Episode 81 - Fashion Transcript
David: 0:13
Welcome to Overthink.
Ellie: 0:15
The podcast where we, two philosophy professors talk about intellectual fashions and so much more.
David: 0:21
I'm your co-host, Dr.David Peña-Guzmán.
Ellie: 0:23
And I'm Dr.Ellie Anderson.Philosophers, perhaps because they take themselves to be searching for the naked truth, have historically expressed nothing but disdain for clothing.
David: 0:35
Clothes have been seen as trivial and frivolous and artificial to the point of calling into question the very intelligence of those who are interested in them.We see this hatred for garments, in Thomas Carlyle's 1836 book, Sartor Resartus, which is just an amazing title for a book by the way,it means tailor retailored in Latin.Oh, really?I didn't even care enough to look what it means.Sartor Resartus.But in this book Carlyle, by the way, it's a satirical text.It's actually a parody of German idealism for those interested, but he makes fun of the very idea that there could be a philosopher of clothing, and in the text he invents a fictional philosopher named Diogenes.Let me give this a shot,Teufelsdröckh, whose last name translates into devil's shit.And anyways, he envisions this fictional character, this philosopher of clothes, who thinks that everything in the world and in reality boils down to one form of clothing or another.He uses him to mock the very idea that there could be philosophically interesting questions raised by clothes.
Ellie: 1:51
Honestly, being a philosopher of clothing sounds pretty sweet,and I was delighted to find out that this book even existed.Although in making philosophy seem as silly as fashion, it's definitely perpetuating the idea that fashion is silly.And there's definitely a sense,I think, and it's not all for bad reasons, that fashion is superficial,that it's merely about the body.
David: 2:10
And this certainly has resonances with the way that philosophy has traditionally elevated the mind over the body.As well as denigrated the feminine.Since for centuries fashion has been associated with women.And I would say, and yet obviously philosophers have to dress themselves and some of us, you and I included, enjoy it more than others, and enjoy dressing well.Not that you could tell by my outfit this morning.
Ellie: 2:36
I know.I know.David gets into the studio because by the way, overthinkers, we are recording in person in the KSPC studio in Claremont, California, and David comes in and realizes he's wearing a kind of dated shirt for our recording on
David: 2:51
fashion today.It was because I got dressed very early in the morning when I was still groggy before my coffee.And I forgot that we're going to have picture evidence of our outfits today, cuz that never really happens.So you're gonna see what I'm wearing if you follow us or just check out our social media.
Ellie: 3:08
Yep.Overthink_pod on Instagram,TikTok and Twitter.Anyway.Okay.So we are not the only philosophers to be actually interested in clothes.In fact, are you ready for a few philosophers' fashion stories?
David: 3:22
Yes, I am.
Ellie: 3:23
Okay.So there's a rumor that Aristotle really dressed well and was known for his signature style of cropped hair and rings.
David: 3:31
Oh wow.Which I guess goes with the big nose.Because he's known for having a big nose Aristotle?That's not Socrates?Oh my gosh.No.I think it might be Socrates.Yeah, that's Socrates.Yes.Aristotle is the one that was like more like pretty, with a big library and with a lot of rings.Yeah.So his aesthetic is like dark academia.Yeah.Fourth century bce.Got it.Okay.There's
Ellie: 3:53
also a story about the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe,20th century philosopher.Who was taken out to a dinner after a talk that she gave and told that women weren't allowed to enter the restaurant wearing pants.Oh.And so she took off her pants and entered the restaurant.
David: 4:10
Yes.And yet, philosophers have to dress and sometimes undress themselves.Okay.Next
Ellie: 4:17
up we have Hannah Arendt who loved shoes.She was a collector of shoes with a specific passion for Ferragamo.
David: 4:25
I dunno what that is.
Ellie: 4:26
Fancy designer.Okay.And then finally Beauvoir.This one really gets me.Beauvoir said in an interview,I must tell you that I am not at all interested in clothes.Meanwhile, she was wearing a fabulous tweed suit and like nice makeup and heels.And if you read any of Beauvoir's diaries, you know the woman loved fashion.Yes.She's always talking about like the dresses that her friends were wearing to party.She's oh, Zaza looked incredible and blue.
David: 4:53
And actually even the image that we have of Beauvoir that very,Iconic photograph of her gives the impression that she was very much interested in controlling her image.
Ellie: 5:03
Yeah.But I think that's part of what's going on in the interview, right?She's disavowing her interest in clothes out of an investment in being seen as serious.I would speculate.Even though at the same time she's also invested in an image of herself as like aesthetically pleasing.
David: 5:21
I see.I see.And when I think about that figure of the philosopher who is into fashion but wants to give off the impression of not being into fashion.Honestly, what comes to mind is the 1950s existentialist.Sitting at the cafe, smoking a cigarette or a cigar and wearing a black turtleneck.So it's interesting how some fashions get associated with particular philosophical Yeah.Movements even.
Ellie: 5:43
Totally.The black turtleneck was iconic of existentialism in mid-century.In fact, just one last note as we're talking about philosophers and the specific fashions.One of my favorite movies when I was a teenager was Audrey Hepburn's film,Funny Face, which is about this like nerdy girl who works in a bookstore and is passionate about philosophy and it's a parody of existentialism.I forget what the name of the philosophy is in the movie, but it's not existentialism, but it's very obviously existentialism, and she gets discovered in the bookstore by a photographer, a fashion photographer and an editor who then are like, will you please come to Paris and model for us?We think you're the face of, you know, the new face of fashion.And she only agrees because she'll get to go to Paris and meet her favorite philosopher.
