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in the a rc h a ic T he punishm ents of hell are in every case the new est th a t exists in this realm . 87 T h e im age of m odernity as the tim e o f H ell
[ . . . ] deals not with the fact that always the same thing happens (a forteriori this is not about eternal recurrence) but the fact that on the face of that oversized head called earth precisely what is newest doesnt change; that this newest in all its pieces keeps remaining the same. It constitutes the eternity of Hell and its sadistic craving for innovation. To determine the totality of features in which this modernity imprints itself would mean to represent Hell.88

Fashion
In th e im age o f H ell as a configuration o f repetition, novelty, and d eath, B enjam in opened up to philosophical understanding the phenom enon o f fashion th at is specific to capitalist m odernity.89 A m etaphysics o f fashion was planned for the Passagen-Werk,90 and the early notes describe along w hat lines it was to be conceived. Not only is fashion the m odern m easure of tim e 91; it em bodies the changed relationship betw een subject and object th a t results from th e new n a tu re o f com m odity production. In fashion, the p h a n tasm agoria of com m odities presses closest to the skin. Now clothing is quite literally a t the borderline between subject and object, the individual and the cosmos. Its positioning surely accounts for its em blem atic significance throughout history. In the M iddle Ages, the p ro p e r attire was th at which bore the im print of the social order: Cosmetics were a reflection of a divinely ordered cosmos, an d a sign of ones position w ithin it.92 O f course, class position was then as static as the n ature in w hich hum an beings saw their ow n lives reflected: A ccident o f b irth determ ined ones social situation; the latter, in tu rn , determ ined ones probabilities of death. At 'a tim e w hen such historical m ediations of biology were accepted as fate, styles in clothing reinforced the social hierarchy by reiteratin g it. A gainst this background, the positive m om ent of m odern fashion stands out clearly. Its constant striving for novelty , for separation from the given, identifies generational cohorts, whose dress symbolizes an end to the dependency and n atu ra l determ inacy o f childhood, and entry into their own collective role as historical actors. Interpreted affirmatively, m odem fashion is

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irreverent tow ard tradition, celebratory o f youth ra th e r th an social class, and thus em blem atic o f social change. T he Passagen-Werk tells us th at fashion spread to the lower classes in the nineteenth century. 1844: cotton cloth replaces brocades, satin s. . .a n d soon, thanks to the revolutionary spirit [of 1789], the attire of the lower classes becomes m ore com fortable an d m ore attractive to see. 93 A plebian ch aracter o f attire itself becam e fashionable.94 For wom en specifically, changes in fashion were a visible in d icato r of new social freedom . B enjam in cites this 1873 text:
The triumph of the bourgeoisie modifies female attire. Dress and hair style become wider. . . the shoulders are broadened by mutton sleeves [. . . I]t wasnt long before hoops came back into fashion and bouffant skirts were made. Thus attired, women appeared destined for a sedentary life inside the family, because their mode of dress had nothing that gave the idea of movement or appeared to favor it. This turned about totally with the arrival of the Second Empire. The bonds of the family loosened, an ever-growing luxury corrupted morals [. . .]. Dress for the woman thus changed from head to foot. . . The hoop was drawn back and brought together in an accentuated bustle. Everything possible was developed to prevent the woman from sitting; everything that made it difficult for her to walk was eliminated. She wore her hair and dressed as if to be seen from the side. Indeed, the profile is the silhouette of a person. . . who passes by, who escapes us.95

A t some tim es B enjam in describes fashions as predictive o f h istorical change,96 b u t at others (increasingly in the 1930s) he reads fashion for an explanation as to why it has not.97 In the 1935 expose B enjam in rem arks: Fashion prescribed the ritu al by w hich the fetish com m odity w ished to be w orshiped. 98 T h a t ritu al could not have been m ore distinct from those tradition-bound rites o f holidays and seasonal celebrations by which the old n atu re h ad been revered, m arking the recu rren t life cycles of organic n atu re. T h e spring rites o f fashion celebrated novelty ra th e r th an recurrence; they required, not rem em brance, b u t obliviousness to even the m ost recent p ast. In the H ades o f G reek and R om an m ythology, the river L ethe caused those who drank of its w aters to forget their form er life. T h e effect on collective historical m em ory o f satisfying the thirst for novelty through fashion was not otherw ise.99 Fashions are the m edicam ent th at is to com pensate for the fateful effects o f forgetting, on a collective scale. 100

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Reified in com m odities, the utopian prom ise o f fashions transitoriness undergoes a dialectical reversal: T h e living, hum an capacity for change and infinite variation becomes alienated, and is affirmed only as a quality of the inorganic object. In contrast, the ideal for hum an subjects (urged into rigorous conformity to fashions d ictates)101 becomes the biological rigor m ortis o f eternal youth. I t is for this th at the com m odity is w orshiped-in a ritual th at is, of course, destined to fail. V alry speaks of the absurd superstition o f the new . 102 B enjam in m akes us see it, in revealing the logic o f m odernity as th e tim e of H ell :
How, namely, this time doesnt want to know death, also how fashion mocks death, how the acceleration of traffic, the tempo of communicating information whereby newspaper editions supersede each other, aim precisely at the elimination of all sudden endings, and how death as an incision is connected with all straight courses of divine time.103

