4 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Are there any philosopher that talked about fashion? Or that were interested in it?
In his *Anthopology from a Pragmatic Point of View* Kant has a few denigrating remarks on fashion:
It is novelty that makes fashion popular, and to be
inventive in all sorts of external forms, even if they often degenerate into something fantastic and somewhat hideous, belongs to the style of courtiers, especially ladies. Others then anxiously imitate these forms, and those in low social positions burden themselves with them long after the courtiers have put them away. So fashion is not, strictly speaking, a matter of taste (for it can be quite contrary to taste), but of mere vanity in giving oneself airs, and of rivalry in outdoing one another by it.
Walter Benjamin in the Arcades Project has a whole section entitled "Fashion," some of which can be interestingly read as a rejoinder to the attitude expressed by Kant.
For fashion was never anything other than the parody of the motley cadaver, provocation of death through the woman, and bitter colloquy with decay whispered between shrill bursts of mechanical laughter. That is fashion. And that is why she changes so quickly; she titillates death and is already something different, something new, as he casts about to crush her.
Giorgio Agamben also has some remarks on it in "What Is the Contemporary?" which clearly have some debt to Benjamin.
I'd recommend going on PhilPapers[1] and doing a search for "fashion" to see if anything interests you. Interesting subject! I hope philosophers start to give it some more attention.
Comment by Raskolnikov101 at 05/06/2020 at 21:31 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think Kant's view are, in this particular instance, a bit... stereotypical? Granted, it may have not been the case when he wrote them down. Poignant nonetheless, but a bit expected.
The other blurb on the other hand is fascinating, even if maybe I don't grasp it completely... I'll re-read it many times, I believe.
And for the last part I'll certainly take a look, thank you!