David: 6:29
This is actually the only reason I have sunk two decades of my life into this profession is because I'm actually on my way to shaping the world of fashion by wearing black turtlenecks.Yes, exactly.
Ellie: 6:44
Today we are talking about fashion.
David: 6:47
What do people mean when they describe fashion as self-expression?
Ellie: 6:50
How is the history of fashion connected to individualism and consumerism?
David: 6:54
And how does fashion reinscribe class distinctions and the desire for superiority?When I think about fashion, I definitely think about self-expression.I think about individuals placing a high premium on their individuality, their uniqueness to the point of wanting their outward appearance to somehow convey their.Inner reality.
Ellie: 7:24
Yeah.You hear this a lot, right?That fashion is all about self-expression.And on the one hand I get that as a lover of fashion myself.But on the other hand, I think we also need to recognize that much of fashion, is about fashion, that is about following and creating trends.We wanna look like ourselves instead of other people, but we also wanna be wearing the right thing.Right?I want this handbag to, to express my essence, but I also want the handbag to be on trend.And, like for instance, I wouldn't be caught dead in skinny jeans in2023 because I am, I will admit it, a hopeless trend follower.But this isn't because skinny jeans are bad or not me, it's just because they're out of fashion right now.
David: 8:09
They were you a few years ago.Yes.Given the plurality of your self, Ellie, the self is actually just a series of trends.But couldn't we say that skinny jeans.Are more flattering than the low wasted white legged jeans that, for example, kids are sporting these days.Okay.Okay.
Ellie: 8:29
So thinking less in terms of self-expression and more in terms of the idea that some fashions might objectively be better than others.
David: 8:35
Yeah.It's a question about a possibility.Yeah.What do you think about that?
Ellie: 8:39
So I would say no.In fact, I've seen the idea of what's flattering change with every new jean trend.So for instance, when skinny jeans first came on the scene, and I remember vividly David, the skinny jeans trend was around the time that you and I were like constantly going to thrift stores, scouring the women's jeans section together.Yes.And looking for the skinniest possible jeans.But when they first came on this scene they were considered unflattering.Right.They highlight every inch of skin,
David: 9:09
Every inch.Yes.Of the body.
Ellie: 9:11
And my dad, who is very into fashion, he's a former fashion model, in fact, would always say that skinny jeans make him look bad because he has skinny legs.And so it's like making him look like he has bird legs, right?They were unflattering, but then once everyone got used to, to skinny jeans then, like they seemed flattering, right?Yeah.And then mom jeans became a thing,the high-waisted jeans that were a little bit baggier and everyone was saying then that mom jeans were unflattering because they make people look like they're wearing a diaper.
David: 9:41
Yeah.And so I wonder whether it's actually the fashion that changes our perception of beauty in relation to bodies.Cuz then yeah, with skinny jeans, like my chicken legs are.In.Totally.But like now with the baggy ones,my chicken legs are like, I can't show them to the world in the plenitude of their meagerness.Yeah.
Ellie: 10:01
Like it's somehow our perception changes such that it no longer seems flattering.Right?And so now that highway wasted, jeans are mainstream, people think they make belts look great, we no longer have that diaper rhetoric and so on and so forth.
David: 10:14
The diaper effect.I think this is just the perpetual cycle of people valuing.The status quo and people being resistant to adopting the new versus you know, other people or other moments where the opposite happens.So there is this like establishment of a trend and then the breaking away towards something new.
Ellie: 10:33
Yeah, totally.Totally.And then eventually the returning of the trend.Right.I was watching the TV show A Different World last night from the early nineties, and like almost every outfit that Lisa Benet and other characters in that show were wearing, I could see my students wearing today.Like it's all back in nineties.Yeah, totally, nineties and Y2K too.Yes,
David: 10:54
exactly.Which I honestly really yeah.
Ellie: 10:57
Oh no, I like it too.Yeah.Although your shirt today would say otherwise, but, okay.So you mentioned this sort of perpetual cycle of humans, like valuing the new.There's definitely an extent to which that's right, but the concept that fashion trends cycle is actually quite new because the very concept of fashion is quite new.You might think about fashion as something that's been around since the beginning of human society, but the mainstream view in the philosophy of fashion is actually that fashion is a pretty modern thing that emerges in the Middle Ages in Europe.Are you ready?
David: 11:34
Oh my gosh.I wanna hear about the birth of fashion in the Middle Ages.I'm just imagining monks and scholastics.Oh my gosh.Suddenly rocking.You know, like really short robes.
Ellie: 11:44
Yeah.Slightly different story, but I did do a very deep dive into this.I read way too much for this up episode.I read three full books, and so I'm gonna need to distill things quite a bit.But I'm gonna be drawing here on the French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky's1987 book, the Empire of Fashion.
David: 12:01
I'm ready because I did not read as much as Ellie for this episode, and so I wanna hear about Fashion's Empire.