Sterility
W om an is the central figure in B enjam ins m etaphysics of fashion, not only because Paris was the capital of specifically female fashions,104 bu t because w om ens fecundity personifies the creativity of the old nature, the transiency o f which has its source in life ra th e r than death. W om ens productivity, organic in contrast to the m echanical productivity of nineteenth-century industrialism , appears threaten ing to capitalist society, as M althus argued at the beginning of the century, and as aesthetic style represented at its end: T h e high point of a technical arrangem ent of the w orld lies in the liquidation of fecundity. T h e ideal beauty of Jugendstil is represented by the frigid w om an. Jugendstil sees in every w om an not H elena b u t O lym pia. 105 B ut if w om ans fecundity threatens com m odity society, th e cult of the new threatens her in tu rn . D eath and decay, no longer simply a p a rt of organic life, are throw n up at the w om an as a special punishm ent or fate. H e r continuous effort to be b eautiful 106 is rem iniscent of the repetitive punishm ent of H ell. F rom the weakness o f w om ens social position 10' arises the ex trao rd in ary appeal to h er of fashion. Being everyones contem porary 108 m eans never grow ing old; always being new sw orthy th at is the m ost passionate and m ost secret satis-

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4.6 Fashionable people represented in public by their accoutrements Grandville, 1844.

faction w hich fashion gives to w om en. 109 But fashion does not change the social reality th a t transform ed w om ens biological potency into a weakness in the first p lace,110 and sees even the living flower as an em blem of sin. 111 W ith the sm allest v ariatio n s,112 fashion covers up reality. Like H a u ssm a n n s urb an renew al, it rearranges the given, m erely sym bolizing historical change, ra th e r th a n ushering it in. In the process o f displacing n a tu re s transiency onto com m odities, th e life force of sexuality is displaced there as well. For w h a t is it th at is desired? No longer the hum an being: Sex appeal em anates from the clothes th a t one wears (figure 4 .6 113). H u m an ity is w h a t you han g your h a t on. In a m acabre inversion o f the uto p ian dream o f a reconciliation betw een hum anity an d nature, fashion invents an artificial h u m an ity . m Clothes m im ic organic n ature (sleeves resem ble penguin w ings115; fruit an d flowers ap p ear as h air o rn am en ts116; fishbones decorate hats, and feathers ap p ear not only here, b u t on evening pum ps, and u m brellas117), w hereas the living, h u m an body mimics the inorganic world (skin strives through cosm etics to

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a ttain the color o f rose taffeta118; crinoline skirts tu rn w om en into triangles or X s, 119 or walking bells ) . 120

Death
B irth, w rites Benjam in, is a n a tu ra l condition, d eath is a social o n e.121 Fashion is the transcendence [Aujhebung] o f the form er as a new source of newness; it transcends the latter by m aking the inorganic com m odity itself the object of hum an d esire.122 Fashion is the m edium th at lures [sex] ever deeper into the inorganic w orld the realm of dead things. 123 It is the dialectical switching station betw een w om an and com m odity desire and dead body. 124 W ith its power to direct libidinal desire onto inorganic natu re, fashion connects com m odity fetishism with th a t sexual fetishism characteristic of m odern eroticism , which lowers the barriers between the organic and inorganic w orld. 125 J u s t as the m uch-adm ired m annequin has detachable p a rts ,126 so fashion encourages the fetishistic fragm entation of the living b o d y .127 T h e m odern w om an who allies herself w ith fashions newness in a struggle against n atu ra l decay represses her own productive pow er, mimics the m an n eq u in ,128 an d enters history as a dead object, a gaily decked-out corpse. 129 Fashion prostitutes the living body to the inorganic w orld, 130 at the m om ent when p ro stitutes them selves begin to rely on the com m odity appeal of fashionable dress, selling their living bodies as a thing.131 For fashion was never anything but the parody of the gaily decked-out corpse, the provocation of death through the woman, and (in between noisy, canned slogans) the bitter, whispered tte--tte with decay. That is fashion. For this reason she changes so rapidly, teasing death, already becoming something else again, something new, as death looks about for her in order to strike her down. She has given him tit for tat for a hundred years. Now finally she is ready to leave the field. But on the shore of a new Lethe that rolls its asphalt stream through the arcades, he sets up the armature of prostitutes as trophy.132 Aging prostitutes who collect in th e arcades along w ith th e other o u td ated objects of desire are clues to the tru th s of fashion that, tu rn in g the body into a sexual com m odity, knows to escape from d eath only by m im icking it.