All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Beyond Walter Benjamin’s Dialectical Tensions: Interpreting
Fashion Imageries from Japan
Tomoko Matsumoto
Fig. 1. Testino, Mario. ‘Obsessions.’ Vogue Japan November 2014 No. 183, November 1, 2014, cover page.
1
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
When words cannot simply write the history and culture of the ‘Other’ Japan, the
framework of imagination is influenced by fragments of fashion images, distributed to the
masses on the Internet and in magazines of the West. Such a framework is the idea that
Walter Benjamin calls the ‘historical materialism’ that provides us with a selective linear
historiography narrated by the power of the ruling classes.1 Through The Arcades Project,
Benjamin introduces an idea of history as a concept filled with the dialectic tensions of
the past and the present, and the past that is present – the image as the ‘now to form a
constellation.’2 The history is registered through fragments of standstill images. These
fragments of standstill images, Benjamin believes, communicate the symbolic elements of
the story more strongly than the philosophical text.3
The imagination of the fashion history and culture of Japan is in reality limited to the
images available and noticeable to the eyes of the West. While an encounter of these
‘Other’ images may bring a new fascination or a surreal moment, these unfamiliar foreign
constituents are often reduced to the interpretations that are juxtaposed to the available
historical and contemporary ideas within the West. Michel Foucault, in his ‘Preface’ to
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Science, attempts to resolve such an
idea, describing his encounter with the ‘madness’ of the Chinese taxonomy of animals in
its encyclopaedia, which opens up for him the discursive epistemological experience to
perceive his own society and culture as already framed and ordered as Descartes’
1
Benjamin, Illuminations, 254. Benjamin’s quotation regarding historical materialism. ‘A historical materialist
cannot do without the notion of a present which is not a transition, but in which time stands still and has come to a
stop. For this notion defines the present in which he himself is writing history. Historicism gives the ‘eternal’
image of the past; historical materialism supplies a unique experience with the past. The historical materialist
leaves it to others to be drained by the whore called ‘Once upon a time’ in historicism’s bordello. He remains in
control of his powers, man enough to blast open the continuum of history.’
2
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 463.
3
Ibid, 464. 'In the dialectical image, what has been within a particular epoch is always, simultaneously, “what has
been from time immemorial.” As such, however, it is manifest, on each occasion, only to a specific epochnamely, the one in which humanity, rubbing its eyes, recognizes just this particular dream image as such. It is at
this moment that the historian takes up, which regard to that image, the task of dream interpretation.’
2
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Cartesian world of perception.4
Thus, when an image can be interpreted by two paralleled linear historiographies
privileged by a representational system in each culture, multiple layers of dialectical
tensions manifest within the combined translations – the Japanese and the Western. The
image, as opposed to the text, provides an ambiguous, yet concealable apparatus of the
engaging and intertwining of the two diverged imaginations of Japanese fashion culture.
In this essay, the multiple layers of dialectical tensions implied by the Samurai armour will
be examined. The embellished chest armour worn by Australian female model, Miranda
Kerr, in the November 2014 issue of Vogue Japan (figure 1), will be investigated through
the metaphors of Benjamin, expanding into the symbolism of the image as a whole.
From the perspective of Western philosophical history, the Samurai armour piece can be
interpreted within the idea of Edward Said’s Orientalism from the 19th Century
conceptualisation of the ‘otherness’, constructed within the Eurocentric ideological
classifications of the knowledge of Japanese culture and fashion history.5 By appropriating
this exotic Japanese fashion element and by emphasising its ‘otherness,’ the Samurai
armour piece is chosen to orientalise the fashion worn by the western model as a whole,
transporting the audience to the world of Japan as a picture.
The history of the Samurai fashion was distinctive to Japanese culture until 1876, when
the Emperor of the Meiji period declared an end to the wearing of the sword after Japan
finally opened itself to trading in 1854, following many attempts by Western countries.
Although Japan was not colonised, it was considered a success by the West in their efforts
4
5
Foucault, “Preface” xvi.
Said, Orientalism.
