COVETED MAGAZINE PAGE 109.
Though Susan Sontag took camp mainstream in her essay, the concept originally stems from queer culture and dates back to the 17th century.
Still, the art of camp remains hard to define to this day.
Extravagant. Flamboyant. Subversive. Kitschy are some of the adjectives used to describe camp fashion. In the essay, Sontag defines camp
as a “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” “The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-
serious” she explained.
WHAT IS CAMP?
For Andrew Bolton, chief curator for the Costume Institute, just asking the question “What is
camp?” is the point. Although usually associated with LGBT culture, the word camp describes
anything that is intentionally ostentatious or excessively effeminate. “This exhibition might
raise more questions than it answers: ‘Is camp gay?’, ‘Is camp political?’ and, ultimately, ‘What is
camp?’,” reads a statement from The Met.
“We’re experiencing a resurgence of camp not only in fashion, but in culture in general” Andrew
Bolton says “Camp tends to come during times of cultural instability.”
“Camp’s disruptive nature and subversion of modern aesthetic values has often been trivialized, but
this exhibition reveals that it has had a profound influence on both high art and popular culture,”
said Max Hollein, Director of The Met.
Camp is also pretty subjective. What one person interprets as camp might not translate that way
to someone else.
The scholar Fabio Cleto says that ‘Camp is a question mark that won’t let its line be straightened
up into an exclamation mark.’ I want people to leave thinking, ‘What is camp?’ That is the power
and the poetry behind camp, constantly trying to define it.”
TRENDBOOK //
