The Fashion Fantasy
THE STORY GOES that before becoming enlightened, the Buddha was a young noble in ancient India, free from suffering in his palace, indulging in all kinds of princely pleasures, adorned in gilded dreams. But one day, as he ventured out from the palace gates, he confronted the unavoidable truths of existence: a sick person, an old person, and a corpse. For all his years, the young prince had managed to deny the fate of all life—sickness, aging, and death—and the encounters became messengers to the young prince.
This well-known story reveals how the untrained mind is in a continuous denial of our approaching demise. Our mind keeps itself busy and is always hunting pleasure in order to dismiss that we will all eventually get sick or experience disease, that it is a natural and unavoidable process that we age, and that everybody dies.
Fashion sells us the cure—or at least a Band-Aid. It veils existence in seductive and ephemeral allure, effectively hiding these inescapable facts from our attention.
There is no sickness in fashion, only ideal healthy bodies of radiant complexion. There is no aging or sagging skin, only an ever-recurrent celebration of eternal youth. And there is no death, only the continuous flow of new seasons and collections. The sales are quickly over, and garments that no longer spark joy are doomed to the shallow graves of the dump or sent to the incinerators of sentimental values.
It is no wonder we look to fashion for alleviation. We feel that fashion can give us what we need. We can be beautiful. We can be seen. We can be popular.
