Varieties of the Fantastic in Fiction

When I was reading this story, I was interested in how the fantastic corresponded with the fashion designer creating clothes. I couldn’t find anything that was actually impossible, though there were several things unlikely to happen. The story was strange, in true Millhauser fashion. One of the things that was strange was the overall fashion that the designer, Hyperion, was making for women. These dresses and ideas he had were not normal, considering women had been dressing without much coverage for so long. However, even though these ideas were not normal, I thought it really showed an example of how the fashion industry is in real life. Most of the things we see on TV or in magazines are not anything anyone would actually wear because they are so ridiculous in appearance. Something that struck me as interesting was that these women actually took these fashion ‘trends’ seriously enough to really wear them, going so far as to cover their faces and necks. It does say, however, that in a particular instance that some of this designer’s clothing was made fun of.

“In a celebrated autumn catwalk show, he shocked viewers by bringing back a version of the Victorian crinoline, with its hoops of flexible steel, and raising it to the level of the shoulders. Although the hemi-dress was ridiculed by a number of fashion commentators for its awkwardness, its ugliness, it retro-kitsch jokiness, its air of mockery, others saw it as an expression of liberation from the tyranny of the body.”

The thing that really caught my attention was the similarity to religious clothing trends. It reminded me a lot of how religion often desires to cover the body modestly and keep it concealed until marriage. It says in the story that some considered the strange fashion to be “liberation from tyranny” so I saw the similarities.