3
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
to expand western ideologies of imperialism to ‘modernise’ Japan. Therefore, the Samurai
armour is a pivotal historical hallmark of the representation of the power over Japan
through the West’s conquest to unveil the mysterious unknowns into its taxonomy of
knowledge. It is the Foucauldian concept of power/knowledge intertwined with the idea
of Said’s Orientalism.6
Fig. 2. Tsukioka, Yoshitoshi, Tomoe Onna. 1875-1876. Woodblock print on
paper. The British Museum. From: the British Museum,
On the other hand, the Japanese audience may consider the style of the armour and the pants
reminiscent of the fashion of the upper class Japanese warrior woman (Bushi woman or
onna- bugeisha), Tomoe Gozen (figure 2). In history, Japanese female warriors accounted
for a very small percentage of the female population, and the majority belonged to the
peasant class who typically worked in domestic environments, and the political powers
belonged to high-ranking male officials and the Samurai.7 Accordingly, the Japanese
audience immediately senses two dialectical tensions, between the genders and between the
past and present within Japanese cultural history. However, more obvious is the fact that
a western female model is pretending to become a Japanese female warrior by wearing
the Samurai amour piece quintessential to Japanese history that arises a peculiarity to the
6
Foucault, Power/Knowledge.
7
Amdur, Women Warriors. The history of women warriors, who were wives of the Samurai, is barely
mentioned in historical texts and, in general, women were housewives who belonged to a marginalised social
class. These warrior women were a minority and a divergence from the societal norm. During the Sengoku
period, the Samurai (male) accounted for less than 10% of the population. Figure 2.
4
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Japanese audience. Rather than confronting the idea of imperialism and domination by the
West, the Samurai armour is viewed as an apparatus in which to promulgate the uniqueness
of its ‘Japaneseness’ to the western audience. Hence, such opposed binary interpretations
derived by two diverged perceptions reveal a dialectical tension between Orientalism and
nationalism. Yeğenoğlu observes such nationalist movement as being dictated by the
history of master and slave, referring to Chatterjee and Said’s discourses.8
Chatterjee observes that “the problematics in nationalist thought is exactly the
reverse of that of Orientalism,” in the sense that the object still remains the Oriental
except that he or she is now endowed with subjectivity; he/she is not passive and
non-participating. Being just a reverse of the passive subject, the native continues
to retain the same essential characteristics depicted in Orientalism, but nevertheless
imagines himself as autonomous, active, and sovereign. Concerning the thematic,
Chatterjee argues that “nationalist thought accepts and adopts the same essentialist
conception based on the distinction between ‘the East’ and ‘the West,’ the same
typology created by a transcendent studying subject, and hence the same
‘objectifying’ procedures of knowledge constructed in the post-Enlightenment age
of Western science.9
Such problematics of the nationalism today has become a popular apparatus for various
countries in the Far East to promote their unique cultural identities and self-images in
politics and tourism through the application of the concept self-Orientalism. Martijn
Huisman in his thesis stresses ‘the importance of not seeing Japan as a defenseless and
innocent victim of Western Orientalism. The Japanese have actively used the ‘Orientalist
8
9
Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought.
Yeğenoğlu, Colonial Fantasies, 123.
5
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
gaze‘ to create, maintain and strengthen its own national cultural
identity
(‘Japaneseness‘) by performing self-Orientalism. This stereotype, often found in
contemporary media featuring or about Japan, is the Samurai.’10 In actuality, the
Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) established The Cool Japan
Advisory Council in 2011 to implement the concept of ‘Cool Japan’ to promote and
commodify the ‘gold mines’ of Japanese uniqueness to benefit its economy with
overseas expansion in six sectors, including apparel & fashion, monozukuri (craftmaking) & regional products, food, content, tourism, and home.11 The proposal outlines
not only the definitions of the ‘gold mines’ found in commodity and culture
perceived by various markets, such as Asia and Europe, but also market-specific
techniques to effectively present such items in different regions in the world. Therefore,
the Samurai armour piece in this image is recognised as a ‘gold mine’ that can help
promote ‘Japaneseness’ to the western audience from a Japanese perspective.
Additional dialectical tensions can be found from the western historical perspective: a
female model wearing male warrior fashion is viewed as comparable to the popularity of
the redingote illustrated in the painting of Marie-Antoinette (figure 7) or the progressive
feminist icon George Sand wearing male fashion (figure 8). These are historical
examples that represent the desire of women to achieve the social and political statuses
that were dominated by men, symbolising a dialectical tension between genders. Such
masculinity is emphasised further with the model’s direct gaze towards the camera and
the pose suggesting an impending departure to fight in a battle. The direct gaze to the
camera, shown in the photography collection of Pierre-Louis Pierson’s The Gaze, 1860s
Huisman, “Orientalism and the Spectacle,” 27 & 35. Huisman raises other examples of the 21st century
Hollywood films that featured the ‘Japaneseness’, such as The Last Samurai, Kill Bill Volume 1 & 2, Lost in
Translation, Memoirs of a Geisha, Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift.