Ellie: 12:09
Okay.So Lipovetsky said that there was no fashion in ancient societies because these societies did not value novelty.In and of itself.What they valued was tradition.So fashion involves devaluing the past, right?Being like, oh, that thing is out.And he uses, you know, the dated language here of primitive societies, but he says that in these societies, and we can just say it like ancient societies,cuz all of them would count on his view as examples of this have garments and ornaments that are fixed by tradition.And these garments are subject to norms that do not change from one generation to the next.He gives a few examples of cultures where fashion didn't exist, although,like I said, he considers every culture prior to the middle ages in Europe,primitive to be an example of this.Talking about being out of fashion
David: 13:03
in your own language about fashion, right?
Ellie: 13:06
So one is ancient Egypt where both men and women wore the same tunic dress for nearly 15 centuries.And he says, you see a similar stability in fashion trends, probably not 15centuries, but at least many centuries where the same dress was worn over the course of many generations in ancient Greece, Rome, China, and India.
David: 13:27
Yeah, so I guess the idea here would be that even if there is evolution, say in the span of centuries, there wouldn't be evolution in the course of an individual's lifetime that the individual would have to keep track of and think about.Yeah.In terms of dressing themselves.Absolutely.So that's out.
Ellie: 13:44
And there's actually not even evolution in over the course of centuries in his view, at least in,in the case of Egypt, you know, it took millennia, fifteen centuries.Okay.So then he says something,Happens around 1340 in Europe.
David: 13:58
That's like weirdly specific,is that even like the 13 hundreds?It's like 1340 on May 2nd.
Ellie: 14:04
I know.And what happens around 1340, perhaps on May 2nd, perhaps not, is that the same long flowing robe that was worn for both men and women in medieval Europe was replaced by a doublet and light breeches for men.And a long dress for women that was more closely fitted and low necked than the garment that they'd been wearing before.And so one of the things that this does is introduces a more pronounced difference between male and female fashion.Male fashion he says predominated initially, and then women's eventually took over.So we associate fashion, I think for the most part with women in contemporary society.But actually initially in the Middle Ages, it was more men's styles that were changing, like the doublet and light breeches were changing over time.
David: 14:52
God, I knew I was born in the wrong century.
Ellie: 14:55
I could see you really rocking some breeches.
David: 14:57
The breeches, the tight breeches.Yes.Come on.And the doublet what?What even is a doublet?
Ellie: 15:02
Okay, you are asking the wrong person.Because when I think of the word doublet, I think of Foucault's analysis of the historical whatever.
David: 15:10
The double man, man of the double something.We're both like Foucault readers and we don't remember.
Ellie: 15:15
Okay.But so yeah, there were these innovations that spread rapidly throughout Western Europe, post 1340.So between 1340 and 1350, suddenly like fashion is becoming a thing and things are starting to change.There's novelty being introduced,and that novelty never ends.Fashion changes for a long time.He says were simply associated with nobility, and then their styles trickled down.So it'd be like the noble setting, the fashion trend of the year or the decade.
David: 15:43
So this is really interesting to me and I will want to return to it later.This kind of downstream flow of fashion from, let's say the nobles to the lay people.And so it seems as if there is the notion that the lay people.Maybe in order to gain social standing or some form of cultural capital, then try to imitate royalty.Yeah.Which reminds me of how Marie Antoinette was a major trendsetter in her day when it comes to fashion.And a very clear, top-down flow of information.
Ellie: 16:16
Yes.But then things take another turn in the middle of the 19th century because here we see the rise of hope.Couture Paris Fashion starts to value the designer as a genius.So it's not just like about a tailor working with a particular client to figure out the color and you know, ornament that are going to highlight their bodies the most.It's now about the designer having a vision.You also get the rise of seasonal fashion shows.Twice and then four times a year.And you also get an emphasis on the feminine nature of fashion.
David: 16:48
Like the femininity of just having a concern for garment.Is that what you mean?
Ellie: 16:54
Fashion becomes more about women, right?Because the designers are designing things for women.Haute Couture is a, is basically a feminine enterprise.And in the 19th century, on the other hand, for men, you get the rise of a more uniform style of work wear, you know, like the suit.
David: 17:08
And it's really interesting to think here about the effect that this seasonal approach to fashion, especially high fashion couture, might have had on fashion itself because suddenly what you bought last season, is out of style.Yeah.Automatically.And you can expect it to no longer have the same social and cultural effect as when it was in season.And again, not because there's anything wrong with it, but simply because there is a new collection that's been put out by the designer that throws a new style in the mix.So it just makes a change at a constant rate.Yeah.And that change becomes part of the definition of fashion, which again, it would be the trend.
Ellie: 17:51
Yeah.And then these styles get disseminated in fashion magazines and the popular press.So there's also the rise of the fashion magazine and a new visual economy where people are seeing the trends in these venues and then wanting them for themselves, and this is where we really get the idea of the novelty that is so essential to fashion, as well as the sheer ephemerality of it.Lipovetsky emphasizes that fashion is essentially ephemeral.Trends are constantly coming into being and passing away.
David: 18:23
And now you see that this seasonal approach.With the rise of these fashion magazines and the popular press is inherently related to the category of the masses.Or the people.It's not just the purview of the wealthy who can afford that designer dress.Yeah.That qualifies as haute couture.So now I think about my local store, like a Uniqlo, for example.Yeah.That even though it, nobody would call that high fashion because it doesn't have the designer appeal and it doesn't have the high price tag,it still has a seasonal organization.So they've built that ephemerality even into these more affordable spaces.So in the store they have their season, right?
