Interpretations of Love and its Function in the Fashion System

Looking at mythology as a set of metaphorical stories that are utilized to reduce complex concepts that are beyond the understanding of the common folks can uncover a lot about human nature. Within each of us lies a collection of the classical stories' themes.

In Plato’s Symposium, the playwright Aristophanes offers an imaginative and mythological view of the concept of love (Eros). He goes as far as suggesting that humans were once four-armed, but let’s leave that part out for now. The essence of Aristophanes’s opinion on the origins of love is that humans were dual, akin to gods, comprising both masculine and feminine attributes. According to Aristophanes, humans once tried to challenge gods, and in return, Zeus weakened and divided them into two separate beings that were unable to merge. He goes on to suggest that for this reason, humans experience an unstoppable desire to find their other halves, presumably in the opposite sex.

Plato’s real-life teacher, Socrates, argues that one’s understanding of love can evolve with time and has to do with the desire to reach the eternal. According to Diotima, who serves as Socrates’s mentor in the realm of love, humans are instinctively looking to produce offspring and reach some kind of immortality through reproduction. Socrates also points out that Diotima suggests the highest form of love is the love of wisdom, and Eros acts as a mediator in guiding the individual toward the divine. These ideas align well with Aristophanes’s standpoint, as they all suggest a longing for the eternal.

There are at least seven different interpretations of love showcased in the symposium and countless interpretations in the modern world. Suggesting that love is somewhat indescribable would not be too far off, but there have been attempts to categorize forms of love, and the capitalist system has been designed to deprive the individual of the true forms of love by replacing it with the idea of sympathy, contrasted with apathy. This way the capitalists can exploit the true forms of love for themselves and capitalize on their ideas, creating a strong cycle of trends. In a way, the system has replaced the idea of love, which could be contrasted with fear, with sympathy, which is contrasted with apathy.

The fashion industry plays an important role in marketing these feelings, sugar-coated as love by the capitalist system. The capitalist system pays very little attention to interpersonal relations in general as it is focused on profit. High fashion, a heavily capitalized sector, relies on shows and aesthetics in general to pass on a message. By reading different brands’ shows and collections, we might be able to tell how they view the phenomenon of love and their motives in doing what they do. While some brands might be fighting to provide human beings with the truth, some might be trying to deprive them of it so the system can live on.