The Empire of Fashion - Hardcover

Lipovetsky, Gilles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691033730 ISBN 13: 9780691033730

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1994

Synopsis

In a book full of playful irony and striking insights, the controversial social philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky draws on the history of fashion to demonstrate that the modern cult of appearance and superficiality actually serves the common good. Focusing on clothing, bodily deportment, sex roles, sexual practices, and political rhetoric as forms of "fashion," Lipovetsky bounds across two thousand years of history, showing how the evolution of fashion from an upper-class privilege into a vehicle of popular expression closely follows the rise of democratic values. Whereas Tocqueville feared that mass culture would create passive citizens incapable of political reasoning, Lipovetsky argues that today's mass-produced fashion offers many choices, which in turn enable consumers to become complex individuals within a consolidated, democratically educated society.

Superficiality fosters tolerance among different groups within a society, claims Lipovetsky. To analyze fashion's role in smoothing over social conflict, he abandons class analysis in favor of an inquiry into the symbolism of everyday life and the creation of ephemeral desire. Lipovetsky examines the malaise experienced by people who, because they can fulfill so many desires, lose their sense of identity. His conclusions raise disturbing questions about personal joy and anguish in modern democracy.

About this title

About the Author

Gilles Lipovetsky teaches philosophy in Grenoble. He is the author of L'Ere du vide and Le Crépuscule du devoir, both published by Gallimard.

Reviews

Lipovetsky, who teaches philosophy in Grenoble, may be the heir apparent to Roland Barthes (e.g, Incidents, LJ 8/92). This work is an exegetical study not of aesthetics but of Western culture's development from the 14th century to this decade, a development in which the evolution of dress and sense of style seem bound with other criteria of the ages: industrialization, class systems, and economic theories. Lipovetsky writes cleanly and cogently, supplying all the necessary stage settings for the viewing of his arguments and leading the reader through his theory with a contagious eagerness. This book will entice scholars but is also readily accessible to undergraduates and of interest to many general readers. This makes it a rare find among its kind. Commendable to most collections.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691033730
• ISBN 13: 9780691033730
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288