Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion

Giovanni Matteucci is Full Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Bologna, Italy.Stefano Marino is a Researcher and Lecturer of Aesthetics at the University of Bologna, Italy.

• Introduction: Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion- 1 Philosophical Accounts of Fashion in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, Stefano Marino- 2 Fashion: A Conceptual Constellation, Giovanni Matteucci- 3 Anti-Fashion: If Not Fashion, Then What?, Nickolas Pappas- 4 Fits of Fashion: THe Somaesthetics of Style, Richard Shusterman- 5 On Fashion Criticism, Lars Svendsen- 6 Thought Without Concept: Carol Christian Poel's Paradoxical Aesthetics, Christian Michel- 7 Caprices of Fashion in Culture and Biology: Charles Darwin's Aesthetics of 'Ornament', Winifried Menninghaus- 8 Fashionable Proteus: The Euphoria of FAshion for Fashion's Sake, Cesar Moreno-Marquez- 9 The Fascination of Contingency: Fashion and Modern Society, Elena EspositoIndex

This edited volume is likely to provoke much-needed debate about the relationship between philosophy and fashion. Using a philosophical lens, the authors address and push questions with which fashion theorists have been grappling: is anti-fashion a useful concept in fashion criticism? Is there, or can there be, an essence of fashion? To what extent can fashion be understood as a dialectic between imitation and differentiation? To what extent does fashion rely on ambivalence and ambiguity? Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion will be a welcome addition to the literatures on fashion and philosophy alike.