Introduction
THE INTRODUCTION TRIED TO ANSWER the questions âwhat is theory?â, âwhat is fashion?â and âwhat is fashion theory?â This section looks in more detail at the relation between fashion and fashion theories.
One of the problems referred to in the Introduction concerned the extent to which the object of study was the product of the theory employed to study it. Standing in a field and asked to describe what they see, the general saw the exposed killing field and the art student saw the pastoral idyll at least partly because they were using different theories. Another problem that arises is the extent to which any explanation that is given using such theories is partial, or reductive: the farmerâs description or explanation of the field as a profitable unit does not exhaust the account that might be given of that field. These problems also affect the ways in which theories describe and explain what fashion is and how it works. There is a sense in which any conception and explanation of fashion is the product of the theory used to describe, explain and understand it. For example, if the theory is that fashion is about the expression of gender identity, then any and all examples of fashion will be constructed and explained in terms of gender and identity. And there is a sense in which any theory used to explain and understand fashion will inevitably reduce the phenomenon of fashion to its own terms. The explanation of fashion as the expression of gender identity, for example, will not be interested in those aspects of fashion that are not about gender identity and to that extent will be open to accusations of reductionism. This section will introduce the relation between fashion and fashion theories by considering the ways in which theories construct and explain fashion.
The artist and art historian, Quentin Bell, writing in 1947, is quite explicit on these matters, devoting an entire chapter of On Human Finery to âTheories of Fashionâ. At the end of this chapter, he sets out what he believes âthe factsâ to be and he says that âany theoryâ of fashion must âfit those factsâ (1992: 105). On Bellâs account âthe factsâ pre-exist the theories that are to explain them, and the force behind his critical review of the four types of theory is based upon them not fitting the facts. The facts, then, exist independently of the theories which are to explain them on Bellâs account, rather than being the products of those theories. The second problem noted earlier concerns reductionism and is to do with the way in which a theory or an explanation of fashion reduces fashion to the terms of that theory and that explanation. All the theories that Bell discusses in this chapter are presented as attempts to answer the following questions: âWhat sets this incredibly powerful evolutionary process [fashion] into motion, what maintains and increases its velocity, gives it its vast strength and accounts for its interconnected phenomena?â (Ib.: 90).
Bell identifies four types of theory that are proposed in the attempt to explain the changes of fashion. The first sees fashion as the work of individuals. The second proposes fashion as the âproductâ of human nature. The third explains fashion as the âreflectionâ of political or spiritual events. And the fourth suggests âthe intervention of a Higher Powerâ (Ib.: 90). What Bell finds, however, is that âthe factsâ do not fit these theories. Fashion is not the work of individuals because individuals such as Beau Brummel and Paul Poiret were, in fact, often âunable to stand against the current of tasteâ. This form of theory also provides no account of why anyone should wish to âobeyâ these individuals (Ib.: 93). Fashion is not the product of human nature because âas a ruleâ men and women have been happy to wear what their parents wore: only recently and only in Europe have people worn âfashionâ (Ib.: 94). Neither is fashion the reflection of great historical and political events. Bell cites numerous wars and economic crises in which fashion conspicuously failed to âmirrorâ events, and he discusses various histories of religion and nationalism in which what people wear also does not reflect events (Ib.: 79â102). Bell uses Heardâs account of evolution in fashion as an example of fashion being explained in terms of a Higher Power. Evolution fails as an explanatory theory because evolution in living things âis one in which the fittest survive and the claims of utility are inexorableâ (Ib.: 104). Exactly the opposite is true of fashionable dress, according to Bell, in that utility is often the last thing one thinks of when one thinks of fashion.
Despite his arguments concerning fashion and natural selection, Bell still wants to think of fashion as an âevolutionary processâ, and he appears committed to the idea that it can and will be explained in terms of its motive force (Ib.: 89â90). Bell says that fashion is the âgrand motor force of tasteâ, and the way in which he explains it turns out to have much in common with Veblenâs concept of consumption, a socialised account of class emulation and class distinction (see Chapter 9 for more on this). Clearly, there are other definitions of fashion (as a sequence of random differences or as the expression of inner psychological states, for example) and there are other questions that could be asked of it (âWhat pleasure does it afford?â or âHow does it relate to consumption?â, for example). To the extent that other quite legitimate definitions and other entirely appropriate questions exist, Bellâs account may be said to be reductive.
This is essentially Elizabeth Wilsonâs thesis in her chapter on fashion theories in Adorned in Dreams, tellingly entitled âExplaining It Awayâ. She looks at economic and anthropological theories of fashion and her argument is that all are reductive, or âsimplistâ, as she puts it (Ib.: 54). While she is not explicitly concerned with the ways in which facts are produced from within theories, rather than existing objectively or independently of them, the ways in which economic and anthropological theories presuppose the nature of the thing they are to explain (fashion) is of concern to her. Baudrillardâs (economic) account of fashion consumption, for example, is said to be âover-simplified and over-deterministicâ because it reduces fashion to class emulation through consumerism and âgrants no role to contradiction ⊠or pleasureâ (Wilson 1992: 53). That is, Baudrillardâs theory, which owes much to Marx and Veblen, presupposes a definition of fashion and it ignores anything that does not âfitâ into that definition. The definition of fashion here is that it is about class emulation; contradiction and pleasure are ignored here because they do not fit easily into that definition. It will be noted that this is the same move as that made by Bell when he marshals âthe factsâ and tries to find a theory that will âfitâ them.
