This document is a summary of all of the readings from Fashion History and Theory from MKDA. The summary covers Carlyle, Simmel, Veblen, Barthes, Flugel and Spencer.
The summary has a overview table and an in-depth analysis of each author and their main ideologies.
Charles Darwin
- Survival of the fittest
- We evolve for the better
- Journal of Researches (1839) book about his expedition to Tierra de Fuego
- He claimed that in this part of the world, people didn’t wear many clothes
- Up until then people thought clothes were worn for functionality and modesty (to cover what
shouldn’t be shown)
- Darwin discovered this wasn’t fully true, as see in Tierra de Fuego
- Clothes as “Decoration
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Herbert Spencer Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929)
(1820-1903)
Profession Author Sociologist (founder of Economist (critiqued
sociology) capitalism)
Pioneer of social
darwinism
Book Sartor Resartus (1836) Main The Principles of Sociology The Theory of the Leisure Class
character Prof. Diogenes vol.II (1879) (1899)
Teufelsdröckh living in advanced ideas around application of Darwin’s theory of
“Weissnichtwo” (fictional) ‘society’ and its own evolution to modern economic life
dynamics
Formulates his views
through different voices,
allows him to deal with the
matter ironically
Main Importance of decoration Importance of decoration theories the changing
thesis: over protection or modesty over protection or modesty dynamics of fashion, not just the
origins of clothing
adornment for aesthetic adornment for power
purposes (social control) purposes ‘conspicuous consumption’; fashion as
imitation
Other: Deals with the relationship Removed the previous disagrees with Spencer and says
between clothes, body and Image of fashion, which modernity is a later form of barbarism
mind Carlye had created and
‘sociologized’ fashion discussion between
Saw fashion as a product of: protection and decoration
a conscious choice, ones modernity is rational, situates within the reform movement
vanity or weak character progressive and better than
the past sees fashion as unworthy objects of
study, embodiment of powerful
upper-classes
, Georg Simmel (1858-1918) John Carl Flügel Roland Barthes (1915-1980)
(1884-1955)
Profession Sociologist Psychologist Literary theorist, with interest in
(psychoanalyst) popular culture
semiotics (study of
language)
Book Philosophie der Mode (1905) Psychology of Clothes The System of Fashion (1967)
(1930)
Main Sees fashion as the result of Clothes are key to psyche in Frames fashion dynamics in
thesis: conflicting forces within the tradition of psycho analysis production, distribution and
society consumption
Protection is rather
fashion dynamics move symbolic and not merely to
between two poles i.e. keep one’s body
differentiation and imitation temperature constant.
Other: Looks at the immideate Examines the distinguishes between: ‘the real
environment and gives relationship between the garment’, ‘the represented
importance to all types of instincts, the super-ego and garment’ and ‘the used
cultural products and in the outer world garment’
particular to the everyday
The origin of clothes and the distances himself from the
disagrees with Veblen and reason behind changes in trilogy decoration, protection
Carlyle, fashion has nothing to fashion is modesty and modesty.
do with weaker character; (disagrees with Carlyle and
women compensate for their Simmel)
weak position in society by
following fashion tension between
(individualization/visibility) exhibitionism (nature) and
modesty (culture)
explanation of gender
differences in clothes.
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