Brad Pitt’s new cosmetics line “Le Domaine” comprises only three products: a cleansing fluid, a serum and a cream. Besides the screw caps of two of the subtly designed flacons being turned out of wood and looking almost hand-carved, this skincare program seems downright minimalist – in keeping with a legendary slogan in German advertising history (for a glycerin soap called CD): “I only let water and CD touch my skin.”
But are we really dealing with minimalism here? A term that, in a way, is perceived as positive, is derived from the asceticism of religious extremists in Christian culture, the nuns and monks who, as brides and brothers of Jesus Christ, chastised themselves in nunneries and monasteries, not necessarily living on bread and water, but almost.
The death of Jesus on the cross – the Son of God, after all – is one thing; the divorce from Angelina Jolie may have been perceived as similarly drastic. In any case, it probably takes an external event that is at least subjectively perceived as epoch-making to usher in a frugal episode. For example, a few weeks after 9/11, German fashion designer Wolfgang Joop published an essay in the highest-circulation news magazine in his home country, Der Spiegel, under the title “Glamor Was Yesterday.” Therein, Joop, then 56, issued an almost Calvinistic appeal: “Away with the pomp, with the ostentation and everything that is gratuitous: Clear it out, throw it away, so that only what is really important remains.” He continued: “In 2001, freedom begins with liberation from all that was accumulated over the years of shopping sprees.”
Well, one might ask in light of historical events, a war against Iraq that went fatally wrong, a resulting, equally fatal civil war in Syria including the meanwhile known effects from Libya, from North Africa and Afghanistan to Ukraine: Was Wolfgang Joop on the payroll of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or ISIS?
But there is no room for humor here; in minimalism, even humor is not permitted, it is gratuitous, an extravagance of life that has no place at all in its most stringent form.
One should not forget that Wolfgang Joop may be many things, but first and foremost he is a designer. This clearly affects his thinking. Even a sublime concept like remorse or apology can be shaped into a fashion by a designer – as one saw with Demna’s mud-show battle for Balenciaga (no foot in mouth intended!), when the “brutal war of aggression against Ukraine” was still of worldwide, deeply felt interest; in the meantime, it’s his own neck on the line.
Perhaps all these stylized attempts to proclaim a minimalism are intended to have less of a moderating effect than was thought and are, in fact, intended to distract from something else entirely. Something that could almost brutally discourage consumption. A minimalism that doesn’t even have to be propagated, but that everyone feels. In themselves. The minimalism of life itself.
“The Bare Necessities” is a wonderful song written by Terry Gilkyson in 1967, in the thick of the United States’ war against Vietnam, and best known from the Jungle Book. Most of us, however, thankfully do not have to learn about the bare necessities on the battlefield of a war, but much later in the course of our biography. That is, when we are old – older than the police allow, at least (or your long-term care insurance) – and when all the things we once considered worth living for are long gone, like money, sex, friends. Nothing is left. Even food no longer tastes good. And one should keep quiet about the rest. A nun-like or monk-like existence, in any case.
Then you have really reached the optimum of a minimalist lifestyle – or should we rather call it essentialist?
The other day, I read an interview with a woman who was 101 years and four months old. She stated: “I have outgrown time. I feel like a worm, digging in the dirt and not knowing what to do.”
When asked what she wished for, she had a very minimalist (or essential) wish: “I would like to walk through the forest again.”
By the way, in the German dub of the Jungle Book, “The Bare Necessities” is called something completely different: “Probier’s Mal mit Gemütlichkeit.”