Ellie: 19:06
Yeah.And they also do partner with high fashion companies too sometimes, and they'll have Uniqlo times, like somebody fancy.Okay.Yes.But I think your general point absolutely, right, like Uniqlo is basic fashion, but still they're gonna have their seasonal colors, their seasonal cuts, and so on and so forth.
David: 19:22
Various shades of white.Yeah.In their case.
Ellie: 19:24
And so this is exactly right,David, because this is the last piece to Lipovetsky's historical account.In the 1950s and 60s, we saw the fall of Haute Couture.And the rise of ready to wear clothes.A lot of this had to do with the rise of youth cultures, like the mods in swinging London or rock and roll culture.And here the 1950s and 60s fashion becomes less about wealth and more about youth,which you totally see today, right?It's all about what are the young people wearing, you know, from our Gen Z episode that I'm obsessed with, like figuring out what Gen Z thinks is cool.And what Lipovetsky says about this is that girls used to want to look like their mothers, but now their mothers wanna look like them.
David: 20:08
Yeah.Exhibit A, Ellie wanting to pass for a gen Zer fashionista in her mid thirties.
Ellie: 20:40
Part of my fashion gets denigrated, I think, is because there's an aspect to it of playing dress up.So I don't wanna just wear a dress.I wanna look like Audrey Hepburn or Rihanna, or a modern day version of the Goddess Athena.
David: 20:57
Yes.Modern, you just won like the tunic,the gender neutral tunic of the Greeks.
Ellie: 21:02
Oh, exactly.I peaked when I played the role of Athena in my high school play.Then would just like, why have I men-?That's so embarrassing.That's, I can't believe I mentioned that before.Okay, moving on.Maybe that's why I thought of the Goddess Athena.That was like literally not on my radar as I thought of that example,but now I'm realizing that is why.Okay.Anyway.But I think the point here is that fashion.Involves an element of escapism.Like I might not be able to afford a mansion in Beverly Hills, but I can swan about in a silk robe I bought from a vintage store, like an old Hollywood star, all the same.So there's this element of, of being able to tap into a different kind of class or a different, vision of wealth, and there's also an element of being able to tap into a past, right,like the old school screen glamor or ancient Greece or something like that.
David: 21:49
Yes, living your best other class fantasy or your anachronistic fantasy as well.Now, I agree with you that escapism seems to be baked into the very concept of fashion because we become slightly a different person by wearing different clothes because we register differently in public space.The problem is that this escapism is made possible only by material relations of production and distribution of apparel that are fundamentally exploitative.So our fantasy comes at a high cost.Most of the clothes that we Americans buy, they are manufactured in horrible conditions in the global south, in sweat shops that have very punishing working conditions and sometimes zero protections for the workers.Yeah.And most of the time this happens in countries that actually see very little of the profit that the Global North makes on the massively profitable fashion industry.There is a really famous essay in Political Theory by Iris Marion Young called Responsibility and Global Labor Justice, where Young is trying to understand how relations of justice and duty and obligation can apply in situations where people are connected in some way, especially by these capitalist flows, of goods and commodities,but where they live in different political and national jurisdictions.So what do I owe, for example,to the person that produced the clothes that I'm wearing right now,let's say in the north of Mexico.She develops a theory of global justice precisely by offering an analysis of sweat shops that are tied to the fashion industry.And she argues that what can ground a global conception of justice is not political jurisdiction again,but precisely that we are tied by these relationships of oppression and exploitation and benefit and privilege,and I think that the reason that she chooses fashion sweat shops to make this argument is because we willingly accept products that grow out of exploitative practices, even when it is merely to satisfy what I think we can all agree are artificial and secondary needs.You know, like wearing the latest trend.Yeah.And so maybe all fashioned involves definitely an element of escapism,but I would say it's also an escapism from the very conditions of the production of fashion.Cause we don't wanna look at that.
Ellie: 24:19
Yeah.Yeah.Cuz fashion is definitely one of the most exploitative industries in human civilization, both from the perspective of working conditions and also from the perspective of the environment.And so you're absolutely right,and this is such a key point.Because the clothes that we play dress up in appear in modern society to have sprung up out of nowhere.And this obscures their often very violent origins.I think today when you see this proliferation of what's known as greenwashing, for instance, of look, this is sustainable linen or you know, made in America, not in a sweatshop type of thing.It's just like a pat don't worry, you're doing okay.But then the consumer just gets to go about living their everyday life, still not really caring,not worrying about it, right?And so in preparation for this episode, I read this book called The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion, which points out that the fashion industry is adept at hiding the human labor behind its wealth and power.And the ultimate problem here is capitalism itself, which demands constantly new products.All the time and puts such an emphasis on the object itself.That there's a sense that the object is completely divorced from its material conditions of production.So fast fashion brands like Shien can create hundreds of styles per day.And then they appear to consumers as like this cute item that sprung up out of nowhere.And then there's this constant production of false needs.A false need specifically to stay with the times because of the novelty and the ephemerality.
David: 25:56
Yes.Yes.And.Two things.One is that this emphasis on the object that you point to, it's not just that you need to have the object, but that you need to have the object new right when it comes out.
Ellie: 26:07
Yes.Right?Yes.
