When we consider capitalism in the visual sense there is no one symbol that comes to mind. Individually the monetary sign of each country might be envisioned - the £ and the $ certainly are images that we might connect with capitalism - but perhaps we are missing something. For it occurs to me, when I walk through London at a quarter past five on a weekday, that it is the suit that truly represents this particular political system. The suit is the uniform of capitalism. A spurious claim? Perhaps, but it is a type of clothing that has grown up with the system, maintaining a hierachy that sits hand in hand with right wing politics and our current class system.
The suit was conceived of for the first time by a group of young men that we refer to as Dandies. Dandyism found its place primarily in nineteenth century France shortly after the Revolution. As the class stucture changed the population found their access to society papers on fashion was limited and thus the upper and middle classes began to wear working trousers. The Dandies abandoned breeches in favour of these simpler clothes but did so with a marked elegance and the trend carried across the water to England. Beau Brummell was one of the first and most notorious to adopt the fashion in Britain, like Charles Baudelaire he was a key figure in the trend and consistently wore the trousers, waistcoat and jacket that we would visually identify as a suit. This mode of dress was adopted throughout the early to mid nineteenth century and slowly it became commonplace. The suit was a phenomenon of the middle classes, as they gained power they exhibited a new and utilitarian dress that symbolised their status. Consumerism emerged, coupled with a new way to buy, arcades sprung up and the notion of window shopping was conceived. Modern capitalism became the next big thing. The middle classes adopted consumer culture and the suit together, creating the right wing uniform of the occident.
This uniform is now very much in evidence. In 2004 there are many different types of suit to be had for your money. At the bottom end of the market there are high street department stores like BHS which sell one basic design in a variety of colours and measurements. Then for an increase in price the market expands to include stores that are dedicated to selling you a suit such as T.M. Lewin. These are the types of shops that you can step in to and try on a suit from the rack. At the other end of the chain of suit supremacy are individual tailors and above them, designers like Armani who provide ready to wear facilities and made to measure suits. All of these outlets supply you with very different pieces of clothing but it is important to recognise that they are all locked in to a fashion hierachy that is the very best example of simple capitalism. The suit is to fashion a perfect example of a class system.
It is generally accepted that as the industrial revolution and revolutionary politics coincided with one another female dress was left behind. While this is somewhat simplistic there was certainly a great difference in the type of clothing that men and women were wearing. From the early nineteenth century to the First World War the intentions behind the design of male and female clothes were remarkably contrary. Middle class women did not work, for a great proportion of the century they were fundamentally considered property and the middle classes were beginning to take a dominant role in British society. While this inconsistency was finally being addressed Communist Russia, a very different society had a number of artists who actively rejected this hierachy. Alexsandr Rodchenko and his wife Varvara Stepanova believed that the sanctity of handmade clothing needed to be rejected. They put great faith in mass production as a force that would create equality and they renounced the suit for these very reasons.
Today the British have a lack of left wing political representation. The potential for such a thing is making itself known, yet Respect and the Green Party continue to exist on the fringes of the political system. I would suggest that we can ascertain from the history of the suit that the left has been partly destroyed through an inadvertent campaign of visual disruption. For 150 years respectability has been defined by dress and the suit has been respectable, but it is a garment that has its roots in the right wing. The suit is symptomatic of capitalism: it laid its foundation of respectability in the rise of industrialism and more specifically middle class power. It is a conservative tool that appeals to the lower classes through that which it symbolises. How then can the left wing maintain any power when wearing a symbol of its antithesis? How can it even begin to gain power? It would seem that the suit cannot be subverted. All possible forms of subversion have been adopted: pins on the lapels, bright and vivid colours, the coupling of a jacket and a pair of jeans, designs pasted on to the material by subcultures that attempt to be apolitical. The only option appears to be the discovery of a new form of clothing, a symbol that belongs to the left that is as respectable and as powerful as the suit. Until a radical new form of visual symbolism is discovered, the right wing will again dictate the terms of visual discourse, and the dominance of capitalist, consumer culture will continue.
