Fashion Symbols with Aynura Maye

Bringing together the opposites

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Rise of New Fashion Breed: Gamefluencers

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Sorry skateboard culture, a new generation is in rise – the digital, online, click happy, above all indoor (!) generation. Oh, and the instainfluencers, there is a bad news for you too, time to cede the crown to the gamefluencers.

NOTE: This article was written in the summer of 2019, following Paris Fashion Week. It was deemed not correct or irrelevant by the fashion experts then. Very much embarrassed and confused, I hid it under files and archives, dusting it off only now. It’s a very relevant and unfolding horizon now for high/luxury fashion.

Italians famously “dabbed” when Milan got to host 2026 winter Olympics games. I bet they would do some “floss dancing” too but that is a hard one to master. Probably, it seems unrelated why I talk about dabbing and floss dancing while I am supposed to talk about the future of fashion. I am coming there.

Almost in that same week we observed stylistically highly blurred men’s fashion on the runways in Paris. The conclusion was easy to reach – we are about to have new breed of male shoppers who I will call “man a la moda”. I expect, high fashion will soon flood Instagram, immobilize the army of Instainfluencers to knead this “new type of voguish man”. Note to self, the streetstyle lover millennials were the exact consumer segment that pushed high fashion to bend its rules to lift the trend from streets into its runways (a.k.a skateboarding culture of Virgil Abloh) and painfully redefine its position between exclusivity and accessibility.

However, fashion houses are overlooking two major points – First, male millennials may liken to the idea of shopping along with their female buddies but they are not and will not be native “men a la mode”. By the time they go through psychological transformation, these engaging millennials will AGE out of target margin. It’s the next generation in line who is in capacity to be the native “man a la mode”. The second major point is related to the first one – if the next generation could be native voguish man – who are they? Do they relate to the outdoor inspired skateboarding culture? Are they Instaaddicted like their millenials predecessors?   

Here, I’ll refer to the first paragraph about dabbing and floss dancing – the characteristic moves or elements of the next generation in line that is growing up in a totally different reality. The humorous moves of this generation already charmed beyond millennials, the somber boomers to the point to be the signature move at Milan.  Before we know it, the z-gen and alpha generation, basically, dabbing and floss dancing school kids will make up a new consumer generation as they evolve into a whole new online culture that is alien to us that will mark the imminent change for fashion. The digital, online, click happy, above all indoor generation.

The increasing preference to stay “indoors” rather than go out to interact with the immediate outside world has seen the rise and reliance on online communities rather than a physical group of friends. This is the first sign of a potential shift in taste and consumer behavior. In these liquid times, what platforms does this generation turn to, to gather and create communities?

Apparently, these kids are too young to be on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. Traditional platforms like TV, radio and print media can also be excluded as “relics of dinosaur age”. Ironically it’s clear then that YouTube and gaming platforms are where these kids socialize, build their communities and learn about the world.

This is the generation that will disrupt the tendencies and trends in streetwear styles as they will become obsolete in creating a new visual, stylistic and collective cultural identity. In its place youth culture will be influenced and shaped by online culture which will trickle down and be reflected in fashion and very different celebrity/influencer landscape.

Talking about the celebrity/influencer landscape – this is where soon major changes will start to take shape. The parallel reality that these kids have built is a whole new, agile and fast world that incorporates and builds on trending themes so effortlessly. Anything “trending” no matter in which platform gets integrated smoothly in a world dominated by three major players – Minecraft, Roblox and Minecraft gaming platforms.

What’s more is these platforms gave rise to a new type of idol– Youtube gamers, who record their gaming sessions and upload on their Youtube channels – these new sorts of stars range from some highly prolific gaming-turned musician Youtubers to strictly gaming Youtubers – from famously infamous Phewdiepie to Denise daily – gamefluencers. I am not judging the moral side of next generation growing up at the gaming platforms, just penning down my neutral observations.