David: 26:07
Because then when you hand something down, it loses that status.Yeah.And the second point here is the ephemerality.The thing about the ephemerality of fashion is that it keeps the industry running, but it also places very specific psychic or psychological burdens on individuals, especially those who value fashion and who wanna be up on the latest trend.Because it means that I, as an individual have to spend a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy on keeping track of all these changes in order for me and for my look to remain relevant.And so fashion is not only an extremely exploitative industry, but it's also a very demanding schoolmaster for those who follow it and wanna study it and want to embrace it.
Ellie: 26:58
I'm feeling personally attacked.
David: 27:00
That was actually an overt attack against you.Ellie, I'm looking at you because we are in the same recording studio and I'm looking at your outfit.That was a personal attack.
Ellie: 27:09
I'm so glad that you bring this up because I think one of the things that doesn't get talked about, that much in, I don't know, like discourses on fashion is the element of perception,and this is actually what I find to be maybe the most fascinating aspect of fashion because the question of how we have a felt sense of what's in style or not in style appears quite mysterious to me, and I've been wondering about this a lot recently because I went from feeling confident in my perception of style to being totally at.sea now that there's like the introduction in the past couple of years of Gen Z fashions that remind me of what I was wearing in middle school.I see.Like I went from feeling like I had an intuitive sense of, oh, that's cool.To now being like, I have no idea what is cool and what is not cool.And I've been like trying to train myself to, to see things differently.
David: 28:10
You, it's funny because I know this about you because the last time we went.Shopping for clothes.You told me this, that you felt like you, you'd lost your edge about fashion.I do think it is a problem of perception.And the thing about this is that I'm actually on the opposite end of this because I am convinced and I approach fashion in this way when I want to look.Fashionable, which nowadays is less and less frequently, I am convinced that I can play the part of the fashionista successfully simply by wearing clothes assertively.That I see young people wearing rather than by perceiving what is in style in the culture more broadly.So I don't wanna perceive and I don't wanna interpret.Yeah.I just imitate and do so assertively and I'm good to go.
Ellie: 28:59
Yeah.Yeah.See, I feel like in order to do that well, I need to be able to know how others are gonna see me, which is itself already problematic because others have different opinions and different perceptions of this, right?Not everybody has one single homogenous sense of what is in style, but there does seem to be this dominant cultural zeitgeist that like you have to tap into in order to be stylish.Because then what that allows me to do is say, okay, so this is the style I can do a tweak on it,and then I'm being really stylish.I see.And I think this is what, so this is what gives the lie to the fashion is self-expression view to my mind,because I think our clothes are always communicating something to others beyond what we intend for them to say.If I feel from a first person perspective that my button down shirt is in style,but my students are like, oh, that's not the right cut of button down shirt.Then they're seeing me in a different way than I intend to present myself, and this is the perceptual,or we might broadly say the.Aesthetic, dimension of fashion.Some people have an eye for it and others don't.And young people often have more of an eye for it than older people.
David: 30:08
That would be true according to your genealogy of the history of fashion.Only in the post 19 Post, yeah.Seventies and eighties world where
Ellie: 30:16
Post, post 1960s.Yeah.Post 1960s World.
David: 30:19
Where fashion becomes about the.Self definition of a youth culture.And the creation of a boundary between that and other youth cultures and the parents essentially.Yeah.But I do think there's a difference here because, It seems like you're looking for an experience.When you look at fashion, you're looking for that intuitive kick.Yeah.That tells you I'm safe in the space.Exactly.To be honest, I don't think I've ever had that.Huh?And so I don't look for it.I've never felt as if I am a trendsetter.Yeah.But I have always felt as if I can easily imitate.A trend and pass for a trendsetter.
Ellie: 30:58
Uhhuh.Yeah.But I, and maybe that's better, right?Because then the problem with this perception is that trying to keep on top of it is help feeding the beast of this awful fashion machine.
David: 31:11
Yeah, and just to give you an example, I recently bought a Corduroy bucket hat only because I've been seeing them a lot on TikTok.And you know, four years ago, I would've been like, that's hideous.
Ellie: 31:23
Yeah.A bucket hat Now I love my bucket hat!Now.Now it looks cute to you.Yes.See, that's it.Yes.
David: 31:27
And it looks cute, but again, it's not because I perceive something in it.Yeah.And it's not because it gives me a sense of intuitive certainty or confidence.It's simply because I know that other people comment on it and they're like, oh, that's super cute.And so now I wear my corduroy bucket hat with my like thin, bad bunny sunglasses.Again, it's, for me, it's copying.There is nothing deeper.I'm okay with that because I don't care enough to develop that interior feeling for it.
Ellie: 31:55
So you're saying that you are not feeling like this corduroy bucket hat is cute from like a subjective perspective, you're only inferring that it's cute because other people are telling you that it is.
David: 32:07
No, not quite.I would reverse the temporal sequence here.It's that it's not that I see it as cute and then decide to wear it.It's that I decide to wear it.And then once I incorporate it into my way of life, then I come to see it as cute.Okay.And that's just how I've always approached clothes.So then I would argue that you.
Ellie: 32:26
Are developing this eye, this perception, you've trained your aesthetic perception to see these things as cute just through like other means, right?I by means of others.And so this is what I've had to do with the recent resurgence of Y2K fashions because the weirdest thing is about those fashions is that I used to think they were cute when they first emerged, right?The low rise wide leg jeans, the little crop tops and crop tops have been in for a while, but like it's a certain new kind of crop top right?And then I came to see them as,hideous and now culture has pressured me to see them as cute again.Again.Which by the way, I'm all for, because fashion just is these changing styles.So I'm not on a high horse about it.Even though I definitely would wanna stop short of like way too much consumption because of the nature of the fashion industry.I'm not, yes, I'm not like counseling that level of conspicuous consumption clothes.Yeah, I'm not on a high horse about Hey, this is the trend now let's get back into it.
