Philosophical topics

[Patroklus]

As I see it, trying to define fashion is going to be very similar to defining any other art form or medium.

Fashion is just a dialog that we engage in with the clothing we wear and designers are just the people building our vocabulary for us. Art itself is just a form of communication and a way to think and to organize your thought. It's better to worry about what the artist is trying to say than whether or not he has made art because art is x but this work is very clearly y.

[zamb]

Tell that to the millions of Africans dying of hunger and world not giving a shit because everyone secretly knows that there are not enough resources to go around. Sorry, the animals come after. I cannot reconcile the fact that there are millions of people starving in the world and the privileged moralistic fussiness about food choices. To me that's just another form of bourgeois naivete. Read The Grapes of Wrath and see how millions of American lived a mere 80 years ago. You think they'd give a fuck about the cow's feelings?

My friend do you really believe there isn't enough resources to go around?
I beg to differ, I don't think that the earth produces more human beings than it can feed.............it never does and never will.
It is the misuse and abuse of resources that causes things like famine and starvation.
Greed and quick money, inherent in the capitalist system has raped the earth of its resources. Also the idea that professions like farming and cattle rearing are for dumb people and walking around in a stupid suit with an ugly looking briefcase is a better way of living to aspire to, has created a system, of which we are now reaping the consequences............
Africans (among other nations of people) are starving because nations with the resources to feed them refuse to care, woe is man, he is the vilest and cruelest of all Gods creation!

[zamb]

no reply to my asking in leather topic so I may try here as well: do animals have a conscience and how is fashion (/are we/) doing with this ?

I don't know if animals have a conscience, but i don't think so, at least not in the sense that human beings does..........
I you are asking about the ethical aspects of fashion with relation to the use of animal skins that's another story.
I don't believe in the abuse of animals purely for the sake of making oneself fashionable or flaunting ones wealth, but I see nothing wrong with making garments from leather, especially the skins of animals we eat................and dare anyone tell me animals ought not to be eaten, because plants are also another
kind of life form

[Patroklus]

the capitalist system

The market system is probably the only one efficient enough to feed billions of people.

[zamb]

The market system is probably the only one efficient enough to feed billions of people.

could you please explain?-

[Patroklus]

Capitalism is very efficient at allocating resources because businesses that are not effective at getting goods to their customers will not stay in business for very long.

Communism is less efficient because it necessitates a sprawling governmental morass and because it can support a poor allocation of resources simply because the government isn't very likely to go out of business. Furthermore this style of economy may allocate resources according to a lot of reasons other than economic factors. Collectivist economies are very prone to distorting the real economic value of commodities for this reason.

All other economic models are even less efficient, which is why there aren't a whole lot of feudal societies these days.

[docus]

Capitalism is very efficient at allocating resources because businesses that are not effective at getting goods to their customers will not stay in business for very long.

Unless you happen to be an investment bank being bailed out by taxpayers money, at astronomical expense.

[Patroklus]

You get into trouble really quickly when you start criticizing systems by using examples of those systems being grossly misappropriated.

Sorry, we're at it, so let's go ... how can we reconcile the idea of efficiency with the fact that this system clearly leads to a highly unfair distribution of resources ?

For example?

[Patroklus]

That's some pretty nebulous bullshit.

[Faust]

Capitalism is very efficient at allocating resources because businesses that are not effective at getting goods to their customers will not stay in business for very long.

Communism is less efficient because it necessitates a sprawling governmental morass and because it can support a poor allocation of resources simply because the government isn't very likely to go out of business. Furthermore this style of economy may allocate resources according to a lot of reasons other than economic factors. Collectivist economies are very prone to distorting the real economic value of commodities for this reason.

All other economic models are even less efficient, which is why there aren't a whole lot of feudal societies these days.

You are a fucking retard. Have you read anything pertaining to the financial crisis that led to the economic crisis that we are still in?

[Patroklus]

That's not very specific. What about this current economic crisis demonstrates shortcomings in the capitalist system?

[michael_kard]

Really, Patrokle? Come on.

[Patroklus]

It's a non-specific answer that does not address the capitalist model itself.

[Analytic Philosopher]

Good to have you here, by the way.

'Preciate it.

He's attempting to reconcile the term fashion being the system and symbol of purveyed built-in obsolescence with the term as applied in a broader sense to anything concerning sartorial design/engineering. two meanings can at times be anathema to each other, such as when used in regard to some of the work talked about on this forum.

I think this is well put, but the goal seems overly complicated, especially if what we're interested in is a definition of fashion and not an analysis. Granted, intuitions will vary, but if our goal is to give something like a meaningful definition of fashion, then we ought to at least try to capture (intelligent) common usage.

As a "definition" of fashion, "the system and symbol of purveyed built-in obsolescence" obviously fails. It might reflect a lot of this forum's users' opinions on what might be called mainstream fashion, but it's not going to work as anything like a definition. Obsolescence, as the term seems to be being used, is just too evaluative. It's really an analysis of fashion, and the problem of trying to reconcile the two things you mentioned above seems to arise out of the fact that we seem to want to elevate this analysis to the level of definition.