This is not all – another type is the Youtube born musicians like Marshmellow and Alan Walker. I am not talking about numbers and stats – I am talking about their immense and decisive influence on rising pop culture. Musicians from my era– such as Shakira even Justin Bieber have millions of subscribers and views. But judging the taste and aspirations of z-gen and alpha kids, those numbers mean nothing. They are not the celebrities and stars that excite this new generation. These new sort of stars are quick to rise to stardom and will soon fight for the celebrity crown. What will make this fight harder for our Titan Instagram influencers is the flexibility and agility of new stars to pick on what is trending and incorporate or assimilate with ease to appeal to the interests and aspirations of the very tender and porous z and alpha generations. Evidently we are talking about another level of democratization. But just like in the case of Instagram – the early adopters will be a step ahead. Shall we get to see Minecraft, Roblox and Fortnite themes somehow make their way to the runways in Paris and Milan? What would be possible ways of collaboration with the new breed of celebrities and gamefluencers? What tactics high fashion would use to redefine its position between exclusivity and obsessions of the indoor culture? I am just curious.

This article was written in the summer of 2019 and deemed not correct or irrelevant by the fashion experts.

It’s In The Details – #PFW

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With so much uncertainty around, I’ve got bored with myself and decided to have some fun. So, I’ve gone thru the shows of the Paris Fashion Week (literally, all of the shows of the PFW and I need slice of cucumbers for my eyes now) and put together ten details that stayed with me. It wasn’t an easy task, I should say. On a good side, as a detail-oriented person, I normally tend to forget the big picture and focus on insignificant details. And I think it worked well this time. To me, PFW is the only fashion week when the designers unleash their fantasies. Always too many and too elaborate details to watch for. Below are just ten of the details that I super-filtered after marathon watching all of the shows.

10. Balmain

Shoulders! No need for more words.
Featured only partly here, but that biker suit combo is awesome too!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF2TMgBg2Yr/

9. Giambattista Valli

I’ve laid my eyes on that hair detail…. and eyes too (also those disappeared eyebrows for that matter!) This is “Pretty” as it was called.

8. Andrew GN

You see that little fan-like accessory? Well, it is a fan. Do not be fooled by its innocent look. It can be more dangerous than a sword. Never joke with fan. Never EVER fool around with a woman that carries a fan!

7. Kenzo

Can you spot the detail? The major detail? Yes, right, that is what I mean. The must-have of 2020.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CF2iuFYli1U/

6. Anton Belinskiy

May there be light! ALWAYS!

5. Givenchy

Givenchy grew horns with Matthew Williams. Literally! Joke aside, I think, this one will hit it off despite mixed reviews by fashion journalists. As much as I loved Clare Waight Keller, I feel that this one will reach its consumer in target. Oh, almost forgot, Matthew Williams explains his collection as “it’s about finding humanity in luxury” – that made me think… about how luxury is perceived by non-consumers. And those horns didn’t look weird anymore.

4. Louis Viutton

Is it only me or someone else also gets old wooden Russian shoes vibe from these LV shoes? Seriously… Nicolas Ghesquiere, come on man, tell us…. (Wooden Russian shoes below for visual comparison).

These are the Russian wooden shoes I am talking about.

3. Vivienne Westwood

This list wouldn’t be complete without the audacious Vivienne, right? Ok, where shall we start? Maybe from those spooky earrings?

2. Beautiful People

This is almost everybody at some period this year. Just confess. Sum-up of 2020.

1. Schiaparelli

The winner of the PFW SS21 is doubtless Schiaparelli (to my humble opinon). All the modern day accessories in fantasy glam – let it be that kinda weird mask – the must have accessory of our days or the glasses that come with eyes. What a golden way to watch the world crumble down around us. And the eyes on that bag! I’d install camera behind them inside the bag!

Milan Fashion Week SS21: Thousand Faces of a Dream?

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I wonder whether the fashion has ever been really about fashion. I always thought of the fashion as the mirror of the spirit of its time. Yet, on the last day of the Milan Fashion Week, looking back the previous years, I think fashion means way more. It may also harbinger big social changes yet to occur. As close as three years ago, the runways were all about experimental deconstruction. To a point it was hard to understand what we feel about them. Now, in the midst of social, political, environmental crisis and debilitating pandemic, I, in retrospect, want to allow myself to believe that fashion or designers were heralding this perfect chaos. This crippling predicament that we’ve put out on the face of the world after seasoning it for some years inside the dark alleys of our mind.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFrfag2IHrs/

One may ask, what these thoughts have to do with this week of fashion? Now, going carefully over the shows, I see one major line, one dream. A theme that to my mind, have been replayed and brought to runways and our screens in a thousand different ways. Each house and brand, in its own way, played the idea of going back to roots, home and DNA – the guarantor of serenity and tranquility. In times of unprecedented discord and agitation to feel once again in charge of life to recharge and re-orient. To be able to be hopeful again.