David: 33:24
Yeah.And I have a question for you on this point.I assume you've seen White Lotus season two.
Ellie: 33:30
Of course, right?Okay.I stick with the television fashions.
David: 33:32
Okay.So there is the young assistant, like the young woman, Portia, thank you.And she wore really outrageous outfits throughout the season.Turns out people couldn't agree about whether her outfits were fashionable, or absolutely hideous.And the New York Times published a piece calling them chaotic, which is I guess neither positive nor negative.So yeah, between maybe slightly negative, but I'm curious about that.Did you like her outfits?
Ellie: 34:04
Yeah.They're so fun.
David: 34:06
Okay.Me too.And I like them precisely because they are chaotic and unapologetic.And I think that's how I approach fashion myself.I just choose things that look a little bit incongruous.Okay.And I, again, I think I expect people to then just recognize that as fashionable.Yeah.Again, not necessarily because they do or don't represent a certain trend, but I thought that's what was so good about Portia's fashion, that they were amazing precisely because they were chaotic.
Ellie: 34:34
Yeah.But I think you can't deny that Portia's clothes were fun because they are the apotheosis of Gen Z trends right now.And I think the backlash against them has to be understood in this way too.I think the backlash against her outfits was classically millennial.Yes.Yes.Like the millennial.I wasn't able to see her outfits as cute because they're so different from what's been in style and now I think if you look back on her clothes in a couple of years, it will, they'll seem more normal.Right.And this is the very nature of fashion, right?To bring about the new, and obviously as we've talked about,this has problems because of capitalism, but it also seems weird.To my mind to neg the trend rather than the very structure,which is that trends are novel.Yes.No, and I think that's right, that the opposition that I saw to Porsche now here as a stand-in for new fashion came up from my millennial friends.
David: 35:31
Yeah.Who obviously cannot keep up with the ephemerality of fashion.And it's just a further piece of evidence that I am the true Gen Z millennial fashionista because I could keep up with it.
Ellie: 35:44
Okay.Interesting pivot from your earlier perspective, David.
David: 35:48
I'm all over the place here.
Ellie: 35:50
But I think this is why older people tend to value style over fashion because one of the things that I've noticed as I've gotten older is that I basically have.Something in every fashion category that I need.And so the idea of, for instance,buying new workout pants because the trends have changed, strikes me as.Wasteful because I have perfectly good workout pants for the moment.And so I think older people.
David: 36:13
Lululemon, I assume?
Ellie: 36:14
Oh, actually no.Girlfriend Collective, a very millennial brand that's now a little maybe dated but still really cute.But what happens I think is you get a bit older is you get fatigued by fashion and like your closets full, right?And so you eventually end up becoming more interested in.Style, although I wanna be careful about this because I do think that clothing that we call classic or oh, great personal style is also still often fashionable.The line between style and fashion is blurred, right?Ooh.Maybe style could be another episode topic.
David: 36:42
Yeah, it would have to be an entirely different one.At the end of the day, We're all born naked, and the rest is drag slash fashion slash style slash apparel slash oppression.
Ellie: 36:54
I would feel remiss here in not just mentioning my friend Amy Zimmer, who recently wrote an entire dissertation on philosophy and clothes and thinking about the role of clothes in the history of philosophy.Ooh, go Amy.So I know we're talking like more about style than clothes specifically, but I think there would be some interesting overlaps here.There's also a recent book called Fashion | Sense on Philosophy and Fashion.Written by Gwenda-lin Grewal, who shares an amazing anecdote I wanna tell you about because it's about Machiavelli and I think it, it actually helps.So unexpected, I know, but I actually think it helps put our conversation in perspective.On a December night in 1513, Machiavelli wrote a letter to his friend about how he changes clothes to read ancient texts.
He writes, here's a quote: 37:35
at the door.I take off my clothes of the day covered with mud and mire, and put on my regal and courtly garments and, decently reclothed,I enter the ancient courts of ancient men where received by them lovingly.I feed on the food.That alone is mine and that I was born for.
David: 37:54
I guess I need to start matching my outfits to my readings.
Ellie: 37:58
Right?You gotta get a doublet David.For the medieval readings.
David: 38:01
Yes.I need to put on my alb.When I read St.Thomas Aquinas or some of the early Christian fathers I need to get what were they called?My breeches and my trousers.Yeah.When reading maybe the German romantics.
Ellie: 38:14
I don't know if you know this about me, but I love a nightgown.I love like a long flowy nightgown.Ugh.Nothing better to read philosophy and than a long flowy nightgown like on your couch with the windows open and the birds chirping.
David: 38:25
And you are wearing a turtleneck now, which means that today is your existentialist day.
Ellie: 38:30
Yeah.Although it's a white turtleneck.Yes.A lot more.It's a white turtleneck.Yes.A lot more Foucault than than existentialist.What would you wear to read Machiavelli?
David: 38:39
Since he's all about power, I would just wear an amazing BDSM suit.
Ellie: 38:48
Speaking of Foucault.
