“Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a ‘lamp’; not a woman, but a ‘woman.’ To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role.”

From Virgil Abloh’s 2017 profile in 032c: “Quotation marks are one of the many tools that Abloh uses to operate in a mode of ironic detachment…Abloh rejects the who-did-it-first mentality of previous generations in favor of the copy-paste logic of the Internet and its inhabitants. His new order is protected by a fortress of irony.”

Alec Leach, writing for Highsnobiety in 2017: “By presenting words as citations, Abloh is taking them out of context, and questioning their seriousness. When he puts “Sculpture” on the side of a handbag, he’s provoking the viewer.”

“This is why so many of the objects prized by Camp taste are old-fashioned, out-of-date, démodé. It's not a love of the old as such. It's simply that the process of aging or deterioration provides the necessary detachment—or arouses a necessary sympathy. Thus, things are campy, not when they become old—but when we become less involved in them, and can enjoy, instead of be frustrated by, the failure of the attempt.”

From press surrounding Gucci’s Fall/Winter 2017 collection: “This season the collection is transported to a parallel universe where a mixed cast of humanoids, aliens, robots and earthlings unite for the Gucci invasion from a galaxy far, far away.”

From The New York Times’ coverage of Balenciaga Men’s Fall/Winter 2017 “Business Casual” collection: “It would certainly liven up the workplace—and put corporate dress codes to the test—if men started showing up at the office dressed like those who moved down the Balenciaga runway, in voluminous greatcoats worn over thigh-high stockings.”

From coverage of the Mr Porter x Prada “Bowling” capsule: “As Mr Porter buyer Mr Daniel Todd points out, it’s all a lot of fun. ‘The 1950s was a time of celebration and optimism and the clothes that people wore reflected this,’ he says. “The 1980s have, until recently perhaps, been a maligned era of fashion, but even before bum bags (re)took menswear by storm, there was lots to love from a sartorial standpoint.’”

“Camp proposes a comic vision of the world. But not a bitter or polemical comedy. If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment.”

British Vogue editor Olivia Singer, on the temperament of “Off-White”: “It is that sense of cool that Abloh has now channelled into Off-White: a sort of disaffected insouciance, heavy-laden with irony, which speaks directly to the Instagram generation.”

Demna Gvasalia, on the design process at Vetements: “We always work on one garment at a time, and for example, if we spend more than 20 minutes on it, we just cancel it because it doesn't feel right.”

“The relation between boredom and Camp taste cannot be overestimated. Camp taste is by its nature possible only in affluent societies, in societies or circles capable of experiencing the psychopathology of affluence.”

Results of a 2016 survey, reported by Quartz’ Marc Bain: “66 percent of American adults and 75 percent of teens agreed that shopping is a ‘great cure for boredom.’ Even more—85 percent of adults and 86 percent of teens—said it makes them feel better, and the best cure for ennui is buying clothes.”

Literally translated, the name of LA-based clothing line “Enfants Riches Déprimés”: “Depressed Rich Children.”

“Detachment is the prerogative of an elite; and as the dandy is the 19th century's surrogate for the aristocrat in matters of culture, so Camp is the modern dandyism. Camp is the answer to the problem: how to be a dandy in the age of mass culture.”

From press surrounding Louis Vuitton Men’s Fall/Winter 2017: “Supreme x Louis Vuitton is happening. Is this official confirmation that high fashion and streetwear are now one and the same? Probably so.”

A headline covering last summer’s Balenciaga pop-up at Colette: “Balenciaga Is Dropping Logo-Laden Sleeping Masks, Mugs & Nail Art at colette in Paris.”

“The aristocratic posture with relation to culture cannot die, though it may persist only in increasingly arbitrary and ingenious ways.”

Headlines:
“Dior Homme & Bogarde Are Launching a $3,200 BMX Bike.”

“They Did It, Balenciaga Presents Official Crocs Collaboration on Paris Runway.”

“Camp is (to repeat) the relation to style in a time in which the adoption of style—as such—has become altogether questionable. (In the modem era, each new style, unless frankly anachronistic, has come on the scene as an anti-style.)”

Headlines:
“Ugly ‘Dad’ Sneakers Luring Luxury.”

“What Is The Deal With Everyone Wearing Small Sunglasses?”

“At Louis Vuitton and Dries Van Noten, Real Men Carry Purses.”

“Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation—not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism.) Camp taste doesn't propose that it is in bad taste to be serious; it doesn't sneer at someone who succeeds in being seriously dramatic. What it does is to find the success in certain passionate failures.”

From AnOther’s 2018 profile of Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele: “He makes no distinction between the high and low: ‘Snoopy is a philosopher,’ he once told Vogue Runway. And that’s true–frequently, Michele mixes references to Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes with cartoon characters including Snoopy and Donald Duck.”

For a 50-year-old essay describing artifice in culture, “Notes On ‘Camp’” has an uncomfortably-clear read on modern fashion, if not the spirit of the times at large.

“We want people to know that we know what we know is maybe not authentically cool enough to know even as we can’t help but let them know that we know it,” wrote Slate associate editor J. Bryan Lowder, who referenced “Camp” in a 2013 feature. “And lodged somewhere within all this tortured choreography, I’m told, is fun.”

In a postmodernity defined by depression memes, curated vintage (as seen here on Grailed), and all-lowercase ‘gram captions, it’s hard not to see Sontag’s–and Lowder’s—point. Perhaps Susan Sontag should’ve played the lottery.

Yet, despite the eeriness of her half-century predictions (can we talk about the “everything in quotes” line?!) if there’s anything to take away from “Notes On ‘Camp’,” it is the essay’s ending.

“The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful,” Sontag concludes.

Then, she redoubles: “Of course, one can't always say that.”

Therein lies truth. Between 1964 and now, our culture has witnessed several long swings of the pendulum known as “irony vs. sincerity.” It’s motion goes like this. Irony (or camp, or artifice, or facetiousness, whatever you prefer) becomes a societal pre-occupation. Time ticks on, something happens, or people get bored. The “Age Of Irony Comes To An End.” The pendulum swings towards seriousness. Time ticks on, something happens, or people get bored. The pendulum swings The “Age Of Irony” is “Alive and Well.” Repeat.

By some accounts, Western societies have lived in that pendulum’s path for over 200 years. Returning to fashion, remember that just over 10 years ago, Hedi Slimane, Thom Browne, and Tom Ford were dropping jaws with cropped, slim-fit suiting. Not campy, oversized, American Psycho-referenced work; instead, it was #menswear. At this point, the very idea of #menswear we now see as an in-joke evocative of an era.

At the time, however? It was as if, to quote legendary fashion critic Tim Blanks on Hedi Slimane’s last show for Dior Homme, “the planets aligned.”

“Of course, one can't always say that.”

With a 1964 essay, Sontag coincidentally predicted the attitudes surrounding today’s artistic conversation—especially that happening within the fashion industry. With its closing line, she addressed perhaps all of human artistic taste itself.