11
“Proposal by the Cool Japan.”
10
6
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
in figure 9, represents the symbol of confrontational attitude that was not a social norm
for women in western history during this time period.
Fig. 3. Valentino. Bead-embellished Dress With Feathers,
A/W 2014. 100% polyamide with 91% silk, 9% elastane
lining, and pheasant and goose feathers. From: Ealuxe,
Accessed March 21, 2015.
Fig. 4. Jean Marc Nattier, Madame de Maison-Rouge as
Diana, 1756, oil on canvas, 136.5x105.1cm; New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art. 7
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
8
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
The Prada A/W2014 leather coat and the Valentino dress embellished with feathers, shown in figure 3, signify the human desire to dominate animals as shown in figure 4. In addition, the pose of the legs symbolises the aggressiveness and animality particular to the Samurai.12 Such animality of the pose is intensified by the idea of feminine in western mythology that is contrasted with the rationality of science, creating a tension between Apollonian and Dinosaurian dichotomy of the ancient Greek mythology and the philosophical concept developed by Friedrich Nietzsche.13 This dialectical tension between man and animal is further layered with the dialectical tension between genders from the Japanese perspective – the pose representative of male warriors. From the western historical perspective, Benjamin may have interpreted such pose as a dialectical tension between the genders and between man and animals as ‘four-­‐footed companion of the man’ attempting to stand up and walk upright to challenge their social status:
‘For the females of the species homo sapiens—at the earliest conceivable period of
its existence—the horizontal positioning of the body must have had the greatest
advantages. It made pregnancy easier for them, as can be deduced from the backbracing girdles and trusses to which pregnant women today recourse. Proceeding
from this consideration, one may perhaps venture to ask: Mightn’t walking erect,
in general, have appeared earlier in men than in women? In that case, the woman
would have been the four-footed companion of the man, as the dog or cat is today.
And it seems only a step from this conception to the idea that the frontal encounter
of the two partners in coitus would have been originally a kind of perversion; and
perhaps it was by way of this deviance that the woman would have begun to
12
13
The pose in the cover image is classic gesture of the Samurai getting up to depart for a battle.
Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy.
9
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
walk upright. (Convolute B10, 2)’14
In addition, the Samurai armour represents these multi-layered tensions not only between
genders and between humans and animals, but also in the essential differences in feminist
ideals between the East and West. What is not clear in the metaphor to the Japanese
audience, however, is the historical significance of the accumulation of these dialectical
tensions between genders and whether or not the photographer, Mario Testino, wishes for
the Japanese women to attempt to reduce the gender disparity that exists from the under
resolved gender discrimination. In Japanese history, there has not been an influential
feminist movement comparable to those in western history.15 Thus, this metaphor can be
interpreted as the dialectical tension between phantasmagoria and waking of the
Benjamin’s dream image of 19th Century Paris, as it is still a dream for Japanese women
to achieve similar societal position as men.
Fig. 10. Evening trouser suit and blouse
Chanel 1937-1938. V&A collection.
Fig. 11. Pritchard, Paige. ‘Women & Words: Vol.
3, The “Ain’t No Wifey” Wife.’ The Riveter. April
15, 2014. Accessed March 21, 2015.
14
15
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 80-81.
See figures 10-12 as examples of feminist movements incorporated within the fashion industry.
10
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Figure 12. Chanel A/W2014 Show. ‘Karl Lagerfeld’s Response to Chanel’s Feminist Protest
Criticism,’ The Independent. October 16, 2014. Accessed February 6 2015.
protest-criticism-9799805.html.
More elements in the image can be further analysed through the metaphors of the
dialectical tensions. The Japanese Samurai armour is worn by a western female model,
which is an obvious dialectical tension from both cultural perspectives between the East
and West. Her minimal makeup is also not of the typical Japanese women of that time. It
is not only considered unfeminine in Japanese society, but it can also be seen as western
makeup as a contemporary feature, which adds multiple layers of dialectical tensions
between the past and the present along with the dialectical tension between East and West.
Further, the hairstyle and the rolled up pants are depicted as a contemporary interpretation
on the Samurai’s fashion that create a blend of tensions between East and West, past and
present, and ephemeral and eternal. For example, the rolled up Samurai pants can be
compared to the temporality of the current fashion trends in the west which is the revival
of the 90s rollup jeans.
