Perimeter

VISCOSE 07: Scent

Regular price $75.00

2 Hour Store Pickup • Spend $300 For Free Shipping

DESCRIPTION

The seventh issue of Viscose explores fashion’s enduring bond with scent and perfume.

To be sure, fashion smells. Olfactory sensations have leaked from industries of style since its inception: scent, the stuff of ancient history and myth, has been traded as precious commodities alongside textiles and garments since the world’s earliest trade routes (if for a range of social, religious, and political purposes). But the connection between scent and clothing is more profound than their commodity status. For if fashion can be understood as a ‘social technology’ that represents self and body as culturally produced concepts, then olfaction is indeed fashion in the purest sense of the word – a supplementary limb, or a garment, as it were.

Smell is a critical dimension of social appropriateness (which is how Arjun Appadurai once defined fashion), beginning, of course, with cleanliness. Smell is brutally implicated in the production of gender, ethnicity, race, and class, linking many of our social anxieties and aspirations to concrete chemical compounds that are still mostly unnamed.

This is the paradox of scent: much like fashion, olfaction is a technology of supplementing the body but the difference is that this extension happens in the realm of the atmospheric – a realm that eludes the classic semiotic register in which we tend to discuss not only fashion but socially legible bodies. The atmospheric is where semiotics dematerialises, literally evaporates – and thus also where standard writing ends. To understand and write about scent is enormously difficult: this is no doubt what galvanises the genre of scent writing so profoundly.

Viscose 07 examines scent through a variety of lenses, observing its historical and contemporary role in fashion culture. The issue seeks out histories of projects – mainly developed with or by artists and designers – who have embraced and involved smell as a medium of possibility and knowledge production, gesturing to histories of manufacturing, trade, branding, and commerce, but also sexuality, desire, identity, and memory. With respect to the abstract knowledge of scent, we are in pursuit of accounts ranging from literature to philosophy that attempt to synthesise, much like perfume itself, the sensorial, capitalist, artistic, and scientific forces that make up scent in our modern world.

127 pages, 20 x 30 cm, softcover, Bierke Verlag (Berlin).

SHIPPING & RETURNS

Free shipping on all Australian domestic orders over $300.

For all orders under $300, a $15 shipping fee will be applied at checkout.

We accept returns on all full priced items within 7 days of receipt for a credit note or an exchange. Earrings, socks, swimwear, intimates, and fragrance cannot be returned for a refund or exchange for hygiene reasons, unless faulty. Client is responsible for paying all return and exchange shipping costs.

For our full terms & conditions, please view our Refund Policy

STORE PICKUP

Click and collect is available from MANE at Level 1, 10 Peel Street Collingwood 3066.

Just select pickup in cart and we'll have it ready for you in 2 hours.

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The seventh issue of Viscose explores fashion’s enduring bond with scent and perfume.

To be sure, fashion smells. Olfactory sensations have leaked from industries of style since its inception: scent, the stuff of ancient history and myth, has been traded as precious commodities alongside textiles and garments since the world’s earliest trade routes (if for a range of social, religious, and political purposes). But the connection between scent and clothing is more profound than their commodity status. For if fashion can be understood as a ‘social technology’ that represents self and body as culturally produced concepts, then olfaction is indeed fashion in the purest sense of the word – a supplementary limb, or a garment, as it were.

Smell is a critical dimension of social appropriateness (which is how Arjun Appadurai once defined fashion), beginning, of course, with cleanliness. Smell is brutally implicated in the production of gender, ethnicity, race, and class, linking many of our social anxieties and aspirations to concrete chemical compounds that are still mostly unnamed.

This is the paradox of scent: much like fashion, olfaction is a technology of supplementing the body but the difference is that this extension happens in the realm of the atmospheric – a realm that eludes the classic semiotic register in which we tend to discuss not only fashion but socially legible bodies. The atmospheric is where semiotics dematerialises, literally evaporates – and thus also where standard writing ends. To understand and write about scent is enormously difficult: this is no doubt what galvanises the genre of scent writing so profoundly.

Viscose 07 examines scent through a variety of lenses, observing its historical and contemporary role in fashion culture. The issue seeks out histories of projects – mainly developed with or by artists and designers – who have embraced and involved smell as a medium of possibility and knowledge production, gesturing to histories of manufacturing, trade, branding, and commerce, but also sexuality, desire, identity, and memory. With respect to the abstract knowledge of scent, we are in pursuit of accounts ranging from literature to philosophy that attempt to synthesise, much like perfume itself, the sensorial, capitalist, artistic, and scientific forces that make up scent in our modern world.

127 pages, 20 x 30 cm, softcover, Bierke Verlag (Berlin).

ELSEWHERE

FAQs

Yas. We offer free standard shipping on all Australian orders over $300.

Orders under $300 are charged a flat rate at checkout. International shipping rates are calculated at checkout based on destination.

We offer same-day click and collect from our Collingwood store. Select "Pick up in store" at checkout and we'll have your order ready within a few hours.

Our store is located at LVL 1, 10 Peel Street, Collingwood VIC 3066.

We accept returns and exchanges for change of mind on full-price items only: sale items, earrings, lingerie, hosiery, and swimwear are final sale.

To be eligible, you must contact us and return the item within 7 days of delivery. Items must be unused, unopened, and in their original packaging with tags attached.

Return shipping costs are the responsibility of the customer, we recommend using a trackable service.

If you've received a faulty or incorrect item, please email hello@manebystable.com.au within 7 days of delivery with your order details and photos of the fault, we'll arrange a replacement or full refund and cover the return shipping cost

We do. Just select Afterpay as a payment option at checkout to split your purchase into four fortnightly payments.

Care instructions vary by garment and are listed on the product page under the Care accordion where available. When in doubt, cold hand wash and lay flat to dry is the safest approach for most of the garments we stock.

Sizing varies between the brands we stock, so we try to include size and fit advice for most products. If you're still unsure, get in touch with us at hello@manebystable.com.au or visit us in store and we'd be happy to help you out.

Is the Pope Catholic? Our team knows every brand and product we stock inside out. If you'd like help putting a look together, finding the right fit, or just want to know what's new in store, you're welcome to visit us at LVL 1, 10 Peel Street, Collingwood VIC 3066.

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