Thousand shapes of one story

Although at first sight unlikely, each of these houses played the same theme in line with their core values. Maybe the most direct take came from Valentino by going back to Italy, its country of birth. Dolce & Gabbana revisited the patchwork tradition of its home, Siciliy with a grotesque set design. Etro, likewise, paid a tribute to its roots in a very Etro-ish colorful presentation. In total contrast to the splash of bright colors, Fendi had its models walk down dreamy, delicate white runway decorated with nostalgic yet kind of romantic white curtains… once again, in a tribute to its family traditions. Luisa Beccari, in a poetic way, dedicated the show to her own family. Holding tight to its DNA, the rule-breaker Missioni was home again. Probably the only house capable of elevating knitwear to high fashion and extending it into home and lifestyle, Missioni reversed seasons, revealing autumn-winter collection (to me, rightfully). Armani, who rose and shone with fabrics, went back to roots in his own way. We’d just witnessed a showcase of fabrics of almost ambrosial taste. Versace, born out of the instinctual lust and subterranean carnal desires was back in chthonic land of the Gorgons. Prada occupied itself with “a fundamental examination of the meaning of Prada”. Moschino outdid itself with its already viral doll show in quest of reinventing its DNA of playfulness. Even an emerging brand, Act-1, which is born out of bottomless doubts and identity crisis once more considered this dreadful theme against the staggering reality we live now.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFprTTwhmzZ/

More Earth Colors, More Flowers

What I am writing next may sound bizarre. Maybe it’s kind of bizarre. Fashion houses, regardless their story of inspiration, have seriously resorted to the Earth Colors. This palette, besides being a bare testimony of us painfully and slowly waking up to our prejudices, has a distinct meaning. Starting from the milkiest beige tone to the dark brown the earth colors symbolize the Earth, the mother earth, the mother, the safe harbor. Resorting to this color palette, to me, says a lot about our state of mind. To this train of thought we can easily add green color (Mother Nature), and flower details.  

When the drives behind manifestations are studied, really the pieces of the puzzle come together – the cry of our soul to feel safe again expressed in so many different ways and colors. The stories of inspiration revolved around what we long for – returning home, roots, family or brand DNA. To bath in the unfailing serenity and tranquility to recharge and re-orient.

The Mother Archetype I – The Great Mother

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The series of the Mother Archetype was published on social media first, namely, at my Instagram and facebook accounts where I post more frequently. Now, with few edits, I am publishing it here too. I’ll keep the number and lengths of the posts about the same. Let’s begin!

Tabula Rasa?

For a long time, scholars kept debating whether we are born as white papers (I mean our brains). Then some smart people started to suspect that our brain is capable of creating its own reality. Long debates of rhetoric revolved around the topic. Then psychoanalysts came along and took a more pragmatic position based on, let’s say, the data they collected from patients, or putting it less fancy, they summed up repetitive cases they have observed in their patients. One of them was Carl Gustav Jung, who suggested that when we are born, our body doesn’t have an animal shape. We do not look like clouds either. We have a definite shape that long history has formed. How come, this same thing didn’t happen inside our head? The same formation process must have taken place there too. He dedicated his whole life to the study of the structure of our psyche and reached some conclusions.

The Archetypes

According to his conclusions, our psyche has a structure – randomly organized crystal-form like boxes, or honeycomb. These boxes hold information based on feelings and feeling-toned thoughts. So, attention to the feeling toned thoughts or clouds of associated thoughts, which means they do not function the way we do in our waking life – no reason and no logic in there. He called them Archetypes. They are the ones that produce cryptic symbols, or primordial images as he sometimes called (this reminds me of the movie Da Vinci code). He even went further to say that we actually live in there and project everything to the outer world. Actually, these crystal form structures are powerful sources of energy. Apparently, one of these Archetypes is the Great Mother.

