Intro _ {Fashion Culture Encryptor}

                                     

 

A mural in Abu Simbel temple depicting Thoth and Ankh the key of life in his hand 

Here is a question: Have you ever thought about the true valuation and evaluation system of the marketplace?

Here is another one: Have you ever truly analyzed the needs in the marketplace?

What about life? What about the values reflecting all of life’s needs—from intrinsic, tangible values like honesty and ethics to their manifestations in life encounters?

There was a guessing series that aired in the early nineties in Egypt. It was a musical performance by Sherihan with a hint of specific discovery. There’s this part where she sang about the need for things ranging from ethics to refrigerators. In life, most people are selling something—but what are they truly selling? That’s the question. And many people are buying—but what are they really buying? That’s another question. The most common question—why sellers sell what they sell and why buyers buy what they buy—is not one that everyone asks or even tries to answer.

In this blog, I was inspired by the connotation of the tangible in culture and its association with the intangible. The flow of communication between the two is worth inspecting. The true inspiration came from heritage studies, which explore the convergence and divergence between the intangible and the tangible.

Tangible heritage is recognized as such when it expresses the values of a society and is interpreted through the intangible. Thus, there is a robust relationship between the two.

The intangible has long been neglected and marginalized. This can be linked to the mentality described by Professor Ralph Pettman as "thing-flying the world," where heritage is defined as a place or thing with other things in it. This concept supports the creation of a "world museum," emphasizing what is visible over what is immaterial—despite the intrinsic values and authenticity of the latter.

The main reason for preserving material culture has been its intrinsic value. There has been ongoing debate within the UNESCO World Heritage Committee regarding the main criteria for evaluating these values and how to assess material culture. Tangible heritage is recognized when it expresses societal values and is interpreted through the intangible. After debates on authenticity, truth, and genuineness, the values of cultural property are now assessed through an interactive matrix of both cultural and physical attributes, while considering local, national, and regional cultural differences.

Here, I will explore fashion as a material culture, sometimes through time travel to the past or future, to examine how the tangible and intangible are discerned as values. Personal inspection and scrutiny will be offered as an analytical perspective on what is presented in the marketplace or let‘s say LIFE?!