It is not that what is past casts its light on what is present, or what is present its light
on what is past; rather, an image is that wherein what has been comes together in a
flash with the now to form a constellation. In other words: image is dialectics at a
standstill. For while the relation of the present to the past is purely temporal, the
relation of what-has-been to the now is dialectical: not temporal in nature but
11
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
figural [bildlich]. Only dialectical images are genuinely historical…16
Testino’s aspiration for the cover image above was to convey to the Japanese audience the
positive components of Japanese culture and fashion viewed from the West that the Japanese
audience might have not yet recognised. Hence, his intention was not to appropriate the
otherness of Japanese fashion as a picture like the discourse by Timothy Mitchell or the idea
of Orientalism by Said.17 Instead,
this image is to portray a newly refined western
understanding of Japanese culture, engaging various dialectical tensions in fashion, the
image of the ‘now to form a constellation.’ Thus, this new image by Testino represents a
renewed perception of Japanese culture and fashion not only from a western point of view,
but also from the Japanese point of view, incorporating various multi-layered dialectical
tensions. This image is truly the historical image filled with the present ideas of Japanese
history, and such imagination of Japanese culture and fashion will be renewed yet again by
a profound image revealed in the future. As Benjamin states, ‘the eternal is far more the
ruffle on a dress than some idea.’18
Where Benjamin is ambiguous, and somewhat unsuccessful, in order to achieve in his
definition of dialectical image throughout his fragments of texts in The Arcades Project,
however, is that the images are more than the replacement of the text.19 Thus, interpreting
the significations of this cover image through his confined metaphor of the dialectical
tensions does not expand onto the applications of the philosophical ideas that have been
developed through the societal and cultural changes that have redefined and expanded the
16
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 463.
Mitchell, “The World as Exhibition,” 217-236; Said, Orientalism.
18
Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 69.
17
19
Weigel, Body-and-Image Space, 49-60. Weigel states that ‘… Benjamin regarded images in terms of their
property as writing (Schrift) rather than as representations. As such, Benjamin’s concept of images has nothing to
do with the history of mental images, nor with a ‘mental image’ that is distinguished from the material image in its
characterization as derivative or secondary, not proper (uneigentlich).’
12
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
definition of an image. The way we encounter and ‘read’ the images in various medias,
such as photography, videos, and films, proliferated by the use of Internet, TV and social
media applications, is much more than a simple binary relationship with the text.20
Benjamin in his 1936 essay, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’
and John Berger in his 1972 Ways of Seeing, explore such repercussion of the mass
reproduced artifice of original artworks and how technology transformed the way we
encounter them. Today, as this essay brings attention to the two diverged ways of
interpreting a fashion garment and the image itself, it is essential that we consider an object
or an image through more than the context of one particular social culture or the
environment in which one encounters them.
Understanding an image along with surroundings is to a certain degree analogous to the
idea of parerga in Immanuel Kant’s writing of aesthetics – objects that are attached and
ornamental to the work of art but are not an integral part of its meaning, such as a frame
attached to a painting. For Kant, these ornaments belong to the artwork and also
communicate with the outside.21 For example, we can imagine this cover image placed in
the city of Paris, London, or Tokyo, seeing it as a montage along with the city as a
background. Benjamin portrayed this idea through his photography collections. In
addition, Foucault, in his writing about Magritte’s painting ‘This is not a Pipe (1973),’
further assists us in broadening the way we encounter a painting, whose mechanisms we
rd
can apply to facilitate the interpretation of an image.22 Foucault’s 3 diagram shown below
assists us in visualizing the manner in which to scrutinise the image – by removing
20
Barthes, “The Myth Today.”; Jay, Downcast Eyes; Mitchell, “Image and Word.”; Mitchell, “There Are No
Visual Media,” 27-13; Rancière, The Future of the Image. These are a few of many philosophers who
attempted to explore the relationship between the image and the text, which is outside the scope of this essay.
21
Kant, Critique of Judgement, §14 Exemplification. Kant explores the idea of parerga, where the nature of
communication is crucial to his aesthetic judgement and that these ornaments also contribute to bridging the gap
between his divided worlds of inside and outside, external and internal, object and subject, etc., arriving at the
judgement equivalent to a science.
22
Foucault, This is not a Pipe.
