TIME – SPACE – BODY –PRODUCT
The 21st century world connected through webs of communication and information sets new challenges before marketing products to a global market place, that requires innovative strategies to build up and preserve successful businesses.
Al Ries and Jack Trout (1993) compare the changes in the consumer society to the image of “a wave in the ocean of time”
An ever-changing world demands a reflective attitude regarding questions about system of values, beliefs and power leaderships in various sectors of this new hard-to-predict global market. All-inclusive mechanisms imprison creators within their creations. A repetition of unperceived reactions burns out a chaotic broken-harmony.
Clemente Nóbrega (2002) affirms that the study of the human nature is the basis for successful marketing strategies in this new digital era. “To be good in marketing you need to understand about two “futures” – desire and destiny… Being human means destiny and desire. And further on, Nóbrega emphasizes the importance of creativity in the process of communication in marketing:
Marketing has to synthesize data of distinct areas (demography, life-style, technology…) into meaningful concepts. This is done by the use of competent languages to generate answers; engage people in dialogues. (NÓBREGA, 2002)
It could be infered from the first idea that the human being is the one who desires transformation by being at the same time the one who transforms and is transformed by the surrounding environment – destiny; and from the second that the effectiveness of marketing is directly linked to the ability of promoting multi-disciplinaries dialogues.
The jeans pants have a peculiar characteristic: in despite of the fact that the pants were first designed to dress gold mine workers, their use broke up all general established dressing standards. They kept long living in the market place as a product that can be universal and selective, leading to brands such as Diesel. Nowadays, jeans mean the uniform and the luxury of the 21thcentury.
The art of dancing reveals the body as a product of a subtle harmonization of conflicts – the muscular tension needed to produce movement – that turns images into thoughts; into shapes; into feelings; into a freely expressed movement of dance that is consumed (accomplished) in the very moment of its liberation. In other words the dance conveys an experience of resolving conflicts through the expression of a re-unifying sensory, imagery and sensitized creative movement.
Images move into ideas…feelings…motions.
What does weave images in motion?
In order to investigate this question the following section will begin to sketch a parallel between some facts of the origins of dance in different cultures and facts in the history of jeans in the consumer’s market that could intertwine threads of body movements with a designed product (jeans) in the search of an actual communication process.
Time-space
Through time, the body has served as an instrument for perpetuating through dance human impressions about universal cycles; beauty, harmony, the force of nature, facts, symbols and myths as well as linking people and culture; even manifesting a communion amongst obscure, sacred or profane dimensions.
Austin (1975) observes, “In Greek vases and friezes the dances of that civilization are immortally preserved; they are full of movement…this sense of movement caught in stillness”
The Japanese culture connected the origins of dance with the seasons. The nature’s metamorphosis is represented in the Dance of the Butterfly.
Ancient Chinese dances utilized garments with extra-long sleeves. This fact could represent an expression of transcendence of body limits.
In Hindu mythology, the supreme god Brahma gifted the legendary Bharata (mythical creator of performing arts) with traditional dances to promote joy, wisdom, discipline and respect amidst humanity. The name Bharata is an acronym formed by the three first syllables of the three vital aspects of Indian performing arts: Bhavam – expression of emotion; Ragam –melody; Talam – rhythm.
The image of the Dance of Shiva conveys the complexity of perpetual motion; the process of creation, maintenance, manifestation, consumption and transformation of universal cycles. It represents, “the ongoing flow of energy that permeates an infinite variety of patterns” (CAPRA, 1983)
Thillai or Chidambaram is the temple or theater where Shiva Nataraja, Lord of Dance and the Universe, in this context performs the Cosmic Dance. Shiva dances to manifest the universe within the body; unity within diversity.
The European Renaissance Classical Dance, also known as Court Dance was derived from movements of the folk dances of the region.
According to the Brazilian indigenous people, body, music and dance are unboundedly inscribed in the magical ritualistic life of the tribe. They are one unique organism that by being broken apart loses its sense of unity.
Dance is song; is chant. Dance is body. Dance is in the song of the body.
By analogy, the body would be: a rhythmic unity of a musical compass – the value of the note and yet a rhythmic absolute value – the compass; in which the external movement (pressure on a string) and the intrinsic movement (vibration of the string) would merge in a third movement: that is the sound – the dancing body.
Body-product
In 19th century, Oscar Levi Strauss, born in Germany arrived in the United States of America. He had the idea of manufacturing pants for workers using denim – thick durable cotton similar to the fabric that was used to manufacture mariner’s uniforms in Gene, Italy.
