Uncanny Uniqlo
Style is so funny. I put on pants and a shirt and look in the mirror: “Hey.” I put on my new fluffy fleece: “I like your style, dude.” I go to a coffee shop. A red-haired white-guy is wearing my same navy-blue Uniqlo fluffy yarn fleece zip-up. A frisson of the weird goes through me. At first I want to hide. What if he sees me? then I want to confront him. “Take that off!” Then I become afraid that other people will notice and make fun of us. I calm down by considering the mysteries of difference and repetition: who is original? Who wore it first, and who wore it better? It’s all about the details, of which I remain the master—like my brass carabiner and black double-front work trousers. I look at him again from behind a fern. No, I am wrong; he has on Carhartts and brass earrings. We are both wearing running shoes. We would be confused in a police line-up; I could be arrested for a crime that he has committed. An uncanny and paradoxical truth arises in me that invalidates my ego and makes me feel false and held captive by market forces. Where does the desire to be different fold into the need to conform? While he and I may each believe that we possess our own unique style, is it not more true—and much harder to admit—that we have each been possessed and determined in advance by Uniqlo?
La Reproduction Interdit (1937) René Magritte
