Aesthetics of innocence: Camp Notes on Disney´s Cindnerella by Tommy Hilfiger at the Met's Gala

Abstract

Notes on the camp by Susan Sontag (1964) was the first establishment of the camp in the cultural and academic field; but it had never transcended to mass communication. With the 2019 Met Gala the camp reaches all audiences, through famous artists and models. In this article we approach the expression of camp through the design presented by Tommy Hilfiger for the actress Zendaya rewriting the fairy tale, Cinderella (Perrault, 1697). The aesthetic inspired by the 1950 Disney adaptation is presented as a camp element mixing concepts such as magic, transformation and innocence through fashion. Rewriting and reinterpreting European short stories is part of the literary and cinematographic tradition; fashion takes this over in designs using the elements of the story for a new construction of the story. The camp seeks to rewrite different socially accepted narratives such as femininity, through irony, imitation and exaggeration - elements of the camp - observed in many of the gala´s costumes. This work seeks to find the signs that define the aesthetics of innocence, the symbols that have become established myths representing childhood, and their possible use for the creation of a fashion design as a camp element. We will see the meeting points between the film adaptation, the presentation of the costume at the Met Gala and the camp sensibility.