The Charge of Vulgarity
To call something vulgar has long been a way to dismiss it. The term implies a lack of refinement, a failure to conform to ideals of taste. Yet history shows that what is called vulgar often carries disruptive power. Loud colors, exaggerated forms, and excessive gestures have been coded as vulgar precisely because they refuse the quietude of conformity. Vulgarity, in this sense, is not only aesthetic—it is political.
Fashion as Refusal of Silence
Nowhere is this clearer than in fashion. The glittering gowns of drag queens, the neon furs of punk scenes, or the maximalist layering of camp aesthetics all challenge norms of subtlety. They declare visibility as a right. What is vulgar to some is survival to others: the claim that bodies and identities deemed marginal will not disappear into restraint.
By choosing sequins, spikes, or shockingly bright fabrics, fashion transforms vulgarity into spectacle—and spectacle into resistance.
Art and the Grotesque of Excess
Art, too, has embraced vulgarity. From baroque ornament bursting with gilded curves to contemporary installations drenched in glitter, artists have used excess to destabilize hierarchies of taste. The grotesque and the vulgar often overlap: both distort, amplify, and push beyond comfort.
In symbolic wall art, neon palettes, distorted botanicals, or surreal faces awash in fuchsia reclaim vulgarity as a source of beauty. Here, excess is not an error but an intentional force that unsettles and empowers.
Décor and the Politics of Visibility
Even in home décor, vulgarity plays a role. A maximalist interior layered with clashing prints and oversized art refuses the neutrality of minimalist calm. It insists that homes, like identities, can be unapologetically loud.
The so-called vulgar in décor—hot pink walls, neon posters, glittering objects—are not failures of restraint but affirmations of joy and visibility. They remind us that space, like the body, can be claimed through excess.
The Feminist and Queer Embrace of Vulgarity
Feminist and queer aesthetics have long reclaimed vulgarity as power. Lipstick too red, heels too high, voices too loud—these exaggerations reject expectations that women and queer people make themselves smaller, quieter, more palatable. Vulgarity becomes the refusal to shrink.
Glitter, fuchsia, and camp exaggeration turn ridicule into celebration. They affirm that the loud and the excessive can be not only beautiful but also profoundly political.
Toward a Poetics of Excess
Why does vulgarity matter? Because it unmasks the politics of taste. What is dismissed as vulgar is often what threatens established hierarchies. By embracing loudness, flash, and excess, art and fashion reveal that visibility itself can be radical.
To live with vulgarity—on the body, on the wall, in the home—is to claim space without apology. It is to insist that presence, however excessive, is itself a form of power.