Gilles Lipovetsky (1994) provides an argument that sounds as though it is in almost complete disagreement with both Wilson and Bell. Writing from a philosophical perspective, he says that fashion has âprovoked no serious theoretical dissensionâ (1994: 4). This is quite a claim. However, it is not to say that there is no such thing as fashion theory; it is to say that there are theories, but that there is no conflict between them. There exists within fashion theory a profound âcritical unanimityâ and that unanimity is not produced by accident, but is âdeeply rooted in the thought process that underlies philosophical reflection itselfâ (Ib.: 9). What Lipovetsky is getting at here is that all critics of fashion, all fashion theorists, have agreed that fashion is fickle or superficial and that it may be fully explained in terms of fashionâs role in âclass rivalriesâ and in the âcompetitive struggles for prestige that occur among the various layers and factions of the social bodyâ (Ib.: 3â4). In this, Lipovetsky is essentially in agreement with Wilson (if not with Bell), who says that âfashion writers have never really challenged Veblenâs explanationsâ (Wilson 1992: 52). This is because Veblen is one of the first writers to suggest that fashion is to be explained in terms of struggles over prestige between different social classes.
Lipovetskyâs account of the relation between fashion and theory is a version of the argument that theory (in this case western philosophy) produces the phenomenon to be studied. The argument is that since Plato western thought has operated with a conception of truth and knowledge that distrusts and devalues images and surface appearance. In Platoâs cave, humans are misled by the play of shadows on the wall: they do not see and therefore cannot know what actually causes them. Fashion is thought to be like the play of shadows in this argument, and as a result western thought mistrusts fashion, seeing it as distracting and superficial. Consequently, fashion theorists are only following some of the most basic tenets of western thought when they construct fashion as enchanting and condemn it for its triviality and superficiality. This is the âruse of reasonâ (Ib.: 9) that operates in all fashion theorising as far as Lipovetsky is concerned. The notion that knowledge is like light in some way and that light may be used as a metaphor for knowledge (as in âenlightenmentâ, for example) is one of the founding metaphors of western thought and it is hardly surprising that it plays a profound role in western theory, including western theories about fashion.
In the light of these considerations (to follow the Platonic metaphor again) it seems insufficient to suggest that if all theory is tied to disciplines and therefore reductive, then as many disciplines and theories as possible should be employed in order to try to escape the charge of reductionism. That is, if any one theory concerning what fashion is and how it should be explained and understood is likely to be reductive, then interdisciplinarity is required to avoid over-simplifying and reducing fashion to the terms of that disciplineâs theory. It may sound insufficient, but this interdisciplinarity is precisely what theorists such as Wilson, Tickner and Braudel were seen to suggest in the Introduction. All agreed that fashion, perhaps uniquely, demanded the use of a number of disciplines in order to define, explain and understand it. If it is the nature of disciplinary theory to construct its object (and thus to be reductive), then many disciplines, many theories, many constructions and many different types of explanation and understanding are necessary in order to minimise (if not escape) what might always be misunderstood as the less helpful consequences of fashion theorising.
There is one discipline that has not been thematised as yet but which is presupposed by all the discussions so far and in which interest has developed significantly since the first edition: that discipline is philosophy. In 2006 Lars Svendsenâs Fashion: A Philosophy was published; this was followed by Wolfendale and Kennettâs (2011) edited collection, Fashion Philosophy for Everyone, and by Matteucci and Marinoâs (2017) edited collection Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion. While not explicitly concerned with fashion, Anne-Marie Willisâs (2019) edited collection of essays in The Design Philosophy Reader does contain a few references to fashion and provides ample context for further exploration of the discipline and how fashion and clothing might be explained. Svensenâs monograph has chapters on many of the subjects covered in the present collection, including the nature of fashion, the body, fashion as/and art and fashion and consumption. Wolfendale and Kennettâs collection contains a number of essays central to the concerns of this volume. Andy Hamiltonâs essay, âThe Aesthetics of Designâ, takes up the concerns of Nancy Troy in this volume as to whether fashion is art or not. Samantha Brennanâs essay provides an alternative perspective on the matter of sexual identity, and Part Four of Wolfendale and Kennettâs collection is dedicated to questions of philosophical ethics as they relate to the production of fashion items.
The readings extracted here from Barbara Vinken and Pierre Bourdieu also follow up these concerns. Vinkenâs chapter relates fashion to art and to history and temporality, arguing that fashion completes the task that art set itself, of expressing the zeitgeist in visible form, thus eliminating the difference between fashion and history or, more accurately, effectively being or becoming the identity of fashion and history. Modernist theoreticians such as Baudelaire and Benjamin are marshalled and used to discuss the work of Chanel and explaining the flash-like moment of fashion. Bourdieuâs chapter explores the apparently jokey but actually very serious relationship between the production of haute couture and the production of haute culture. The idea that fashion, even the high-status versions of it known as haute couture, might be the equivalent of culture, let alone high culture, might seem preposterous to some, but Bourdieu argues the case via the concepts of magic, cultural struggle and revolution and the surprisingly likely comparability of Coco Chanel and President de Gaulle on the matter of âsuccessionâ in fashion and politics. The extracts in this section illustrate some of the range of possible and potential forms that theorising the nature, production and consumption of fashion can take.