Otto Von Busch

Moda Maleficarum Otto Von Busch

There is a spectre haunting fashion, the spectre of witchcraft, a dark allure of social sorcery, a demonic reality of appearances, carnal pleasures of seduction and rivalry. This conjuring of dressed deception lures us, entices us towards arousal, servitude and evildoing; Maleficium. Why are we ashamed to look at it?Fashion is a labor of allure: it concerns simultaneously attraction and cunning, seduction and deception. As a form of biosemantic and affective labor, being fashionable lures as much as entices, pushes, coerces. Thus the knowledge of fashion is not abstract; it is a highly sensorial capacityinvolving the whole physical body. When fashion works at its best, it thrives in the same animalistic sensorium as the arousing labor and gratification in sexual conquest. Moda Maleficarum, is an experimental study of the labor of allure in fashion.