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.
List of Illustrations List of Contributors Foreword: ‘Hedonism – Notes during an Epidemic’ by Elizabeth Wilson Acknowledgements Introduction: by Louise Wallenberg and Andrea Kollnitz Part I: Producing Aesthetics: Ethical Issues in Contemporary Fashion Production 1. ‘Circular Fashion: Moral Effects and Ethical Implications’ by Herman Stål 2. ‘Kindness to the Environment in Vogue Italia: A Neoliberal Aberration?’ by Morna Laing 3. ‘Producing Garments, Manufacturing Fashion: On the Globalization of Industry and Disconnection with Craft’. Göran Sundberg 4. ‘The Fashion of the Manifesto’ by Marco Pecorari 5. ‘The Cost of Looking Good: Ethics and Aesthetics in the Fashion Industry’ by Louise Wallenberg and Torkild Thanem Part II: Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics: from Past to Present 6. ‘Ragged and Unravelled’ by Marcia Pointon 7. ‘Art Nouveau Women’s Fashion and the Theme of Nature’ by Lucy Fischer 8. ‘The Black Panther Party Uniform: Power, Resistance, and Community’ by Anna Hanchett 9. ‘Fashion is Human: Perspectives on the Aesthetics and Ethics of Contemporary Swedish Fashion Photography’ by Andrea Kollnitz Part III: Aesthetics and Ethics: Philosophical Investigations of Fashion 10. ‘Fashion, Prosthetics, Machines: Being Humans and the Body’ by Patrizia Calefato 11. ‘The Missing Juncture: Architecture and Fashion from Schinkel to Le Corbusier’ by Sven-Olov Wallenstein 12. ‘Fashion Aesthetics, Ethics and Choice’ by Malcolm Barnard Bibliography Index
Louise Wallenberg is Associate Professor in Fashion Studies at the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. Andrea Kollnitz is Associate Professor in Art History and Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden.
Reviews for Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics: Past and Present
Bringing together an influential group of scholars, this book makes you seriously think about how what you choose to buy and wear impacts on people and our planet. Read and act. * Vicki Karaminas, Massey University, New Zealand *