The Great Mother

Did we say that the feeling association is what keeps the information together inside those boxes? Anything that is associated with Containing, Nourishing and Safe Nest (keywords) activates the primordial image of Mother and we automatically project the Mother Archetype on that object. Now, the first object this archetype gets projected on is obviously actual Mother. Along the years as we grow up, get old and move towards the inevitable destination – the death, the projected objects of this Archetype change too.

Also read: The Unconscious – The Great Mother

Yet, I’d like to make an important projection that is ever present regardless which period of life we are at. The totality of psyche (or the unconscious) is like home (nest) to our rational mind that we’ve developed in the later years of evolution. So the psyche is like “mother” to this “new kid”. In times when our conscious ego faces difficulties in physical life (or the outer world), it craves to turn back home, to the unconscious depth, from where it “was born”. Do we repeat the same pattern in life? Yes, when we face hardships in life, we crave to go back to the carefree childhood or return to cozy home. Oops, we just did very common projection.

A recent claim of neuroscientist David Eaglemann that there is no smell, no sound and no color around us, we live in a pseudo reality translated to us by a skull-bound three pounds jelly matter called brain gave more scientific support to Jung’s suggestions.

I’ll stop here before going off-topic. We’ll talk about the Mother Archetype and its influence on sons in the following post.

Read other posts of the series:
Mother Archetype II – Son Lover of the Mother Goddess
Mother Archetype III – Don Juanism
Mother Archetype IV – Homosexuality and Impotence
Mother Archetype V – Exaggerated Maternal Instinct
Mother Archetype VI – Home-wrecker with a mission
Mother Archetype VII – Daughter in Shadow
Mother Archetype VIII – Mom Hater
Mother Archetype IX – Part Human, Part Supernatural
other Archetype X – Motherland
Mother Archetype XI – Teenage Crisis – Libido
Mother Archetype XII – Incest: Problem or Solution?

Photo: Pixabay.com, Gerd Altmann

Act-N1 – Daring youth on the runway – Story told through the rhythm of fashion, flair, shapes and colors

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When I started to plan my first-ever visit to the Milan Fashion Week, I was especially careful about the first days of the week not to miss the show of Act-n1, which was on the official calendar. This novice brand is making its first strides in the complex avenues of fashion industry and this would be their second show. Its founders made headlines last year as emerging talents when they won “Who’s on next?” – a contest organized by Altaroma in collaboration with Vogue Talents. These two talented enthusiasts come from different and distant cultures to synthesize their cultural heritage, childhood memories and cherished values into a story told through the rhythm of fashion, flair, shapes and colors. Precisely, one is Galib Gassanoff, from my land, Azerbaijan and the other Luca Lin, from China. Who would think fusion of these two cultures would give birth to some real eye-stealing pieces? And it was not all.

Act-N1, RTW, Milan 2019
Photo: NowFashion

When I entered the show venue, in the usual pre-show confusion the first and most prominent thing in sight was mattresses stacked in piles in the central area of the venue. The thing that we like to keep covered, kind of out-of-sight in the most private part of our house under bed sheets and covers were out in display in stacks in the most central part of the venue. Whatever was supposed to be hidden was proudly out in display… My first thought was – ok, get ready for something real deconstructive. Let’s see.

Act-N1, RTW, Milan 2019

Soon the models started to walk along the aisle. Yes, there were lots of deconstructive nuances to the pieces like sweater sewn together with tulle, experimental combination and layers of unmatching fabrics and pieces, but also there were lots of pastel colors, refined textile and romantic details as if the designers attempted to sew together distant memories of childhood – both warm, heartwarming and cold, somehow shattering. The surprise was in the arrangement how the models made their way through the stacks of mattresses…. Sometimes they walked by and around, but sometimes they started to crawl, roll or walk over the mattresses. The way the young designers see how the problems and hurdles along the paths are tackled. This staging was intriguing. In fact, those scenes were among my Instagram stories that received the most mixed responses. In that moment one thinks – isn’t it the purpose of a beautiful show? To trigger mixed emotions and leave spectators in puzzle with mixed feelings?

Act-N1, RTW, backstage Milan 2019

Whoever is somehow related to the fashion industry, knows how hard to it is to enter and even harder to impress. Maybe it was because of their unafraid youthful dare, they managed to add this intriguing detail which well-established, reputable fashion houses might not dare to. Maybe this was the reason they achieved so much at such a young age. To me, this is exactly that small, secret ingredient in the nature of the new/youth that empowers it to dethrone the already settled “old conformism” which debilitates itself by undervaluing and looking down onto this visually small, fragile yet fast-growing youth that is full of potential.