Levi Strauss and his partner Jacob Davis received, in 1873 the patent for their close-fitting pants. Those pants later on became known as blue jeans, denims or simply, jeans.
Through the ages, jeans became a must in all fashion sections.
In 1950, the pants got zippers and were allied to the revolutionary hip movements of Elvis Presley; to the sensuality of movie stars.
During the sixties the jeans became ‘hippie’.
The denim indigo blue, changes in color and texture with use, exposure to light and washings.
Industrial-washed jeans were available in the consumer market, in 1974.
In 1975, the Italian born Renzo Rosso, started to manufacture clothes and jeans. He gathered a group called the “Genius Group” and they created in 1978 successful brands. Amongst them was “Diesel”.
Diesel design does not follow established trends. It is largely unaffected by fads occurring within the fashion circles; it is innovative and at times a bit radical, but always shows a careful attention to detail and a focus on quality in the selection of materials and production techniques” (ROSSO, 2004).
The Diesel Company was created to be a macro-culture composed of personalities of diverse nationalities that work out their differences with dynamism, innovation and transparency. Rosso understands that clothing can express personality as well as originality. “Diesel is a state of mind: it means being open to new things, listening to one’s intuition and being honest with oneself. We would like to offer consumers a total look which reflects this attitude”. (ROSSO, 2004)
Rosso assisted by his multi-cultural and creative team designed, the Diesel Denim Collection, perfect to consumers who wish for authenticity, versatility, innovation and high quality in clothing. Each fashion season (Fall-Winter/ Spring-Summer), a new collection is presented to the public in the “Diesel Guide for Successful Living”. These thematic guides available online at the Diesel’s site or distributed at Diesel’s stores promote an allied relationship between the brand and the consumers, who intertwine the themes of each collection to intrinsic values for the product (jeans). The product begins to be perceived with multiple valuable functions; it forms – to dress; it informs – to communicate; it transforms – to seduce.
From 1990 on, stylists included jeans in haute-couture fashion assuring its niche in the market.
This process of strategically transforming of a mass-consumption product into a personal luxury, in fact brings forth another question of what kind of value could be added to a product that would not interfere with its originality?
Body-image-product
According to McCracken (2003, p.120) “publicity and the fashion system move the significance from the cultural world to the consumer’s goods, while the rites of consuming transfer it to the consumer”
Thereby the act of consuming Diesel jeans indicates that the value given by consumers to the product returns to themselves as way of acknowledging one’s individuality. The garment, then dresses its consumers with self-recognition.
Moreover, it becomes the missing-link for the consumer to being recognized (literally) in entering the unbounded universe of quality, originality, versatility and authenticity promoted by the product.
The consumers buy a product that means much more than the materiality of it. What they buy, then, it is the concept, this new-born self-image that becomes a reality in the usage of the product. This promotes a direct link between the concrete quality of the garment, its fabric, finishing, etc. and the consumer’s personal creative expression of wearing it. Image merges into body that merges into product, in the experience of this process of self-‘re-creation’.
Silvia Sangirardi (1946-1999) well-known Brazilian stylist illustrates the ideas formulated by the investigation of the questions that were the guidelines of this section in the poem bellow:
panning the stars
for gold
the garment’s
command
(SANGIRARDI, 1996, p.60)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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LABAN, R. (1978). DOMÍNIO DO MOVIMENTO. São Paulo: Summus.
LANGER, S. K. (1953). SENTIMENTO E FORMA. São Paulo: Perspectiva.
McCRACKEN, G. (2003). CULTURA E CONSUMO: novas abordagens ao caráter simbólico dos bens e das atividades de consumo. Rio de Janeiro: MAUAD.
MISRA, S. (1989). Invitation to Indian Dances. United Kindom: Lucas Books.
NÓBREGA, C. (2002). ANTROPOMARKETING. Dos Flintistones à Era Digital: Marketing e a Natureza Humana. Rio de Janeiro: Senac.
PORTINARI, M. (1989). História da Dança. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira.
RIES, A. & TROUT, J.(1992). POSICIONAMENTO: como a mídia faz sua cabeça. São Paulo: Pioneira.
ROSSO, R. (2004). Company Information. www.diesel.com. 1-4 p..
SANGIRARDI, S. (1996). CURVA DO TEMPO. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará.
www.levis.com. (2004). Levi Strauss & Co., History, 1 -6 p..