Patreon: 38:53
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David: 39:12
At the turn of the 20th century in 1904.The German philosopher and sociologist,Georg Simmel, most well known for his work on the concept of money among other things, published an article in the Journal, International Quarterly titled Fashion, just Fashion.We love a succinct title, one word title.And in it he argues that fashion is the social practice that perhaps more so than any other, channels or exemplifies the two forces that shape human nature and human life, which are our drive for what he calls social equalization.Okay.For imitating and resembling those around us in order to create com community and our drive for relentless individuation.Fashion differentiates us as individuals, yet obviously nobody has their own private fashion.So he says fashion falls somewhere in between because again, it is about fitting into a larger trend.But also about expressing that personal uniqueness that we all think we carry within.
Ellie: 40:19
So we might say in response to Wittgenstein's claim that there is no private language.That there is no private fashion.Yes.Yeah, so I like this a lot because I think it helps put into perspective some of what we were talking about earlier about how self-expression can't be the whole story with fashion.Because of the nature of fashion as involving novelty and like a certain eye, right.As opposed to say style, which I would say requires a little bit of a different eye.But, so how does he work this out?Right?Because I think somebody could come back and say that seems really paradoxical.It's this drive for individuation,and yet it's also this drive for, what did you say?Equalization social equalization.Okay.So yeah.How does this get worked out in his view?
David: 40:58
The answer in short is class, which is central to Simmel's,interpretation of fashion.
Ellie: 41:04
Oh yeah.Uhhuh.
David: 41:05
So basically fashion allows members of the higher class to identify with one another and to differentiate themselves as a class.From everybody else.and this echoes what you said earlier, Ellie, about how originally fashion does flow downward from the nobles to, to the laypeople.And so for Simmel to think about fashion is that it doesn't address obviously any real need.In that sense, he differentiates fashion from clothing.Okay.Clothing you need fashion, you don't, yeah.And here we need to think about fashion as you know, these aesthetic trends that are enforced through social pressure and that have nothing objective about them and that change all the time.Ultimately, the reason that humans have fashion according to him.Is because the upper class have a vested interest in distinguishing themselves from the lower classes and using external markers to police that class boundaries.And what happens is that this separation of the classes through fashion sets in motion a certain dynamic where suddenly the lower classes want to copy the upper class either to gain respectability within their own class or to try to climb the social ladder.And at the same time, the higher classes start changing their fashion in order to maintain their distinction from the lower classes.So basically, the rich keep changing their fashion intentionally, precisely so that the poor won't be able to keep up.
Ellie: 42:33
And this type of argument about class could be used to support, say, school uniforms.The idea being that variations in dress among students reinforce.Social stratification, whereas uniforms promote equality.
David: 42:46
Oh yeah, definitely.And you know, to go on record here, I am a supporter of school uniforms for children because I do think that kids are inculcated into a very pernicious form of classism form a very early age.Precisely by learning to develop judgments about fashion and clothes, about how expensive and how good the clothes of their peers are in the classroom.
Ellie: 43:09
Although I would counter as somebody who went to an all girls private high school, In Los Angeles that had uniforms that we still found ways to differentiate our fashion.And at school it was socks.Did you have Juicy Socks?You had to have them from the Juicy brand.
David: 43:25
Oh, the brand.I was like, what's a juicy?
Ellie: 43:28
Yeah.What is your jewelry?At the time it was Tiffany, which is now totally back in style.Speaking of Gen Z, you know, those little like bracelets and stuff and it was.Our lunch bags.The popular lunch bagg to have was a shopping bag from a designer store.Oh God.So we would come, it's like Sephora, Chanel was okay, but yeah.Chanel or like Prada Ferragamo.To go back to Oren's favorite shoe brand, that was what you needed?
David: 43:55
Yes.And.I don't think that school uniforms are going to erase the class consciousness of a bunch of girls in a private school in Los Angeles way.
Ellie: 44:05
I know.Oh yeah, I know.But so I think there's no doubt, right,that fashion is importantly related to class and the view that you're describing here from Simmel is actually a really common view in the philosophy of fashion I found in my extensive research, and it starts with Herbert Spencer and is also seen in Marxist approaches.It's also precisely the view that Lipovetsky is disagreeing with in the Empire of Fashion.The book that I mentioned earlier where he talks about medieval period as like being the origin of fashion.So Lipovetsky thinks that the view that fashion develops on the basis of class distinctions doesn't capture what's so particular about fashion.He worries that there's not enough focus in that account that you just gave from Simmel on the aesthetic dimension of fashion or on the aspect of individual choice.So if the upper classes simply wanted to stay one step ahead of the lower classes, we wouldn't need a zillion different varieties of designer handbag or shopping bag as lunch bag each season.We would need just one or a few to distinguish the upper class for the lower classes.
David: 45:09
Okay.I see.I'm not, let me think about that.I don't know that I.Agree.But I want to articulate why.I'm not sure what Simmel himself would say about this argument about the aesthetic dimension of fashion and individual choice, but it is possible that the exorbitant number of choices that are available to the higher class, when it comes to fashion is meant precisely to give members of that class a sense of individuality relative to one another.While ensuring that they still can have a sense of separation from everybody else on account of the prohibitive cost.So if there were only one fancy handbag,the scarcity of the commodity would be deeply at odds with the self-understanding of the class as a whole.Which takes itself to have a right to excess just by virtue of being wealthy.
Ellie: 46:03
Ah, okay.That's a great point.