13
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
ourselves from focusing only on the representations within the frame, but examining the
image that is placed within the context of different cultures. The problematic of the
schematic ideas of painting and image as a space of representation and the idea of
connecting them to the language of the western art historical epistemology delineate our
interpretation of them within a particular language by the interpreter. Such association to
a particular language, for example English, further delimits our ability to do so because
such language itself is an already framed and ordered taxonomy as Descartes’ Cartesian
world of perception, illustrated by Foucault in his The Order of Things: An Archaeology
of the Human Science.23 The opposite is true when an attempt is made to interpret an
image using a cabinet of words and definitions from a Japanese dictionary.
Figure 13. Magritte, Rene. The Two Mysteries, 1966, oil on
canvas, 65 x 80 cm. Private Collection.
Figure 14. Foucault, Michel. This is not a Pipe (1973).
23
Foucault, “Preface” xvi.
14
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Developing on these ideas, we can further expand the way we view and interpret an image
with dialectical tensions as a whole. The image with fashion elements from the ‘other’
cultures can be examined by placing it in cultures with different interpretations illustrated
in the diagram below: (1) Japanese culture, (2) western cultures, (3) cultures other than
Japan and the West, (4) mixed view with Japan and the West, (5) mixed view with the
Japanese and the rest of the cultures, (6) mixed view with the West and the rest of the
cultures, (7) mix of all cultures, and finally, (8) the perception from outside of all
perceptions. This essay attempts to demonstrate how each dialectical tension and the image
as a whole can be interpreted differently based on constructed ideas in different cultures,
and hopes to merge these diverged views into one complex understanding of them. Today,
images spread instantly over the Internet and social media applications all over the world,
which is probably not the way that the photographers intended us to engage with them.
Therefore, when we encounter an image with dialectical tensions, it is important for us to
recognise such complexities before concluding the understanding of it, and investigate it
beyond the ideas framed within one historiography.
15
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Bibliography
Amdur, Ellis. Women Warriors of Japan: The Role of Arms-Bearing Women in Japanese
History. Koryu Books, 2009.
Barthes, Roland. “The Myth Today” In Mythologies (1957). Hill and Wang 2013.
Benjamin, Walter. “Convolute B: Fashion.” In The Arcades Project, translated by Howard
Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, paperback ed., 62-81. Cambridge, MA and London:
Harvard University Press, 2002, 62-81.
Benjamin, Walter. “Convolute N: On the Theory of Knowledge, Theory of Progress.” In
The Arcades Project, translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, paperback ed.,
456-88. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2002, 456-488.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936).”
Illuminations: Walter Benjamin with an Introduction by Hannah Arendt. London: Pimlico,
1999, 211-244.
Benjamin, Walter. “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” In Illuminations, edited by
Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn. London: Pimlico, 1999: 245-255.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 1972.
Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse.
London: Zed Books, 1986.
Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-77.
Longman; 1st edition, 1995.
Foucault, Michel. “Preface” in The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences. London: Routledge, 2002, xvi-xxvi.
Foucault, Michel. This is not a Pipe (1973). Transl. James Harkness. Berkeley: U of
California Press, 2008.
Huisman, Martijn. “Orientalism and the Spectacle of the Other: Japan and the Japanese in
Wie is de Mol?” (Master Thesis, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2011).
Jay, Martin. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French
Thought. University of California Press, 1993.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement (1790). Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008. Mitchell, W.J.T., “Image and Word” in Iconology. University of
Chicago Press, 1986.
16
All rights reserved.
The content featured in this publication is the intellectual property of Tomoko Matsumoto
Mitchell, W.J.T., “There Are No Visual Media.” in The Visual Culture Reader, 3rd
Edition. Mirzoeff, Nicholas, eds. London and New York: Routledge, 2013, 7-13.
Mitchell, W.J.T. “The World as Exhibition” in Comparative Studies in Society and
History, Vol. 31, No. 2. (Apr., 1989), 217-236.
Nietzsche, Frederich. The Birth of Tragedy (1872). Oxford University Press, 2000.
“Proposal by the Cool Japan Advisory Council: Creating a New Japan, May 12, 2011.”
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI),
http://www.meti.go.jp/english/press/2011/pdf/0512_02b.pdf (accessed March 21, 2015).
Rancière, Jacques. The Future of the Image. New York and London: Verso,
2003. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.
Testino, Mario. “Obsessions” in Vogue Japan November 2014 No. 183, November 1,
2014.
Weigel, Sigrid. Body-and-Image Space: Re-reading Walter Benjamin. New York and
London: Routledge, 1996.
Yeğenoğlu, Meyda. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism.
Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
17