CAMP

Camp is an aesthetic of deliberate theatricality, irony and 'so bad it's wonderful' taste, which turns excess, artifice and pathos into high art. The concept was theorised by Susan Sontag in her essay 'Notes on Camp' (1964), and in 2019 a legendary exhibition and Met Gala were devoted to it. Camp loves exaggeration, drama, kitsch, humour and a challenge to 'good taste': lavish wigs, sparkle, hyperbolised forms, joke costumes, pop-culture kitsch. It is a style that does not take itself too seriously and celebrates artifice as freedom. Elton John, Lady Gaga, drag culture and the designer Jeremy Scott became icons of camp. Camp is a joyful rebellion against boredom and convention, in which excess, irony and theatricality become a form of art and self-expression.