Aurel Kolnai observed that hierarchy is ineliminable from our moral psychology, and since hierarchy is also manifested in privilege, certain aristocratic tones in our shared life are ineradicable.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that the passing of Karl Lagerfeld has seen him cast as an aristocrat, a Baroque glittering returning us to the salons of monarchical, pre-Revolutionary France. This piece is a perfect example of fashion’s lust for hierarchy: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/people/karl-lagerfeld-his-spirit-is-everywhere?
Recall, all this love of monarchy in fashion pages otherwise typically in a frenzy of progressivism, equality, diversity, and universal benevolence. And here is another example, with Uniqlo’s turn to the aristocratic for fashion pointers: https://www.vogue.com/article/uniqlo-jw-anderson-spring-2019-third-collaboration-interview
Not only would Kolnai be unsurprised (V&R, Chapter 7), but Jacques Lacan, too. Fashion mines the point of contact between the imaginary and the symbolic. Egalitarian progressivism is the imaginary — the congratulatory self, the “holier-than-thou” self — but the symbolic — the site of multiple aggressions and co-ordinates of power — is bound to assert itself. Lagerfeld’s death has allowed fashion to welcome its own repudiation (what Lacan called jouissance).