David: 46:05
Yeah.But again, that's my argument.I don't know what Simmel would say about that.And it has to do with the quantity of commodities and not so much with the aesthetic dimension.So what exactly is Lipovetsky's argument about that?
Ellie: 46:18
So the aesthetic dimension has to do with how we admire previous eras of fashion.He knows, and I th I think he's right about this, that we're basically able to appreciate all eras of fashion except the most recent one, which we find hideous.10 years ago, we would have thought that Y2K fashions were hideous.Like I couldn't believe that I had been wearing these low rise jeans once, skinny jeans were all the rage.But I could look back at all previous eras of fashion and be like, oh wow.You know, there was something to nineties fashion grunge.There was something to eighties fashion like.Fun, neon colors, both of those,for instance, were in style 10 years ago, and so all different areas of fashion we can appreciate, we might appreciate different aspects of them.Right.The nineties trends that are in 2023 are different from the ones that we're in2013, but in 2013, fashion from 2003 was horrifying, and now fashion from 2003is cool, but 2013 fashion is horrifying.
David: 47:23
Yes.Okay, so let me think also about this because.I still want to defend a Simmelian.Is that the right adjective here?
Ellie: 47:31
I don't know.I'm not a Simmel scholar.Yes.A Simmel class-based
David: 47:36
approach to fashion because it, it really resonates with my own relationship to it.On the one hand, this idea of venerating and honoring the past is fundamentally conservative, and it is something that you see across various areas of culture when it comes to divisions between the higher and the lower class.The notion that the lower classes don't have respect for tradition or for the past, and that they don't have appreciation of objects of culture that are not in the present, huh?It's usually a stereotype.What's more interesting to me here is this idea that for the higher classes we respect all the previous eras, except the most recent one.Now remember that for Simmel there is this kind of battle where the upper class creates a certain trend, slowly it starts trickling down to other social classes who start replicating it over time to the point that they do start claiming it as their own.And it's precisely at that point that the upper class will change the rules of the game by creating a new fashion.And so the idea that you diss the latest fashion would make perfect sense from a Simmelian perspective, because that's the fashion that recently the lower classes got their hands on.
Ellie: 48:55
Ah, that's a super interesting point.
David: 48:58
This raises for me a broader issue about the relationship between fashion and temporality, because what you're alluding to here is the way in which we relate to the past, to the deep past,through fashion, but I think we also should think about how fashion conditions our relationship to the present.And here again, I'm going to lean on Simmel because according to him, what fashion does is that it gives us a very powerful feeling of the present.When you can wear something that is in fashion, you inhabit the present more fully because you feel a kind of organic synchronicity between you,your body, your clothes, and the times.
Ellie: 49:39
Ah, yes.
David: 49:41
You know, especially in a world where it's all changing so fast, if you manage to ride the crest over and over again, like jumping from the top of one wave to the top of another wave,You are like a subject of the present?
Ellie: 49:52
Dude, I'll be honest I'm always trying to do that.Yeah.And I'm not necessarily proud of it,but I am always trying to do that.
David: 49:59
Yeah.You said you were recently drowning at the, about at the bottom of the ocean.
Ellie: 50:02
I think I've recovered.I think it was like more a couple years ago coming out of like quarantine that I was struggling.Yeah.And so maybe others would disagree.
David: 50:13
Have you seen that meme of the girl that's like drowning?And you're like, Everything is fine.
Ellie: 50:17
Yeah, totally.
David: 50:19
But Simmel makes this really interesting argument about how we become temporal agents through fashion, but only if we can, again, ride the crest of those waves that keep crashing.And this means that people from the lower classes are denied a kind of, let's say, temporal justice.I'm not sure how much I wanna hold onto that claim for the time being.But they are denied full participation in the dynamics of the present, in the cultural present to the extent that they are forced to live to some extent in the past because they don't have access to what is in right now.So in a sense, the lower classes are sentenced to live their lives out of fashion, meaning that fashion produces a class asymmetry in the very experience of intersubjective temporality.
Ellie: 51:05
And this is why you see a lot of people defending.Consumers of fast fashion on the grounds that fast fashion has enabled people of lower socioeconomic brackets.To access trends at the current moment.So I actually wonder to what extent this would still hold true today,because for better or for worse, and in many ways, obviously for worse,Shien and Forever 21 and H&M have made contemporary fashions accessible to people across the socioeconomic spectrum.And the problem there, of course,is that it's like, Worsening the capitalist working conditions for people in the global south.But many make the argument that when we're talking about poor people in the US, fast fashion has actually been a boon to them.So it's not as simple as like somebody who lives in a fancy brownstone in Cobble Hill saying, We must buy only stuff that's ethically and sustainably made, you know, in the local workshop, cuz that stuff is like $300.
David: 52:04
Yeah, no, exactly.And so questions about here,access to fashion translate into.Questions about access to cultural time,which is really interesting to me as somebody that right now feels very much out of sync with the time given my outfit,
Ellie: 52:20
which is, by the way, not that bad.It's just that the cut and is it's just a little dated.
David: 52:26
Yeah, it's fine.I am currently living my working class fantasy, living in the past.Without access to the immediate present.
Ellie: 52:35
I don't know if I would give that to you, David.You're wearing like a nice looking a hundred percent cotton button down
David: 52:41
from a thrift store.Okay.Okay.And pants from a thrift store.