Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics: Past and Present

Description

How are aesthetics and ethics related to the practical realities of the global fashion industry? Both have played an important role in academic fashion studies to this point, but they are most often discussed in the context of abstract phenomena such as modernity and capitalism, or identity issues such as sexuality, class and gender. The essays in this volume strive instead to show how the realities of the global fashion industry have important and pertinent aesthetic and ethical consequences. This collection provides critical and philosophical analysis of the interplay of aesthetics and ethics within the global fashion industry. Characterized by an increasingly fast spinning production, the industry is highly exploitative in terms of environment and labor force: underpaid textile workers, retailers working under brutal competition from the mass-merchandise discounters, young designers, seamstresses and curators often working for free, and a vast body of aspiring models. In addition, fashion-related aesthetic ideals are becoming more influential than ever in directing consumers in their social and personal identification processes and bodily practices with sometimes fatal consequences. Covering a wide range of subjects such as fashion’s highly problematic production and consumption practices, the possibility of producing and consuming fashion ethically, fashion’s intimate connection with nature and technology, Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics highlights the powerful aesthetical presence of fashion in relation to its ethical premises and often problematic outcomes. Cover Halftitle page Title page Copyright page Contents Illustrations Contributors Foreword: Hedonism – Notes During an Epidemic Acknowledgements Introduction Between production and consumption The problems and potentials of fashion media Aesthetics, ethics and fashion Outline Part One Producing Aesthetics: Ethical Issues in Contemporary Fashion Production 1 Circular Fashion: Moral Effects and Ethical Implications Introduction Maintenance work Problematizations and circular remedies Steps toward circular fashion 2 Animals ‘Occupy’ Vogue Italia: Sustainability, Ethics and the Fashion Media Introduction Vogue Italia Ethics, sustainability and animals Animals ‘Occupy’ Vogue Italia Wildlife and fragility Six articles on leather ‘Future For Fur’ Animals, sustainability and the limits of fashion media 3 Producing Garments, Manufacturing Fashion: On the Globalization of Industry and Disconnection with Craft The role of production in the evolution of fashion A fashion peace treaty The magical transformation of fashion Different worlds of production The atelier performance The alienation of design and production The ethics and aesthetics of fashion products Producing a fashion truth Towards another fashion 4 The Fashion of the Manifesto Introduction The death of the manifesto? Paradoxes and fashion revolutions The manifesto as a commodity 5 The Cost of Looking Good: Ethics and Aesthetics in the Fashion Industry Introduction Looking good? Negligence and exploitation Fashion disasters Making things look good Allure – What lies behind the image? Conclusion Part Two Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics: From Past to Present 6 Ragged and Unravelled Introduction 7 The ‘Organic’ Feminine: Art Nouveau and Women’s Fashion, Yesterday and Today Art Nouveau Fashion: 1900s–1920s Nature and the ‘feminine’ The plant world The animal world Woman as icon Nature vs culture Art Nouveau Fashion Redux: 1960s–present 8 Style Politics and the Black Panther Party: Power, Resistance and Community Introduction Theory and practice of the Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party uniform Black Panther style legacy 9 Fashion is Human: Perspectives on the Aesthetics and Ethics of Contemporary Swedish Fashion Photography Introduction Staging the natural Individualism and equality The aesthetics of social democracy Fashion is human – a conclusion Part Three Aesthetics and Ethics: Philosophical Investigations of Fashion 10 Fashion, Prosthetics, Machines: Being Human and the Body Today Introduction Prosthetics Some remarks on cyberpunk and the grotesque A new humanism ‘Second nature’ Bodies Multiple fashionable bodies Conclusion 11 The Missing Juncture: Architecture and Fashion from Schinkel to Le Corbusier Introduction Style and the loss of place Tectonics: Order lost and regained Cladding: Surface and depth Which fashion? 12 Fashion Aesthetics, Ethics and Choice Introduction Choice Choice and aesthetic behaviour Possible and impossible Consequences and implications Conclusion Bibliography Index