When the show was over, I went to the backstage to greet them, obviously they were busy with models, taking photos etc. In sheer contrast of the preponderant show they put out there, they were very down-to-earth, somehow fragile, aspiring designers who visibly were making their path with hard work and dedication, just like the models making their way through, by, above and over the mattresses. It was simply emotional to be there and see that sparkle in the spirit of these young potentials.

The Italian version of this article is published at the Fashion News Magazine.

Fashionable U-turn – Elegance and feminine flair a la Couture

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Cheers to the fantasy function of our mind not to let us die from the cold reality.

I can’t attest for others but what my eyes saw was a different kind of couture from the last year’s. This was definite comeback of the elegant feminine flair, sometimes exaggerated, but in general quite wearable in fact.

Chanel Couture Spring Summer 2019 Paris, Photo: NowFashion.com

This couture was feast of sequins, feathers, layers and layers of organza and tulle put together with painstakingly delicate hand-work. Colors deserve a special mention – from pastel colors of tranquility to splash of bright colors (yes, talking about Chanel and Valentino). Sincerely, I see this U-turn as a manifestation of the regenerative and compensatory function of our psyche for the latest tumultuous couple of years we’ve lived. Our longing for hope.

Balmain Couture Spring Summer 2019 Paris
Photo: NowFashion.com

The Mirror of Our Times a la Couture

Well, until Maison Margiela hit the runway. Right at the U-turn are exactly two radically different tendencies (oh, that regular contradictory nature of opposites, right?) – Comeback of elegance – soberly composed yet delicately suggestive feminine flair on one side expressing cry of our soul to pull our fragmented mind together and John Galliano yet again artistically putting on runway the cold reality – our already disturbingly fragmented state of mind. He rightfully calls his work the show of the excess, the artifice, the decay. Yes, the whole show is very colorful and artisanal but clogged, just like our clogged mind and badly functioning memory. I can’t help seeing striking similarities with the works of Marta Minujin, an Argentine artist, who is famous for recreating the “mess” of our fragmented mind and clogged memory.

Maison Margiela Couture Spring 2019 Paris
Photo: NowFashion.com

His previous couture horrified me a year ago, not that it was bad, just because it was like a not loved mirror that reflected the flaws one doesn’t want to see. This time around he has taken it to a whole new level – sincerely, I find it as a theater inside a fragmented mind living a trauma or I must say the concussion came with digital disruption in the era of consumerism.

Schiaparelli, Couture Spring 2019, Paris. Photo: NowFashion.com

Beauty Stripped Off Its Beauty

Talking about the concussion of disruption, I think we are still good. True, suddenly the fashion herd had painfully revealed that it can’t survive in its isolated glossy bubble anymore, the “ideal beauty” had a major blow while fashion turned into tool and chaotic platform of resistance against canonized societal restrictions and flaws. At another note, the silent majority got a platform to scrutinize and question the once-cherished-but–turned-to-hypocritical-cliché liberal values, which gave rise to populism leading to the most unexpected election results in certain key places.

Which naturally was followed by “high way – my way” attitude that led to borders and nations suffer from isolation and race for self-gain. Big masses simply preferred to shut doors and windows tight, burying the sense of collaboration and empathy, the greatest lessons of the devastating two world wars. We literally live memory concussion intensified by the disruption. And living with the bare reality as John Galliano has put it is really tough. It is freezing cold there.

Givenchy Couture Spring Summer 2019 Paris, Photo: NowFashion.com

But again, I think we are still good. Sometimes it seems to me the great world wars had somehow stemmed from the industrial revolution, the disruption of those days. Of course, the speed of time was different back then. I mean the concussion and memory clog caused by disruptions could be that bad if we choose to roll with the one-sided cold reality.

Valentino Couture Spring Summer 2019 Paris, Photo: Internet

Again, back to fashion. Last year the Anglo-Saxon fashion and media played a crucial role in bringing fashion down to the terrestrial dimension where we mortals live and struggle with social issues every single day. As I said above, the “ideal-beauty” had its quite duly generous dose of scrutiny. Being well-grounded and tackling social issues through the grace of fashion is a strong weapon to readjust already canonized rules and frames.

