Hall of poses: notes on a fashion theory in Machado de Assis

Abstract

This article intends to address some of the ways in which Machado de Assis’ fiction addressed the issue of fashion. Whether it is through the study of costumes and clothes, especially of changes in their forms, or even through a specific relationship that his narratives establish over time, the writer not only was attentive to the problem of fashion, but also made of it the theme for several of his writings. The article develops this approach from three critical perspectives: that of a tradition that discussed the problem of commodities in the nineteenth century, especially Balzac and Walter Benjamin; by means of a dialogue with a more contemporary sort of “metaphysics of appearance,” which appears here through the works of Boris Groys and Emanuele Coccia; and finally, through the dialogue with some Machadian critics, from Roberto Schwarz and José Miguel Wisnik to the more recent Idelber Avelar and Ana Luiza Andrade.