Against all odds and against the current of any cliché, intelligence became fashionable. Celebrities who show off their readings on social media instead of dresses or makeup. Singers who structure a work on each album, with all kinds of quotes that refer to the classical tradition. Fashion labels that encourage people to buy books instead of purses. AND looks that refer to the university and libraries and they hide the body under several meters of cloth. Fashion touches everything and capitalism absorbs everything. And now it’s culture’s turn.
Maybe it’s not just a trend that seems deep but is as superficial as any other. A few days ago, an article in the English newspaper The Guardian reflected on the “smart sexy” movement, attributing its signals to a social need to combat the anti-intellectualism of the new right, represented in the ideas of Donald Trump. Ignoring thinkers, boycotting universities, laughing at forecasts about climate change is part of a discourse that has transformed culture into a despised territory of the left.
But more than the political context, we could also attribute these cultural manifestations linked to the world of entertainment and fashion to a genuine interest of creators within that field, in the history of art and literature. From Karl Lagerfeld to Pablo Ramírez, there are plenty of examples. An old cliché is that if you are fascinated by dresses, you cannot like auteur films or the essays of Judith Butler.
Another cliché? If you’re pretty you can’t be smart. If you walk down a catwalk you are not likely to understand Borges. And if you sing trap there is no chance that you will be interested in visiting the Louvre.
Depth signals
They started a long time ago with celebrities who showed what they read on Instagram. Dua Lipa, Reese Whitherspoon and Sarah Jessica Parker were the pioneers. Today they all have reading clubs and, to the scandal of many, Parker was a member of the jury for one of the most important literary prizes in the world, the Booker Prize.. This award distinguishes in the United Kingdom the best novel of the previous year written in the English language. In view of the constant decline in readership numbers around the world, the support of celebrities is not a bad thing for the publishing industry.
But celebrities also write. For example, The model Emilia Ratajkowski sold thousands of copies of her book of essays “My Body” and, between us, Oriana Sabatini has just made her debut in literature with her novel “I could stay here”published by Sudamericana.
In other areas of showbiz, Taylor Swift’s compositions surprise with their architecturelinked to long-term poetic projects and also those of Rosalía, inspired by great pieces of classical music and images of the Renaissance and Baroque.
The librarian look
As for the intellectual or “geek chic” style, its presence in the windows is evident. In it they converge the “quiet luxury” that was fashionable in recent years and that proposed very classic garmentsof the highest quality, without stridency or excesses and the “oversize” that the collections showed from almost everyone. Men’s suits, wire glasses, large shirts and even accessories reminiscent of the 19th century (also called “poet look”) are present on the streets of most cities right now.
Brands, always attentive to social phenomena, did not take long to join this trend. Dior, for example, created a line of “tote bags” with the titles of great literary works. printed on the front: “Madame Bovary”, “Dangerous Liaisons”, “Bon jour, tristesse”, “Dracula” and “The Flowers of Evil” were some of the texts cited. The value: between $2,500 and $4,000 depending on size.
Also the American accessories brand Coach created some “charms” or “pendants” in the style of the Labububut in the form of a book, to hang from bags and purses.
The Miu Miu label not only designed a collection with the image of women from the ’60s dressed in the intellectual style of the timealso created a large book club that meets to discuss topics in depth. In the last edition in Milan, the topic was sexuality and consent based on texts by Annie Ernaux and Ama Ata Aidoo.
Vuitton, for its part, illustrated its latest collection with an image of actress Jennifer Connelly posing on several stacks of books.
The famous Italian label Bottega Veneta, in the hands of the British designer Louise Trotter, called on the writer Zadie Smith and the sculptor Barbara Chase-Riboud, 90, as the image of the brand. And the Sézanne store in New York converted its premises directly into a bookstore.
Those interested
The young people of generation Z are the main protagonists of this trend. The same ones that sold out editions of “Wuthering Heights” and “Pride and Prejudice” to the rhythm of the films and series based on the books by Emily Brontë and Jane Austen. They are also regular customers of apps like “Bookmark—Dating via Books”, the Tinder of bookswhere the “match” is based on the simple coincidence of loving the same story. It is already known that for any reader, there is no greater pleasure than sharing impressions about what they are reading.
Concerned about their absolute dependence on cell phones, today’s young people have begun to look for entertainment options away from screens.
In relation to the name of this trend, “smart sexy”, marketing specialists wonder how seductive an intellectual can be, historically characterized as very unattractive in terms of romance (just remember the quartet of losers who starred in “The Big Bang Theory”).
But this doubt also has a solution. With the name of “Sapio sexuality” refers to the desire that awakens the intelligence of the person who is our love object.. To describe it in other terms, they are “sexual sapios” who consider the intellectual capacity of their partner to be an essential ingredient of erotic attraction. According to Yuval Harari, the famous author of the book “Sapiens. From animals to gods”women are more prone to this type of desire. The coincidence, then, is that today they are also the ones who read the most, study and visit museums and theaters. Two pieces of information that together give the female gender the sum of the favorite pleasures of this era.
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