That's not to say that I think the the "definition" above is completely useless. To make what we have above serviceable, though, I think we would need to drop any talk of obsolescence--at least for now--and expand on the concept of the system, which I think is going to lead people--or at least me anyway--to an intentionalist definition. Which is to say, designers intending to create fashion is going to be an essential part of my definition of fashion. This has several consequences that some people might not like, but I'll bring those up as they arise, so as to not get too far off track here.

I also think that "sartorial design/engineering," as you put it, is going to have to play a qualifying role in any intentionalist definition of fashion, so there's that.

I guess one final thing I should mention is the notion of the "heart" of fashion. If the heart of fashion is the definition of fashion, then I think we're going to find, at least with an analytic definition, that there is no "flaw" at the heart of fashion. I do think, however, that if we try to elevate an analysis of fashion to the level of definition, then we might in fact find what might be called a flaw at the heart of fashion. That, I think, would be a mistake, though.

I wrote something like ten pages on the subject but have decided to start slow

Hey, if it's written, it's written. No use in not posting it.

One of the questions raised is whether the tendency for change and obsolescence runs deeper than whatever post-WWI shifts occurred in the fashion establishment/behavioural psychology/the world of advertising and marketing in general, and whether intrinsic purpose/value of design and engineering - to improve upon something - runs counter to the system based on the ephemeral nature of what it purveys. I think that is what yohji talks about when mentioning the cheapening of an idea's value in accelerated cycle of fast-fashion.

This is a very interesting question, about which I would love to see what you have to say. Off hand, I would say that I'm not nearly qualified enough to say anything meaningful on the topic, other than that, though interesting, this seems to be a question aimed at explaining something like the sociology of fashion, and not the philosophy of fashion--in the technical sense of philosophy. After all, I find it very difficult to believe that "the tendency for change and obsolescence" is somehow essential to fashion. Which is not to say that the second part of your question, which asks whether "intrinsic purpose/value of design and engineering" runs counter to this tendency is an empty question, as I think it's probably one of the more interesting questions we, and I'm using "we" to refer to our very niche group here, can ask.

[Analytic Philosopher]

No, but I'm asking if they are dominant traits. Things which often distinguish and are identified commonly with fashion. I think there is a lower burden of proof.

Hopefully some of my comments in response to Merz shed some light on my thinking about this.

This is a false dichotomy.

If you take art to require two actors, pitcher and catcher, the pitcher can be interntionalist, and the catcher qualitative.

"it's fashion because I say it is, and I bloody made it", says the fashion designer. "it is fashion, because it carries the attributes I associate with fashion", says the punter.

I'm not sure this really works. I think the you're correct to say that art, as in the institution that we refer to as art, requires two individuals, namely the producer and the consumer. (I'd really rather not use economic language here, but for some reason I'm drawing a blank in trying to think of another pair of words.) However, I think the question of whether a particular work, in this case a particular garment, is to be considered part of an art form, in this case fashion, is not going to need both actors. At least not in the roles you've assigned them.

First of all, I think the notion that "it is fashion because it carries the attributes I associate with fashion" isn't going to get us very far. Here is a very obvious, and I think damning, counterexample. Imagine any garment from, say, Rick Owens's latest collection. Now imagine that someone looks at that garment and says, "That's stupid. That's not fashion." If we are to follow the notion outlined above, this means that that particular garment is not fashion for that particular person. But are we really going to say that just because someone doesn't think that a particular garment is fashion that it actually isn't fashion? (On a more technical, nit-picky note, what if people do think that a particular garment is fashion, but a specific time, t, there is no one actually thinking that thought. Does that mean that at time t that particular garment is not fashion, whereas at another time, t2, it is? This seems to me to be another valid criticism of any subjectivist definition of an art form or medium.) That seems wrong to me. To give a couple other examples, no one cares whether Crazy Jim thinks that Beethoven's symphonies are music or not or whether Monet's Water Lilies are paintings or not. Even if Crazy Jim doesn't think so, we would still say that Beethoven is music and that Monet is painting. That's not to say that it doesn't matter at all what consumers think, but I don't think they play as big a role in determining whether or not a work is a work of art as you do.

I think we're going to get closer to a definition of fashion if we use your first notion, which says that it's fashion because the fashion designer says it is, and because she made it. Now, stated simply like this, this is clearly not true. After all, a fashion designer could presumably hammer a nail into a wooden board, and then attempt to call it fashion in virtue of the fact that it was made by a fashion designer. This, I think, would be wrong, so we need something to qualify the intentions of the fashion designer. The most likely candidate here is that the the fashion designer has to intend to create a garment which is going to be, say, put on a model and sent down a runway, or sold in a store, or in some way make its way to the fashion world. Notice that this qualification also brings into the definition the consumer of the products, so we have both the producer and consumer, which we agree are both necessary. However, we don't need to make reference to the consumer's beliefs about fashion in order to develop a criterion of what fashion is--and, quite frankly, I think it would be a mistake to do so.