It has not been since yesterday that fashion has been a show, in every sense. Cinema and television have always been interested in this world that has, let’s face it, its charm, also because it offers infinite points of view from which to watch and tell about it.
Documentaries on designers, films and TV series, talent shows which, with the advent of streaming platforms, have become increasingly numerous and diversified.
On 1 April last, ”Worn stories’ aired on Netflix, an eight-episode docu-mini-series created by the platform itself and based on the best sellers of Emily Spivack, the American artist and writer, who since 2014 has been collecting stories about the meaning that clothes have in our lives.
Spivack has collected over 60 stories in a book, both of famous people and ordinary people who tell their ties to certain clothes, from the ex-prisoner who after 40 years in prison goes to buy a plaid shirt and says “Dressed like this I’m a free man ” to the non-binary teenager looking for the perfect outfit for his / her B’Nai Mitzvah.
The Netflix series focuses only on the stories of ordinary people and how in a dress or accessory they find their identity; these are diametrically opposed stories and people but all united by the value they attribute to what they wear, therefore not from a trend or status symbol point of view, not to a garment because of luxury or fast fashion but for the importance that dresses for its owner and is therefore kept forever in the closet.
It is a bit like the concept of ‘Loved Clothes Last‘, the book by Orsola de Castro I talked about recently and in general the idea of the dress as a home, in which we decide to live, revealing ourselves and hiding together to the looks of others. It is no coincidence that the first story of the series concerns a couple of nudists who admit they are comfortable without clothes on … makes us think about how, each of us, has its parameters and how it is all relative, subjective based on character , personality, experience but also, yes, culture and background.
And therefore fashion is a serious thing and also intimate and profound and has to do with experiences, memories, stories. It is part of us, of our lives and accompanies us until the last day and even beyond, since even when we are dead, we usually have to be fully dressed (and there are those who also leave written with which dress).
