Eric Bidaud, Olivier Ouvry : adolescence, clothing and visage-ification

Because the Ego can only be projected image of the subject through its multiple representation, its various “ garments ” it can only be imaginarily sustained by the Other, the Other’s gaze. Clothing and its problematization in adolescence are a way of grasping oneself back from the Other’s gaze, in a renewed quest (like an after effect of the mirror stage) for approval and confirmation of one’s image from the Other. In this way the adolescent’s relationship with clothing may be perceived as a necessary phase when gazes are recombined in order to construct what we call a visage, within the difficult meeting of these gazes. Thus we propose that clothing be thought of as the place of a process of visage-ification affecting subject and object, a process through which the meeting of gazes is played out again and put into dialectical form.