kind of social change that these authors are (admirably) shooting for. It occurred to me that perhaps considering the life of the creative cycle (rather than only the manufacturing) would be another productive point of intervention. In other words, where is the site of creativity? And – because I’m convinced that it is neither stable nor residing only at the top of the food chain – how is aesthetic innovation harnessed through the division of labor? What critical lens is necessary to interrogate the flow and temporary hubs of creativity in fashion manufacture?
To be fair, Nielsen tries her hand at “creativity,” but her version is “synonymous with resourcefulness.” While this is a completely valid component of creative production, I’m proposing to look at aesthetic innovation. Robin Givhan’s essay on “ugly chic” (in “No Sweat”) is more in line with the notion of interrogating aesthetic innovation. She looks specifically at designers’ (violent) appropriation of poverty, homelessness and perhaps even drug use to create a sort of “ugly” aesthetic (poor-boy and poor-girl chic). What is rendered as “exotic poverty,” deliberately paired for obvious incongruence, on the runway is an inescapable material reality for most of the world’s population. She concludes that this branding of poverty (much like the branding of race, girl power, and class consciousness) not only de-politicizes the actual struggles of these constructs but also works to reveal that fashionable edge often relies on “the poor, resourceful masses.” While this abstraction is certainly important, it seems clear that not only is Marc Jacobs pilfering from the poverty-stricken and globalized masses, but from the exact same workers employed in his sweatshops (figuratively speaking – I don’t know for sure that he has sweatshops). Yes, designers are “mocking global poverty,” but more pointedly, they are appropriating the creativity of their very own workers. These practices, coupled with Howard Becker’s examination of the collectivity of artistic innovation (I’m thinking of his book “Art Worlds”) are, I think, instructive in beginning to examine the life of creativity in the processes of the fashion industry.