Desire for Fantasyland

However, burning the bridge to our fantasyland, the source of our hope would backfire. We can’t uproot ourselves off. Our cold and meaningless reality is too much for us to carry. Call it hope, beauty, ideal, fantasy  – whatever label we put on – it is the source of hope. It is what gives meaning to our gray reality and reason to roll into the next day. How we have canonized this concept (hanger thin silhouette or curvy, fluffy softness) doesn’t matter. It is the compensatory function of our mind. The more we suppress it, the stronger it makes its comeback.

Last year the fashion world was swept by the cold reality of flaws and wrongs of our earthly life and viola. This year we are flooded by the products of our fantasy land to compensate the bitterness of reality – sequins, layer and layers of tulle, organza, feathers. The pieces might have been exaggerated, but they were elegantly composed and even suggestive. Even mens’ collections from the previous weeks were somehow soberly composed.

This time I saw cry of our soul for some fantasy, wishfulness. I saw our need for fairy tale that will house our unprotected soul in face of our disturbing reality. The sheer attempt of our mind to compensate for what is missing in our physical dimension.

The Untold Story of Hermès

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Sky-rocketing price and unaffordability aside who doesn’t love the sight of the Hermès Birkin bag and the stories revolving around it? Even my Google news feed sometimes pops up articles about the celebrities who were seen with it. The enigma of this House is not only about its products, but also its name. The general story is that the Fashion House took its name from the namesake Messenger God. Obviously Hermès was born as a brand specialized in travel accessories (back in times when travel accessories meant horse tack and supplies). So the name of The God who is believed to travel all the time seems to be the right fit. But what kind of messages he used to deliver?

Hermès as a symbol of full transcendence – coming from the depth of underground going upwards to paradise.
Photo: the Internet

The God Hermès that everybody knows

The typical description of the God Hermès goes like this: Hermès is a “psycho-pomp” – that is to say soul-guide. Its statue is a piece of stone – Herm that has Twined Snake around a staff on one side and an Erect Phallus on the other. Next to him there is a sort of tree in a very simple form. Let’s call this composition statue. This statue used to be placed in crossroads alluding to its capacity to travel between worlds. Because like a shaman, Hermès used to guide the dead to the underworld and bring messages from there (bizarre huh?)

Let’s leave behind the logical reasoning and dive into a dimension where concepts transcend the rational and limited meaning we ascribe to them. Then we’ll see what Hermès really represents for us.

Design detail – winged feet of Hermès. Photo: the Internet

If I have to sum up in simple words, Hermès symbolizes the transmutation of soul through the history of evolution.

Not Messenger Only God Hermès

This myth talks us about times when an early man started to rise from the darkness of instinctual life (symbolized as the underground world) towards his/her way to acquire rational thinking (terrestrial life). This young Hermès has a metamorphose nature. He is not a underground force only (meaning, the purely instinctual element of the unconscious). He is also connected to the conscious life. However with capacity to still descend into the dark layers. He symbolizes the process of transcendence. While having a foot in the underground he travels from one dimension to another. How? This part is really funny.

Herm – the initial and simple version of the God Hermès. Photo: Man and His Symbols, C.G.Jung

He penetrates thru darkness of the unconscious into the light of terrestrial life (a.k.a light of reasoning) with his Erect Phallus. I know you are laughing now. But it turns out this is how our mind works at very deep levels. That childish and archaic mode of thinking is still there. Erect phallus is overly sexual of course. But in that dimension, phallus translates into fertility and not physical fertility only, but creative power of the psyche, fecundating, life giving power as well. The twined serpents are in sexual union. Again, sexual not taken literally, but equal union of the opposites that is transcendental, wholesomeness.

Almost as a rule, terrestrial and water animals symbolize our instinctual drives, forces of the “underground”. Reptiles being intermediate creatures with a capacity to live in two different environments, allude to this transcendence – arising from the depth of dark uncontrolled mass towards the world of light – the conscious reasoning.

