Fashion is a Philosophical Statement
Fashion is a philosophical statement. A fashion line is one person’s expression of their thoughts. These thoughts form their personal philosophy, and communicate a series of complex statements about the designer in a simple, distillable format.
The blog “Die, Workwear!” just ran a piece on the Korean line Document. The designer, Jongsoo Lee, is “inspired by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concept of “repetition and difference.”” Deleuze’s idea of repetition and difference is intricate, but Lee simplifies it - and makes it approachable to contemporary clothes shoppers - by distilling his color palette to several select hues while playing with other dimensions, like silhouette or detailing, in his garments. While Lee’s references to Deleuze are more intellectual than other designers’ inspirations, they need an overarching philosophy to market their collections to an audience. Coco Chanel believed clothes enhanced - if not made - the person. Tom Ford’s philosophical aesthetic revolves around the total pursuit of sexual beauty. People who identify with these beliefs flock to their corresponding brands.
Style is an art. Fashion - at its core - is simpler than style. Fashion is a fragment of style, a statement of the vanguard at a moment of time. Style is what the vanguard will embrace next. They just don’t know it yet.
Hirofumi Kurino.
Style is an art. Fashion is the ultimate reproducible work of art. That’s why there’s fast fashion, but not fast style. “Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” Walter Benjamin’s critique on authenticity and aura in modern art forms explains why there’s such a difference between a garment shown at a fashion show, versus its fast-fashion facsimile. The latter has the look and appearance of the former but lacks its essence. Fashion is reproducible. Style is individual.
Fashion can be a defense of capitalism. Style is a critique of capitalism. Fashion has a cost. Style costs something, but expression is priceless. Fashion is the commodification of clothing. Style is the subversion of commodities. There is room for both in a well-heeled society, and conspicuous consumerism can be enjoyable every once in awhile. The fashionable might heed the words of Karl Marx, however, and remember that “The forms which stamp products as commodities and which are therefore the preliminary requirements for the circulation of commodities, already possess the fixed quality of natural forms of social life before man seeks to give an account, not of their historical character, for in his eyes they are immutable, but of their content and meaning.” Fashion is a demarcator of class. Style transcends class, and is completely democratized in our social media age.
Fashion is a philosophical statement. Style is a revolutionary act. Fashion is a declaration. Style is a grand gesture, the declaration in action. Fashion is a snapshot of the times, marketed for mass commendation. Sure, it’s attractive, but style is a complete expression of the times, perhaps shocking to the public at first before it finds its footing. Hirofumi Kurino, the co-founder of United Arrows, noted in a 2014 interview that “Fashion needs to be smart enough to reflect what is happening in the world, if it is just about consuming and not about culture, then fashion will eventually die,” and he gets it right. Fashion, at its best, provokes with its beauty. At its worst, it replicates and creates a never-ending cycle of consumerism. Style, however, is individual, and can take choice cues from fashion while turning them upside-down on their head and creating a new expression all its own. Fashion is a highbrow high watermark, an expression of good taste. Style is an expression to be reckoned with, a manifestation of cultural influences - from fashion and beyond - right now.