ABSTRACT

F or magic to be effective, there must be belief. In the fashion world there’s the magician’s or shaman’s belief in the effectiveness of his (or her) techniques (“Put your body in the hands of the man they call the Magician”); the fashion press’s belief in the magician’s power; and the faith and expectations of the fashion world which “constantly act as a sort of gravitational eld within which the relationship between sorcerer and bewitched is located and dened” (Lévi-Strauss 1963, 168). Fashion magazines and the fashion world in general recognize and privilege designers’ extraordinary powers. But, in exchange, they demand satisfaction: in terms of the garments produced, the showmanship that surrounds their exhibition, and the language used to describe them. From this are born the credulity and scepticism that characterize both the world of fashion and magic more generally (Lévi-Strauss 1963, 169; compare with Taussig 2003).