Hermès – the symbol of full transcendence

Hermès is a living symbol that has been subject to elaboration. In middle ages, it acquired wings which denotes to rising from terrestrial life towards spiritual transcendence.  Wings symbolize this transformation. Even the caduceus in his hand that is a symbol of healing got wings at the top of the serpents. Thus our little fellow acquired a power of full transcendence – coming from the depth of underground going upwards to the paradise.

Not by chance, in the chain of living things we are the only ones who come from darkness of instinctual world of animals with aspirations to mature into spirituality of paradise. We are the terrestrial beings just between underground compulsive forces and heavenly angles.

To close, the soul each of us carry is Hermès destined to evolve through these stages. So, every time, you see an Hermès item, remember, there is a small Hermès inside you too and is way more valuable than anything money can buy.

Gucci’s Ark of Noah. Why are we all Noah?

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Now that I am on water symbol, I’ll have one more post to dig a bit deeper on water. Gucci just released its new theme for #GothicCampaign recreating the Ark of Noah and this is perfect one to pick on.

Gucci #GothicCampaign - recreation of Noah's Ark. Photo: Internet
Gucci re-created the Ark of Noah Ark for #GothicCampaign
Photo: Internet

Now Alessandro Michele takes on Deluge and the Ark of Noah, one of the early stories of Genesis. It is one of those themes that we know can’t be true, yet some part of us secretly believes that it may be true. And surprisingly it is, but in a symbolic way. Because it talks about some parts of our existence that is unknown to us obscured in the dark abyss of our psyche. We are well aware that the myths are not history, or biography or some sort of historical record. Then what is it about that touches us so deeply? In a nutshell, they are about the psychic processes happening inside us expressed through symbols in an exaggerated fashion. We sense that they tell us something, but can’t discern what it is. It is that dreamy symbolic language that puzzles us.

The Deluge and the Ark of Noah Ark is the story of our consciousness (or Ego) taking control over the unconscious content narrated in the highly symbolic language of the unconscious. Every object in the myth is purely symbolic and holds certain meaning. Let’s try to “translate” this myth.

Deluge

In psychoanalysis and dream analysis water is symbol of the unconscious – the dark abyss which is house to uncontrollable and powerful instinctual urges. The darker and the more turbulent the water, the more unease in the unconscious. So we know what Deluge stands for – the unc­ontrollable and wild nature of our unconscious.

Noah

One of the earliest prophets of the mankind is very symbolic of the very process of the birth of the consciousness. This is the element of our psyche that is in power to take control over the unconscious urges and impulses and give direction – make decisions. By the way, we’ve laboriously developed this precious “skill” over millions of years and with it we’ve distinguished ourselves from the rest of the living things and the dark totality of our unconscious. This is the reason why “prophets taking control of waters in ark or over some sort of fish” is a recurrent storyline in many religions. It is kind of the way our unconscious has registered the evolutionary process in its peculiar symbolic language.

Animals and the perfect harmony

The next question is of course, what about the animals and the perfect peace between animals and humans? Again, let’s have a look at recurring image of prophets – a good shepherd. Do we remember Orpheus? Who created perfect harmony when he played his lyre? Or Jesus? Yes, he was Shepherd too. Noah himself is kind of good shepherd who created perfect harmony among living things. Animals notoriously stand for our biological or instinctual impulses, in other words our low animalistic drives. Good shepherd is the one who through the virtue of the consciousness and wisdom has tamed his animalistic impulses and created harmony in his soul.

Translation into our common language

The myth of Noah is the story of how we gradually “woke up” from the pure instinctual life and separated ourselves from the animal kingdom and developed the consciousness (Ego). He is symbol of mankind, who has learned to navigate on the dark waters of the unconscious without being absorbed by back by it. And even give direction to his/her life.

What Noah means for each of us

We all pass this “Ark of Noah” period when we start to develop consciousness when we are babies at early toddler age. So he is a living symbol inside us. Also, as long as we tend “to lose our mind”, in other words, fall victim to our impulses and feelings, the Deluge will be an ever-present danger for us. Because those emotions are rooted at powerful forces deep inside. In the background we always live with the peril of our consciousness being devoured by the Deluge, in other words, literally lose our minds.

I wonder who will bring so much mysticism with hippy twist to Gucci besides Michele Alessandro. Who will touch so gracefully to this ever-present stories of our soul in fashion industry. I found the video just brilliant. Very much looking forwards to his creations on this theme.