Genius and taste: Sara Danius’ couture gowns as extended power dressing

Abstract

The visual politics of fashion has again become a topic of interest to scholars working both inside and outside the realm of fashion studies, although many, like this author, actually bow to Jennifer Craik’s ground-breaking study The Face of Fashion (1994). This article introduces the notion extended power dressing as a way to further the scholarly study of contemporary female executives’ brand of power dressing in the aftermath of John T. Molloy’s 1980s matrix for successful ‘wardrobe-engineering’. In line with previous studies of the sartorial dress code represented by women in power, this article features a pertinent example from yet another social arena, in the form of the unprecedented couture gowns worn by the late permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, at the Nobel Festivities in Stockholm between 2015 and 2018. The author suggests that these frocks are materialized visions of Danius’ intellectual wit and cultural taste, thus representing a visual articulation of her powerful rank. An important characteristic pertaining to Danius’ extended power dressing is therefore that her situated dress practice, while advocating different practices of resistance and counterconduct, refuted all sexualization of her as a female subject to the benefit of a selfauthored and self-reflecting enfashioning technology. By detailing the intellectual process behind Danius’ gowns, as well as their performance in society, this study shows how power is behaving and how it is structured when comparing the conduct of a certain dominant discourse (in this case cultural tradition and misogyny) to the author’s proposed counter-discourse (resistance and female agency). The author suggests that the visual politics emerging from this meeting represent a unique female subculture adding yet another layer to the visual politics of fashion.