Clean look, dirty politics: visual neo-fascism and fashion as a weapon

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, three fashion trends served as a harbinger of the rise of neo-fascism in the US. These trends are considered to have systematically promoted racism, nepotism, social inequality, and patriarchy. These trends are: old money, Tradwife, and the clean look, trends that have become popular on social media and which were a silent cry foreshadowing a change of regime. This paper will expose the intrinsic relationship between fashion as a tool of power, the resurgence of neo-fascism, and seduction as invisible and desired coercion, where digital social media has constructed the appropriate stage for the aesthetic presentation of certain political communities, as the media is the privileged space for political mediation. This paper draws a historical parallel with Benito Mussolini's fascist Italy, where fashion was used in a similar way. At that time, clothing served to accentuate differences with “the other” and, at the same time, to forge a hegemonic aesthetic that reinforced the values of the regime, similar to what Trumpist neo-fascism has done with its MAGA sect. Thus, this analysis highlights how fashion, both in the past and in the present, can be a subtle but powerful vehicle for the dissemination of political ideologies.