Dressing democracy... and causing secondhand embarrassment

Fashion is political. When we decide to wear flat shoes instead of heels, put on ripped jeans or tie a tie, we are making a statement about how we want to position ourselves in the world. As feminists proclaimed in the seventies, drawing heavily on countercultural thought, the personal is political. It is not surprising, therefore, that throughout history institutions, ideologies, and parties have tried to appropriate the symbolic power of clothing to convince, build identities, and, at times, also to dominate.The latest episode was led by Pedro Sánchez's government, which a few days ago presented DMOCRACIA, a graphic campaign built with all the codes of a streetwear brand, with a slogan that leaves no room for doubt: "When you dress, you position yourself". The initiative, framed within the events commemorating fifty years of democracy, aims to bring this political system closer to young people, with an urban aesthetic and the accompaniment of a battalion of influencers. The first reaction, I confess, is to look around for the hidden camera. It's hard to decide if we're facing an institutional campaign or a parody of gigantic proportions. But, once the absurdity is accepted, it's worth asking: is it a genuinely Spanish extravagance, or does dressing political ideals have a longer history than it seems?The Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David, known for works such as The Death of Marat or The Oath of the Horatii, played an active and committed role in the French Revolution. Convinced that in addition to establishing a new political and social order, it was also necessary to give it a visible form, he designed various costumes to define the appearance of the new republican citizen. Through the three colors of the flag, references to Republican Rome, and inscriptions such as Liberty, Equality or French People, he aspired to create a new visual code for a society governed by revolutionary ideals.However, the project did not prosper. History has shown that, apart from regimes that impose a certain appearance – as in the People's Republic of China, where the Zhongshan suit (Mao suit) became hegemonic attire under strong pressure – fashion is not adopted by decree. People do not simply wear what a government prescribes, but what emerges from a complex network of desires, identifications, aspirations, and social dynamics. Politics can try to dress an ideology, but it cannot decide what society will wear.

One of the most surprising aspects of the initiative is that it was not conceived by a fashion designer, but by a graphic designer. Perhaps the opportunity could have been taken to establish an alliance with an extraordinarily creative sector, to claim local talent and to entrust the project to someone who knows the mechanisms of fashion up close. Instead, the choice has been made for an increasingly common formula: to appropriate the aesthetics of brands born outside of textile design, reducing fashion to a logo printed on a t-shirt or a sweatshirt. The difference is that, in this case, there isn't even a brand or a collection: only the fiction of a brand that turns democracy into a logo and its meaning into a slogan.That said, I would gladly give up this alliance with the sector if building a campaign around the word DEMOCRACY truly served to curb the current anti-democratic drift. But, did anyone who came up with it really believe that could happen? It rather seems like one of those desperate attempts to engage a young generation by speaking to them in the codes we imagine they use. The risk is that the only effect achieved is to provoke what the young people themselves call "cringe": that mix of secondhand embarrassment and discomfort that arises when an adult tries too hard to seem young. If so, perhaps this campaign will indeed end up generating an intergenerational consensus. Too bad it's around secondhand embarrassment.